Mobile Technologies in Teacher Ed - Chatting with Dr. Diane Burke

I love talking to other people who are passionate about their interests and research---educators who are trying new things, asking pertinent questions, and searching out the answers.  Dr. Diane Burke, Professor Emerita from Keuka College in NY, is exactly that type of person.  Today I am excited to share my interview with Dr. Burke, focusing on her recent research (with several colleagues) regarding mobile technologies in teacher preparation programs.

At the end of this post is the embedded podcast, but below are just a few highlights to heighten your interest and entice you to listen.

• Only four teacher preparation programs that responded to the nationwide survey reported full implementation of mobile technologies across the curriculum.  (I'm not really surprised by this finding---just sad.)
• One of the most important aspects of utilizing mobile technologies in teacher education is about actually utilizing them in lessons, not the devices themselves.  (Who knew that after we actually all bought the devices, that it wouldn't even be about the devices!?!)
• Mobile devices are not a panacea for all the problems in education today, but they are an excellent tool for differentiating instruction.  (If you haven't figured this out yet, there really aren't any panaceas in education.)
• Dr. Burke raises the question---"As teacher preparation programs, is it our job to prepare teachers for what exists now in classrooms?  Or for the future?"  (In other words, not all classrooms have mobile devices yet, but they soon will.)

If you are a teacher educator interested in utilizing mobile technologies in your program, don't miss this interview!  You can find more information about Dr. Burke's research with her colleagues here:

Foulger, T. S., Burke, D., Williams, M. K., Waker, M. L., Hansen, R., & Slykhuis, D. A.  (2013).  Innovators in teacher education:  Diffusing mobile technologies in teacher preparation curriculum.  Journal of Digital Learning in Teacher Education, 30(1), 21-29.

As a follow-up to the study above, an article that specifies which four institutions are fully implementing mobile technologies into their teacher preparation programs with details of how mobile devices are actually used will soon be published.  I got a sneak peek recently, and you don't want to miss it!

I KNEW They Were Out There

I knew they were out there.....other teacher educators who were integrating technology into their courses---some, dare I even say it, flipping their courses as well.  I am here at the Literacy Research Association Conference in Dallas, TX, and I have found several teacher educators who are flipping their courses to make them  more authentic, meaningful, and hands-on.  Some call it inverted instruction; some subscribe to techno-driven, student-focused terminology.  However it's labeled, I am finding other teacher educators who are utilizing digital tools for the direct instruction portion of their courses, so their pre-service teachers are more engaged in the learning process.  This is so exciting!

Here are just a couple of excellent examples in one session I attended yesterday:

- Lisa Zawilinski from the University of Hartford teaches literacy methods courses to pre-service teachers.  She has been flipping her courses for two semesters now.  In addition to screencasting lectures, she has recorded her interpretations of running records, so students can listen to her thought processes as she shows them on the screen to prepare them to enact and analyze their own running records.

- Laurie Henry from the University of Kentucky found herself in a unique situation when she started teaching a course focusing on teaching 21st century learners.  Her students were made up of a combination of pre-service teachers, grad students, and practicing teachers.  She decided this would be just the course to try inverted instruction, so she plunged in enthusiastically.  Since broadcasting the sound of her voice did not particularly appeal to her, she decided to search for resources and utilize the open content available.  The majority of the videos she used were TEDEd videos of presentations given by experts such as Sir Ken Robinson.  Her students then responded by sketching (print or digital) their interpretations of the videos and other resources they had explored, similar to my own use of blogging as a response (blog entry soon to come), but with the artistic flair.  These sketches acted as discussion starters for the in-class portions of the class.  

- Kim Richard from Saint Joseph College has been flipping her literacy methods courses over the course of the last year.  She started her research with a survey and periodically checked in with students to inquire about their reactions to the new model (similar to the podcast interviews of my own students).  She shared how her students valued the personal nature of their relationships with her and each other as they were interacting more and building social, collaborative relationships with all of the hands-on, meaningful in-class activities.  Kim even shared that she was NOT the most technologically savvy instructor at the outset of this research, but her openness with this aspect endeared her to students as they worked through difficulties together.  

