Reinventing…Transforming…Remixing Educations Best Lessons

A time out from my series on Advanced Google Searching for a moment on reflection and reform. In my over thirty years in education I have encountered many educators from a wide range of disciplines that teach using outstanding and powerful lessons that truly promote student learning and success.  It is important to recognize members of the teaching profession for these great ideas that have had a positive impact on generations of students. Our culture and society continues on a journey from industrial, to informational, to the age of innovation at an ever increasing rate. Educators, one of the best professions in the world, continue to work hard at the amazing goal of educating ever child to their full potential.  As our society enters this digital age of innovation, so must education. Educators must integrate 21^st century skills, Project Based Learning, STEM education, and the National Educational Technology Standards (NETS) into past lessons that have already provided success and achievement. It is this remix and reinvention using  today’s technology, that will  make past lessons  new 21st century learning experience for students!  Please take a moment to read and reflect on the role that new technology can assist in assisting all educators in taking those very first steps towards transforming what is already one of the best, and making it even better!

Transformation is a process whereby an earlier idea goes through change in order to remain relevant and effective as other things around the original idea also change. Often in my presentations, I have posed the question of whether education is closer to the Jukebox or the iPod. Are our lessons emulating the Industrial Age, Information Age, or the Age Of Innovation?  I bring this up because as educators we must  transform practices that have been valuable, instead of always coming up with something new. There are many great lessons and educational units of study that may just need an injection of 21st Century Ideas. How can you as an educator transform ideas, practices, and lessons with the technology you may already have?

First, lets take a look at the history of creating an on-demand music collection for public use.  The jukebox was one of the first devices that allowed for the instant play of music, on demand, from various artists, from a large collection of databases. The jukebox was invented in 1889. It was referred to as the Nickel-in-the-Slot Machine and was invented by Louis Glass and William S. Arnold who placed a coin-operated Edison cylinder phonograph in the Palais Royale Saloon in San Francisco. An Edison Class M Electric Phonograph in an oak cabinet was refitted with a coin mechanism patented (U.S. 428,750) by Glass and Arnold. There was no amplification and patrons had to listen to the music using one of four listening tubes. Sure sounds like today’s iPod and its reliance on the ear-bud in the early stages.  In its first six months of service, the Nickel-in-the-Slot earned over $1000. Over one hundred years later Apple Computer transformed this same idea with the technology of the 21st Century. Launched on October 23, 2001 the original iPod had a 5 GB hard drive that put “1,000 songs in your pocket.” As of September 2008, more than 173,000,000 iPods had been sold worldwide. The 2008 120 GB model allowed for instant retrieval of over 24,000 songs. Apple did not invent the idea, they transformed an excellent and proven idea  already in existence!

As educators, we must enlist our collective database of lessons and practices and adapt it with technology that is already in our schools. This concept allows us to make immediate transformation happen. I would like to share one example. Many of us have been part of a NASA lesson that had us work in a group to decide what we would need  to survive on the moon We were given a list and as a group we worked collaboratively to prioritize it. Many time the bell would then ring and the lesson ended, trapped inside of the physical walls of the classroom. It is now possible to transform the lesson and go beyond the physical classroom using the technology that is available today. The lesson could be put in a Moodle or Edmodo, both are a free collaborative on-line virtual classroom. Students could collaborate online through chats, Google Docs, Wallwisher, and TitanPad. I recently found a tool available for free from Intel called “Thinking Tools”. It allows students to collaboratively prioritize and examine the “wisdom of their classroom crowd”. They compare their rankings with others and with the class average through teacher-made accounts. In this process they also share information and reasoning with the teacher. The results can be shared through a Power Point presentation or Prezi, and a visual ranking of the data can be displayed using a spreadsheet. How about a video conference or online chat to compare with experts in the community? Students could put it all together by word importance in a “Wordle” that illustrates their findings. Most schools have the technology, connection, and software to make this Old Lesson transform into a 21st Century experience. Remember,  Open Office can even serve as a no cost alternative to Microsoft Office. Feel free to check out my 21centuryedtech wiki for more information.

