Students Meeting the NETS-S

With the use of communication, collaboration and publishing Web 2.0 technologies, students will be successful with NETS-S (http://www.iste.org/standards/nets-for-students/nets-student-standards-2007.aspx).  So many of the applications of Web 2.0 technologies are directly connected and related to those standards of NETS-S.

In NETS-S students must apply their existing knowledge to new ideas and processes.  They are also challenged to create original works whether they are working alone or in groups.  They are to simulate complex issues and situations as well as need to identify trends and answer the question “What If?”  With the use of the Web 2.0 technologies, students are able to accomplish this.  Pretty much every student that I am aware of knows how to create a PowerPoint presentation for their classmates.  Instead of continually cranking out these solutions, Web 2.0 allows students to look at them in a different way and publish them like they have never before done by the use of sites such as Glogster and SlideShare just to name a few.  Instead of creating a PowerPoint presentation, students could use Animoto or Yodio to create their presentations in a format that they have never done before.

The ability for students to create original works while working in groups is easily accomplished by the use of sites such as Wikispaces or Skype.  These two Web 2.0 technologies alone are very popular in our own PBL class here at Wilkes and should benefit any and all students trying to meet NETS-S.  In fact, the use of Google Docs assists with the collaboration efforts of students and is being used in our class as well.  This is a wonderful way for students to collaborate and brainstorm their ideas in a digital age.  Also with the use of some of the chat Web 2.0 technologies mentioned this week (such as Chatterous and Today’s Meet), students can communicate with themselves and/or teachers in real time and ask some of those very kinds of “What If…?” questions.  This is especially true of students while a teacher lesson is currently going on in class.  He/she can ponder why something may or may not work in a certain way and get an answer almost immediately from either another classmate or the teacher.

Also as a part of NET-S, students are involved in publishing in a digital environment and using digital media.  There are so many Web 2.0 technologies that will allow them to accomplish this.  For example, with the use of ZooBurst, students are able to do digital storytelling.  Also, using sites such as Picnik for photo editing, JayCut for movie making, Animoto for movie making students are able to harness the power of additional Web 2.0 technologies to collaborate with others and produce media using digital environments.  Students are also able to effectively communicate ideas to multiple audiences with the use of Web 2.0 technologies.  For example, the use of blogs are a great way for students to put their ideas “on paper” and then publish them digitally for the entire world to see as well as comment on.  In our group, being able to put our ideas on Wikispaces has been a wonderful asset.  We’ve each been able to publish our own page of thoughts and ideas that we could not only share with the other members of our group but will also be able to share with our class members and other educators that are going to be interested in the projects that we create as a part of the PBL class.

Edmodo would be an excellent site that students could you to communicate and collaborate with students from different cultures from around the world.  In fact, with the use of a blog, students could also collaborate with others from different cultures.  Edmodo along with the websites we explored a couple of weeks ago would allow students to contribute to global project teams in order to solve problems – whether they were based here in the United States or around the world.

The use of Web 2.0 technologies would also foster critical thinking, problem solving and decision making.  Tangler and Bubbl could allow for brainstorming of ideas which could lead to authentic problems being identified and help come up with questions that a group believes that they would need to investigate in order to solve a problem.  I also think that with the use of the multitudinous amounts of Web 2.0 technologies mentioned in class, students would have a different perspective on doing projects and class work – one of which would be upbeat, positive and would make them intrinsically motivated to want to learn more and thus as a result become better learners and students.  With the use of these Web 2.0 technologies, they would also be using multiple processes and different perspectives in order to solve problems and explore different avenues of thinking.

Web 2.0 technologies are not only cool but help our students collaborate and learn and become better critical thinkers.  Students these days like to be challenged in unique ways that they have never been challenged in before.  With the introduction of NETS-S and the Web 2.0 technologies that exist today (along with the fact that students are using Facebook, Myspace and other ways of social networking), the sites introduced in our class seem like a natural extension of the learning process to students and will make them better citizens in the digital society that we live in today and for the months, years and decades to come for sure.

Exemplars of PBL (Project Based Learning)