These are just a few of the teacher educators who are utilizing the flipped classroom model to create more student-centric classrooms, giving pre-service teachers the experience of engaged learning, so hopefully, just maybe, they will choose to create a similar environment in their own future classrooms.

Podcasting Students' Perspectives

Remember when I talked about utilizing the flipped classroom model in my teacher education courses?  Well, I decided to make the most of my journey into technology integration and ask my students what they thought about how our semester has gone so far.  Since we only have two weeks of the Fall 2013 semester left, I thought it was the right time to get feedback on my research into the world of flipped teacher education courses.

First, I sent a message to all of the students in both of my social studies methods courses to ask for volunteers to be interviewed on my podcast.  Yes, I know what you are thinking---volunteers will undoubtedly be overwhelmingly positive in their responses because I know who they are AND I give the grades.  However, I have a good relationship with my students, and I do believe they understand my desire for constructive, truthful feedback so I can adapt this model for the future. For those who volunteered, I sent the interview questions beforehand, so they could be calm and prepared without many overly-long pauses and "ums" thrown in.  Armed with my questions, a script (I HAVE to be prepared....just to think through the process, not to actually read word-for-word), and my podcasting equipment (Google Hangouts--minus the video---and podcastpeople.com), I was excited and ready to go!  This would be my first foray into the podcasting world as well.

Side note:  By the way, I plan on writing a whole different blog post about using Google Hangouts and PodcastPeople.com to produce podcasts, but for now, I will focus on the highlights of my students' feedback.

The three podcasts in full are embedded at the end of this post.

Student Responses
Students' reactions to the flipped classroom model were overwhelmingly positive as I correctly predicted above, but their detailed answers are very perceptive and worth mentioning.  Ranging from skeptical to not much experience at all to pretty comfortable, my students' attitudes toward technology ran the gamut of possible answers, so for each of them to end this semester with a higher comfort level and a determination to integrate technology into their own future classrooms was nothing short of phenomenal.

Listening to the students' responses, you will hear about the merits of peer collaboration, student-directed learning, individualized learning, and student engagement.  They also discuss how technology integration added depth to lessons, enabled them to utilize higher order thinking skills in class, and created excitement and passion about content---which, let's face it, are not ways that pre-service elementary education majors usually talk about social studies content, right?

This experience has definitely surpassed anything I could have dreamed when I made the decision to take the leap of faith and change the pedagogical approach in my teacher education courses.  Please listen to the podcasts below, ignoring my amateurish podcasting snafus, as my students share their heightened level of comfort with technology, specifics about the value of projects completed in the courses, and new positive outlook on using technology in their own future classrooms.  They also share the challenges faced throughout the semester and suggestions for professors who plan to utilize the flipped classroom model in their own teacher education courses.

I want to especially thank Beka, Hannah, and Mary Catherine for taking time to give this valuable feedback and participate in my podcast interviews. Thank you for taking time out of your busy schedules right before Thanksgiving Break.

For those teacher educators who are reading and listening, please consider which aspects of this model might work in your own courses.  Think about the student engagement and outcomes that are possible.

Happy listening!  Leave a comment about the podcasts and any questions you might have.
Jennifer

Caution:  The quality of the first podcast is not superior.  It helps to turn up the volume substantially to hear Beka as she shares.  Her responses are worth it.

Snagit: Your Teach-from-Anywhere Tool

Since I've started writing this blog, I have noticed how many different tools I have started to use in my own teaching on a daily basis.  Even though I knew I was learning about new tools all the time, I didn't really realize how integral some of them were becoming to my everyday professional life.

The one that I'm sharing today has become one of my favorite because its impact is far-reaching with very little investment on my end.  Have you ever had a question that you just needed to "see" someone answer?  The 21st century learner is so visual, and many of the questions I answer, especially in my Technology for Educators course, are about how to do something on the computer.

