Think Like a Teacher

Teachers make students put things away. If we did not, our classrooms would look like revenge of the two year olds. But how do we help students “put away”  and save valuable ideas that do not fit the format of the current assignment or discussion? We all need idea bins. I have written and spoken about idea bins as an important element in promoting creative process, but idea bins are also places to snag snippets of personal curricular connections. Idea bins hold many things.

I remember trying to find places to “put away” ideas that occurred to me during class. The teacher was talking or asking questions, and my mind wandered, often to intriguing thoughts or magnificent doodles.  I once snipped a particularly good doodle from the margins of a spiral notebook and actually framed it. Those wanderings were not necessarily bad. Many were my own personal connections to something in the discussion. Perhaps I simply loved the sound of a phrase or analogy shared by a peer or an oxymoron that stung me with its irony — a jalapeño in my mind’s eye. Sometimes the light coming through the window played on the classroom floor, creating a pattern I wanted to remember. Interestingly, every time I later saw that pattern, I also recalled the concurrent discussion. For me, visual snippets prompt memories like smells from a kitchen. Years later, I was told how to collect my visual ideas in artist notebooks required in various art classes, but I believe we each need to discover our preferred tool for idea bins.

I spent some time yesterday collecting idea bin options we could encourage kids to try as we start a new school year. Here are essential characteristics of an “idea bin” tool, arranged to create an easy acronym: the secret SAUCE for idea bins:

Semi-transparent: must allow you to share or show others ideas you are excited about (and keep other ideas to yourself)

Annotated: must let you make personal notes on items you collect

Ubiquitous: must be readily available where/when you need it (a real argument for bring your own device to class)

Cozy: must feel comfortable for you (fit your style)

Expansive: must allow endless additions and changes — without losing things

For some, an idea bin is a paper sketchbook, notebook, or journal. SAUCE score? S- yes; A- for sure; U- maybe not. These get lost easily! C- yes, for those who like the tactile feel of paper and pencil; E- not really. Linear and it runs out of room.

Here are a few digital idea bin possibilities in no particular order — all FREE for the versions I looked at — with SAUCE scores:

1. Evernote S-Yes, you can share notes and notebooks; A- for sure; U-yes, syncs from mobile app to computer and back in real time; C-OK, though I wish it were more drag n drop  and a little less “organized” into boxes/notebooks. E-Yes! Tagging helps. (Full TF review).

2. Linoit: S-share the full board by url, so maybe not so private unless you make separate boards for private stuff; A-Yes!; U-Yes, and it is iOS friendly. Play without joining, but sign up to save and share; C- yes, for me. Orderly folks might not like the drag and drop randomness; E- Yes, to the limits of the larger, draggable board. Can overlap stuff, too. Make additional boards and link them from your main one, maybe? (Full TF review). Here is a sample I used to prepare for a presentation on creative process.

3. Wallwisher: S-yes, but all or nothing. Make separate boards for private things; A-Yup; U-Yes, on the web and iOS friendly; C- yes, for those who like random, draggable elements. Certain backgrounds look more “organized;”  E- only as far as the board goes. Add more boards for more stuff. Here is a sample where you can play. (Full TF review).

4. Google docs/drive: S-yes, but all or nothing. Make separate docs for private things; A-yes, though primarily a word processing interface. U-Marginal. Yes on the web. Not sure how easy it is on smartphones. Must navigate to it by a long url or through GDrive log in and file management area. C- Not to me. E-yes. (Full TF review).

5. Pinterest: S- Yes, settings for each board; A-yes, comment on each “pin.” U- sort of — annoyingly connected to Facebook and less user friendly on mobile devices; C- Depends. Males tell me it is a female tool!  Very popular right now; E- YES! (Full TF review). Here is a sample board where I was simply playing.

Here are some TF reviews for others to consider. How would you score the SAUCE for each?
Edistorm
Wridea
Scribblar
Magnoto…though the embeds don’t work!
Canvasdropr
Scrumblr
Letspocket
Squareleaf
Corkboard
Protopage
 

I have previously posted perilous predictions comparing how a five year old boy I know sees the world today and what his 2025 mindset will be. I continue with a few more thoughts as I head home from a busy week at ISTE2012.

