Using PowerPoint in a Social Studies Class

PowerPoint is is used quite frequently in any number of classes, whether it is used by teachers or students, it is a great way to help students organize notes effectively so that they can follow the content of a lecture.  However, PowerPoint has also received a great deal of bad publicity as well.  One of the more common comments about PowerPoint is that the “bullets” are called bullets because they kill you….there is something to be said for this.  For the rest of this post, I am going to look at some effective ways to use PowerPoint in the Social Studies classroom (or any other class for that matter).

Accessing Technology

In today’s world, access to technology is becoming more and more ubiquitous.  Schools need to reflect this change.  The idea of having a computer lab that is the primary method of accessing technology is outdated.  Students need to have access to computers on a daily basis at any point in time.  There are a variety of methods of accessing technology that can be applied to schools today.

First, eliminating computer labs and making a shift to assigning each student a laptop, or having enough desktops in each classroom for each student to have access to the computers.  Technology is used by people everywhere in the world today and schools need to be a reflection of this.  The idea of having one place where technology is accessed tends to create a situation in which technology is the focus of the lesson (whether or not it is intended to be the focus).  However, by having technology accessible everywhere, the content becomes the major focus of the lesson, rather than the use of technology.

The second method of having students use technology, at least at the secondary level, is via cell phones.  Most cell phones today have built in access to the internet, and when they don’t have that, they can at least be used as MP3 players.  Cell phones today are far more powerful than some of the earliest computers and as educators we need to take advantage of that.  Cell phones can be used to text short answer responses to the teacher, they can be used to build collaboration, and in some countries (the Philippines and Mongolia) cell phones are now being used to deliver instruction to the students.

Where students cannot have a computer in the classroom or do not have cell phones for example, providing smaller size MP3 players in the classroom would be an additional manner of allowing access to technology.  Students could easily download podcasts of lectures, video, or other webbased content to their MP3 player which would allow them access to a wider variety of material than what the textbook and associated material could offer.

Overall, the idea of computer labs is an outdated idea.  Technology needs to be transparent in education, which means it is not set apart from the learning environment.  It is an integral part of the daily classroom routine, which means that it is in the hands of each and every student. If the technology is not in the hands of the students, then it cannot be a part of the daily routine, which means that outdated methods of instruction are still predominate.  As a result, students fall behind in the area that is most important, which is the ability to access the information and use that information to build connections and solve problems.  Until we change the manner in which we access information in schools, we cannot move forward.

Change in Educational Technology

 

The last twelve weeks have been extremely informative with regards to the power and potential of how multimedia can impact education.  I have seen the power of wikis, blogs, podcasts, and a host of other technologies brought to life in a way that I have not seen before.  This is not to say that I didn’t understand how to use those technologies before, but my understanding has been enhanced in a variety of ways.  Probably the greatest enhancement of my understanding has been in how technology can solve a number of our educational problems today, when it is properly used.

On May 21, 2009, the New York Times ran an article about the impact of the swine flu on schools.  Schools were closing and according to the article, those schools made recommendations as to how students could continue to further their education  while the school was closed.  Many of these suggestions were probably not likely to followed by the students.  I would guess that if suggestions on how to continue education while school is closed are being made, that there probably isn’t a great deal of follow through on evaluating the work and designing meaningful activities. 

With the proper implementation of technology, and it wouldn’t require a great deal more expenditures on the part of schools, schooling could continue just as easily with students sitting at home (or more likely in the mall, unless they really are sick) and meaningful learning could still take place.  Imagine that a teacher had created a series of podcasts over the specific units being covered.  The podcast is posted to a class website where the students have a series of questions to be answered about the podcast.  The answers are submitted electronically to the teacher who grades them, returns them with comments, and posts the student course grade to the online gradebook.  In addition to the podcast, the teacher then creates a problem based learning scenario, and the students are required to work collaboratively with classmates to solve the problem.  The progress is posted by the students to a wiki where the teacher monitors participation by the students and provides guidance to them when they appear to be having difficulty.  Finally, the students reach a solution to the problem, post the answer to a blog where experts from the field (who have been contacted before hand) participate in the discussion about the solution. 

