PAIS 2014 - 21st Century Assessment

#BringBackOurGirls @BalboaAcademy pic.twitter.com/bOYlTdlyrj
— Balboa Academy (@BalboaAcademy) May 12, 2014

I recently had the pleasure of attending and presenting at the inaugural Panamanian Association of Internationally Minded Schools (PAIS) conference on 21st century assessment. The organization is the brainchild of a small group of school leaders who saw a need for more collaboration and sharing between the ever growing numbers of private and international schools here in Panama. I was asked by my school’s assistant director Mary Ostrowski (@maryo_us) to give a presentation on using Google Forms in the 21st century classroom. This was my first conference presentation and I am happy to say it was a success.

My favorite part was the keynote address, which was given by a group of six students. These young, local and international leaders showed a group of almost 200 teachers exactly what 21st century education should produce. After an insightful keynote by PAIS president Nick Reeves (@reevos74) on the importance of teacher feedback, the stage was ready for two student keynote addresses.

Two groups of three girls gave impassioned presentations on the importance of global awareness, creating purpose, digital citizenship and the use of technology in school. I have to say that including these students was a great idea. Education is changing dramatically and we need to stop looking at schools as teachers vs. students, and more as learning communities in which students are clearly the majority members.

A group of three 8th graders (8th graders!) from the Metropolitan School gave a very insightful presentation on the need for schools to teach digital literacy and citizenship. Their argument was charming and simple: technology can solve tomorrow's problems, so we need to teach our students to be digitally literate today. It was well done, humorous and thought-provoking.

Another group, three 10th grade girls from Balboa Academy, focused their presentation on global awareness and using social media to create and foster this awareness in students. The tragedy of the Nigerian kidnappings has had a profound effect on people all over the world, including these students. To help raise awareness of the situation, students from Balboa organized a group photo of over 200 girls from their school (see above). The photo has been seen over three million times on Twitter and was even featured in The New York Times. This is global awareness. This is digital citizenship. This is leveraging social medal. This is purpose. But,  above all, this is learning.

During their presentation, one quote really resonated with me. One of the girls (I apologize that I don't remember her name) said, "the responsibility of privilege is purpose." This quote really helped me understand the importance of the international school community. I am the product of public schools and began my teaching career in public schools. I have always had a bit of trouble reconciling the idea that I now teach and work with very privileged students, knowing that if I left my current job, someone else would easily take the opportunity to come live in paradise and take my job. Whereas, my previous job, teaching inner city youth, did not come with such an assurance. "The responsibility of privilege is purpose." So profound. Perfectly said and perfectly concise. Now I  get it. The privilege we have as an international school community is a freedom from public regulation, and the ability to shape and craft our schools in a manner that will create purpose for our students, teachers and school community. I am thankful for this insight and I will now work harder to foster these ideas in my own school.

Is it Google-Able?

While planning your next lesson, ask yourself these two questions:

Is what I am teaching Google-Able?

Am I teaching this the same way I was taught?

Why are these questions important?

The world has changed and schools must follow. The concept of schools as we know them, has only been around for a little over 100 years. The original idea came from the fact that information was contained in books. A large amount of information meant a large number of books, so we built libraries and, in turn, schools formed around these libraries. Go to any college campus and the most significant building will most likely be the original library. School was not so much about creating new information as it was learning how to find and interpret information.

Well, that has all changed. Finding information is now the easiest thing in the world. Just Google it. This brings us to our first question: "Is what I am teaching Google-Able?" Are you simply teaching facts? Are your children expected to simply remember parts of the story? Are they memorizing the state capitals? Well, this can all be Googled - all day, any day, even on test days. What we need to be doing as teachers of 21st century students is teaching our students to work together, solve problems, create, recognize patterns, and share their findings. So, yes, present the facts, or better yet, have the students find them, but move past this. For example, have your students used Google Earth to discover similar geographical features between the state capitals? Or how about this? Students can write blog posts about a particular story and ask another class to write comments on their blogs, and then have your students go back and alter their original posts in response to the comments.

Here is a simple way to remember these ideas: Learn it, Create it, Share it.

"Am I teaching this the same way I was taught?" Are you? Do your students have the same access to resources that you had? ABSOLUTELY NOT. Almost every student in this school has more computing power in their digital watches than the Apollo space craft. Now imagine how much power is on their phones? Or Ipads? Or Laptops? Or Smart TVs? Our students have access to an ocean of information, and we need to teach our students how to not only navigate this ocean, but ADD to it. It is not far off that college admissions counselors are simply going to Google each applicant. They will be looking to see what they accomplished in high school. Did they publish any work? Do they have a website? Do they regularly contribute to any blogs or forums? If we continue to have our students learn by rote memorization, or copying notes off the board, how will that help them in a future that we can not even begin to predict, but is fast approaching.

Once again, DON"T FREAK OUT! Technology is your friend.

- Bill

SAMR Model

Niklas Wikström

"Teachers need to integrate technology seamlessly into the curriculum instead of viewing it as an add-on, an afterthought, or an event." Heidi-Hayes Jacobs

 SAMR (pronounced same-er) is a model developed by researcher Dr. Ruben Puentedura, intended to help teachers analyze and understand their use of technology in the classroom. The framework is broken down into 4 levels: (read from bottom to top)

The goal of a classroom teacher should be to jump over that dotted line. Let’s look at each section individually. While doing so, analyze your own use of technology in the classroom to determine where you are on the learning curve.