2012 – Music comes from the big screen, the phone, the iTouch, the computer, and the backseat DVD : 2025 – I have music in my head all the time

2012 – I learn what I like by choosing an app : 2025 – I choose my school cohort — and plan college and job– to fit what I like to learn.

2012 – I Facetime my cousin on the computer, iPhone, or big screen : 2025 – I say my cousin’s name when I think about him, and I hear him answer me.

2012 – I have friends and cousins in different states : 2025 – I friends who speak to me in different languages, and I hear what they mean.

2012 -playlists are what mommy and daddy choose : 2025 – Life is my playlist.

2012 – I love my teacher : 2025 – Teacher? I remember those. I hadn’t heard them called that since middle school.

Want to venture a prediction — so the future can laugh at both of us?

I know a five year old boy. He will graduate from high school in 2025, assuming we still have high schools. With all the changes occurring in technology,  funding, and public education policy, who dares to predict what this five year old will see during his K-12 years. (Arguably, education’s slow pace of adaptation could mean we will see very little change!) Each year, Beloit College publishes a mindset list for college faculty about the incoming freshman class. What would be on the mindset  list of today’s five year old? — and what dare we predict may be his mindset in 2025? I venture some wild predictions, knowing full well that they are likely to be laughable long before this five year old is even out of elementary school. My musings are formatted:

2012 – mindset of today’s five year old : 2025 (or another year) – related prediction

Here we go:

2012 -all interfaces are touchable or talkable : 2025 – I just think it and it happens or explains why it cannot happen.

2012 -I swipe away what I don’t like : 2025 – I see, hear, or experience only what I DO like.

2012 – Maps talk : 2018 – There is no such thing as “map skills.” Direction and location are experienced, never represented in 2D.

2012 – Words talk when I touch them: 2025 – Text constantly changes/evolves as I “read” and adapts to my thoughts about what it says

2012 – My fingers change how things look : 2025 – My eyes and mind change how things look.

2012 – I “play a level” to move ahead : 2020 – My level is always a perfect challenge match for me, even at school.

2012 – I can repeat a level if I want to find all the magic coins and tricks : 2017 Levels change so when I return, I must learn something new.

2012 – Books and apps talk : 2015 –  I talk back, and it responds.

2012 – Mom and Dad are “connected” to something via gadgets all the time : 2017 – I am connected to ALL devices from my own device ALL the time — even at school.

2012 – I control the backseat movie, the app, the game :  2020 – I control the start and stop of school.

2012 – My preschool classmates “graduate” with me : 2025 – My “class” has constantly changing membership, and I belong to cohorts for dozens of places, times, interests, and ages.

To be continued…

Try this creative mind game:  What if everyone — past and present — had a hard wired Twitter account sharing their thoughts. Who would you “follow”?

My first impulse is to go for Leonardo DaVinci or Vincent Van Gogh or Claude Monet or  Shakespeare or David Macaulay of The Way Things Work fame. I simply want to listen to their thoughts because I so admire them all. But these folks had avenues to express their most distilled thinking. Perhaps there are more productive ways to use Twitter-brain-listening.

How about today’s politicians? Could we make more informed decisions about our votes if  their tweeting thoughts were unedited and unmediated? I find the idea a bit frightening, but maybe I could follow for a day or two to solidify my voting decisions.

I would love to use this imaginary tool to simply learn. I would crash Tweetdeck and never do much of anything else. Of course, I’d be tempted to DM back with my retorts and questions: D wshakespeare R U sure 2b or not 2b is the ?

I think the better curiosity might be to follow the Twitter mindstream emanating from that student with crossed arms, closed eyes, and/or no homework. These students are not really trying to “hide” their thoughts, just veil them behind a socially patterned signal system. Yesterday I discovered a secret “tweet” from a student who posted a finished infographic assignment on a class wiki a few months ago. This student had resisted the whole idea of infographics in my colleague’s class but by the end of the year had decided that making infographics was the coolest way to learn. His teacher and I roared aloud to discover that he had named one of his midyear assignment files “stupidinfographic.jpg”  That was his DM to his teacher. With the magic Twitterminder, we might not have missed it.

I can hear you cringing now, ” I would not want to hear all the thoughts that are flying in my classroom.” I wouldn’t either, but wouldn’t it be  a learning experience to set a Tweetdeck column to our class hashtag and hear the thoughts for just a little while? Talk about formative assessment!

Happy summer to many. Take this creative mindgame to the beach with you.