Meaningful learning has just taken place, all students in the various groups are expected to participate in the learning activity and their participation is monitored, yet no one set foot inside a classroom.  Education doesn’t have to be interrupted by things like the flu, floods, or other disasters, we just have to be willing to insure that it continues.  Some of this requires more funding to insure that the digital divide is closed and some of it requires that teachers see relatively easy beneficial ways to implement the technology into their specific curriculum.  This course, these last twelve weeks have helped me to achieve the second requirement.  I see relatively easy and applicable methods of implementing multimedia technology into my classroom and have attempted with varying degrees of success.  I think that as I continue to use it,  my students will continue to get better at using it as well.

 We have the tools to solve many problems of education, what it takes is the will for us to implement the needed changes, even when it isn’t easy to implement those changes.  However, if someone doesn’t take the lead in making changes, even on a local level, the changes will never be made.  To my classmates who have been following my blog, I hope to see you in future courses and with your talent pool, I am positive about the future uses of educational technology.

 

Reference:

Bosman, J. (2009).  Flu closings failing to keep school children at home.  New York Times, online article retrieved May 21, 2009 from http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/21/nyregion/21kids.html?ref=health

Simulations in Education

In his blog entry , “Publisher partners with simulation company to provide virtual education environments” (2009, ¶6),  Aziz writes, “we can begin to use technology to create simulation environments that actually represent actions in the real world without the level of abstraction (along with a healthy suspension of disbelief) required in years past to have our audiences ‘buy in’ to the production.” I remember one of the first times I saw a simulation of a frog dissection, it didn’t look very real to me.  I knew the organs were in the right place, but it looked more like a bunch of cardboard cutouts stuck into a paper frog, rather than a real animal being dissected.

As Aziz notes though, we have moved beyond that, which will make it easier to enable learners in all fields to be able to have an understanding of the content being simulated.  If you don’t have to suspend belief and move into a new realm of reality, then your ability to learn (in my mind anyway) becomes much greater because you can place the simulation in a realistic context.  If a surgeon is practicing a new technique, then having a realistic simulation is extremely important because it needs to look and feel real.

It’s not just the surgeon that needs to have the sense of reality, but even the high school student.  Simulations need to be able to look and feel real to user so that they can integrate into previous knowledge and make it a realistic learning experience.  Additionally, reactions need to be real so that when a user does one thing, the simulation response is something that could actually happen.  If it’s not realistic, then there isn’t much point in using it to try to teach.  As Aziz also puts it, “Technology…could facilitate learning the way human beings were originally designed to learn: by simultaneously engaging multiple sensory input streams” (2009, ¶3).

Aziz is right, we weren’t meant to learn just by writing notes and regurgitating those notes back onto a test.  If we want true authentic learning, we need to incorporate as many areas of life as possible into a single learning experience.  As a history teacher, I often tell my students that in order to truly understand history, you really do need to have an understanding of many other fields, science, math, politics, etc. because they all interrelate in our day to day lives, just as they did 200 or 1000 years ago.  A good simulation to promote learning should also do that.

Reference:

Aziz, H. (2009).  Publisher partners with simulation company to provide virtual education environments. Electronic document retrieved May 16, 2009 from http://bigcreation.blogspot.com/2009/03/publisher-partners-with-simulation.html

Learning Object Repositories for Collaboration

About 15 years ago, I knew a teacher who said that the practice of teachers searching the Internet for lesson plans was a poor practice.  This teacher believed that each of us should develop our own ideas and use those, not anyone elses’ ideas in the classroom.  I don’t know if this teacher is still around, but I’m sure the idea of learning object repositories would send that teacher into a spitting rage. 

