Making Strides in Second Life

Okay, I have to be honest. Second Life has intrigued me, overwhelmed me and now, I am getting that bug where you find yourself thinking about the space and the possibilities more and more. My colleague in IT, Garnett Gleim started prodding me to think about classroom applications for Second Life just over a year ago. It is hard to imagine possibilities if you haven’t been in the space very much. When I went to the 2008 SITTE Conference, I went to the two sessions on Second Life where presenters spoke about their University graduate classes in SL. One presenter made reference to a Middle Years explorer project where the students were building ships and making connections in ways not experienced by the teacher before. Okay…that did it. I was ready to jump into Second Life.

Fast forward one year and we have completed 3 successful projects in Teen Second Life with Middle Years students. The first, a culture unit where students created their own cultures and explored the 8 patterns of culture in the curriculum. The second, a historical re-enactment of the Riel Rebellion, a significant period in Canadian history. The third was another culture unit involving two classrooms in different parts of the city. We have had guest speakers visit students in SL and share their artifacts, slides and knowledge. Now we are preparing for our fourth project which will be a drama production involving student groups in 8 classes across our city and scenarios of social issues they have been exploring.

This latest project is getting more teachers involved through a project that demands less “in world” time than previous projects but hopefully provides them with enough of a taste that they can begin thinking about possibilities for future units of study.

What have been the highlights so far?
a) Because the students have been so engaged, teachers feel they have applied more time and effort to their work than they would have, had this been approached in a more traditional manner. While much of the time was exploring and building, their engagement elevated interest in learning and attention to content detail.
b) Teachers have commented that student learning from the projects has been deeper than when the topics were taught in more conventional ways. Evidence of student learning has been presented in digital artifacts such as student blogs, slideshows in Bubbleshare.
c) Because this space draws on multiple forms of literacy practices, it is not just the students with strong verbal linguistic skills that are successful. We have observed students with learning disabilities, attentional issues and social issues have great success in collaboration, creation, and content understanding through TSL. This success seems to have provided them with a confidence boost and sense of belonging that many approaches may not.

A pre-service teacher recently commented in her blog after a presentation of one of our recent projects. She asked, “But with technology we have to be careful of the assignments we are giving our students and what are they are actually doing with it, am I right?”
From my experience, the issue is not, “But with technology”. The issue is “In every classroom, every day, with every student….” we have to be careful of the assignments we are giving our students. If our assignments are not meaningful, relevant and purposeful, why would students do them or apply themselves to them? And absolutely, we have to be careful. We assume a responsibility every time our students go on the Internet and do a basic search. Without purpose, everything is questionable.

I am excited about the projects in which our students have been involved. I believe Second Life has great potential as a space for learning, collaboration and most importantly for our Middle Years students’, creativity. The key ingredient however, remains a great teacher.

Writingonthe Web 2008 » SlideShare

Writingonthe Web 2008 » SlideShare

Here is a presentation I gave at the TLt Summit (Teaching and Learning with Technology) in Saskatoon Saskatchewan, on May 16th, 2008. From folks who spoke to me afterward, I think the connection with literacy and technology hit a common chord for educators within our province who are struggling with the increased emphasis on “Literacy and Numeracy” yet, like me, often face others’ definitions of literacy and numeracy that are very narrow and not necessarily reflective of the world in which our learners are growing up.

Teen SecondLife Project

Teen SecondLife Project

Recently I have been exploring with colleagues different online spaces for learning. Our guiding questions were:

How can learning relationships and interactions change as a result of expanding the learning space?
How can we provide opportunities for multiple literacies to enter into the learning process?
What learning spaces can we provide that allow educators to have more relevant connections to their learners?

Well, it started out as dipping my toes in new waters and has finally moved to taking the plunge as we prepare to launch a project with a group of Grade 8 students around their Social Studies unit on Culture. What I have seen in many classrooms as part of this unit of study is students choose a country and do research to learn about that country in terms of the 8 patterns of culture.

What will happen if we create a virtual world simulation where students create their own cultures and interact and collaborate with others in this new learning space? The students will enter this space in the coming week and I am excited to follow their learning journey to see what how this space changes/influences their learning. Here is our current planning for this unit. Suggestions welcome!

View BubbleShare album.

The Literacy Connection

Having recently provided two half days of PD to our system administrators on effective use of technology in schools to support student learning, I can say that my message was all about literacy. Through examples and discussions my intended message for administrators was that literacy and technology are not two different goals. Technology is embedded in literacy. Technology requires a new set of literacy skills. Interaction with information in a digital world involves its own grammar and requires a unique set of literacy skills. We should not be talking about literacy without including and acknowledging the role of technology.

The reason I made these points stems from my concerns around school division emphasis on literacy. In Saskatchewan, the Ministry of Education has implemented a Continuous Improvement Framework. One of the priorities being “High levels of literacy and achievement”. What I hear talk of and planning for however reflects a historical rather than 21st century definition of literacy. While I do not have “the definition” of literacy, in its most general sense, literacy is the ability ‘to make meaning’. When literacy is only considered within the realm of Language Arts, we are in danger of defining literacy as “reading and writing”. It becomes difficult in these conversations to differentiate ‘literacy and numeracy’ from its more historical ‘back to the basics’ movement.

When we talk about literacy, we must acknowledge the expanding literacy skills that our students are going to need for their futures. With rapid changes in society and the workforce, we can no longer imagine what their futures will look like. I believe it is imperative that we embrace and articulate a vision of literacy that, as David Warlick suggests, prepares our students for their futures and not our past. An articulated vision of literacy today within the division, may help educators understand the purpose for a renewed focus on literacy and help them to understand how their practices need to change in order to support a changing vision of literacy.