The tool I use to answer all of those "how-to" questions is Snagit, a screencasting tool developed by Techsmith.  It is such a timesaver, and I love......well, since I started the top 10 with the Livebinders post, I think I will keep that theme going.

Here are the Top 10 Reasons I Love Snagit (not in any particular order):

10.  Individualized learning and differentiation - This tool is the ultimate in personalized learning.  If students need help with something, they can watch the video of my actually doing the process.  If they don't need help, they can choose to ignore the video, try on their own, or watch the video AFTER attempting.  It's all up to them.  See below the video I made about creating the top navigational bars on the website project that all my students do in the Technology for Educators course that I'm presently teaching.  I then embedded this video in the course website that was created for this specific course which houses all the session readings and other materials.

    

9.  Connect with students - Snagit makes it possible for me to make a connection to my students when they listen to my voice as I explain a process.  This personally connects me to them in a way that an explanation with text-only could not do.  Even though this article is talking about audio/video feedback on assignments mainly, it's the same principle.  In online situations in which students can't see my body language or facial expressions, my voice helps them to stay connected.

8.  Ease of use - I cannot believe how easy Snagit is to use.  After installing it on my computer, all I have to do is.....wait, what I am doing typing all of this?  I'll just show you.  Actually, I made a video for one of my small group members in my Nature of Literacy in a Digital World course about how to make a Snagit video.  It's not very good quality (I'll probably go back and redo this one, just so I can feel good about sharing it) because my son recorded what I was doing on my iPad as I was making a video, but you will get the picture.

7.  Quick to use - I cannot believe how much quicker it is for me to answer students' questions.  Most of the videos I create are around 3-4 minutes long.  Before, it would have taken me at least 10 minutes to type out everything I now communicate in a video, usually because I would have to go through the process myself as I was taking notes about each step to ensure that I didn't leave anything out.  Here's one I made about how to change your Blogger template in about 2 minutes.

6.  Right-in-time training - Sometimes students run into problems while creating something for a project that they cannot find the answer to by searching on their own.  They maybe have searched online for an answer, but still haven't found a solution.  Or, like in the video below, they have hit a problem and are panicking a bit about what to do.  This is where I can give reassurance and training for their specific problem directly from my laptop to theirs.  In the video below, a student is panicking about losing a huge part of her tasks for an assignment, which included a lot of writing.  If you notice in the video, I try to reassure her that not all is lost!

5.  My YouTube channel archives - What I did not realize when I first started using Snagit was that I could upload my videos directly to YouTube.  This has allowed me to create my own archives of helpful videos that are easily searched by my students.  They now can look on my YouTube channel first to see if I've already made a video that answers their question.  It again has been a timesaver!

4.  Video lecture tool - Since flipping my classroom, I have started using Snagit as my video lecture recording tool.  Now for certain class sessions, I record my lectures with the presentation on my screen to prepare my students for our class discussions and projects.  Here's one lecture about multicultural education that I recorded for my social studies methods course.  This allowed our class time to be spent in small group discussions and collaborative projects.

3.  Very reasonably priced - Even though I have not studied the other screencasting tools and researched the prices extensively, I do know that I have gotten my money's worth when it comes to Snagit.  Because I qualify for the education discount (basically anyone in the world of education who is not using Snagit for commercial purposes qualifies), I only paid $14.95 for this fabulous service!  Heck, I pay that in a week for cappuccinos!  (Don't tell my hubby....he thinks caffeine does weird things to me!)  Snagit has been worth every cent!

2.  All-in-One Image Capture tool - There's another tool that comes with Snagit that I haven't used as much, but it's very valuable nonetheless.  The image capture tool allows you to basically cut and paste a portion of your screen, save it as an image, and post it just about anywhere you can upload or post a picture.  I have used it to show my IT guy an error message I was getting, to share a portion of a webpage for my students to analyze the visual elements, and to ask a colleague a question about something I encountered online that was foreign to me.  Here's an image capture of the All-in-One image capture tool that is on every screen on your computer when you install Snagit.  It allows you to capture images or video from everywhere!  I actually cut this one out of the Snagit tutorial on how to use the tool.  

