From Paper to iPads: 1999 to 2014

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.

How Technology is revolutionizing the idea of "meaningful feedback" for teachers and students

Whether it is personal or online, offering meaningful feedback to students is a well-established method of helping students to master a topic or concept in the classroom.  But, what is meaningful feedback, and how is technology revolutionizing the way that teachers can incorporate this important strategy in the classroom?  Research conducted by Edna Holland Mory at the University of North Carolina Wilmington found that, in an online environment, the following factors to be important when considering feedback:

• Prompt, timely, and thorough online feedback

• Ongoing formative feedback about online group discussions

• Ongoing summative feedback about grades

• Constructive, Supportive, and Substantive on-line feedback

• Specific, Objective, and individual on-line feedback

• Consistent on-line feedback     Mory, E. H. (2004). Feedback research revisited. Handbook of research on educational communications and technology, 2, 745-783.

Both on-line, and in the classroom, a teacher's feedback matters.  While this is not a discussion of the KIND of feedback that should be provided (that would be for another blog post), I have found that a combination of technological tools have allowed me to provide much better meaningful feedback to my students.

The combination of technological tools I use includes:

Schoology LMS:  With Schoology, there are many avenues for offering both immediate, and delayed feedback to students.

1. Messaging:  I can use the messaging system, which is much like email, to message students about intervention, re-dos, and missing assignments, which allows me to help students meet learning targets.
2. Rubrics: Schoology rubrics are easy to set up for any assignment, but I usually use them for projects.  I can set the learning targets in the rubric, and there are two areas where I can provide feedback to students.  This allows students to read my comments and suggestions.  I then allow them to re-do learning targets that were not met, so that they can show mastery in those areas.  (I have never written something that has not needed edited and re-thinking, so why should a student be expected to be perfect the first time?)
3. Grade and Assignment Comment Sections: In Schoology, a teacher can comment in the gradebook, or in the grading section, by using annotations, or commenting under the grade.  This function has been valuable to me, because it allows me to message an individual student about why they received a grade that they did, and what they can do to make it better.  If a student has not turned in the assignment, I can put MISSING, or ask them why they have not turned it in.  When they look on their iPads, the comment is there immediately, and they can either message me, or come talk to me in class or during their intervention period.  This communication has streamlined the way that the classroom works, and I feel that expectations become more clear when I can give clear and personal feedback.

iPads:  iPads have allowed the students to receive more immediate and meaningful feedback in the following ways:

1. 24/7 access to their grades and comments: When I provide feedback in any of the Schoology areas mentioned above, students can read and respond by either messaging me or coming up to me and showing me the comment so that we can discuss it.
2. Paperless environment: With Schoology links and a paperless environment, assignments are rarely "lost," and students submit their assignments under their login.  This allows me to have more organization with a large group of students.  I can access their individual assignments, and make comments, and provide meaningful feedback where necessary, without having to search through piles of papers to find their work.

Remind: The Remind App allows me to communicate with both students and parents about upcoming assignments, events, and even give meaningful constructive feedback for entire groups of students.

1. Communicating upcoming assignments: Both our teachers and administration use Remind for communicating important information.  I can use the remind app to update students on any classwork or homework that is due.
2. Giving constructive feedback about assignments: If I feel that most of the students have done well on an assignment, I can send them a message telling them so, with details about what I saw that impressed me.

I am so appreciative of what our school district has done in the last few years to provide teachers with the technological tools to allow us to improve the quality of our feedback to students.  This is not the only reason we have moved in this direction, but I believe that offering feedback improves my ability to assist students in learning mastery.  I hope that others will comment on this post with ways that technology has revolutionized the way that they provide meaningful feedback.