Sneaky Teaching with Virtual Reality

Today was the realization of something I have been mulling over and envisioning for a long time. Something that isn't really new or even new to education but new to me and new to my schools.  But watching a group of students get excited about cells through the use of virtual reality gave me an immense feeling of excitement and satisfaction. I think I even had goosebumps.

Keep in mind, these aren't just any kids- they are 7th graders. The hardest of kids to get buy in from ever. They are too cool for everything and won't play along with pretend scenarios or any of that anymore. This though...this virtual reality, 360 degree view inside a cell, they got. This had them hooked and involved in a way that a worksheet or even a video can't do. I was hearing oooo's and aaahhhh's, they were ducking their heads and reaching out to touch the parts of the cell. I heard students saying they didn't know where to look because there was so much going on. Not quite the static image of a cell students are used to seeing. Then, the guided tour kicked in, turning the mitochondria into little factories and zooming them into the nucleus, floating around the DNA. An experience that brought to life all they had been learning about the parts of a cell. And it blew their mind.

Since it was their first day, we let them explore a few more scenes including underwater with great white sharks, flying through the universe and chasing a tornado as it formed. Each new experience brought more excitement for both the students and us teachers as we saw more and more applications for various areas of science.

One students asked, "Can we just do this all day instead of learning?" She almost fell over when the science teacher responded with, "What if you are learning and you don't even know it?" That's the beauty of this kind of experience. Without even realizing it, students are learning about something or someone or somewhere without even realizing it. Their brains are making new connections with the information they already know and students just think they are "playing around" with a cool gadget. Sneaky teachers.

 

 

 

The ever widening gap

The gap. Not very specific I guess since in education we talk about all kinds of gaps. The learning gap. The achievement gap. The accessibility gap. I could go on and on. This gap though, is one that I have not heard discussed at faculty meetings or division wide professional development, at least not here in VA. I've heard it talked about in hushed tones at some edcamps and a few conferences but not out in the open, to the point that I'm not sure it even has a name. I'll just call it the "teacher technology acceptance gap" or TTAG. In most articles I have read about the technology gap or digital divide, the focus is on students being able to access it or teachers wanting it but not having access to it through their school division but that is not what I am talking about at all.


As an educational technology facilitator, I get to see how technology is used in lots of different classrooms, I talk with teachers about technology use and work closely with them on implementing it into instruction. What I have observed is an ever widening gap between the teachers who are willing to give it a try and use the technology, either enthusiastically or hesitantly, and those who flat out refuse to use it unless they absolutely have no choice but would clearly rather be using a worksheet. This isn't a new gap by any means, but I feel like its widening has accelerated in the past 3-4 years.


Previously, there was still not a huge difference between the tech-savvy teacher and the non-tech savvy teacher. Now however, we have teachers going almost or completely paperless, using tools like Onenote to deliver lessons, collect and grade assignments as well as online textbooks and testing tools with immediate student feedback. This now stands in stark contrast to the teacher that wants to stick solely to the textbook, worksheets and multiple choice, hand-graded tests. This gap is becoming more pronounced and causing more interpersonal problems on teams as well because, lets face it, it's hard to make common lesson plans and assessments if you and your content team member are at opposite ends of this spectrum. Not only are we seeing ripples among content and grade level teams but parents are weighing in on it now too as the TTAG is becoming wide enough for them to notice the difference even outside of school. And to be clear, I don't think technology use makes anyone a good teacher or non-use makes anyone a bad teacher, I've seen several instances of quite the opposite.


I have no idea what the fix is, I am just concerned by the ever widening TTAG I'm seeing in my schools and those around me. Some divisions are making it a requirement to use certain technologies beyond the electronic gradebook, some mandate specific programs and others give teacher the autonomy to chose what, if anything works for them and to what degree they want to use it. As a huge fan of using programs and technology that I think fit my classroom and my style the best, I still believe we may be seeing a shift to more required use of technology in the K-12 or at least 6-12 classroom. While some will be thrilled, I see this type of shift causing even deeper divides among educators and worry what the future holds. How will administrators and leaders reconcile the inevitable clash and the aftermath?


I would love to hear perspectives from other educators who have gone through this shift and helped teams work through the minefield of issues that come with requiring teachers to use certain programs. Especially because I see it coming in the future for both my own division and most around the country, it seems inevitable.

Lessons from a quilt show

One of my favorite things in the world is quilting. It combines my love of math and geometry with my creative, artsy side. Its one of the few things that make me feel accomplished, invigorated and relaxed all at the same- I love it. This past weekend I had the chance to go to my first ever quilting festival and it was insane! Rows and rows of the most beautiful quilts I had ever seen. More quilts than I could look at in the several hours I was there.

 

At first I was awestruck. Then I started looking a little more closely, trying to determine just how some of the stitching was done. And that's when I saw it - a wobbly line with uneven stitches. I was shocked! This was a quilt festival full of award-winning quilts and here I was staring at a non-perfect quilt! I was more critical of the next quilt- I noticed all the points weren't matched up just right. I thought about my own quilts.