And the #1 reason that I love Snagit is.....

1.  So many other things to try! - Just from this list of tutorials posted on Snagit's site, you can see that there are so many other uses for this incredible tool.  There's everything from annotating with the drawing tools on top of videos or images to adding callouts.  Here's a compiled list of the many ways people use Snagit in lots of different fields.  What to try next?  Hmmm......

I will now reiterate my very first post of this blog when I say----Just Do It!  Just do something.  It doesn't have to be utilizing Snagit, but think about it.  Think about how your students in your class, who are probably future teachers themselves, will respond to your use of this amazing tool.  Maybe it will inspire them to utilize technology tools to teach their own students someday.

If you would like to become a part of a community full of teacher educators who support each other in their use of technology in teacher education courses, join the new Google+ community called Teacher Education and Technology Integration!  I just started this new community today, and I hope that teacher educators everywhere will connect to share what they are doing in their own courses and professional lives.

Come join us!  Happy Tech-ing!
Jennifer    

Google Hangouts - What We Learned (To Do and Not To Do)

Yesterday my social studies methods students participated in a Google Hangout (GH) with other students from Hawaii, Massachusetts, and Sweden---well, we TRIED to participate. If you are cloudy about what Google Hangouts are, here’s an explanation.  Basically, it’s Skype on steroids.  However, sometimes technology struggles can derail the best intentions.  But wait…..I’m getting ahead of myself.  Let me back up and tell you the story. I was so excited when I joined this Google+ community and found out about #eduhangout, which is a sort of hub where teachers can connect with each other to participate in Hangouts together.  In the first day, I was invited to participate in a Hangout with students  about what it means to be a learner in today’s society, how technology impacts their learning, and what it means to be a digital citizen.  I rearranged my planned activities for my social studies methods course, sent out emails to alert students, had my students answer some questions in their blog posts to prepare them for the Hangout, tested out the equipment in the classroom with our IT superhero Neal Cross, and then patiently waited for an invitation. The invitation did not come until 12:35pm, and the Hangout was scheduled to start at 12:40pm.  That was a little unnerving for me.  I did not realize that this was the first time our moderator had hosted a Hangout.  But I loved her enthusiasm, perseverance, and risk-taking!  Below you will see the insightful wisdom that was revealed in the discussion with my pre-service teachers that followed the Hangout.  My students did a wonderful job of evaluating the experience and critically thinking about the value of these types of activities in the classroom. Here are some of the struggles and what we learned:

• Google Hangout vs. Hangouts on Air (HOA)- A regular Hangout is not recorded, but the Hangouts on Air are.  We started out in Hangout, but the moderator wanted it to be recorded so she had to send different invitations after we had already signed in to GH.
• Lesson: Know which one you want to do and plan accordingly.
• Audio components - With so many people participating in the HOA, the audio was a challenge. People were talking all at the same time.  The echo in the background of a person’s voice being heard over several different systems was very distracting.
• Lesson: People who are not speaking need to mute their audio.  This would alleviate the echo problem, but it does cause another issue---who talks when? (See below)
• Discussion expectations - Managing the discussion was difficult when expectations were not established beforehand (although the essential questions were distributed, which helped my students prepare).  After the initial audio issues were somewhat resolved, students were asked questions, and a student took over the moderation of the conversation.  The students spent a lot of time trying to figure out who was going to talk.
• Lesson:  Established discussion expectations beforehand.  Develop a procedure for “calling on” students to talk, especially if everyone except the speaker has their audio muted.  For example, my students said that the moderator could have had everyone bring a certain colored index card and hold it up when they wanted to contribute.  Then the moderator could acknowledge that student to let him/her speak.
• Chat function - Since HOA has a chat function, I used it throughout the session to ask questions or give feedback for some of the issues we were experiencing, but not everyone in the HOA enabled the chat feature.
• Lesson:  Instruct all participants to sign in to the chat feature, so they can either give feedback about problems or ask questions while another student is talking.  It can be used as a backchannel conversation similar to Today's Meet.

