Online Privacy: Does It Exist??

Teaching about digital citizenship is an ongoing necessary component in a digital classroom. It is easy to assume that students know what is appropriate and what is inappropriate to discuss in a digital world. However, it is apparent as I become more submerged into the digital world, that all students do not know what is appropriate and they need to be taught. This became apparent when our class began to converse with our new grade 12 buddies in our group's shared wiki discussion forum. I assumed that students would stick to general topics of conversation to get to know their new buddies. i.e. interests, hobbies, school subjects most enjoyed, MI strengths,etc., so that the students could find commonalities. I assumed that they would stick to topics and treat the forum as if they were actually meeting their buddies face to face. However, I didn't take into account the anonymity that chatting online provided. Students who are introverted and shy are able to express themselves more freely when they are not seen. I believe that students saw this forum as a way of making a new friend with an older student and a way to share confidences. What I did not teach the students was that sharing information of a personal nature is not appropriate when meeting someone for the first time and that in a forum like a discussion wiki, all conversations are open for perusal. Students sharing deeply personal information, made it clear that they were not aware of the risks of divulging personal information online and that they are in dire need of learning online "net"iquette. I believe that online privacy doesn't exist and students need to be aware that conversations can be tracked by online observers. In the future,before having the students be part of an online discussion group, I will make certain that they understand what are appropriate conversations to have online and the risks involved when conversing online. I will be starting a unit on digital citizenship that will address the issues of online privacy and internet safety. It will be interesting to learn what the students' assumptions are about these two topics.

Is Digital Learning Joyful Learning?

I came across a few quotes which got me thinking about my situation teaching in a 1:1 computing classroom. They were taken from a Tom Hoerr, a speaker at the Learning@school conference in the United States and I believe epitomize exactly what is important in education.

His first idea that struck me was "the best way to instill "lifelong learning" is to promote "joyful learning". This quote made me wonder if my students were happier, more joyful, being a part of a digital classroom? It is difficult to measure happiness but what I do see are students more engrossed in the learning tasks. There is more of a sense of freedom and autonomy that comes when students are able to work at their own rate and learning level. Does this ability transfer to happiness? One student remarked that "my netbook is becoming a friend, a partner for me to help me learn and someone I look forward to seeing everyday. When my computer is "glitchy" or when the server is down, it is like my friend is sick... I just know it is going to be a bad day." Although I can't determine my students' exact level of joyfulness, what I do know is that the netbooks have become instrumental in my students' learning and they would be sadly missed if it was necessary to go back to a traditional way of learning.

The second quote which made an impact was the idea that "it is not a leader's job to make everyone happy. It is to make everyone grow, beginning with the teachers. If everyone is happy, then you aren't challenging them enough. A leader's job is to 'comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable'." Although I am out of my comfort zone this year, I have never been more alive in my teaching. Each day brings challenges and problem solving is becoming a daily and sometimes an hourly occurence. Thinking outside the box is necessary to reach all of my learners and having full access to netbooks gives me choices as a teacher that I never had before. This quote also lends itself well to the classroom. Through my experience, I have found students who have been told that they are "A" students are not craving challenge and would much rather be satisfied with maintaining their "A" status without stretching their abilities. Traditional "A" students are very afraid of change and it takes a lot of coaxing and reassurance for them to begin to challenge themselves and to go beyond the expectations and to take charge of their own learning.

The last quote which is related to challenging the comfortable, is Hoerr's idea that it is important to try and "make a new mistake every day." The "new" part being the most important. I truly believe that students and teachers need to be comfortable taking risks and making mistakes so that growth and learning can occur. A corollary to this would be that students and teachers need to become reflective learners. When mistakes happen reflection is key to make a positive change.

Getting back to my original question: "Is digital learning joyful learning?" I believe that it is. What it seems to provide is engagement. Students are engaged in their learning and they are becoming more independent and self driven learners which I think is what teaching is all about.

