This week, our school took a first step toward a journey into Twenty-First Century technology. Every student was issued an iPad, and we started using a new LMS (Learning Management System) called Schoology. It was a fun-filled week, with chances for students to re-connect from summer vacation, and a chance for me to re-introduce myself to seventy-five students and meet seventy-two new students with whom I have had the precious opportunity to engage minds in my passion--science.
I want to take you back to my first year of teaching. It was August of 1999, and I found my science lab with tables and sinks around my room. I also had these computers. These were the computers with the big, top-heavy monitors. I was told that these computers (dial-up) could access the internet, and I was very excited about this! Yes, we could do research, that is, if we wanted to wait twenty minutes to get to one website that might give us a little bit of information. It was cumbersome, but it was all that we knew. While I had a vision of what a classroom might look like in ten to fifteen years, there was not a way to "experience" it until it actually happened.
Jump ahead fifteen years and we have a classroom filled with students who have immediate access to almost anything on the internet. With iPads, there is instant access to a video camera, where students can make videos. My first assignment was for the students to make a video of "what science is or means to me." I got funny videos from students, students interviewing parents and siblings, videos of family gardens and goldfish ponds, and serious interpretations of what these kids felt science meant to them. It was easy for them to make and share the videos.
While I am sure that the students got something out of this, I think I probably got more. I was able to see their personalities, and enter their world outside of school. I not only got their views on science, but I also learned about their families and their lives. Seeing these students as whole people was probably more important than the actual assignment. We laughed and shared together, which started the year off in a positive direction.
About halfway through the week, I was sitting at my desk during my planning time, and I had an epiphany. In the previous class, we were doing a review of sixth grade standards, and a student asked me if, after going through the assessment, she could go back and google the answers to make sure they were correct. I said that yes, that would be a good idea. I had students go back and research some of the answers on their own, and what I noticed was an explosion of research. As students were googling simple answers to review questions, I saw that they were meandering through related research websites, looking at photos of planets, and they were asking me questions about various topics in science. They were engaged and making connections.
The epiphany was that, in that moment, my role as repository of knowledge had changed. As students "googled" the information related to what we were doing in class, I became the facilitator and motivator, encouraging students to look further and delve deeper into the science content. But, I was NOT the center of attention in the sense that I was going to provide them with all of the information that they needed. I was more of a guide, walking around the room, helping students to search and find answers to questions that they had about science and their world. Furthermore, they were not using textbooks yet, so while they were each researching the same questions, they were not all looking at the same exact picture or website, as it would be if we were all reading the same textbook.
While I have tried to have this happen in a science classroom in the past, it was not until this week, when the students had their 1:1 iPads, that I felt my role as facilitator while students were engaged in research they were passionate about was truly AUTHENTIC. This authentic-ness is so important that I cannot overemphasize it enough. Everything came together. Students were happy and engaged. Any fears that I may have had about students losing their creativity were quickly quashed. The learning felt more real--the kind of learning I have been waiting fifteen years for.
There are so many more ways that we used the iPads this week. This was just one lesson. The journey will continue and I am excited to be part of it.
