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Visual Learners and Digital Storytelling

The other 3 (human) members of my household are all visual learners. They see everything from numbers to dates to stories in their heads as pictures. My daughter sees all numbers, letters, days of the week, months, etc., as color. This is odd to me, as I am very much a word person. I don’t see pictures – I see words. (You’ll notice my blog is far more words than visuals.)

Yet, for my daughter especially, school is very much a word based place. She works twice as hard as a word based person to read – every word is turned into a picture.  Her move to the high school has just exacerbated this problem. If you’ve read previous posts, she wants to take Pre-AP World History next year.

Does this look enticing for a 21st century visual learner?

We looked at the book – it’s deadly. Print. Pages and pages of tightly spaced words with no visuals. Class assessments are totally writing based – essay, tests, etc.

The teacher told me it was because it would be what the kids would find in college. I don’t disagree with the need to learn how to read advanced texts and be able to write essays. But is that really the only way to learn content and demonstrate understanding? Why does a high level history class have to focus on words only? Where are the visuals?

There are others who feel visual learning is valid. I just read a blog post about a teacher who has his students study a painting and read it as an essay about the time in which is was made:

He challenged students to think of a painting as an essay – in the sense that it captures not in words, as an essay does, but through a visual image, some aspect(s) of the life, history, and culture of a particular historical period from the point of view not of a writer but of an artist.

Awesome idea, and certainly a very valid way to learn concepts and history.

Another blogger wrote about the digital storytelling assignments she does with her high school students. In this case, students are given a topic and have about a week to put together a two minute digital presentation. Kids can use iMovie, Keynote, etc., anything that let’s them express their understanding of the topic in a digital mode. Visuals are considered key.

I would argue that these projects are a better assessment of a student’s understanding of a topic than a mere essay. If you check her rubric and watch the samples, you’ll see that the students aren’t slacking. They do have to write: no digital storytelling project would be complete without a script. They have to organize their thoughts in a storyboard. They have to also find appropriate visuals to express their ideas. They have to cite all sources. Some of the samples are more narrative or biographical, but you certainly could make these projects into something like a 5-paragraph essay with a strong thesis and supporting arguments. Like those who argue that giving students a public audience for blogs, the whole class watches the videos and is even quizzed on the content!

Digital storytelling can be used with all ages and subjects. The product doesn’t have to be a polished 2- or 10-minute video. Shelly Terrell writes about an online course she’s teaching (to 250 people!) about digital storytelling. She lists a number of quick ways to get started (such as having students pull out their cell phone and tell/write a story about a picture on their phone) and a myriad of resources for building digital stories.

I can easily see the problems in assigning a digital project like this: access to a computer lab, teaching students about the software, etc. But why not make it an option?

I know my daughter will gravitate to study fields that are more visual and less towards the word based content. I’m sorry that history, which she really enjoys, won’t be an option if her classes continue to be offered in these exclusively text based formats. The teacher next year thinks he’s really helping her by teaching her how to learn the way he thinks she needs to. I think he’d do her a lot more good by letting her express her understanding in a format that makes more sense to her.

Project REAL Revisited

I had the good fortune to attend another Apple education seminar at Little Falls High School . Last spring, I attended a morning session where the Project REAL plan was presented and the 5th grade teachers and students who piloted iPads were there to show what they had done. Last year, there were approximately 40 people in attendance.

This year’s seminar was a full day. Teachers presented about what they had been doing, then we had time to visit with students and teachers at tables. The IT staff answered specific technical questions. This time, there were over 250 people at the session, and more than 550 people were watching the livestream. Wow!

Thankfully, they recorded the morning session which had about 12 teachers presenting different aspects of how they have used iPads this year. Watch it for yourself and see the great stuff happening in Little Falls!

It was a great day with many interesting stories. If I wasn’t already convinced that schools need to move to this direction, I am now.