At first all I see is a thing of beauty, representing hours and hours of hard work. Then I look a little closer and I start to see the mistakes; the dropped stitches, crooked lines and points that have gone askew. Everyone else just sees a beautiful quilt despite its flaws.

That reminded me of how teachers are sometimes. We often get bent out of shape when lessons don't go exactly how we wanted or the wifi goes down and we have to switch gears right in the middle of an activity, most of which are completely out of our control. What other see as a beautiful piece of work, we tear apart in our minds and only focus on the piece we forgot or the kid that talked so much we only got half way through the lesson plan.

Students and other teachers are often in awe of what we are able to accomplish when all we see are the slip-ups. Let's try to all take a minute and look at our day the way others see it; the way we often look at other educators. See how awesome you did at adjusting the plans for the day when the fire alarm when off and took half your math block away. How you dealt so calmly with that defiant child that most students didn't even know you had to have him escorted out by an administrator.

I realized that even award-winning, quilting teachers make quilts with mistakes. That I needed to change my perspective, to stop stressing over the little mistakes and see the overall piece for all its beauty.

 Educators too need to step back from the small hiccups, change their perspective and see how in the big scheme they are making an amazing difference. Most likely there is another teacher looking at you, awestruck with how "perfect" your lessons, your class, your students are. Cut yourself some slack and enjoy all the things that went just right today.

A Little Getting Used To...

This year I left the classroom and began working as an Educational Technology Facilitator for my county. I still get to be in the classroom working with students but its not my space so I don't get a say in the set up or how things are run of course. I knew all this going in and, even though I love the new role I get to play in educating students, I do kind of miss being able to shape the learning environment in my room and see the look on peoples faces when they walk in and see yoga balls and kids sitting on counters and under counters and working in as many different ways as there are students!


Yesterday, though, I walked into a 5th grade classroom and I instantly felt at home. Comfortable. Excited. I saw stability balls atop several desks. I saw desks as short as they could go for kids to sit on the floor. I saw desks as tall as they could go so students could stand up and work. I even saw something I had never seen before- stretchy bands attached to the legs of the desk for students to use when they get fidgety or need to get out some energy. My heart just smiled inside.

When I began talking to Molly Gilbert, the teacher, she said something that reminded me of a similar epiphany I had a few years back. She said, "One day I realized just how often I was telling them to sit still, sit down and stop moving. Then I realized they couldn't!" After that Molly explained how she started bringing in these tools to give her students an outlet for their energy while they worked. We talked about how we are all taught that students have a short attention span and the importance of giving them breaks but how difficult it is to really incorporate those as often as they need with so much content to cover. Molly told me how she is still trying to work out the best option for each student, but how much of a difference it has made in their attention and productivity. All I could do was smile and nod as I remembered the exact same process playing out in my classroom in years past.

As a mom with 3 energetic boys, I am excited to see this kind of change taking place in classrooms. I know for them, in particular, sitting still and quiet for long stretches will bring about nothing but trouble. I can hardly do it as an adult (ever look around during a faculty meeting?) so I know it's hard for them. Seeing rooms like Molly's give me hope that teachers are starting to take to heart all the research we learned about in college but were never taught to implement.

It can be a long process to help kids figure out how they work and learn best but what an amazing gift you are giving them. When you give students power over their learning environment and empower them to use what they need, you are impacting the way they will learn for the rest of their life!

It may take a little getting used to, for both teachers and students, but what a difference it can make!

 

From the newsroom to the classroom

Anyone watch the GOP debates recently? Or the state of the union address? Chances are you did. And if you happened to be following it on twitter you may have also seen how several news stations were using the new Microsoft Pulse to get real time data on how the country was reacting to what was being said. By real time I mean actual real time- not from polling done after the debate or speech but hundreds of thousands of people every second responding and being able to see those results in a graph live on the news. It was incredible! they even broke it up into demographics such as male/female, age groups and political affiliation. Imagine the data they were able to break down just from that night alone?

 Now imagine transferring that to a classroom or an auditorium full of teachers or students? During a lecture you could know in real time how well students are understanding what you are trying to teach them. During professional development you could watch how teachers feel about the usefulness of a new application or technique? Not only that but you can even add in polling questions to send out when you see interest or understanding drop to find out why. You can send out quiz questions at the end to see how much information was actually retained and how much you need to expand next time around. The possibilities are endless in both the classroom and the professional development sides of education.

Microsoft Pulse can be adjusted with varying levels and scales, thumbs up/down, smiley faces and even the meanings can be changed to best suit the feedback you are most looking for. When someone pushes the button for "this is the most useless thing I could be hearing" its pretty clear what they mean. Even young students can respond to a question with a simple smiley face or sad face.

Oh, and its anonymous. So be careful. You may get more honest feedback than expected.  It's what you do with it though that can really make the difference.

Microsoft.com/pulse