Before I go too much further, I suppose a great place to start is with a definition of a Learning Object (LO).  Ballantyne (2007, p. 1) defines a learning object as “bite sized digital learning resources designed to tackle the e-learning adoption problem by virtue of their scale, adaptability, and interoperability.  The Learning Object approach advocates the creation of small e-learning resources, rather than whole courses:resources that can be mixed and matched” (emphasis added).  So, really what you looking at is bits and pieces of courses, not whole courses, individual lesson plans so to speak, lectures, podcasts, webquests, etc.  The repository then provides a central location for all of these pieces to be kept so that others may find them use, pull them out, retool them based on individual needs, and build a course.  The key for this is that everyone must contribute.  When people contribute, then you have the beginnings of a vast collaborative network that allows educators access to a variety of resources.

Learning object repositories have the potential to greatly increase collaboration.  As Vellucci, Hsieh-Yee, and Moen (2007, p. 170) point out these repositories can provide “a venue for sharing, ideas, practices, and expertise in order to provide the best learning experience for students”.  A repository is a great way to educators of all fields to be able to share ideas, so that we can take something that is a great idea at its heart and alter just slightly to fit the needs of our individual students.  Imagine the possibilities pof building a course.  Pick your topic, and then find the best ideas out there from several repositories, modify them to fit your needs, and build your course.  As you are doing this, you take your own ideas, add them to the repository, add the LOs that you modified, and share the modifications with the other members of community.  None of use has the silver bullet to fix all educational problems, but working together, we can find solutions to common problems.

Of course an issue that is being addressed with LO repostitories is how to keep the junk out of there.  I’m sure many of us have done a web search for lessons on a particular idea, followed a ‘promising’ link from the search engine of choice and then been sorely disappointed as we read the lesson idea and scratch our head wondering, “What is the point of this?” There is a process now, with some repositories of having them peer reviewed, fellow educators taking the time to review what is submitted to insure that what is put in is worth having in the repository. 

One example of this is Project MERLOT (sorry, it’s not a research project to determine why Paul Giamotti was so vehemently opposed to anyone having a Merlot with dinner in the movie Sideways).  Project Merlot is the Multimedia Educational Repository for Learning and Online Teaching.  Rather than providing an overivew of how MERLOT works, I will instead focus on the peer review component, because with the mass of websites out there, it is nice to know that some exist that do check on what resources are hosted on the site. 

Project MERLOT uses a system similar to a peer review process for a scholarly journal (Cafolla, 2006, p. 321).  An editorial board establishes standards and new learning objects are sent out to multiple reviewers in the field of the learning object (i.e., a Learning Object on Congress would be sent to experts on Congress).  These reviewers then rate the learning object and write up a review of.  The user can then determine if it is worth while for their needs.  Since the individuals conducting the reviews are experts in the field, the user can be assured of the accuracy of the content, which in today’s day and age is a major concern for material on the web.  As we increase the use of the Internet for collaboration and finding teaching and learning resources, we need to be sure that what we are using is accurate.

Going back to the teacher that I knew that was opposed to using the internet for finding lesson plans, I don’t know if something like Merlot would change his mind, but for me, knowing that a resource is evaluated by experts gives me some reassurance that the learning object is worth my time (assuming it fits into my course).  The key to all of this though is that we have to work together to build the community of contributers and we all have to be willing to accept that our work probably does need some criticism.

 

References:

Ballantyne, N. (2007, January). Object lessons: A learning object approach to e-learning for social work education. Journal of Technology in Human Services, 1/2, pp. 1-16.

Cafolla, R. (2006, May). Project MERLOT: Bringing peer review to web-based educational resources. Journal of Technology & Teacher Education, 2, 313-323.

Vellucci, S., Hsieh-Yee, I., & Moen, W. (2007).  The metadata education and research information commons (MERIC): A collaborative teaching and research initiative.  Education for Information, 3/4, pp. 169-178.

