You can just go to . . . !

[EDIM 516: Unit 1]

“Go to” resources for me --- outside of standard textbooks & reading packets --- include anything that fits the curricula. But, finding that “anything” can become a drawn-out chore. I’ve often spent hours trawling Youtube, Vines, Netflix, Soundcloud, DVD’s, Schoology Groups, etc., for just the right app or resource. I don’t (usually) begrudge the hours spent because it’s most often like a treasure hunt; fun entertaining downtime. But, it does still take time, sometimes more than others.

I teach what you might consider non-traditional courses, ethics & inter-religious dialogue, in a high-end, Catholic, college-prep high school. And, unfortunately, I’ve found that most of what you can find on the internet comes from the lunatic fringe, left or right wing, it doesn’t matter. The bias is just so hard to balance that it strikes most items off the menu. So, many of my teaching resources are ones that I’ve created, borrowed, or adapted from things shared in my PLN.

My colleagues at Fenwick are a rich source of professional support. I’m blessed to be a member of a faculty that regularly meets for professional development. We hear one another’s success stories, rosy-cheeked failures, & projects in progress. The theology faculty is particularly adventuresome. They’re a tech savvy bunch, more than ready to share a latest enthusiasm --- often ad nauseam! :)

The greatest challenges that I’ve found come from those few faculty who fear & resist the necessary move toward intelligently integrating technology into instruction. Some few are Luddites, some are just plain stubborn & don’t want to learn new tricks. Another, even more surprising challenge, comes from the students themselves. Until recently, their entire experience of education has been feet flat on the floor, face front, take notes, & pay attention to the talking head in front of the room. They don’t want to re-learn how to learn & to succeed. A less common, but not uncommon challenge, comes from parents suspicious of LMS’s, dropboxes, online discussions, & flipping classrooms.

So, I rely on what I have. I create what I don’t, or (even better) borrow it from friends. I respond to challenges ad hoc, while trying to use technologies in the classroom in ways that forward teaching goals, enhance instruction, and enable authentic learning.

Don't I know you?

EDIM 516 [Introduction]

Hello, Colleagues!

I don't have a webcam, so I thought that the next best thing would be an audio intro. Please pardon the snorting & snuffling . . . I'm just getting over a Chicago-cold.

Doug.
Audio recording and upload >>

Why the Divine Comedy?  The world behind the world of the Divine Comedy, 16^th century Italy, is a lot like our own.  But, the religious worldview is something so foreign that it is incomprehensible. The goal of the lessons on the Divine Comedy is to help students to understand and to critique received beliefs about the afterlife, so that they can intelligently integrate what is actually known about the afterlife into their religious worldview today.

I hope to help students to develop their respectful mind by helping them to see how an idea that takes shape in one historical period, in one culture, can affect what we think and what we believe today.  So, rather than be tempted to ignore what Dante has to teach us about the nature of good and evil, which is couched in the language and thought forms of his era, they might retrieve and make practical use of the wisdom of a former age.

The Divine Comedy is a study in morality and ethics.  In the Inferno, Dante teaches us how to recognize evil in all its grotesquerie; in the Purgatorio, how to atone for it; and in the Paradiso, the goal of human striving.  Human beings, whether religious or not, often delude ourselves about the quality of our actions.  Dante allows us to suffer none of our own best illusions about evil, or about good.  These are lessons that all might benefit from today as we attempt to lead ethical lives.

The padlet “wall” contains (almost) all of the resources that I would use to teach Dante, The Divine Comedy.  I included links to introductory lectures, online texts in the original Tuscan and several English translations, various maps, and the iconic art of Dore. There is also an audio file of the nine most famous lines of the Inferno, i.e., Canto III, Lines 1-9, Abandon all hope . . . , and a <.pdf> that introduces students to the metaphysics of good and evil.

I used padlet because it has a lot of bang for the buck. It is very simple to use.  Just double-click, type, and use the command ribbon to create --- in this case --- an archive.  Ours includes uploaded texts, audio files, and links to online resources.  Padlet also has a webcam feature, but I am not sure why a selfie might be useful.  Padlet also provides exceptional technical support.  The only thing I found that I could not do was to embed a padlet within a padlet.  You have to settle for a link.

My students are currently using the padlet as personal and group archives for a research project.  Their final deliverable will be a completed padlet archive, bibliography, and link to a multimedia presentation.  The padlet will help them to put it all together in one place.