Even though participating in this Google Hangout on Air was somewhat frustrating, my students learned a lot about integrating this tool into their own classrooms.  They critically evaluated the usefulness and realized the preparation that needs to go into utilizing technology tools for learning.  They also saw that taking a risk and persevering are important characteristics for a teacher who wants to give his/her students the best education possible utilizing technology tools that are available. 

For me, being up in front of the class as we were struggling with the procedure parts of the whole activity, I am proud to say that I did not get flustered.  I trouble-shooted (not sure if that’s really a word), gave suggestions, listened to my students’ suggestions, and stayed calm.  This was definitely a learning experience that my students will not soon forget.  I was very worried that seeing the difficulties involved in participating would deter my own students from using these in their future classrooms.  But one of my teachers-to-be alleviated all my fears when she said as we were leaving, “Mrs. Fox, when WE host a Google Hangout, I think we should………”  That’s music to a technology-pushing, critical-thinking focused, student-centered teacher’s ears!

How could YOU use Google Hangouts in YOUR instruction?

Join the conversation in my new Google+ community called Teacher Education and Technology Integration!
Happy Tech-ing!
Jennifer

Using Livebinders to Curate Resources

Have you ever found yourself searching for resources, copying the URL and emailing to yourself, and then filing those emails away in a folder in your inbox, never to find them again?  That was me until I heard of Livebinders.  What are these Livebinders, you say?  Just wait....

My first encounter with Livebinders (LB's) occurred while helping my colleagues prepare for a beginning teacher workshop.  The topic focused on how to utilize technology in the classroom to stay organized and on top of changes.  During the workshop, the beginning teachers visited several different mini-sessions highlighting technology tools for students, organizational tools for teachers, and hands-on practice in the computer lab (we hadn't even heard of iPad carts yet!).  

When I arrived to help in the computer lab, I was amazed to find what looked like an online 3-ring binder already loaded and ready to go on every computer.  This technology tool---this ingenious, but very simple tool---was Dr. J's choice to organize (and showcase) her collection of favorite technology applications.  I thought the tools were helpful and interesting, but what I really loved was the LB itself!

Okay, enough suspense....Livebinders are just what they sound like---online, living, breathing organizational tools to curate resources for just about anything.  You can set up tabs and subtabs in each binder and add websites, presentations, documents, pictures, videos, and just about anything else you can find on the Internet to one easily organized central location.  So do you want to know why I like them so much?  What's so great about an online binder?  Well, let me tell you......

I love top 10 lists (ala David Letterman---but a lot cleaner)!  So, here we go!

Livebinders Top 10 Favorite Things  

10.  Since Livebinders is a cloud-based platform, you can either link a specific Livebinder or even embed it in a website to share with others.  Anytime you update your binder, the link is automatically updated.
9.  Create as many LB's as you want.  (I have over 40 of my own--eek!  A little obsessed?)
8.  Easily collaborate with others by adding them as collaborators by using the email account they used to sign up for LB to invite them.
7.  Make your LB public to share your ideas or keep them private for yourself.  Here's one created by Mrs. B that houses Web 2.0 Tools.
6.  Add explanations beside the linked tabs to either remind yourself of the resource's use or as a way to communicate with your collaborators.  Click on some tabs in this Livebinder to see an example.
5.  Customize the tabs, subtabs, backgrounds, etc. with colors, patterns, and graphics.
4.  Create shelves of binders that go together.  Here's a website created by one of my students that has her LB shelf embedded.
3.  Have students create their own LB's to collect resources for a research project.  
2.  You can even have a binder of Livebinders!  Since LB's are identified by links, you can actually create a LB of all your favorite LB's.  Check out this one I made in only 10 minutes of Web 2.0 Resources.

And my #1 Favorite Thing about LB's is...............(drumroll please!)......