Teachers have a wealth of resources and proven lessons. It is time for educators to explore new possibilities by transforming what has always worked. Do not wait for a new purchase in order to engage students in 21st Century Learning. You already have what it takes to transform the educational jukebox into an iPod. The result will be educational experiences that are more productive, efficient, connected, authentic, and engaging to the digital generation. It will facilitate important 21st Century skills that are essential to our students’ future.

Thanks for taking a moment to read and reflect. I invite you to join me on an educational journey to the 21st Century. Please take a moment to follow and subscribe by RSS or email and also explore the vast amount of resources at my 21centuryedtech Wiki. You can also follow me  on twitter at @mjgormans. I would like the opportunity to learn from your comments to this post and ask that you join the conversation. Be sure to join me in my future post that will reveal parts of a Google Advanced Search that you or your students may want to learn more about!  Until next time… transform, educate, and inspire! – Mike

Free: Showing Evidence Tool… Collaboratively Construct, Evaluate, And Defend!

Welcome to the third in a series of articles based on Intel Thinking Tools, an amazing set of free tools from Intel. The resource I include today is called the Showing Evidence Tool , another of Intel’s amazing Online Thinking Tools. This tool is perfect for those teachers who wish to engage students to collaboratively and critically provide evidence to support an idea. Before exploring please take a moment to sign up for future posts via email or RSS and also,  follow me on twitter at (mjgormans).  Now, discover another new and amazing  free 21st century tool! Have a great week! – Mike

Showing Evidence Tools –  “People generally quarrel because they cannot argue.”  A statement by Gilbert Chesterton (1874-1936) an English writer.

How many of your students have a great opinion or found some information on the web, but lack the ability to back it up with well articulated thinking and research? Real learning requires students to come up with opinions, hypotheses, and thesis arguments. More importantly, they must learn to support their ideas with factual details. This is true whether students are exploring science, discussing social studies, explaining a math problem, or writing a language arts paper. This skill is the foundation of Intel’s free Showing Evidence Tool. This resource facilitates student learning by providing a tool that helps construct well-reasoned arguments that can  prove a case, theory or hypothesis  with credible evidence. It does this by providing a visual framework to make claims, identify evidence, evaluate the quality of the evidence, explain how the evidence supports or weakens a claim, and allows students to reach conclusions based on the evidence. Research shows that an argumentation tool such as Showing Evidence extends learning regardless of subject or grade level. This is accomplished by preparing students for real world problems, helping students develop higher-order thinking skills, increasing content knowledge, and encouraging thoughtful students discussion.

Intel states, “The Showing Evidence Tool provides a scaffold to support students as they create a claim and then support or refute it with appropriate evidence. When an argument is complicated, the components of the tool help students think through justifying a claim. The Showing Evidence Tool prompts students to consider the quality of the evidence (Do they trust the source?), and the strength of the evidence to support their claim (Is the evidence central to their argument?). Students use the tool to explicitly link evidence to their claim and provide their reasoning as to why the evidence supports their claim (What general principle or idea allows them to make that connection?).

Take a moment and watch this video to get a better understanding. Be sure to explore Intel’s resources of units and plans for this tool. Perusing these lessons will provide you with ideas to integrate this tool into your past, current, and future lessons. There is even a tutorial that will guide you through building an activity. You may also wish to look at both this elementary demo or secondary demo.  Intel also includes an  excellent set of instructional strategies.  Best of all, Intel has included a private project area for teachers to set up lessons, class lists, and collaborative groups. Students then log in to the secure teacher area. Collaboration can occur from any computer at school or at home. Teachers have the ability to monitor and assess student work on line, and even leave important feedback. Take a moment and explore the Showing Evidence Tool. It really is a first class resource that will apply to any curricular area and grade level while enhancing 21st Century Skills. Best of all, it’s free!