Learning Happens Despite The Teacher

I had an interesting discussion with a colleague today. We were both absent from the classroom on the same day and she and I were commenting on the challenges of having substitutes in the classroom. She teaches in a traditional classroom where she has access to a computer lab once or twice a week. After returning from her absence, she took note how nothing she had planned was accomplished. Directions seemed to be not understood and the tasks were not adequately completed by the students. She also commented that the next time she is absent she is going to leave busy work for the students. For, example practicing past skills, finishing an art project, etc. She believed that a substitute could not deliver a productive lesson where students were expected to learn a concept because the substitute wasn't a part of the necessary lead up to the lesson and was not aware of all of the learning challenges in the classroom to effectively meet the varying needs of the students.

It appeared that in a traditional classroom, the teacher, is the most important person in the room. Without the teacher, learning doesn't appear to happen. During our conversation I kept thinking about my own classroom. Am I necessary for learning to happen or can students learn in my classroom despite me? It has been a challenge to get substitutes who are comfortable being in a digital classroom. One substitute who was asked to come into my classroom replied that she "wouldn't be a good choice because she didn't know how to blog."

Through our classroom wiki discussion area, I then asked the students what they believed were necessary characteristics of an effective substitute in a 1:1 digital classroom and what they could do to help a substitute who was not comfortable with digital learning. The responses were quite revealing. Some students felt that an effective substitute should be comfortable using a computer and knowing the basics like turning it on. However, the majority of the students believed that the substitute needed to be comfortable with the students directing their own learning. Because of the tasks being designed with so much detail and because the students know the routine, they have become quite self sufficient learners. One student commented that a "substitute does not need to talk so much. He/she is in the classroom only to help us if we are not sure what to do or can't understand a direction." The students also commented that they could see that in the morning the substitute was uncomfortable with students showing him/her how to access the classroom wiki and Moodle but by the afternoon the substitute appeared more comfortable and was able to relax and to become more of a facilitator. I asked the students if learning happens when I am absent from the classroom. 100% of the students agreed that it did. One student commented that I am like a head chef of a restaurant who carefully plans the menus but allows the other cooks to prepare the dishes and to add their own creativity. The head chef is needed to check the dishes for quality but is not needed for the actual creation. That comment made me definitely think that learning takes place despite me. What a comforting thought!

Convincing Students to Read in a Digital World

Linked to teaching independence is convincing students the necessary skill of reading for meaning. This is quite a challenge in our digital world. Students' brains seem to be wired differently in the digital world. Merilee Sprenger in her book, "Brain-based Teaching in the Digital Age" supports this idea by stating, "when they (student) scan a Website, their approach is keyed into visuals. They are accustomed to icons and other visuals and know they will provide infromation they need. Baby boomers, on the other hand, approach a Website the way they were taught to read-- begin in the upper left and look at the text." (p.12) Students thrive on generalizations and gather meaning quickly through visual stimuli in the way of pictures and icons. Reading print takes too much time to comprehend and students' brains want to understand things at a super fast pace. This idea is illustrated very well in the 1:1 computing classroom where instruction is designed step by step in Moodle and where, if students read for understanding, they can complete tasks independently and at their own pace and ability level. (Tasks include differentiated learning paths so that all students can meet success.) It is very frustrating as a teacher, when you know that you have designed instruction that will give students the opportunity to become independent learners, that students do not take the time to read what is written and will ask you to explain each detail of an activity. It is like direct instruction is a drug that students are craving and they cannot fathom the idea of taking charge of their own learning and completing an activity where a teacher does not guide them each step of the way. After reading Sprenger's book, I've come to realize that maybe it's not the students fault that they are not reading the information in the way that I'm expecting them. Possibly, when students appear to crave direct instruction what they really require is information presented in a myriad of ways-- auditory and visual. It is no longer good enough to be so text based. Maybe my expectations need to change and I need to take into account that students today learn very differently than the way I learned and may not need to start at the beginning and read every detail to get the information they need. (Sprenger p.13) Wow!! What an eye opener!!