Flashcards and sticky notes, and quizzes, oh my!

We see a lot of web tools at TeachersFirst. If a tool is free and we think it will be useful for students and teachers, we review it. Lately I have seen so many variations on sites to make quizzes, flashcards, and sticky notes, I am beginning to feel guilty even sharing them.  It’s almost as bad as passing out printable worksheets over and over and over.  I don’t want any teacher to think that “integrating technology” means nothing more than using an online quiz or flashcards for assessment or practice. Yes, these tools have a place (everyone needs to start somewhere), but they are no closer to harnessing the true power of technology than tying a horse to pull your car.
When cars first appeared, no one knew the impact they would have. No one thought of drive thrus or suburban sprawl or  minivans and carpools. Automobiles were “horseless carriages” that happened to go farther and faster,  replacing hay with gasoline. When user-creation tools on the web appeared, friendly and entrepreneurial folks found ways for web tools to simulate favorite classroom routines: flashcards, homework, quizzes, etc. Yes, they are more efficient, more easily shared, collaborative, and even “like” able. But they are still horseless carriages.

What gets me excited are the tools and resources that become activities I have never seen — and am itching to try! I want tools that make learning go, “Ooooooo!” As one of my colleagues said about today’s drill and kill environment, “We used to play more.” As we enter summer, I am on a mission to find more easy-to-use tools that go “Ooooooo” and are not simply electronic versions of what I did in school decades ago. I gravitate to the visual tools for creating and sharing, like Jux (once known as Jux.io). These tools take me, the creator,  into an edge-to-edge visual space where I can show what ideas look like, juxtapose things, contrast or relate images, text, and more. A more basic tool that fits the bill is this simple tool from Critical Layouts that creates virtual picture cubes. Imagine the higher level thinking of creating a six image cube and asking what these images have in common, a la Guess the Google. Or challenging students to build their own cube of  six images — including text — as a political ad or a depiction of the factors that lead to the Great Depression or today’s financial crisis. Or have them show what lures them into a their personal learning passion.

My learning passion is thinking of creative ways to use anything that I find and finding things that make me think in creative ways. Join me in making this the summer where learning goes, “Oooooo!”

I learn something from every ten minute Twitter dose I allow myself. Our students can, too. This week Twitter is The Great Debunker.

Debunk 1: Find a debunking tool

Yesterday I saw an intriguing tweet about Million Short, a search engine that removes the first million, most popular results for your search terms (also can be set to remove 100, 1000, etc.) Why bother? In a world full of SEO (search engine optimization) pros, the sites with money and geeks-on-staff rise to the top of Google. In fact, they can clog the top. Google uses more than just popularity to generate results, so Million Short is not exactly Google Minus. No one knows precisely how Google’s algorithm decides the creme de la creme, but there are people who study it and do nothing but help web sites get there. (Full disclosure: Yes, TeachersFirst does our non-profit best to reach the pinnacle page of search results, too.) The idea of an anti-SEO search engine appeals to the defiant, creative side of me. Million Short just might reveal some lesser known treasures — as well as some real junk — that do not make it into the top million.  Adding to the intrigue is the display of the sites that Million Short removed from the results and the ability to customize results using that list.

Million Short debunks Google’s ownership of what we should and should not see on the web. It also invites us to explore or debunk the sites that fall so far down the results. (Beyond a million!?  That would be page  100,000+ of Google results at ten per page!). As a teacher, I want to challenge students to flip the Million Short results both ways:

1. Look for reputable, valuable, creative  but lesser-known sites that fall well below the bar but could perhaps bring something unexpected to our Google-mediated world. Are there any hidden treasures here, trapped by their lack of SEO expertise?
2. Compare Million Short results to those at the pinnacle of Google. What is better about Google Goodness? Can you find evidence that these are more reputable, have less bias, are more up to date, etc?

Talk about a lesson in information literacy for the 21st century! Thanks, Twitter, for Infolit lesson #1.

Debunk 2: Tweet out your doubts

This morning, I saw a trio of tweets from @ransomtech (shown in reverse order):

Twitter sent me on a mission to help. A few moments later, I had thousands of search results all quoting from the same article, one without citation for the factoid in question in paragraph three. Then I found this and replied: 

Twitter did not actually do the debunking, but it gave @ransomtech a stream to send the tweet below within 30 minutes of his initial inquiry. In the process, Twitter shared a major debunk of an unattributed, oft-cited factoid:

Twitter could do the same for our students. Let them use a class account to tweet out their critical thinking and ask for help finding evidence. Thanks, Twitter, for Infolit lesson #2.