The Benefit of a Learning Managment System

I found a new blog today that in part covers educational technology.  The extremely interesting aspect of this blog is that it is written by a collaborator of George Siemens.  You may recognize the name Siemens, as he wrote and article entitled “Connectivism: A learning theory for the digital age” in December of 2004 (You can find this article at http://www.elearnspace.org/Articles/connectivism.htm).  The interesting thing about this particular blog, written by Stephen Downes at http://halfanhour.blogspot.com/2009/04/new-technology-supporting-informal.html, is that he points out the much of the buzz around the use of technology in education is really focused around specific learning events, rather than new ways of learning.  So, we use the game Civ to teach about the interactions of nations, in this particular aspect of educational technology only one specific idea or content is being taught.  However, what Downes says is this, “…we don’t know what we want to teach”(Downes, 2009, ¶10) and the learning management systems allow us to adapt to the changing method of how people learn as they progress from the novice to the expert in a particular field.

The first part of this that I want to raise a question about is do we know what we want to teach?  Do we know what we want people to learn?  Knowledge is changing and growing, but are there some basics that don’t change?  Are there fundamental concepts that need to be taught and not left to the discretion of the learner?  The basis of this idea is expressed by Siemens in his article, in which he says, “The pipe is more important than the content in the pipe” (Siemens, 2004, ¶31).  Is it?  I’m not sure I agree with this, although I do agree that we need to be ready to be flexible with what and how we are teaching.  I remember shortly after September 11, 2001, there were some guest speakers at a high school I was teaching at.  After their presentation, I was visiting with one of them and they asked me if I was taking a lot of time to teach about the Middle East, given what had just happened.  I was embarassed to respond with a no.  I was unable to teach about the Middle East, because the test I was required to give didn’t allow me to teach about the Middle East until the next quarter.

This is where Learning Management Systems display their true power.  A LMS can be adapted based on the needs of both the learner and the teacher.  They are not focused only on one aspect of learning, but rather they provide a basis for structuring an entire course and when something needs to be altered, the content can be modified relatively easily.  Certainly a master blacksmith does not teach a journeyman the same way a novice is taught.  The Learning Management System in many ways provides an opportunity to tailor the learning of each student in the same way that masters tailor the learning of their apprentices based on their ability level.

I have had high school students who were incredibly bright in the knowledge of the basic facts of American history, yet they were stuck working at the same level as their peers (age wise) who didn’t have the knowledge down the way they did.  With a Learning Management System, I would have been able to move those students to a different level of knowledge about American history.  I could have more readily challenged them.  Perhaps, from the high school teacher’s perspective, the learning management system provides the opportunity to truly individualize instruction.  We could move beyond the one size fits all standardized test, and actually authentically assess each person’s development and understanding.

References:

Downes, S. (2009).  New technology supporting informal learning.  An electronic document retrieved from http://halfanhour.blogspot.com/2009/04/new-technology-supporting-informal.html  on April 27, 2009.

Siemens, G.  (2004).  Connectivism: A learning theory for the digital age.  An electronic document retrieved from http://www.elearnspace.org/Articles/connectivism.htm on April 30, 2009.

Wireless Networks and Education

Wireless networks are becoming an increasingly large part of our world today.  It seems as though whereever we go, we find signs for free WiFi hotspots.  Phones now are essentially computers with direct access to the Internet or they can create their own WiFi hotspots whereevery they are.  So, how do we as educators take advantage of this ability for students to be connected from virtually anywhere in the world?

                There are a variety of ideas about how to use these worldwide access to the internet, not just the internet, but also the ability to communicate via texting as well.  One study by Librero, Ramos, Ranga, Trinona, & Lambert (2007) in the Phillipines and Mongolia (I know not exactly places that one thinks of as being centers of educational innovation), 80% of people who were survey and had previously dropped out of education said that they would be interested in taking nonformal courses by way of text messaging.    Cell phones do have the power to attract people to education, if the education is engaging enough.

