Notes from the session “Understanding by Design and Technology Integration” by Mark Fijor. Presented at the ICE 2010 conference on Friday, February 26.

Wiki link: http://sd25tech.pbworks.com/Understanding-by-Design-and-Tech

Start off with an essential question.  Something that is debatable.

For example, “Can technology really enhance and support standards-based curriculum or is it just a passing fad?”

Determine whether or not technology can enhance and support a standards based curriculum.
Collaborate and identify research tools to complete project.
Determine end product to demonstrate learning.

Use blogs or wikis or online discussion boards to demonstrate learning and wrestle with essential questions.

Fijor’s district uses the Big 6 research method. http://www.big6.com/

Establish the question, identify key search terms, use a resource like Google Scholar to conduct research, and then select end project to demonstrate transfer.

Used Turning Point Anywhere to decide as a group which project format we would use.  Options were Power Point, iMovie, podcast, Prezi, web page.

After the project is complete, students go back and evaluate the presentation against the question and determine if they have to go back and revise their project to answer the essential question entirely.

*My reflection*  It’s obvious that technology can play a big role in the implementation of Understanding by Design.  The most difficult part that I’m not sure we addressed in this session is the process of transfer.  Creating a PPT, iMovie, podcast, Prezi, or web page are not necessarily the best opportunities to create transfer.  Transfer is supposed to happen when you take a skill you are learning and demonstrate the ability to use and apply the skill in an unfamiliar situation.  I believe the beginning of the presentation was strong as we discussed essential questions and research, but the most crucial part of the process, transfer, was lacking a bit.

I read a great post by a student in my grad class last week that has me thinking again about the idea of a backchannel.  I wrote about this a while ago, but it seems the topic has surfaced again recently about the value of a backchannel.

The past several conferences I have attended have tried to implement a conference-wide backchannel discussion, and most have failed.  Whether due to poor wifi, poor implementation, or simply lack of interest, it seems to me the idea has started fading a bit.  I don’t know if I think that’s good or bad.

Certainly the story that surfaced this week about the backchannel gone bad at the Web 2.0 Expo is evidence of how this idea can be a complicated matter.  This spurred much discussion on Twitter, and the experience leaves many wondering what is the value in having a simultaneous chat running while a person is presenting his or her ideas.  I still believe, if done well, the chat can add a great deal for both the presenter and the conference attendees.  I really do.  However, as some have noted recently on Twitter and in other conversation spaces, it seems that often times the backchannel fails to connect to the message being presented and breaks down into a virtual cafeteria where the kids are all talking about any and all topics other than the ones being presented.

I found the post above by Michael to be most interesting.  It leaves me wondering what the role of this experience could be in the classroom.  Could it be that if we built this the right way, kids could greatly benefit from the chance of moving from passive listeners to active engagers of what is happening around them?  The idea of allowing students to backchannel during a read aloud is fascinating to me.  It takes courage for teachers to try such a thing, but if, like Michael, the end turns out to yield something of value for students, I think we should try it more.  Allow them the chance to mix their ideas with their peers in a nonconventional way to see what the recipe ends up making.

Maybe it won’t work for your students, or your teachers, or your presentation audience, but I still do believe there’s something to this idea.  It just takes some work and effort to keep the connections aligned with your learning goals, and obviously sometimes we fail at that in our endeavors to get students to invest in their learning through technology.  But if our work with technology does indeed increase student investment, then I say turn on the backchannel and see what you can hear, so to speak.

Thanks to tranchis for the use of the Flickr image.

Yes, this is my gratuitous NECC 2009 reflection post.  There were too many experiences and too many conversations that took place for me not to stop and reflect on the week as I experienced it.

The most noticeable observation I can make is the comparison of experiences from last year’s NECC to this year’s.  Last year was my first, and it was quite honestly an incredibly overwhelming experience.  I felt rather detached and fatigued as I flew out of San Antonio, and I can directly attribute that to how disconnected I was to this community.  I hadn’t yet started my blog, I was only faintly invested in Twitter, and I knew a total of about five people at the conference.  How a year can change everything.

I began my blog in August and have been learning by exponents ever since.  Not long after, I sought to engage in conversation on Twitter.  Again, the learning experiences quickly heaped one atop the other.  And as my learning opportunities increased, so too did my level of connectedness.  I came to NECC this year part of a very strong network- an engaged network who readily struck up conversations that will fill my foreseeable future with countless moments of pondering.

This experience has left me with no doubt that a learning network can be one of the best things any professional can develop.  Engaging the community and building relationships leave one in a place to break the bubble of solitude and grow in entirely unexpected ways.

I also learned what an outstanding experience it is to meet people face to face who you’ve been connecting with exclusively online.