 SUBSTITUTION
The easiest way to understand substitution is with this simple example: writing an essay.
What was once done with paper and pen is now done with a word processor. The task and output are exactly the same, but the paper and pen have been substituted with a computer.
The actual task has not changed. The final product has not changed - only the tool with which the students create the final product has changed.

 What other technologies can you think of that are simply being used as substitution technologies?

 AUGMENTATION
Augmentation takes us one step past substitution by adding features to the “substituted” technology to improve functionality. For example, while writing their essays on the computer, students use the automatic grammar and spell check to help with editing. If they are using Google Drive, the application automatically saves their work to the “cloud”, rather than needing to manually save the work to a USB.
The key here is that our substituted technology has been enhanced with features that help the student. However, the end product is still the same.

 Now let’s jump over that line....
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
MODIFICATION
Modification is exactly as it sounds. We still want our students to write an essay, but now we modify the assignment by adding (not substituting or augmenting) to a task using specific technology tools.

 Before the internet the only people who saw a student's essay were the student, teacher, and parents. Now we have the option of using Google Drive to have students work on essays, not just together, but at the exact same time, communicating and collaborating together. Students now have the ability to share ideas and peer edit in real time. When students have completed their essays, they are posted on a blog and students from a school in another country can comment on the student essays. Amazing.

 We have now considerably modified the assignment. Students are still writing an essay, but we have added a significant amount of 21st century skills to the task.

 REDEFINITION
At this level the teacher has redefined the end product. Technology is now completely integrated into the process. Technology is no longer an add-on or something special. It is an essential tool, just like pencils are an essential tool.

 Rather than a student individually choosing an essay topic, the entire class is working together to design a proposal to solve a significant issue in the community (for example). Some students are doing research, others are interviewing experts on Skype, while others are using iMovie to create a PSA. The students have designed a wiki to keep track of each group’s work and are using Twitter to communicate ideas outside of the classroom. The end result is a unique website, complete with the proposal, research, videos, and a community blog.

 IN CONCLUSION
The idea of seamlessly integrating technology into your classroom can feel overwhelming. I wanted to share these concepts with you to help you reflect on how you can incorporate and use technology in the classroom plus give you some guidelines and examples of what will be expected from educators in near future (if not now). Even though the examples I shared above concern older grades, the concepts and ideas extend all the way down to the youngest students.

 Take some time to think about the following:
- How do I use technology in my classroom?
- How would I like to use technology in my classroom?
- At what level of the SAMR model are my lessons?
- Am I teaching my students the same way I was taught?

 Don't freak out. Technology is your friend. Just take it one step at a time.

 - Bill

Curiosity

bignoseduglyguy

I am by no means a master of technology. In fact I would say I am just starting out on my journey to gain a solid understanding of how technology can transform learning. That being said, I would place myself as one of the 2 or 3 "techie" teachers in my school. I have no background in technology. I have never taken a class about computers or gone to too much professional development on the topic. So how did I go from just being interested in "technology" in the classroom to being the person at my school in charge of it? Curiosity.

Wikipedia defines curiosity as "a quality related to inquisitive thinking such as exploration, investigation, and learning...". This idea is the key to developing a strong understanding of the possibility of technology. A fundamental underlying principle of technology is it's ability to allow a learner to guide themselves. To allow them to discover new ideas and applications. To give them the opportunity to find a niche they love and learn everything there is to know about it. 

My experience has shown me that there are two types of people in this world (with regard to technology). People that just want to be told how to do something vs. people who wish to explore and discover on their own. This later group are the people that drive innovation, take themselves to new levels of understanding and transform organizations. Teachers that only wish to be told which applications to use will only develop a basic technological literacy. They will continue to carry on with their same "tried and true" methods of teaching and only use technology when they are told to. It is the teachers that are curious about the possibilities of technology that will go seek out new tools and ideas. They will be the ones that wonder "How can I use this tool to transform my students' learning?" They are the ones that spend nights simply searching for new ideas, talking to their PLN and scrolling through Twitter. Why? To feed their curiosity.

So the next step for me is to figure out how to spread this curiosity to others. Anyone have any ideas?

Today

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Two students, both in 7th grade, were working on individual math skills on Khanacademy.org. One student was working on solving systems of algebraic equations while the other student was working on 2 digit subtraction. Keep in mind that they are roughly the same age. This is a huge gap in terms of math ability, by a factor of many grade levels. But what brings this gap even further apart is that the student who was solving the systems was using codeacademy.org to solve the problems for him. His understanding of algebraic thinking, as well as his interest in coding, allowed him to automate this task. Meanwhile, the other student was using paper and pencil to solve 3rd grade math problems.

Lets throw two more variables into the equation: Both of these students are multi-lingual (Spanish natives, English and Hebrew) and resources (read "teachers") at the school are lacking, due to its relative small size.

So my questions are these?

How do we best educate these two children, while keeping them socially connected and utilizing age appropriate resources?

What resources (human, technological, old-school) would a school need to ensure each student is able to reach their potential?

What skills are these students exhibiting?

What needs are they exhibiting?

How does a school and/or teacher address the needs of both the students utilizing the multitude of  online and technological resources we have available today?

How does a teacher make sense of all these resources and needs?

The point of this blog is to reflect on all of these questions. I hope that you enjoy reading and invite you to contribute your own thoughts and input.

Bill