                As cool as podcast, video on demand, and online discussions are, you do have to have some hardware to access them.  Something that I am a firm believer in the power is the Tablet PC (this does tie to wireless networks).  The tablet pc, or a convertible pc uses a pent or a stylus to control the cursor as opposed to a mouse.  This allows people to treat the computer like a notepad, in many cases being able to annotate, highlight, and edit files just as you would with a piece of paper.  Since these are laptop or notebook computers, these frequently have the ability to connect to a network wirelessly, allowing the user to be anywhere there is a hotspot to connect to the network.  If a traditional school building were equipped with enough wireless access points, students and teachers alike could conduct there class from anywhere in the building, and still have access the internet, file servers, and anything else needed to conduct class .  The key of course is that the access points have to be installed (or teachers have to be willing to allow students to use their phones for the internet access) and students and teachers have to have the hardware.

                As the world attempts to move to be more and more environmentally friendly, wireless networks in education have the potential to contribute to this.  No more paper assignments, but rather they are posted to shared file server, syllabi are set via SMS,  students take notes on a tablet pc, report cards are posted online for students and teachers to access.  The sheer quantity of paper that could be save is astounding.  How many times have you made copies of worksheets and then realized they were the wrong copy only to have to copy more?

                Wireless networks also have the pontential to improve education in general, but it will require investment in infrastructre.  If policy makers are not willing to contribute to the infrastructure for such networks and hardware for the students and teachers, then the potential will be lost.  Attitudes also have to change, educators need to change their views of cell phones as distractions and learn to recognize the potential for reaching students and raising levels of engagement.  Students want to learn, but they want it to be relevant and engaging, wireless devices can contribute to that.

Reference:

Librero,F.,  Ramos, A.,  Ranga, A., Trinona, J. & Lambert, D. (2007)  Uses of the cell phone for education in the Phillipines and Mongolia.  Distance Education, 2, pp. 231-234

Synchronous vs. Asynchronous Learning and the Role of Technology

Technology allows for a powerful expansion of learning, whether it be synchronous or aynchronous.  In either case the opportunities for educators and students to expand knowledge are great.   Technology allows teachers to reach places that wouldn’t normally have access to the material being taught and allows students to modify their education to meet their own schedules.  Either way, computers, the internet, podcasts, all provide a great deal of opportunity for education to be taken advantage of.  The key in the employment of technology is to avoid a one size fits all paradigm of the implementation of technology.

Education is different from person to person.  While one person might do better in an environment where they can sit in their pajamas and drink coffee at two in the morning while watching the latest lecture from their professor, others might find this a little too loose and not find the time to follow through with their course requirements.  They simply do better sitting in a classroom as opposed to their living room.  We see fights against a one size fits all approach to education around the country today with standardized tests.  Educators with a focus on the implementation of technology must also remain vigilant against the same model.

Many will argue that with the advent of smart phones, podcasts, video on demand, etc. that there is no longer a need for anything other than asynchronous education.  Students should be allowed to complete their educational career whenever they see fit.  It should be remembered though that sometimes the face to face interaction of the classroom is beneficial to some students.  For this reason synchronous environments, even technology based synchronous environments are beneficial to some.  There might be an argument that sitting a classroom is different from watching a teacher on a video monitor and there might be some validity to that argument.  It should be remembered though that this video monitor and camera that provides real time interaction for students allows calculus to be taught, explained, questioned, and clarified as though the teacher were right there. 

It should also be remembered though that not all students function well at 8 am, but instead function better at 2 am.  It is with these students in mind that asynchronous environments are beneficial.  Teachers and students work on their schedules not an artificially imposed schedule of work.  Here’s where all of those improvements in technology, like podcasts, video on demand, and smartphones really shine.  Even where gadgets appear to shine, proponents of tec hnology need to remember that while they fight the good fight against high stakes tests and other one size fits all approaches to education, this fight needs to be carried on with the same vehemence with regard to the fight over synchronous vs. asychronous environments.

Are online learning environments rigorous?