Thanks for joining me once again on the important journey of transforming education to fit the 21st century. Remember to sign up via email or RSS and also,  follow me on twitter at (mjgormans). I also have hundreds of resources available for free at my 21centuryedtech Wiki! Enjoy the week as you introduce new tools that encourage your students to think! – Mike

Free: Seeing Reason Tool…High Order Thinking, Mapping, And Collaboration!

Welcome to the second in a series of articles based on Intel Thinking Tools, an amazing set of free tools from Intel. The tool I include today is called the Seeing Reason Tool  , one of Intel’s amazing Online Thinking Tools. The description is perfect for those educators wanting their students engaged in 21st Century learning  activities in the classroom. Before starting, remember to sign up for future posts via email or RSS and also,  follow me on twitter at (mjgormans) to keep learning!  By the time you finish this post you, will dreaming up activities that will allow your students avenues to see reasons, connections, and relevance in all curricular areas.  Have a great week! – Mike

Seeing Reason Tools – Any collection of related facts is difficult to grasp when expressed by figures in tabular form, but the same may be seen at a glance when presented by one of the many graphic representations of those ideas.” – Gardner C. Anthony; from his book; An Introduction to the Graphic Language

There is no better tool that can promote real thinking than one that allows students to brainstorm and web. Intel describes this tool as one that allows students to “investigate relationships in complex systems, and create maps that communicate understanding”. Simply put, the Seeing Reason mapping tool allows a user to create diagrams or “causal maps.”  These maps allow students to understand the information in the investigation of a problem. This is perfect for Problem, Project, and Inquiry Based Learning.  Students learn to organize the factors that influence or affect a problem, and more importantly show how these factors interact with each other in cause-and-effect relationships. This must see tool supports cycles of investigation allowing students to gather what they know, organize that knowledge base into a map, and then investigate whether their initial concepts are really supported by necessary evidence. The benefits include the five key points allowing students to; think about and talk about their learning, negotiate the meaning of their symbols and make their ideas public, translate from one form of knowledge to another, transfer their knowledge to other cause-and-effect situations, and gain experience in using tools for problem solving.

To better understand the Seeing Reason Tool watch this video and also take a look at this provided demo.  Also, be sure to take a moment to explore Intel’s resources of units . Not only will these units and additional project ideas be excellent resources,  they will also provide other ideas for lessons that integrate the use of this tool. Best of all, Intel has included a private project area for teachers to set up lessons, class lists, and collaborative groups. Students then log in to the secure teacher area. Collaboration can occur from any computer at school or at home. Teachers have the ability to monitor and assess student work on line, and even leave important feedback. Take a moment and explore Seeing Reason, a tool that will apply to any curricular area while enhancing 21st Century Skills.

Thanks for joining me once again on the important journey of transforming education to fit the 21st century. Remember to sign up via email or RSS and also,  follow me on twitter at (mjgormans). I also have hundreds of resources available for free at my 21centuryedtech Wiki! Enjoy the week as you introduce new tools that encourage your students to think! – Mike

Free: Visual Ranking Thinking Tool… Powerful Student Collaboration!

Welcome to a series of articles based on Intel Thinking Tools, an amazing set of free tools from Intel. The three tools I will be  highlighting in this and future posts are are just a small set of what Intel offers for free. The tool I include today is called the Visual Ranking Tool , one of Intel’s Online Thinking Tools. The description matches nicely and there are endless possibilities for the classroom. Before starting, remember to sign up via email or RSS and also,  follow me on twitter (mjgormans) to keep learning! I know after this read you will be creating visual ranking lessons that connect to your curriculum in no time! Have a great week! – Mike