Message to Administrators

Having just read Viki Davis’ blog I am reminded of the challenge I face this week as I present to administrators about supporting learning with technology. I spent the entire weekend developing the 50 minute presentation – that tends to be how I work. I feel like a cat chasing may tail as I re-read favourite blogs and articles, return to portions of my thesis, and reflect on the roadblocks we face in helping teachers as they learn to make effective use of the technologies. Write, stream line, run in circles and aim for a concise presentation that engages the audience in discussion, reflection and planning.

One of the things I have learned over the years is that the answer to ‘how can technology support students learning’ is “It all depends”. It depends on teacher pedagogy, attitudes, a willingness to take risks and try something different. So I am not going to razzle dazzle these folks with the technologies per se. I am going to begin exploring the discourse of technology in schools. By sharing some of the comments I hear every week as I work with teachers throughout the system perhaps I can help these administrators ask the kinds of questions that need to be asked. So when you hear comments like, “I don’t have time to add anything more to my plate” or “We have more important things to worry about with OUR students”, the message from these teachers is that they see technology as an add-on. What questions/discussions around the ‘water cooler’ can be held so that teachers begin to reflect on the practices they can’t give up or approach from another angle? What should learner engagement look like (and I do not mean student compliance with on-task behaviour)?

As we move along the continuum of teacher discourse around technology we’ll explore comments like, “ We‘ve got the laptops booked out for our research unit. The kids are finding their information on the Internet and then putting it into a PowerPoint presentation.” Getting administrators to see that nothing has changed here as a result of the technology and there is a good chance that less learning is taking place than ever. The message is that redesigning learning tasks so that students have to think and transform the information to achieve authentic learning. With this fall on deaf ears with administrators that are removed from the classroom?

They will then have a chance to read/view stories from the field. I am hoping that the teacher voices are a powerful conduit. Especially when several stories come from schools where there are high numbers of at risk kids. The stories suggest learner engagement, decreased behavioural problems, and increased attendance as a result of tapping into meaningful and relevant learning opportunities supported by technology.

Having read Viki’s blog however, I am reminded to keep my cool, treat my audience professionally no matter what lemons come my way. The stories from the field reflect the tremendous possibilities for learning supported by technology. But no matter what kind or how much technology there is, if we do not have effective teachers in classrooms, technology is not the magic answer.

Parenting and Education

Read an interesting post today titled Dealing with Parents  My own week as educator and parent has been insightful. My youngest son was preparing for a Grade 12 final exam of 160 multiple choice questions in a science class. Any parent of a child with a learning disability in reading can appreciate the challenge this presents. After much worry, we decided to step in and request a “reader” for this exam. While this may be a common practice in some schools, it had not been done before at this school. Arrangements were made. The night before the exam, my son decided that this might not be a good idea. He didn’t want to be a target for classmates because he took his exam in another room – he would just take the exam as usual – he didn’t care about the consequences. Luckily, the school administrator intercepted him in the hall heading into the exam and encouraged him to take the reader. Thank you! The phone call from the school the next day indicated he did well and they realized this approach was something they would need to consider in the future for other students. Score one for parents and educators listening to one another.

My second happy dance was shared by a teacher I have been working with. New to the school, the teacher had been warned by a staff member that she was in for “hell” with the class she was getting. The list of negatives about this class was enough to make anyone think twice about the coming year. I have been helping her with several projects incorporating technology into her students’ learning. The result? Five months into her year, this diverse group of students is happy, engaged and learning. She recently received a note from a parent thanking her for engaging his child by incorporating the many digital tools available for learning. He says their dinner conversations have become lively and engaging; his child is now sharing what is happening at school and is inviting various friends and family to view his writing on his blog; his child is excited about learning. The parent thanked the teacher for tapping into tools and strategies that his child had not experienced in the past. Score one for parents that are aware of educators who are listening to and understanding their learners.

What’s the Difference?

What is the difference among educators? I work with educators in the area of educational technology within an urban school division and every day I consider this question and its plethora of possible answers. What makes some educators reach out for new strategies and approaches while others just shake their heads and say “I don’t have time”?

What made a difference in me? I am not a techie. In fact, ten years ago, the first workshop I ever attended I had to ask the person next to me, “How do you turn this thing on?” Of course that was in a hushed voice so that no one else knew of my technical ignorance. However, over time, I began to experience new roles – the one with stories and experiences to share of student learning supported by technology and the one who could pose questions about learning that I would never have considered before.

One of the keys for me as I began to learn about educational technology ten years ago, was that I knew this was not another educational bandwagon. Technology was changing so many aspects of society – if it could help me in my teaching and my students learning, then I wanted to be informed of how I could use the tools. For me, the many hours I spent on my own time (with young children at home) was a window to the world. I liked the idea of doing things differently, of hooking kids in new ways and of seeing them “take off” in their learning when I gave up the control at the front of the room. For me, incorporating technology into the classroom was a journey from teacher-directed instruction to more student-centered learning. At first, I got caught up in the technology. And slowly I learned to step back and be more critical and ask the question, “How can this improve and support student learning?” “How are the students learning, and what are they learning?”

Ten years later, I now support educators as they learn how to use technology to support student achievement. While I try to respect the varying points that educators are at in their learning journey, I can’t understand the choice to step back and not learn, the choice to claim ignorance and be comfortable doing so, the choice to believe that today’s classrooms do not need to be different that they were 10, 20 or 30 years ago (okay, 100 years ago), or the choice to wait for someone else to create the time for their learning to take place.

If you know what the difference is….please, do tell!