Instructional Design: The Cog in Delivering Effective Instruction

When I first started teaching in a 1:1 computing classroom, I thought the tool of the netbook would drive instruction. Instruction would revolve around teaching applications and having the students create cool projects that would prove, without a doubt, that my students would be well versed in 21 century skills. I quickly realized, however, that the netbook is just a tool and that sound instruction, which relies fundamentally on curricular outcomes, is truly what drives instruction. As the year has progressed, I have come to understand the importance of creating effective instructional design in order to truly fascilitate learning. I also learned very quickly the importance of starting to create online instructional design on a small scale. In order to avoid insanity, I started by designing online instruction in one subject area. (ELA) Each task was outlined in a series of sequential steps and differentiated learning pathways were created so that students could work toward academic independence at their own rate and in their own way. As time passed, I began to witness the benefits of designing instruction that took into consideration the different modalities and learner profiles of all of my students. I now design online instruction in 6 out of the 7 subject areas I teach. I know that all of my students are learning and that I am meeting the necessary subject outcomes. Through online instructional design my lessons have a clarity of focus that was lacking in the traditional way that I used to teach.

Teaching Independence

Becoming a facilitator of learning has been an eye opening experience. I did not realize how dependent students can become through a traditional approach to teaching. Students quickly learn that conforming to the expectations of their teachers and jumping through specified educational hoops that rely, for the most part, on the regurgitation of facts, results in being labelled a successful student. Carol Ann Tomlinson in her book, "Fulfilling the Promise of the Differentiated Classroom" suggests that "so long as we teach as though 'the students' were one student, we can get by with enabling student dependence." (p. 47) Students were understandably taken aback when I invited them to take charge of their own learning and to delve into tasks and topics at their own rate and capability. At first, many students were intimidated by the process and were unwilling to try a path that was outside of their comfort zones. It became apparent, very quickly, that independence needed to be taught. Students also needed to be convinced, through the scaffolding of tasks, that this new approach actually created more windows of learning and could help students become deeper thinkers and curious lifelong learners. Tomlinson also suggests "that students should develop autonomy as learners ought to be a primary goal of all classrooms from preschool onward. Failure to ensure that students become progressively more independent learners constitutes educational malpractice. (p.47) That statement really hit home and convinced me that I was on the right path in my hunt to become an increasingly effective teacher. Teaching independence is not an easy journey; it is a necessary one.

In School Planning Time: A Team Teaching Necessity

I have been very fortunate to be granted a significant amount of support to effectively teach in a 1:1 computing classroom. When I took on the 1:1 computer classroom challenge, I didn't realize just how necessary these supports are for delivering an effective learning program. However, as the year began, I realized just how critical a team approach is to effective 1:1 computing implementation. The core team consists of our division's digital learning consultant,(DLC) our school's differentiated instruction facilitor (DIF) and myself (the classroom teacher). During the first two weeks of school, the DLC played a prominent role in the classroom; instructing the students and myself how to use our classroom's wiki and how to use Moodle to access assignments in the different subject areas. Learning how to use Moodle to design instruction was foreign to me and for the first month, I was pretty overwhelmed. The DLC modelled the process for the first lesson and then, with guidance, I began creating my own lessons. At first I tried to create all of my lessons in all of the subject areas in Moodle which prooved to be a daunting and exhausting task. I decided to set a more reasonable goal of planning only the ELA units. The DIF has been an invaluable resource and has played a team teaching role in the preparation and the teaching of ELA. Along with scheduled after school planning time, the DIF and I have also been granted one afternoon a week, in school planning time, which has helped us create ELA units which authentically incorporate technology. This time is not only used for planning lessons that include a number of differentiation choices, but it is also time to create effective formative and summative assessments. Without this planning time I believe that the DIF would become a glorified EA when team teaching in the classroom.