Visual Ranking Tool -“The exercise of ordering your favorites…ranking one a level higher than another, and then articulating why you chose the way you did-requires a depth and clarity of consideration and comparison that inspires richer appreciation and enjoyment.” – Michael J. Gelb, from his book; How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci

Let me first introduce you to Visual Ranking, my personal favorite of this three tool set. Intel describes using this tool by stating, “Making a list is usually straightforward and requires little thought. But when it comes to ordering and prioritizing items in that list, higher-level skills of analysis and evaluation are put to use”. The Visual Ranking Tool allows students to focus their thinking behind creating ordered lists. Students practice identifying and refining criteria as they assign order or rank to a list. Collaboration is emphasized as students are given the opportunity to explain their reasoning and can compare their work with each other in a visual diagram. They can even compare their results with the reasoning of other groups, and even a class average. Imagine activities where students practice organizing their ideas, debate individual differences, and reach group consensus. Check out this overview of the tool and the research describing the benefits of this type of high order thinking activity for students.

Watch this video to get a better idea. After watching the video, try this quick demo to give you a better understanding.  Take a moment and explore Intel’s resources of units and plans for this tool. While Intel provides awesome ideas, you are also able to come up with your own ideas for rankings that may just fit into your curricular standards.  There are many lessons on the web that could incorporate this tool. One example is Shackleton’s Antarctic Adventure. Note the list that is part of  the lesson. Astrosociety.org has this great lunar activity that could be adapted for use with Visual Ranking. I have used Visual Ranking in teacher professional development, asking educators to rank 21st Century Skills. It has been a great way to enhance the idea of 21st Century Skills while giving teachers an opportunity to learn a new tool. Intel also includes these instructional strategies which covers planning a lesson, implementing a project, and assessing student work.

Best of all, Intel has included a private project area for teachers to set up lessons, class lists, and collaborative groups. Students then log in to the secure teacher area. Collaboration can occur from any computer at school or at home. Teachers have the ability to monitor and asses student work on line, and even leave important feedback. It really is the type of program that many teachers are using the day after a short in-service. Take a moment and explore Visual Ranking, a tool that will apply to any curricular area while enhancing 21st Century Skills.

Thanks for joining me once again on the important journey of transforming education to fit the 21st century. Remember to sign up via email or RSS and also, follow me on twitter (mjgormans). I also have hundreds of resources available for free at my 21centuryedtech Wiki! Enjoy the week as you introduce new tools that encourage your students think! – Mike

Free Project Based Learning Resources That Will Place Students At The Center Of Learning

I am an advocate for Project Based Learning in the classroom. True Project Based Learning is a process that puts the student at the center of their learning. In this post I wish to share with you some of the top sites I found on the internet that promote true PBL. Since my research I have bookmarked a few more and will be sharing those in a later post. Please share this post with others and as you find other outstanding sites on the internet that refer to PBL, please share with me. Your comments are always appreciated! You can follow me on Twitter at @mjgormans and as always please feeel free to visit my 21centuryedtech Wiki filled with resources- Mike

Edutopia PBL – Edutopia is a site containing outstanding educational content for teachers. It contains an area devoted to Project Based Learning. Edutopia defines PBL, “as a dynamic approach to teaching in which students explore real-world problems and challenges, simultaneously developing cross-curriculum skills while working in small collaborative groups.” The site contains a brief article, along with videos entitled “Projecty Based Learning Overview” and An Introduction To Project Based Learning. The Edutopia main PBL web page contains real life examples and this Big List containing article and blogs relating to PBL activities, lessons, practices, and research. Upon review you will note that Edutopia does live up to its statement “What works in public Education”.