1.  You can add the Livebinder It tool to your web browser and add resources directly to a specific Livebinder without having the Livebinder site open!  This makes it so convenient to search and save.

Livebinders in My Classroom

Ever since that first encounter, I have used LB's in my professional life in a myriad of ways.  That might be a subject for another post, but I will focus the rest of this post on how I use them specifically in my courses as assignments.  I teach courses in the department of education in elementary social sciences methods, content area literacy, middle school literacy, and technology for educators, among others.  Below you will find two examples of how I introduce this wonderful tool to my pre-service teachers.  

In Teaching Social Sciences I, students create a State History LB to house resources associated with the teaching of Missouri History (or other state if they choose).  They collect resources in the following categories:  Historical Events, Famous People, The Arts, People of Different Ethnic Backgrounds, Books, and Songs and Poetry.  Students also add ways to teach with these resources as comments throughout the tabs.  Here's a fantastic example from one of my students.

In Teaching Social Sciences II, students create nine Month Resource LB's to collect ideas for each month of the school year pertaining to holidays, special occasions, and other interesting finds they want to keep.  Each LB contains Lesson Plan Ideas, Bulletin Board Ideas, Arts Activities, Kitchen Fun, and Children's Books. Here's an example of a whole Month Resource LB's shelf from one of my students.

I have never heard such positive feedback from an assignment as I have after students have created these LB's.  At first, they seem daunting, but several students have shared their intent to continue using them throughout their teaching career.  That's one of my favorite things about teaching future teachers---my ability to introduce them to new methods of teaching, new technology tools, and other resources, so they can impact their own students some day.

So my challenge to you is this........think about your work and the assignments in your courses right now.  Is Livebinders something that you could utilize either personally, professionally, or for an assignment for your students?  Introduce them to this fantastic resource and watch the ideas start flowing!  

Leave a comment to tell me how you plan to use Livebinders!

Jennifer      

Just Do It!

"I can honestly say this is the first course that has anything to do with social studies that I know without a doubt that I will remember because of......."  This was a recent statement by one of my pre-service teachers in my social studies methods course as we were discussing strategic instruction in social studies.  Do you want to guess how her sentence ended?  Let me give you some choices......(1) reading the textbook, (2) answering the questions at the end of the chapter, or (3) writing all of the vocabulary words with definitions three times each?  None of the above!  (Okay, that was a trick question, but I now know I have your attention.)

She ended her statement with ".....all the blogging, the exploration of resources before class, and the small group discussions we are having."  You cannot imagine the thrill that ran through me as she shared that reflection openly in our whole group sharing time!  I then knew that I had stumbled upon a teaching method that not only helps my students learn and become excited about teaching social studies (which they had shared at the beginning of the semester was something they almost dread), but also has revitalized me as an educator myself.

Do you want to know about the magic?  It's called the flipped classroom model with a little BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) thrown in.  Students in my Teaching Social Sciences methods courses read portions of the chapter in their textbook, explore resources (websites, videos, podcasts) that I have posted on our course website, and blog about their learning.  I give them guiding questions to give purpose to their exploration, but they have a lot of autonomy in what they blog about.  I can easily see their connections, read about their Aha! moments, and know how they plan on using their new knowledge in their own future classrooms.

I first learned about the flipped classroom model at the Celebration of Teaching Conference at the University of Missouri right after the close of the Spring 2013 semester.  I listened as presenters shared how they empowered students to be in charge of their own learning.  I had long been an advocate of student-centered instruction, but to hear those professors discuss how students were actively involved in discussions, projects, and problem-solving DURING class instead of OUTSIDE of class prompted me to analyze my own courses to see how to reorganize them to explore this new method.

This is the first in a (hopefully) long line of posts to document my journey to integrate technology into all of my university courses.  I would love to hear from other teacher educators and classroom teachers that integrate technology into their classes as well.  I look forward to sharing my experiences and learning from you as well!

Stay tuned for my weekly update.  I plan on posting each Friday.....you'll never know what I'll talk about next!