Here’s a quick list of highlights for me:

  • “The only thing I can’t do on the iPad is print, and boy, am I glad.” — from Dave Girtz, the middle school media specialist
  • Carrie Youngberg, 5th grade, sees increased parent communication when the kids produce a weekly video of the “newsletter.”
  • Anjanette Kraus, High School English, uses Kidblog.org. She’s seen a significant reduction in late work and plagiarism, and thinks the public audience component has improved student writing and engagement. Kids are collaborating on writing.
  • Andy Ward, High School Science, was a sceptic. He was NOT happy about the iPads. He is now a convert. He says he’ll never go back to written lab reports – all his lab reports on done with video. Watch him – he’s quite entertaining!
  • The PE teacher uses an app called Tennis Coach Plus HD to record students practicing skills.
  • Jody Waltman, High School Math and French, demonstrated how she uses Moodle and email. No paper assignements!
  • Gregg Pearce – 5th grade. Gregg was uncertain as he piloted the iPads last year. The tech integrationist suggested just trying it – “unleashing the hounds.”
  • Greg Aker, Middle School social studies, demonstrated how easy it is to create epubs. Little Falls has a goal to not purchase any more textbooks.
  • Nate Swenson, Middle School principal, demonstrated how they use Google Forms for assessment.
  • Adam Smieja, Middle School math, demonstrated Socrative.
  • Karen Warner, High School art, discussed how she has embraced the iPads after being less than enthusiastic. She has student collaboration and student voices as they exchange ideas on the Moodle site. She uses iPads frequently for students to find references to draw.
  • Sarah Shaw, elementary art, has had the kids make digital art portfolios.
  • Shawn Alhorn, 5th grade, had the iPads last year. He loves not having paper assignments. He’s seeing more engagement, students digging deeper into content. He has kids do keynotes for vocab – has seen this reach kids of all learning styles, with significantly improved retention of meaning.

 

Quote

Quotes from the Digital Textbook Playbook

The FCC published the Digital Textbook Playbook on Feb. 1, Digital Learning Day. The Playbook (and other resources) are designed to provide schools with resources for building their own digital learning environment.

I’m just reading the Playbook and am seeing great quotes. I’ll post the quotes here as a place to keep them.

The dynamic in many classrooms around the country remains decidedly 20th Century:
teach the paper textbook, test the students at a fixed point in time, and move on. There also remains a
profound disconnect between the learning that happens in school and that which takes place out of
school. – p. 6

 

A modern day approach to digital learning is a personalized experience that dynamically identifies and addresses each student’s unique learning needs in a manner appropriate to their learning interests, styles, and aptitude, and does so anytime and anywhere.
The most important component of successful digital learning conversions has been strong, collaborative leadership.

 

Too often technology and digital learning is added on top of the existing practices, challenging already
busy curriculums and overwhelming busy teachers. Instead, successful digital learning implementations
require modifications to the curriculum to replace ineffective practices with those that best leverage the
technology. – p. 14

— from the Digital Textbook Playbook, published by the FCC, Feb. 1, 2012

Parent Participation

As a parent, not a teacher or administrator, I often find myself in an awkward position when advocating for technology use in the schools. After all, I’m not the one in the classroom managing the kids. I’m not the one planning the lessons, having to meet standards, and having to change how to do a job I’ve been doing successfully for years.

I am, however, a partner in my children’s education. Our family makes choices on how we use technology at home. Discussions about digital literacy and responsibility are not uncommon. I’ve been advocating for technology use at school for years, although I didn’t really know it. It started with pushing for acceptance of audio books – and that came from helping kids learn the way they learn best, and not forcing one system on them.

Teaching Generation Text

Teaching Generation Text

A recent blog post by teacher and author Lisa Nielsen lists 12 was kids can use cell phones for learning. She would know – she (and Willyn Web) just published a book, Teaching Generation Text: Using Cell Phones to Enhance Learning. 

 

However, the sentence that jumped out at me from this post is one of the rare mentions of the role of parents in integrating technology in schools:

Parents may need to take the lead in allowing their children to use their phones for learning and in educating their teachers and administrators of the value in working toward acceptable use policies.

Wow! That’s the first real encouragement I’ve seen of including parents in the conversation that I’ve seen in the online conversations. Parents aren’t usually mentioned, and if they are, it’s the teachers/administration trying to convince parents that it’s ok to use the tools.

Much of my motivation to get involved came from a short conversation I had with a superintendant of a small district in a rural part of the state. In his short talk at a conference, he talked about how he has successfully worked with the teachers in his schools, and about how essential the parents were in the process. I found him later and asked his advice about being involved. I didn’t want to be seen as an annoyance or to be telling the schools what to do. He told me in no uncertain terms to speak up, to be involved and to keep the conversation going. So I am.