PBL-Online Is a one stop solution for Project Based Learning! You’ll find all the resources you ne​ed to design and manage high quality projects for middle and high school students. This site includes information on how to Design your Project. It assists teachers in planning rigorous and relevant standards-focused projects that engage students in authentic learning activities, teach 21st century skills, and demand demonstration of mastery. It also provides a search for projects developed by others (small collection) or the ability to contribute projects to the PBL-Online Collaboratory and Project Library. Teachers can Learn what defines Project Based Learning and the PBL-Online approach to successful project design. There is also an area to Review research and find tools to support effective Project Based Learning. There is also an area to purchase the BIE //Project Based Learning Handbook// and Starter Kit which are a foundation for the PBL-Online website. A nice collection of videos is also available on the site. The PBL-Online is maintained by the Buck Institute for Education (BIE) which is a non-profit, research and development organization dedicated to improving the practice of teaching and the process of learning.

BIE Institite For PBL – The main Buck Institute of On-line Resource Site is a must visit for anyone serious about PBL. There is some good information on the professional development . Explore the BIE Project Based learning Handbook, order a copy, or just explore the links on the page. Be sure to check out the downloadable documents and forms found in the book. There is also a web resources link page that will supply abundant information. There is an excellent forum page that and another area with Advice From Teachers. This is truely a great site to become more informed on Project Based Learning and works well with other other BIE site.

PBL: Exemplary Projects – A wonderful site for those wanting practical ideas to infuse PBL into the curriculum. This is the creation of a group of experienced teachers, educators, and researchers whom you may contact as resources. This team includes people who are also actively doing and creating new exemplary PBL projects, pre-service and continuing teacher professional development, and integration of technology into the curriculum. This site has a great listing of national technology and content standards to review. There is also a large selection of rubrics to look over as you investigate assessment. For those interested in research be sure to check out the page reserved for reflective thought and planning. While on the site be sure to take a look at the exemplary projects along with the other great projects listed.

4Teachers.org PBL – This site has a contains some useful information on supplying sound reasoning for PBL in school. Especially interesting are articles on Building Motivation and Using Multiple Intellegences. One very useful resource in this site is the PBL Project Check List Section. Writers of this site maintain that these check lists will help teachers start using PBL, by creating on-line downloadable age-appropriate, customizable project checklists for written reports, multimedia projects, oral presentations, and science projects. The use of checklists assists in keeping students on track and allows them to take responsibility for their own learning through peer- and self-evaluation. Be sure to check the main 4Teachers Web Site for all of their great sets of tools including other resources that can support PBL. This site is published by Altec which also has a host of resources.

Houghton Mifflin Project Based Learning Space – This site from publisher Houghton Mifflin Contains contains some good resources for investigating PBL and was developed by the Wisconson Center For Education Research. Included is a page on Background Knowledge an Theory. There is also a link to a small number of comprehensive projects. Last for those attempting research there is a large numbers of professional articles related to project based learning.

Intel® Teach Elements: Project-Based Approaches – If you are looking for free, just-in-time professional development that you can experience now, anytime, or anywhere, this may be your answer. Intel promises that this new series will provide high interest, visually compelling short courses that facilitate deep exploration of 21st century learning concepts using and PBL. The program consists of animated tutorials and audio dialogs to explain concepts, Interactive knowledge checking exercises , offline activities to apply concepts. You can take the PBL course online, or order the Intel PBL CD, Take a moment and read more about project design. Intel provides an awesome data base of stories that relate to project ideas. Anyone interested in project based learning must explore the Intel site, one of the most up-to-date resources for PBL on the internet.

New Tech Network – I have personally visited the New Tech Schools in both Napa and Sacramento California. I was impresssed with more then the technology. A positive and effective culture for learning is what New Tech does best and it is based around PBL. Take a look at the news releases on the New Tech site. Some that caaught my interest were Wall-to-Wall Project-Based Learning: A Conversation with Biology TeacherKelley Yonce » from Learn NC, The Power of Project Learning » from Scholastic, and Students as Smart Mobs along with It’s All about me both from Phi Delta Kappa. Last check out the New Tech video entitled NTN School Overview and I Am What I Learn for a good informative look at PBL and New Tech.
High Tech High School – These high schools also operate using a project based learning model centered around 21st century skills. I have included projects they came up with from a $250,000 California grant to institue PBL in non-charter public schools. You will find a description of the project along with the seven major projects and various others. The included PBL assessment page is also very interesting along with how PBl supports literacy in the High Tech Model.

