School Technology Survey

For this week, try to complete the attached school technology survey and compare notes. The survey explores, among other things, the sufficiency of technology to meet learning objectives, the amount of training available for teachers and students in the area of technology integration and the ratio of students to devices in our school. If a lot of us take the survey it could give us some good talking points about where to move forward with current technology and it may inform decisions about the next technological tools we should/could invest in as individual teachers and as a group.

Download the survey here:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1iOrtH90ALKWKig293a-fjZmPKCHVOA0KPWnMwgJ0cWg/edit?usp=sharing)

Fill in your own copy and email it to us. I will send my own out after we've all had a chance to do it.

Digital Literacy, Digital Citizenship and Digital Natives

Image credit

Last week I went out to lunch with a prospective student and Matt Zowada. Here's how he described his life, "I go to work at McDonald's. I come home and play video games." That's it. He runs the sound board at his church once a month. He listens to heavy metal music.

How would you characterize the world we live in? Is it basically physical (brick and mortar, paper and pencil) or is is basically digital (video games, social media)? Do students agree with you? Where do most students "live" (spend the majority of their time)?  My observation is that the students coming in our door are increasingly likely to answer that life is basically digital. That's why cyberbullying can result in physical suicides and why digital image on social media is at least as important in 2017 as physical appearance, if not more so.

In 2001 Marc Prensky coined the term "digital native" to describe people like myself who grew up with technology. He later coined the term "digital immigrant" to describe most people born before 1980 or so. My children (2 and 4) are already expert manipulators of digital screens like iPads, iPhones and computers. As a group of primarily digital immigrant teachers, how do we stay relevant and plugged in (wirelessly, of course) to the needs of students like Connor?

First, you should know that digital technology has permanently changed education in the world outside NTBI's walls. For example, the nature of research, textbooks, literacy and even learning itself has been radically altered in a digital world. Here are a few quick examples:

• Research seems to indicate that students skim physical books in the same way that they skim their Twitter feeds. 
• Research also indicates that digital technology creates an incessant need to fill every minute of every day with new and interesting information. 
• Research shows that in some important ways humans are inferior to machines in processing the masses of information available in the world. The rise of artificial intelligence will put some humans out of a job.  
• Research indicates that students often use digital technologies to cheat. Because they use digital technology to do it, they feel less remorse and are more likely to cheat again.

K-12 schools nationwide are committed by the Common Core standards to develop digital literacy skills in students and to produce responsible digital citizens. Michigan even encourages school district leaders to take a "tech-readiness pledge" under the Digital Learning Day nationwide effort to promote the use of digital tools in schools.

What about us? Do we care about student's digital literacy skills? Do they matter? When we use the term "read" do we mean the same thing that students mean? When we say "research" do we mean the same thing that students do? What does it mean to be a Christian in an increasingly digital world? Are we okay with students living a digital double life in which their digital selves are stripped of all references to what they increasingly see as their "analog" faith? How do we engage with students where they "live?"

Specific Recommendations for Technological Integration

We can all agree that simply introducing a new tool (iPads or Populi for example) will not enhance education without a corresponding change in approach and strategy designed to harness the strengths of the new learning medium. That's why we can mandate a tool like a learning management system, i.e.: "All teachers must use Moodle..." without seeing any real improvements in student performance, for example. Simply swapping paper for online assignments is represented by the lowest rung on the SAMR diagram - substitution. We simply do whatever we did paper and pencil but in a new format.

We can probably all also agree that technology must be aligned to learning objectives and desired outcomes at the course and program levels. In other words, technology must always fulfill an educational need. That's why, rather than planning my course on the assignment/lecture level, I try to begin on the learning objective level so that strategies for instruction, assessments, and follow up (corrective teaching, for example) flow from what I want students to accomplish in a course. After the course is carefully mapped out in this way I ask myself, "What technological tools exist might that could accomplish these goals more effectively than the methods I'm currently using?" 

Here is an example. Let's say my learning objective states, "Students will demonstrate a deep, personal empathy for the unique needs of lost tribal people and express a desire to see tribal people reached with the gospel."  Based on this objective:

• I could ask students to watch a video from Ethnos360 briefly explaining some of the barriers to tribal work (language, geography, poverty, whatever) and then discuss in a forum on Populi whether or not students feel it is "fair" that tribal people have so little access to the gospel. 

OR

• I could ask students to clip pictures and video from the Ethnos360 website for a digital scrapbook using Pinterest and then share their Pin boards in small groups, explaining why they chose the pins they did and how those pins express the needs of lost tribal people. 

OR 

• I could ask students to brainstorm possible barriers to the gospel faced by tribal people in a mind mapping software like Coggle.it based on original research conducted in a database such as ALTA. I could then have students write an MLA paper based on their research and present their papers on Populi. 

So the short answer about how to integrate technology into assignments is that it depends. Always make sure that the technology serves a real educational purpose in a more effective and engaging way than simply having students read it in a book. Remember that whatever technology you choose will need to be tested before use and evaluated after use to make doubly sure it accomplishes the targeted objectives. 

SAMR Model of Technological Integration

Where are you at in the process of integrating technology into your instruction? Are tools like Populi simply acting as direct substitutes for papers and assignments that were once physically handed in?  Or have you moved on to begin to take advantage of some of the unique assignments and instructional delivery tools only available using tech? Is technology transforming your instruction? One of the most popular models of educational technology integration is called SAMR.

Image the creation of Dr. Ruben Puentedura, Ph.D. http://www.hippasus.com/rrpweblog/

Learn more about the SAMR model at Kathie Schrock's amazing site "Guide to Everything"  then answer the following questions:

1. Rank yourself. Which stage are you at currently?
2. Have you ever experienced a spike up to a higher level? What were the results of making greater use of technology in your instruction?
3. How might students who are considered by social psychologists to be "digital natives" perceive a shift from using Tech as a substitute for paper assignments without functional change vs. using tech for the creation of new tasks, previously unconceivable using paper and pencil alone?