Created with Padlet

“What fresh hell can this be?” ~ Dorothy Parker

This assignment was a bit challenging at the start. I had first to learn what “video blog”meant. I had in mind the short videos that Beyonce made with a camcorder each night while on tour, which I think is called a “vlog.” I was glad to learn that the “video blog” has a few different forms because I just do not like being on video; I’m not such of a fan of photos, either. Don’t ask me why, because I don’t know! :)

I dawdled for a long time trying to decide which web-based apps to use. There are so many & I am just familiar enough with enough of them to make the choice tricky. I finally decided to use Prezi for presentation, and Vocaroo to record the audio.

Prezi has a rather steep learning curve. But, if you spend an afternoon watching Prezi's Official Tutorials on Youtube, you’ll find that it’s not as hard to use as you might first think. There are only two things that I’ve found to be a bit irritating about it. There just aren’t enough templates to choose from. I typically just start from scratch, but I was lucky to find one that met the design needs of this project. It’s also a bit of a bother that you have to record an .mp3 for each “zoom.” But, adding them is really quite easy.

I used Vocaroo to record audio files. It’s straightforward & easy to use. It provides an unvarnished recording, so if you want to make edits, e.g., cuts, noise reduction, background music, etc.,  you’ll have to use something like Audacity, or GarageBand.

The most time-intensive part of this project was creating a script. Sourcing & creating the Prezi took two - three hours. I finished the .mp3’s in under an hour with Vocaroo.

Google Image: http://linkyy.com/omF.

Ornery. I will begin by being a bit ornery. I do not think that our world is “flat.” It may be flattening, but it will be a very long time before it is pancaked. I doubt that it will ever be truly flat, and I am not so sure that a flat world would be an unmitigated good. I do not like the metaphor because I think that it is misleading. Setting metaphor to one side, to say that the world is “flat” is actually very appealing, perhaps even rhetorically compelling. However, to correctly describe the inspiration and to identify the goals of education in the digital age, we should turn the rhetoric of “flat” down a notch, or even abandon it altogether.

Thomas Friedman (2005) describes how technology has “flattened” the world. He correctly suggests that technology has opened up new possibilities for wider participation in commerce, sharing intellectual capital, and creating new mechanisms of cross and transcultural exchange that were previously impossible. He more than hints at the challenge and promise of such flattening outside commerce. While technology has caused tectonic shifts in influence and power, it is premature to describe the world as flat, especially in such a fundamental field as education.

Using Skype to connect classrooms internationally is genius (Roscorla, 2010). The Read Across America initiative is similarly inspired (Roscorla, 2014). Thinking back to 8th grade French I, Skype would have helped me to learn the language in a more intuitive way, paradigms be darned! Coming from small town Virginia, Read Across America would have helped me to appreciate the complexity of “American” culture(s) as a young reader. Julie Lindsay’s webpage describes, “Flat Connections,” as an initiative that seeks to “join[...] learners with the purpose of ‘learning while doing’ in a global context,” by “providing resources, skills, strategies and access to learning about the world, with the world.” Geography would have been much more relevant in middle school had we actually done something practical, instead of memorizing country names and GDP’s. “Connected Classrooms” provides virtual field trips that, “bring the world into your classroom with Google+.” How different would my students today think of Islam apart from the nightly news? But, would any of these “flatten”our worlds? No. These would make them more resemble a mountain of challenge and possibility, more of a hopeful dream than a walk across a baseball diamond.

Is the world flat? No. Will it ever be flat? I hope the heck not! The risk run by flattening is just too great because it threatens to homogenize language, culture, and religion while offering a bland, facile, transparent sense of mutual understanding.

Touching upon the other issue: have I tried to foster students’ respectful and ethical minds? Well, I teach Christian Morality and Comparative Religion. But, this is no guarantee that I meet Gardner’s challenge. In fact, I have known teachers so blinded by partisan commitments and ideology that authentic instruction and learning in these subjects was all but impossible. The world may not be as one wants it, but at least we need to show our students an accurate picture. Questioned, no, interrogated by one such teacher about my own pedagogical practice, I replied that I teach students how to do theology, not how to memorize a catechism.

