Futuring

How would you “grade” or assess Fox Becomes a Better Person, and School Train?

Good assessment begins with knowing the learning targets that were set for students during a project. Assessment can really only be discussed in the context of these learning targets. For example, if there were a number of learning targets for the School Train project, including “Learn to combine images and audio into a video file to document learning” and “Learn to develop a metaphor” then this project was probably successful. If the goal was simply to learn to develop metaphors, the project may be considered unsuccessful. Technology is useful when it serves educational goals; technology can become an obstacle when it becomes the focus of learning unintentionally. Students should learn through technology, not about technology (for the most part). Fox Becomes a Better Person clearly shows a girl who has learned a story, and is developing her skills as a storyteller. From watching the video without any other context, it is difficult to know how much progress Hannah or her peers made towards any specific learning goals. I would want to ask whether this story was new to Hannah, what she struggled with, and what she learned in the process of making the video.


What impacts could the developments portrayed in epic2015 have on your classroom, particularly with respect to things like podcasting?

Technology has been changing society for many years, at a rapidly growing rate. But there are some things that remain constant. One of those is the distinction between information and how we use it. For example, one of the more meaningful changes brought about by changing new technology is the ability of ordinary users to create content. Any number of technological developments have allowed learners to create more interesting products. Calculators were seen by many educators as threats to learning before they were seen as tools that could facilitate a focus on higher-level thinking. Many teachers still pass on an unconscious notion that using a calculator is cheating. Similarly, ipods can be seen as a threat to education or a tool for sharing original thought. An important criteria for determining whether ipods are being used appropriately in education is quality of content. If students are creating quality work and a podcast enables their work to be shared with a wider audience, we are serving students well. If the prospect of making a podcast motivates students to produce high-quality work, we serve them well. But when we focus on podcasts for their own sake and share low-quality content, we are simply adding digital noise to an already information-overloaded society.


How might you use SabrinaJourney as a model for something you would do with your own students?

The pedagogical importance of Sabrina's Journey is the effective documentation and communication of a person's story. Her story is autobiographical, but the story could be one of a meaningful class project. I am currently teaching students to rebuild computers that have been donated to the school from the community. These are computers that individuals and agencies have retired, but are still functional. We are re-installing the operating systems on the computers, and setting them up for specific purposes. As we continue to define this program, we may want to tell the story of our work to a larger audience. A video format may serve this purpose well.

Introduction

Hello everyone. I have been a teacher for eleven years. I taught four years of middle school science in the Bronx, three years of middle school math in northern Manhattan, and I am on my fifth year of teaching math and science at Pacific High School in Sitka. If I could keep only one piece of technology in my classroom, it would be a document camera. The ability to allow any student, at any time, to show their work immediately to the rest of the class is wonderful. This sharing of ideas moves people forward and celebrates successes every day.