The examples given on the three Edutopia web pages (“More Fun Than a Barrel of . . . Worms?!” - Diane Curtis, Edutopia, http://www.edutopia.org/more-fun-barrel-worms; “Geometry Students Angle into Architecture Through Project Learning” - Sara Armstrong, Edutopia, http://www.edutopia.org/geometry-real-world-students-architects and “March of the Monarchs: Students Follow the Butterflies' Migration” - Diane Curtis, Edutopia, http://www.edutopia.org/march-monarchs) are three excellent of PBL experiences that all students could definitely benefit from participating in.  These projects are so much more engaging, powerful, rich and full of longer lasting educational learning experiences to our students than what they could ever get from simply reading text from a book or by just reading information from the several websites that they visit on a daily basis.
Some of the circumstances and design principles that are common amongst all three of these PBL scenarios are as follows.  In all three cases, the students (and staff as well) had open access to a multitudinous amount of technology.  Students were able to access computers, the Internet, Microsoft Office programs and other technology tools that were needed in order to successfully complete the project(s) that they were working on.  Not only did they have access to technology but they all also had access to several outside sources and experts in the field (from the parents and the student who has Cystic Fibrosis, to the architects and the Annenburg/CPB Project for Journey North.  Without these additional resources the students more than likely would not have gotten the full experiences that they clearly did.
In all of the examples given, the teachers made the decision that the students would definitely get more out of doing a hands-on multidisciplinary project instead of reading out of a textbook and listening to their teacher lecture.  The teachers designed the projects in all cases to be open-ended, flexible and ones of which could be changed based upon how the students were doing, or even based upon the interests that they had.  For example, the one project started with an analysis of the stock market but based upon the interests of the students, they soon started a company, learned how it worked, sold shares for the company and then learned key business concepts when they found out that their classmates from 5^th grade were planning a hostile takeover in trying to buy the majority of the shares.  There is NO WAY that anyone could get such a valuable experience by reading a textbook, listening to his/her teacher and then taking a test over such information.
Also, in all three cases, another common circumstance was that the educators involved wanted to give their students the opportunity to participate in such unique, hands-on enriched activities.  They all realized that this is a huge time commitment and even though it takes a lot more work to do a PBL exercise than it does to lecture, they knew that their students would get so much more out of the hands-on activities, projects, etc. then they ever could have by reading a book.  Students are engaged and are way more responsible for what they inevitably learn as an end result of these projects instead textbook only learning activities.  I know that in the projects that take place in the class of which I teach (TV Studio), the students get so much more out of them then they ever could if I would give them some kind of a written activity or evaluation.  The integration of technology does get students more excited about learning and in the technology classes that are taught at our school, we definitely notice a lack of disciplinary problems and students wanting to do more and to learn more, let alone the fact that they have the intrinsic desire to learn more.
The roles of the teachers and students in all of the examples cited are very similar yet are a drastic departure from educating students as we know it – especially from the way educators learned to teach their students when they were in college several years (if not decades) ago.  The teachers in all of the cases sited are no longer the sage on the stage.  They don’t get up in front of the case, lecture their students based upon the voluminous amounts of pages that they read in a textbook and then expect them to regurgitate that information back on a test, more than likely forgetting it in the days and weeks to come.  The teachers are guides on the sides.  They give some initial guidance on the project as the students sit down and talk about the topics at hand, and then students do a lot of the research, project work, etc. on their own with minimal guidance from their teachers, other than to help answer some questions, get them back on track if at all possible and maybe help get past some stumbling blocks that they might have.  The students in each group are basically their own teachers – they do their research, help each other by explaining/teaching concepts to their group members.  They simply don’t sit idle and try to soak up all of the information being given by the teacher like a sponge.  They are engaged in their learning and what they are doing; it is hands-on time and time again.  Because of the learning that goes on, and the process by which it happens (especially when it comes to groups giving presentations to other class members, the architects in the one case, and to the multitudinous number of others of whom the information is presented to), the roles of the teachers and students in PBL-based classrooms are actually reversed in my opinion.
Student learning and engagement in PBL-based classrooms appear to be in a different league than in those classrooms where students simply sit around and listen to their teachers lecture.  The students are taking complete ownership of the learning that goes on, not the teacher, and because of working in groups they are quick to point out to their classroom teacher when another group member (or members) is not doing his or her part.  This in and of itself is engaging the students to make sure that all members of the group are doing his or her fair share, more than likely to an extent because the group’s overall grade could be brought down as a result of a group member’s actions.  It makes students more conscientious about their grades.  Students are being challenged to think at the highest levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy as a result of the PBL exercises.  They have to figure out how and why things happen.  They have to think about how event A will affect the outcome of event B (and C, D, E, etc.)  They learn about real life situations in a hands-on environment.  Not having hands-on based activities and the usage of high order level thinking skills is a travesty to students in education.  They need to broaden their horizons and the use of PBL activities will most definitely do that.  When students are active in such activities, they learn the skills that they need in order to solve the problem(s) at hand.  It’s one thing to read from a textbook how to build a computer and install Windows onto a computer but until you actually take the time to experience the experience, you will not get the full benefit from it.  PBL projects do just that – they help you learn by being actively engaged.  The more skills that a student gets to practice and be exposed to in real life situations, the more that they are going to retain, making them a better learner and student in the long run.  The more that they have to sit around and learn from a book and from a teacher who lectures, the less that they are going to retain from day to day, week to week, month to month and year to year.  The more students are actively learning, the more they are able to transfer the knowledge that they learn  from one situation to another situation.  PBL gives them the experience to now say “OK, I learned to build a computer and install Windows with these components.  Now, how do I make a modification to build this different kind of computer of install a different version of Windows.  Or, since I had so many different experiences on learning how to troubleshoot problems with Microsoft Office, troubleshooting problems with Open Office or Star Office or Microsoft Office for the Macintosh will definitely not be a problem.  In general, the more different experiences that students can engage in, the more information that they will be able to retain and transfer to either similar or different situations.  This same transfer of learning will not take place should they only be learning from the reading of a textbook or by listening to their teachers mainly lecture.
Students are also highly engaged and are able to transfer information from situation to situation because of the presentations that they due in the PBL projects or when they actually have to run the company and deal with the day to day problems that may occur.  When the students have to take the time to put a presentation of how their new school will look, what the final costs will be to build it and then present it to the architects who ask questions and ask why a certain decision was made, students remember more of what they learned since they have to apply themselves more.
All these points make the use of PBL projects in classrooms an invaluable experience for students to be a part of.  Even though teachers will gladly admit to the fact that these kinds of experiences for their students take an immense amount of additional time to prepare for, the end result for the students are totally worth it.  Students take more away in the short and long run from being actively engaged in their education instead of not being actively engaged in their education.

Welcome

Welcome to my blog for EDIM502 at Wilkes University for Spring 2011.  I hope to have a lot of fun in this class, learn a lot and enjoy collaborating with my classmates.

Thanks,
Dennis