The blog post led me to the authors’ website, www.TeachingGenerationText.com. Right there, on the home page, is a great sentence:

This site is brought you you by Lisa Nielsen and Willyn Webb in an effort to help teachers, parents, and administrators stop fighting and start working with students to use the tools they own and love for learning.

What a great concept, and one I hope we can see moving forward. Include parents (and students!!!) in the conversation and see where it leads.

If your school isn’t using technology, why not?

If your school is not using tech­nol­o­gy, why not? [Is there inovative thinking behind your school’s use of technology? ] What is the ratio­nale for oppos­ing tech­nol­o­gy in the class­room?

This ques­tion revers­es the pre­vi­ous ones but, in the 21st cen­tu­ry, it is impor­tant to ask the ques­tion in both directions. If not, why not? The base­line of school-based learn­ing should not be the absence of tech­nol­o­gy, at least not with­out a good argu­ment that has been thought through care­ful­ly by all involved. Every child with access to the Inter­net or a mobile devices engages in infor­mal learn­ing out­side of school all the time.

The inven­tors of the Inter­net were moti­vat­ed by the desire to put all the world’s knowl­edge with­in reach of all the world’s cit­i­zens — a utopi­an goal, to be sure, but one based on a new the­o­ry of learning. If teach­ing kids with, through, and about tech­nol­o­gy is not a well-integrated prac­tice in your child’s school, then you have to inquire why not? Too many teach­ers teach for their past instead of their stu­dents’ present and future.

The real, hard, painstak­ing, involved work of edu­cat­ing with tech­nol­o­gy requires engag­ing stu­dents in their pas­sions and imag­i­na­tions, and help­ing them to learn to thrive in the inter­con­nect­ed, glob­al, dig­i­tal world they have inher­it­ed.

-Cathy Davidson, cathydavidson.com

Is it Technology or Teaching?

If the insti­tu­tion (whether non-profit or for-profit) is sim­ply drop­ping expen­sive tech­nol­o­gy into the class­room with­out rethink­ing ped­a­gogy — teach­ing meth­ods, rules, mod­els, con­tent, and modes of student-teacher inter­ac­tion — then stu­dents are not get­ting their money’s worth. Par­ents should not ask what devices are avail­able to their stu­dents but how the devices are being used to enhance learn­ing.

-Cathy Davidson, “Seven Rules for Judging Online Learning“, cathydavidson.com

favorite #pencilchat posts

  • “I just wasted the entire afternoon drawing Angry Birds. #pencilchat” @Patrick_M_Len
  • “All my kids have their own pencil. They can even use them in their bedrooms on our wireless paper network. #pencilchat” @barrydahl
  • “Kids need fresh air and real interaction. If unsupervised they’ll just sit inside writing notes to their friends #pencilchat” @145lewis
  • “How do you make sure students stay on task when they are using pencils? #Pencilchat” @jetfighter

Lessons Learned

My Uncle Bub passed away earlier this month.  As we’ve been remembering him, we’ve talked about all sorts of things he taught us all. He was a natural teacher. If he took my son fishing, he’d patiently show a 10-year-old how to clean the fish, even if it would’ve taken Bub 1/10th the time to do it himself.

One time, I had a flat tire. As Bub made his living as a mechanic, patching the tire was a very simple task — for him. Not so for me. But did he just do it for me? Nope. He made me patch it myself, so I knew how to fix it myself next time.

Uncle Bub and I were from different worlds. Me: urban, “professional”, over-educated, tech/gadget geek. Bub: rural, mechanical, high-school, never sent an email or browsed the web.

Although Bub wasn’t big on 21st century technology,  one of the best stories I heard about him during the funeral was a great illustration of why we need to be teaching critical thinking skills. The story was told by one of the many locals who hung out at Moe’s Garage:

One time, this guy brought his Cadillac in for Bub to fix. Something wasn’t working right. Bub checked the car’s computer, and told the guy the computer said it needed to be checked at the dealer. So he did. The dealer told him the problem was one of a couple things, all expensive. The guy told him he needed to check with Bub.

Bub checked the car, listened to it run, and said he didn’t think these other things were the problem. He suggested checking a couple of wires. Of course, he didn’t do it – he showed the guy how to do it. So, the guy replaced a couple of wires, and voila, the car worked fine.

Moral of the story – just because the computer said something is so, doesn’t mean it is. Exactly why students need to be taught critical thinking skills when using technology!