GlobalSchoolhouse.net – Great site to begin PBL using the web while cooperating with other schools.   Harness the ability to use the web as a tool for interaction, collaboration, distance education, cultural understanding and cooperative research — with peers around the globe.  Start out with an explanation of what Net PBL really is. Find out how to make partners. Be sure to check out all the videos and tutorials.

Thanks for taking the time to investigate and I hope impliment a PBL unit in the classroom. I am interested and also wish to learn from you. If you are aware of an outstanding PBL site please comment or send me a message. Please follow me on twitter at mjgormans and I will be sure to follow back. I am always ready to network and learn! As always, you are invited to explore the resources on my 21centuryedtech Wiki.  – Mike (mgorman@sacs.k12.in.us)

Jukebox or the Ipod – Reflection on Educational Transformation

I recently presented at Alan November’s BLC 09 Conference in Boston. What an awesome conference and an opportunity to meet and network not just across the states but internationally! The question posed in my presentation involved the idea of whether education is closer to the Jukebox or the iPod. I bring this up because as educators we must remember to transform practices that have been valuable instead of always coming up with something new. How can you as an educator transform ideas, practices, and lessons with the technology you may already have?
The jukebox was one of the first devices that allowed for the instant play of music, on demand, from various artists, from a large collection of databases. The jukebox was invented in 1889. It was referred to as the Nickel-in-the-Slot Machine and was invented by Louis Glass and William S. Arnold who placed a coin-operated Edison cylinder phonograph in the Palais Royale Saloon in San Francisco. It was an Edison Class M Electric Phonograph in an oak cabinet that was refitted with a coin mechanism patented (U.S. 428,750) by Glass and Arnold. There was no amplification (wow, similar to the iPod) and patrons had to listen to the music using one of four listening tubes. In its first six months of service, the Nickel-in-the-Slot earned over $1000. Over one hundred years later Apple Computer transformed this same idea with the technology of the 21st century. Launched on October 23, 2001 the original iPod had a 5 GB hard drive that put “1,000 songs in your pocket.” As of September 2008, more than 173,000,000 iPods had been sold worldwide. The 2008 120 GB allowed for instant retrieval of over 24,000 songs. Apple did not invent the idea, they transformed an excellent and proven idea that already existed!
As educators we must enlist our collective database of lessons and practices as we adapt technology that is already in our schools. This concept allows us to make transformation happen on the cheap! I would like to share an example. Many of us have been part of a NASA lesson that had us work in a group to decide what we would need to survive on the moon. We were given a list and as a group we worked collaboratively to prioritize it. It is now possible to transform the lesson using technology that is available today. The lesson could be put in a Moodle. Students could collaborate online through chats and Google Docs. I recently found a tool available for free from Intel called Thinking Tools. Feel free to check out my 21centuryedtech wiki for more information. It allows students to work in collaborative groups and rank items. They can then compare their rankings with others and the class average through teacher made accounts. In this process they also share information and reasoning with the teacher. The results could be shared through a Power Point presentation and a visual ranking of the data could be displayed using Excel. How about a video conference or online chat to compare with experts in the community? Most schools have the technology, connection, and software to make this Old Lesson transform to a 21st Century experience. Remember that Open Office can even serve as a no cost alternative to Microsoft Office.
It is time for educators to explore new possibilities by transforming what has always worked. Do not wait for a new purchase in order to engage students in 21st Century Learning. You already have what it takes to transform the educational jukebox into an iPod. The result will be educational experiences that are more productive, efficient, connected, authentic, and engaging to the digital generation. It will facilitate important 21st century skills that are essential to our students’ future.