Google Image:
http://linkyy.com/omG

Righteous indignation aside, given the overwhelming amount of available resources, it is not very difficult to promote collaboration in a ways that foster the respectful and ethical minds. For example, students in my Comparative Religion class are required to prepare “nonlinear, multi-media infused” presentations for their final project. They are given a choice of subjects to research, e.g., human origins and ends; cosmology; ethics; religious architecture and arts; liturgical expression. After choosing a topic, they study it from Western (transcendental, objective) and Eastern (immanent, subjective) perspectives. The goal is more than descriptive, it requires that students approach the topic from a critical perspective. Two of the most memorable projects included what we would today call “line dances” from traditional cultures, and ethnic food prepared in the classroom. Show us the curry, or feed us the curry --- which would you prefer?

The world is not flat. If it were, I would be able to get my curry easily and without bother. Having to seek it makes it much more tasty.

Sources Consulted

Online Texts

Friedman, T. (2005, April 3). It’s a flat world, afterall. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://linkyy.com/omA.

Roscorla, T. (2010, March 17). Skype connects classrooms around the world. Center for Digital Education. Retrieved from http://linkyy.com/omB.

Roscorla, T. (2014, February 18). Elementary school classes plan to read across America with Google Hangouts. Center for Digital Education. Retrieved from http://linkyy.com/omC.

Websites

Flat Connections: http://linkyy.com/omE.

Google Connected Classrooms: http://linkyy.com/omD.

Do schools kill creativity? You betcha! I remember having to write a letter that included a map and explained how I found a buried treasure. I was in the third or fourth grade. In the movies, the maps were old, crinkled, and torn. So, I balled up my letter to wrinkle it and tore the edges a bit. The teacher did not like it at all. The worst part was that she was of the school that used shame to motivate students. My work was posted on the “Dummy Board.” I do not remember her name --- I do not even remember what she looked like --- but I do remember that she was mean. One of the only positive things about moving around so much as a kid was that I did not stay in that school for long.

Robinson says that “all kids have talents. And we squander them rather ruthlessly” (2006). A cynic might hear this and think it to be just another attempt to celebrate false achievement and promote mediocrity. But, you have to listen to Robinson, you have to study and to consider his theses in light of personal experience. Lucky the one who does not have the types of experience for which his critique is true.

Students need to be allowed to make creative mistakes and to create mistakes. Indeed, it might be a good thing for teachers to lead students down the primrose path right into them, if it would help that particular student to learn.

Creativity requires lots of mistakes; it is something that we grow out of, not into. When I look into childhood and consider the outrageous things that I did, and compare it with rather bland high school and college years, I am even more convinced that we do, by and large, educate students out of creativity. Who knew that you were not “supposed” to go trick-or-treating in July? I went when I found the last year’s clown costume and orange, plastic pumpkin in a toy box. Our neighbors had a good laugh, but Mom was not pleased. Still, I did get an apple and a can of soup. No candy.

Robinson describes intelligence as diverse, dynamic, and distinct (2006). Diverse, in that individuals think in characteristic ways, some are verbal, others visual; some think in practical terms, others are more comfortable in the ether of the abstract. Human intelligence is also dynamic because ideas come through the rich interaction of different learning styles, and different disciplinary ways of defining some reality, not to mention the non-linear processes of the brain. Intelligence is also distinct. It is unique and inescapably subjective from person to person.

These ideas set up deep resonances with Gardner’s claims about the “five minds.” Here I will discuss the disciplined and creative minds. To help students develop disciplined minds requires teaching strategies that offer students with diverse learning styles a variety of “entry points” into subject matter. Genuine assessment is based upon an authentic evaluation of the various “performances of understanding” based upon points of entry (Gardner, p. 34).

The creative mind emerges, blends with, builds upon the disciplined mind, which has begun to master a discipline such that one’s knowledge, “exerts a genuine, detectable influence on subsequent work in that domain” (p. 81). I would argue that “detectable influence” does not need to revolutionize a discipline from within, or to be accepted by a wide audience. Genius is first experienced locally, and it may stay there, and that is fine. For example, a teacher might have found a particularly effective way to teach a certain topic. It is not necessary that the teacher’s contribution be recognized outside of the four walls of her classroom. Creativity is, after all, singular, or what Robinson would call “distinct.”

Gardner argues that, “the ability to knit together information from disparate sources into a coherent whole is vital today” (p. 46). Cultivating and nourishing a genuine and vital creativity among our students is one way to gather the garment.

A robust creativity can then bloom from happiness. Csikszentmihalyi asks, “where --- in everyday life, in our normal experience --- do we feel really happy” (2004)? Happiness emerges when one is in a state of ecstasy, “when you are involved in [a] completely engaging process of creating something new.”