From a dusty basement into the palm of my hand comes the story of TeachersFirst, snapped into a plastic case. As one usually impatient to have “archives” of anything important in electronic format, I will attempt to share the feel of this artifact with you virtually.  What I cannot convey is the stunning moment of impact I felt seeing what this puzzle has to say about teachers and teaching during the fourteen years since it announced the 1998 mission of TeachersFirst.

The question, “Puzzled by the Internet?” on the top of the box says it all. Many of today’s teachers were not in the classroom in 1998 — except possibly as students. It was a time when only about half of the teachers I knew had ever used Google and many were innocently hooked on AOL. Web pages were text-heavy, and no one anticipated Twitter or blogs. How all this Internet stuff was supposed to fit into the world of chalk, worksheets, and VCRs was a mystery. The people at the Network for Instructional Television (NITV), now called The Source for Learning, talked to teachers and found out that they wanted help navigating and understanding how this new-ish thing called the Internet could help them teach (and learn). So TeachersFirst happened.

I hear you laughing now. When I saw the box, I laughed out loud. I remembered that TeachersFirst had given away these cute (and challenging) tangram-type puzzles, but somehow I had forgotten the question that had been printed on the top. This little puzzle is Teaching 1998 in a time capsule. I think I had better keep it in my desk drawer as a reminder of all that has happened since.

My mind fast-forwards to 2012. We would need a new promotional giveaway every three to six months of we want to snap the mysteries of changing technologies into a box with a cute question on top. Even the messages of last summer are too old, though teachers quietly confide that they haven’t had time to “catch up” yet!  I wonder what we will be laughing at in 2015. One thing is for sure: we should back up our blogs and keep archives of what we say today.  Maybe we should bury digital time capsules of the giveaways at ISTE 2012. If nothing else, it will be good for humor therapy, assuming the file formats are even legible.

Happy 14th birthday, TeachersFirst.

I read a great post from Rian van der Merwe, a tech designer/dad in South Africa. He shares four essential guidelines for folks designing iPad apps for his young daughter. His requests make perfect sense, not only for young children on iPads, but for our students using both apps and web resources. I especially like  this one:

If You Try To Trick My Kid Into Buying Stuff, You’re Dead To Me.…The screen is a landmine of carefully placed icons that lead to accidental purchases — not to mention the random animated banner ads that are designed to draw attention away from the app itself….if you try to use persuasive design on my young daughter, all bets are off. Your app will be deleted, and we’ll never do business again.

Does that remind you of experiences you have had with web sites in your classroom? How many have you declared “Dead to Me”?

Rounding out  Mr. van der Merwe’s top four usability guidelines for little fingers and young minds using iPads are these points (paraphrased):

• use visual cues to indicate which things are interactive
• make pagination using arrows: obvious and easy to navigate (even for little fingers)
• make menus secondary: something we seek out and will not open accidentally

While some teachers may not be fortunate to own an iPad or even use them at school, we have parallel expertise on what drives us crazy about web sites OR apps we use with students in our classrooms. I offer my top four guidelines for web resources AND apps to avoid a “Dead to Me” sentence:

1. Bikinis are islands, nothing else.

If you must have ads to keep your app/site free, at least moderate them so there are no scantily clad women. My students are not here for human anatomy visuals or lessons on eating disorders. The same goes for guys with sixpacks in Speedos. Puberty begins earlier and earlier these days, even without your help.

2. Your energetic music is my insanity.

Engaging, perhaps. But your “engaging” music means I have to hand out headphones (lice?) or give the same directions for muting speakers and/or finding the “sound off” icon at least three times EVERY time we open the app/site. Set your music default to OFF.

3. I am not a student, so don’t force me to act like one.

I like to sample every activity/game/app, but I don’t have time to navigate through the whole thing just to know which terms are used or what we will learn. Give me Teacher Information. If your site/app is not intended for school, you can still tell us a bit about it. Call this area  “behind the scenes” if you don’t want to doom your app/site as “educational.” I’ll find the site/app anyway, if it is good. While you are at it, please tell me how long it typically takes to navigate a game and other practical tips. I promise not to send kids into your app/site without previewing and deciding how it fits our curriculum, but I need your help.