 

Dean of the Metropolitan College Jay Halfond wrote about online learning environments, “we need to get past the myths and preconceptions – and hold both the status quo and emerging online instruction to similarly high standards” (2009, ¶4).  This statement is something that in my experience I have found to be true about the beliefs of online education.  When I first started my master’s degree in an online learning environment, I found that many of my coworkers had little respect for the work I was doing, because they believed that I was doing nothing more than buying my degree.  I have been fortunate while working on my PhD that most of my coworkers have been intrigued by the idea of an advanced degree online as  opposed to belittling it, but I think that online learning environments still have a little bit of a bad reputation, as is evidenced by the dean’s comment above.

In reality, online learning environments can be just as challenging if not more so because of the added pressures of life.  How many people attempt to work full time, raise a family, take care of daily household chores, and pursue an advanced degree?  There are many students who do, and that is the life of the student of the online learning environment.  Just taking out work would make going to school much easier.

So why do people have misconceptions about online learning environments?  That is probably the million-dollar question.  I think the answer lies in education, or lack thereof of what it means to attend an online university or even high school.  I have had some people, when they ask me about my online learning environment if I can turn in my assignments whenever I want….Yeah, that would nice (not really because then I would never finish anything….kind of like that ¼ finished grandfather clock I am building in the garage).  Anyway, it is important to keep in mind that as students in an online learning environment, we are the first line of getting past the “myths and preconceptions”.  As long as people interact with the dedicated high caliber students that I have had the pleasure of working with, I know that online learning environments will become more and more accepted.

Reference:

Halfond, J. (2009).  How to think about online learning.  Retrieved from http://blogs.bu.edu/bunow/2009/03/30/how-to-think-about-online-learning/ on April 4, 2009.

A Blog entry about blogs…

The educational potential for blogs is something that has been written about in the educational research literature.  Exactly what that potential is still somewhat under debate.  As Ellison and Wu (2008) point out, blogging isn’t really all that new, it has just existed in various forms.  Prior to the ‘modern’ form of blogging people blogged through bulletin boards.  I don’t know, nor have I read too much about these bbs being used for educational purposes.  I did use one when I was in high school to learn a programming language, but it wasn’t blogging.

Today however, with the World Wide Web, blogging is far more widespread and teachers are faced with the question, “How do I use this to improve student progress in my classroom?” or “Can I use this for the benefit of my classroom?”  Ellison and Wu point out that to be able to blog effectively, you need to be able to exercise critical thinking skills as well as effective writing skills.  This raises a critical question for me, “Can blogging help promote critical thinking and writing skills among those students who have low critical thinking and writing skills?”

One part of the answer to this question comes from Armstrong and Retterer (2008) when they reported that students in a Spanish class felt more comfortable at the end of the semester writing in Spanish and that they were “more confident in their ability to manipulate verb forms in Spanish” (2008, p. 233).  While I have never taken Spanish, it does seem to me to be logical that there is some value to the thinking process that can come from manipulating verb forms.  One of the key aspects about this particular study is that the authors emphasized to the students that they were far more interested writing that “challenged themselves linguistically as opposed to…an essay that was strong on form, but that demonstrated little imagination, experimentation, or organization” (2008, p.236).  This says to me that if you are going to grade blog entries, the students need to know that they are going to be free to say what they want without being penalized and that this freedom is what would enhance their thinking skills.

While there is more that can be said about blogging and critical thinking skills.  There is one question that I want to ask about using blogs for educational purposes.  Since blog entries are never really deleted after they are posted, even if the educator is trying to use the blog to enhance writing and thinking skills and students probably need a good deal of freedom to be able to write what they want, what are our ethical considerations to help protect students in their future from potentially negative consequences about their writings?  Another probably less wordy way to ask this question is, since there is a possibility that a future employer might read what a blogger has written and either, not hire or fire them for that, how can we help students develop critical thinking skills and not risk future employment?

References:

Armstrong, K. & Retterer, O. (2008).  Blogging as l2 writing: A case study. AACE Journal, 16, p. 233-251.

Ellison, N. & Wu, Y. (2008).  Blogging in the classroom: A preliminary exploration of student attitudes and impact on comprehension.  Journal of Educational Multimedia and Hypermedia, 17, pp. 99-122.