I learned that

-Judi, Anne, Beth, Brady, and Scott M. are tremendous classmates
-Angela is every bit as dynamic in person as she is online
-Jon B. continues to be on my list of people I call friends (I swear the bracelet must have gotten lost in the mail).
-Dean is a crazy good golfer, and I could probably talk to him all day about all things education.
-Karl is in the same category of gentle, entirely wonderful human beings as Paul.
-Paul is an incredible social organizer
-Mike has now seen a baseball game and was the first person I’ve ever known to have a caricature drawn of his dinner rather than himself
-Scott F. is a great guy to hang out with
-Ketchup chips are as good as Dave says they are, and Dave is as good at riding in coach as I am at not making a mess in sessions
-Ken has the voice for radio
-Paula is a person you should know
-I have so, so much to learn
-Kelly is taller than her avatar and has a charming personality to match her charming southern drawl
-Jeff is the man to talk to if you ever get the itch to teach oversees.
-Vinny has an astounding memory
-Andy was missed
-Pat was very busy and had to watch someone eat rabbit
-Jen should have been there
-Jon O. is a master at the art of digital storytelling (something I’ve known for a very long time)
-Hank is a great guy to walk the monuments with
-Tim shares my excitement for digital photography
-Chris is the kind of principal I would work for in a second
-Chad is a great guy despite his love for the Brewers
-Mark is as nice as I thought he was
-Melanie is an outstanding student and a true humanitarian (see sandal fund)
-Cathy, Joe, and Lucy are great company at the airport
-Second Life still creeps me out
-Katie takes advantage of good photo opportunities
-Teryl knows how to have fun on a panel
-I wish I could grow a beard like Steve
-Christine is as nice as any Texan
-John does not cross streets properly
-Steve learned how to properly use the SMART pointer
-Nadine has great style
-Darren thinks I work for Sony
-Sylvia is a great person to converse with
-Scott M. is a person I am proud to call my friend
-I missed my family so much it hurt
-There was no way I could make this list without unintentionally leaving people out; I’m incredibly sorry if I missed you.

All this to say, it’s the people and the connections with each that made this conference one I’m truly glad I attended.

One other observation.  I’m not sure that the future format of a conference should stay as it is.  With our increased level of communication and sense of connectedness, it may well be that the session format needs to be rethought.  Much of what was presented in sessions has been discussed and broadcast at length online.  When such content is so readily available, what is it that gives a conference unique value?  I talked with several people about this, and it’s a topic that absolutely lands on the list of things to keep thinking about, but I wonder if we shouldn’t start looking to incorporate more of an edubloggercon or bar camp construct in the future.  I think this idea requires some vetting, so I’ll leave it open for your consideration as well.

That’s it.  My week in brief.  It was truly an outstanding experience, and I’m better because of the conversations, challenges, and pushes to grow.  Thank you all for that.

Thanks to Erica Marshall for the use of the Flickr image.

Educational technology conferences are strange beasts.  Masses gather to focus and discuss technology, all the while maintaining throughout the discussions that it isn’t about technology.  It creates a rather odd juxtaposition.  I actually really like Ryan Bretag’s statement he made a while back on Twitter that he prefers to go to content-specific conferences rather than technology conferences.  The reason that statement makes so much sense lies in the very nature of what most often transpires at a technology-specific conference.

I attended the Illinois Computer Educators’ conference a few weeks ago, and I was struck by a notable disconnect in almost every session I attended.  In almost every case, the session focused on a tool or on a specific technology devoid of any pedagogy or specific framework of how the said technology impacts a student’s learning experience.  It was quite troubling.  Many highly intelligent people were presenting tools that in essence, became sessions entirely about the tools rather than their implications.  A statement might be made at some point along the way, like, “this is really great for a math class” or perhaps, “you can see how useful this would be in a reading class.”  The problem is, that’s not pedagogy.  It’s not really much of a connection at all, to be honest.  Where’s the needed construct of what makes the technology truly transformative in the learning experience?

If a presenter took the first five minutes of a session to truly frame the discussion and base it entirely on a specific student learning skill, or set of skills, I believe the technology conference experience would be made much more powerful for attending teachers.  As it currently stands, a general classroom teacher enters a sessions, gets bludgeoned by a series of tools or applications, and then is left to leave the session dizzied and potentially disoriented as he or she attempts to draw a correlation between the dazzling tool just demonstrated and the learning experience he or she wants to afford students.  What if a presenter focused at the outset on foundational learning skills?  I don’t mean necessarily specific teaching content like math or social studies, but rather skills we know students need to be engaging in to be successful in life.  What if a presenter started off explaining the power of collaboration and communication in general terms-why those two skills are relevant and meaningful in today’s culture and built upon that foundation to frame the technology entirely within that learning context?  Discussions of pedagogy could then ensue.

For presenters, it would be like lobbing themselves up a nice softball to be hit out of the park from the very outset of the session.  If a presenter jumps out of the gate just swinging the bat, there’s zero change he or she will connect with anything outside of the occasion where the bat slips out of the hands and inadvertently strikes a nearby object.  An analogy that really does bear true in many technology sessions.  If a presenter is simply swinging that bat at the air, the only thing that can be said of him or her would be focused on the swing itself.  If the softball of learning is first lofted up, then it’s the connection that’s made that will be the focus of discussion, or perhaps the obvious lack of connection the swing of the tool makes with the ball of learning  Even if a weak connection is made and the ball is barely dribbled out of the infield, at least the discussion will be focused on where it should be, the connection that the swing makes on the ball.  It’s the whole point of why we learn to swing in the first place-to make contact with a ball and hit it as successfully as possible.

I hope more conference presenters consider this approach as they prepare for upcoming sessions.  Think about how you want your participants leaving your sessions.  Is it about the tool you are presenting or about the learning that ensues when utilizing the tool?  If everything we discussed was framed in the learning context, I believe we would serve the population of conference attendees in a much more powerful manner, and we might just find that we hit home runs with our sessions quite a bit more often.

Thanks to eschipul for the Flickr image.