4. Remember Josh and Julie in the back row.

I love Josh and Julie. Josh is so bright he makes me laugh when I shouldn’t. He also knows how to break any game or web activity. He shows Julie (or she shows him), as they set their own “learning objectives” for the day. For Josh, the objective usually involves showing the game that he knows more or sleuthing out incorrect information or exceptions he can argue about. Josh needs a way to skip ahead by demonstrating competence and something open ended to intrigue him into productive and extended thinking. Julie has a learning disability. It does not prevent her recalling how to escape learning the terms or avoid thinking about anything that was “too hard” or open ended. Give more than a fleeting thought to Josh and Julie, and be honest in sharing what I may need to do to adapt for them … in the Teacher Info (see #3).

I personally thank any app/web developer who can adhere to at least these four. You’ll be alive and well with me. I am certain every teacher has at least two or three or ten death sentence avoidance guidelines to add. Each Thinking Teacher who writes for TeachersFirst has his/her own. We carry these with us as we write reviews for TeachersFirst, and we always welcome the thoughts and “guidelines” of others. Comment here or on any TeachersFirst resource review.

Favorite question of teachers and parents of Bubba/Bubbette the teenager:

What WAS he/she thinking?

Answer:

He/she doesn’t know how to think.

Recent research explains teen brain development, specifically underscoring the teen’s underdeveloped prefrontal lobe as the culprit. Alison Gopnik’s WSJ column makes the research meaningful for teachers by sharing ideas about what the research means for policy makers, teachers, even parents. How do we help Bubba/Bubbette become better thinkers? Practice, practice, practice. Fortunately,  smartphones and the web make to easy to put the practice in our teen’s hands. With a few nudges toward a favorite gadget and some real world prompts, we just might be able to shape that brain a little sooner.

You get to be a good planner by making plans, implementing them and seeing the results again and again….

Need a way for Bubba/Bubbette to practice this? Try Strike, reviewed here.

The experience of trying to achieve a real goal in real time in the real world [today] is increasingly delayed, and the growth of the control system depends on just those experiences.

Need a way for Bubba/Bubbette to practice this? Try Accompl.sh, reviewed here.

[The prefrontal lobe] is the system that inhibits impulses and guides decision-making

Need a way for Bubba/Bubbette to practice good decision-making? Try Decico, reviewed here.

As Ms. Gopnik points out, the key to learning — the key to creating patterns in our dynamic brains –is apprenticeship of repeated, hands-on experience. I wonder whether repeated clicked-on experience can help. It’s certainly worth a try the next time Bubba is clocked going 85 in a 35 mph zone:

Bubba, make a list of the things you will do to pay off that ticket and get your license back.

Now there’s a long term goal to practice with.

When an Apple falls from the Cupertino tree, the world listens to the earthquake and reports each aftershock. In the ramp-up to an anticipated Apple “event,” the predicto-blogs and tech columnists crank out preshocks. Edtechers from every basket, including Apple core-owners, Apple picker-enviers, and rotten Apple sighters, all stop and pay attention. This week was no exception. Predictions of Apple’s Thursday  “event” at New York’s Guggenheim tallied over 4000 Google News results 20 hours before the event. By the time you read this, that number could easily exceed 10,000. Exciting but sad.

What if we and our students anticipated school as an “event” as widely discussed. What if the buzz about what we’d be learning were a topic for bloggers, consumers of learning, and every basket of self-proclaimed “expert”? Wouldn’t it be nice if just the kids in our classes generated as much excitement about what was going to happen Thursday at 10 am?

What if we asked our students: What will happen next Thursday at ten? What do you predict? What do you really wish it would be? Knowing what you know as a seasoned school-goer, what will you tell your audience to expect? Could you possibly shape the “event” simply through your predictions?

As teachers, how will we react to what they say, especially if they are brutally honest and predict something as unprecedented as peanut butter and jelly? Are we willing to allow some of their more unique or intriguing prophecies to come true? Are we willing to let our students make their own visions happen? Are we willing to act on their responses to, “What do YOU think?” It certainly is worth asking them to play the role of expert prognosticators. Try that as a writing/thinking prompt this week, if you dare.