Csikszentmihalyi describes a subjective experience of time suspended. He does not use this term, but I think that he is describing those moments in our lives when the awareness of change ceases, when the eternal becomes an amuse bouche. This transtemporal experience the Greek’s called “kairos.” Happiness leads to ecstasy (and, kairos?) which turns into “flow,” those moments of complete absorption, when one’s highly developed talents are challenged by most challenging tasks.

Digital media and technology provide needed tools to bring our students’ innate creativity, no matter how bruised, to life. In a 2010 TED talk, Robinson says that education “dislocates very many people from their natural talents.” To overcome this dislocation requires that we abandon the notion of linearity, which says that true learning proceeds in step-by-step fashion. It also demands that we not only embrace, but also learn to respect an undeniable reality: “human talent is tremendously diverse. People have very different aptitudes” (Robinson, 2010).

Linearity is not too difficult to avoid using digital / social media and technology. Discovering (unfortunately) hidden talents might be a bit more of a challenge, given their early burial.

An art teacher might teach a unit on ancient Greek architecture and music. Here are the characteristics of Corinthian columns. Here are photos of Corinthian columns in the architecture of Oak Park, IL. Design a column using, e.g., Paper53, that accomplishes the same engineering and aesthetic principles.

A music teacher might teach a unit about some of the characteristic modes of ancient Greek music, e.g., Ionian, Doric, and Phrygian. Listen to these recordings / experience these performances of the aulos, lyre, and kithara. Are there any musicians in the classroom? Can you find examples of these modes in the music that you listen to? What "modes" do we typically use today? Could you mount a performance using Greek modes and today's instruments that address some need in contemporary American culture, and record it as an .mp3, or .mp4?

Teachers need and should not completely abandon linearity --- basic content delivery demands a systematic, first presentation of ideas, concepts, etc. [N.B.: Robinson does not suggest that we do]. In fact, the very structure of human life is narrative, it is story --- first this happened, then this, then this. But, within the limits of linearity, one experiences the nonlinear, which opens up vast possibilities for transcendence.

Education strategies, curricula, and teachers have historically, however unwittingly, damaged students’ innate capacity for creativity. Diagnosing the damage helps us develop a digital prescription for a cure.

Sources

Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2004, February). Flow, the secret of happiness [Video file]. Retrieved from http://linkyy.com/okW.

Gardner, H. (2009, January 6). Five minds for the future [Kindle version]. Retrieved from http://amazon.com.

Robinson, K. (2006, February). How schools kill creativity [Video file]. Retrieved from http://linkyy.com/okU.

Robinson, K. (2010, February). Bring on the learning revolution! [Video file]. Retrieved from http://linkyy.com/okV.

Image

Stomp, Google Image: http://linkyy.com/okT

Flow, Google Image: http://linkyy.com/okX

One of the issues that occupies more of my attention than it should --- perhaps --- is the reluctance, refusal, or fear that many of my colleagues have regarding the use of digital / social media and technology in the classroom.

OK, already, I get it! Prensky’s “digital immigrants” were not teethed on the stuff and were not taught to teach with it. But, did they know how to use the super-advanced copy machines in the faculty work room before they got in front of them and started pushing the buttons? These copiers are so advanced that you could take over a small country with them!

OK, already, I don’t get it! To be fair, they are teaching how they were taught to teach. It is familiar, comfortable, tried and true. But, does it address the needs of our “digital natives?” The rhetoric of commitment to the needs of our students falls short of some teachers’ willingness to go out on a limb, to climb the learning curve, etc., when it comes to learning how to use new technologies and new pedagogical techniques.

I designed the Smore for this week’s, “Spolight on Strategy,” with this reality in mind. I wanted to address teachers’ reluctance, refusal, fear, etc., by helping them to begin to think through a sample project. I titled it, “A Digital Twist: Rethinking the Research Paper.” The basic idea is to start with something known, and then to show how to “twist” it into something new. “Something old, something new, . . . etc.”

The Smore contains just enough detail to get them started thinking. I did not want to overwhelm. We are going to do more intensive professional development as we enter the second year of a 1:1 iPad roll out. And, I plan to use the Smore as a centerpiece for a, “How to,” session, along with examples of student digital research papers.  

I have used the this strategy in my own classes with spectacular results! Expecting similar results during the second semester, I am very confident that there will be more than a few new converts among the faculty.

Reference

Prensky, M. (2001, October). Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants. On the Horizon. Retrieved from http://linkyy.com/o9y.

To view the Smore with its original formatting, go to https://www.smore.com/523mm-a-digital-twist