Well, I did it! I put my hat in the ring to
be a part of #ADE2015. If you are reading this, cross your fingers for me.
How have you as an educator transformed your learning
environment? *
Today, technology gives students an opportunity
to have a voice in an energetic, connected world. This is an exciting
time to be learning. Never before have we had the chance for such
creative means of communication and expression and authentic audiences to read,
write, argue, and connect with. As a result, all those connected to
learning and teaching must renew their vision of education in order to keep
pace with these changes. I have been able to transform the learning environment
by being able to connect to students’ worlds in order to engage, motivate, and
collaborate with a new and very different type of learner in a personal way.
I work with a team of i-Learn Specialists who
support 600 teachers; early childhood - 12th grade. This district-level
leadership team works with teachers through coaching and collaboration. I am
also a PhD student at the University of Minnesota in Learning Technologies,
doing research in the area of Learning with Digital Tools. I have been
playing with ways to redefine our instruction practices in classrooms. I
have developed a framework for thinking about learning practices and tools that
I call the Personal Learning Framework.
Learning often used to mean teaching the
understanding of a concept by reading a text. A student would read a
piece of printed material and respond to the text to demonstrate learning. That
understanding of text was an individual event. Today, digital tools can
accelerate learning by increasing access to various modes of text, efficiency
of collaboration, and providing approaches and vehicles for creative
expressions to making meaning of text. Teachers must meet the important
challenge of making the "technology" sing songs of pedagogy; in other
words, make beautiful music by effectively and elegantly tap technology
to improve instruction and learning.
Illustrate how Apple technologies have helped in this
transformation. *
iBooks
The Common Core standards ask that students be
able to visualize concepts in texts and iBooks makes this very do-able. iBooks
allows you to add directly into the text content videos and images that help
the student visualize and make meaning and developing essential background
knowledge. Teachers can leave content for students right in the pages of the
text, like leaving a breadcrumb trail to find meaning. Content can range
from a simple question or content that incorporates Web content and multimedia.
Close readers zoom into the text for increased focus. iBooks creates the kind
of interactive environment for creating the content that requires readers to
focus and close read.
Safari
Apple technologies give you access to the world
with the Safari app. Students can go to a website like Tween
Tribune by the Smithsonian Museum. Tween Tribune offers an innovative way
to build reading comprehension with nonfiction that offers relevant text: daily
news. Tween Tribune offers students an opportunity to see an image of a news
story. That image can be the provocation for reading a text.
Students might choose to read a news story based on the image they see
that sparks their interest in that subject. Tween Tribune can be also be used
for Close Reading of the text of your choice. Close reading requires students
to get truly involved with the text they are reading. Tween Tribune has a quiz
at the end of the text selection. Quizzes enable “retrieval practice” and
are an effective learning tool. Along with Close Reading, teachers can have the
bonus of invisible differentiation with Tween Tribune. Every article that
you access is the same content and theme, but available at a reading level
that’s just right for each student. Students will increase their collaboration
in reading about content that is the same at reading levels for better
understanding. Having access to this kind of intensive learning practice
redefines how we understand our world.
Apps like Pic Collage
The amazing App Store has many secrets for
improving learning practices. Like, my favorite tool for learning,
PicCollage. Many, many people LOVE Pic Collage because it is the little
black dress of Apps! This App is so flexible that it can be used in just about
every kind of learning under the sun. (It does not have a screwdriver
feature, but that is the only limitation.) It is important that students can
visualize words in order to understand their meaning. PicCollage can be used
for creating a visual dictionary of vocabulary words students need to learn,
words paired with pictures. The idea of a visual dictionary is not to be
confined to a single content in a classroom. Think: math terms, science
vocabulary, library term glossary, Language Arts vocabulary lists, or
"words that begin with..." collages. Students can demonstrate their
close reading of a text by making a collage that contains a summary. A
series of collages is just like a reading log, but so much more fun to share.
Pic Collage can be used to show multiple frames of reference.
Students can create collages about connections they make to text.
Each collage of course, will be incredibly varied and a personal
expression of their learning. When I asked students about these collages
in class, they noticed that all the collages were incredibly different.
Their voices, their creativity is enhanced in their learning by apps like
these.
What successes have you seen with your learners? *
Learning and its instructional practices have
been significantly impacted by the emergence of digital tools. Traditionally,
education has been defined as having the ability to read and write. But
for me, education is more than that; it is the process of making meaning of the
world, of giving students the ability and the strategies to make sense of
themselves and their experiences. Which, my colleagues and friends, is a really
big job! One of the ways we have been successful is by using a new
Personal Learning Framework, one that guides us in the use of new digital tools
for instruction of 3 elements of success in learning that are key for today’s
students: Visualize, Close Reading, and Culturally Relevant Teaching.
Visualize: Teaching with a Personal Learning
Framework leverages the visual literacy elements that digital tools facilitate.
Now, the “text” we have students address can be a video, an image, or an
infographic. A visual can supply background knowledge required to make meaning,
which is the purpose of literacy and learning.
Close Reading: “Text” is only half the story.
When students comment on the video, image or infographic they share insights
and observations as well as connections to other ways of learning the concept.
One comment begets another response. Just as text modalities have
shifted, so too have the standards that students strive to achieve. Close
Reading is one way the Common Core Standards require students to think
differently. Close Readers study the structure of the text by looking at the
text as a writer would. A close reader will analyze the text by focusing on
elements of craft and technique; like imagery, word choice, tone and voice or
sentence structure. We use tools to closely read a text, students achieve.
Culturally Relevant Teaching: The Personal
Learning Framework also includes Culturally Relevant Teaching as an approach
that creates the conditions for equity in the classroom. We make meaning
based on our cultural context. Our culture is our Frame of Reference, the way
we interpret the world. Collaboration is Culturally Relevant and our literacy
practices should offer learning opportunities and collaborative work that
develop relationships. Developing relationships is one of the ways we can
create the conditions for equity in learning. Collaboration makes
relationships meaningful and relevant. By using digital tools to collaborate
and express our different cultures and frames of reference, learning becomes
more social and more relevant.
How do you share these successes to influence the broader
education community? *
As educators develop effective pedagogy that
takes advantage of the availability of digital tools, teachers offer better and
better supports for learners to Visualize, Close Read, and Collaborate. Our
district level leadership team works with Professional Learning Communities to
embed the 4C’s and technology into daily instruction through job embedded
coaching. Additionally, our team designs professional development which
supports both synchronous and asynchronous learning. Our i-Learn team is
committed to modeling for teachers best practices for 21st century learning and
teaching through our trainings, coaching sessions and online professional
learning communities. Also, of course, we learn and share and grow by
presenting at National Conferences like #ISTE2014 and Minnesota’s own #TIES2014
conference. I’m growing my professional learning network on Twitter too!
Follow me: @lynneawest and let’s connect!
