Things to consider when first using collaborative eLearning tools.

Last term, after 12 and a half years in one College, I changed schools. It's amazing the amount of knowledge which you develop about how a place operates. It is also amazing that you don't realise this until you leave, and you have to learn it all again.

Another aspect of changing school is the change in the classroom culture. At my previous school, I had taught my senior students for many years. Subsequently, my pedagogy and methods were familiar to them. They knew how to operate in my classrooms. Changing schools has meant that, in many ways, I have to start that all again. Hence the title to this post.

Last term I launched into an on-line collaboration activity with a class which has never collaborated on-line before. It resulted in one of those classes where you reflect and think "...well that could have gone better". It reminded me of what needs to be considered when introducing a class to on-line collaboration. These considerations follow.

Allow for the "look at me" factor

Whenever you first start on-line collaboration, I can guarantee that students will post silly messages just because they can. They will make comments to their friends, or post a silly picture, word, video etc. I call this the "look at me" factor. 

How you choose to address this is up to you, but have a plan in place before hand. A couple of points from experience:

1. It will stop as soon as the novelty wears off. By the third time you use on-line collaboration it really isn't an issue any more.
2. Making a big issue out of this and drawing more attention to it just fans the flames.

My approach is to let it run it's natural course for couple of minutes. Then, once it starts to settle down, announce something like "Ok guys. We've had our fun, got that out of our systems. Now it's time to get into the work". 

The most important consideration is to allow for this time in your lesson planning.

Create mid-size groups

A whole class collaborating on the same piece of work is very powerful, but you need to take students there slowly. Starting with groups, for example 4-5 students, allows the space for students to develop effective collaboration habits.

In addition, smaller groups limit the impact of the "look at me" factor. They also allow you to more effectively monitor each student's contribution.

Establish roles

When students first collaborate on-line, it is easy for some students to take over, and other students to sit back, or get lost. Providing each student with a particular role helps each student to find their place in the collaboration. For example, in a class where students where looking for cultural memes in media, allocate each student different media.

This demonstrates the power of collaboration: allowing the group to cover more ground then each student individually. Eventually, students will learn to divide the task up themselves.

Set clear goals

If the process of on-line collaboration is new and a little confusing to students, then you need to make everything else really clear. Set out the clear objective of the task, what the groups is expected to achieve, and how they can do this.

Normally, my initial collaboration tasks with a class involve groups working from a template document which I have created. This provides clear scaffolding for the task. The scaffolding can be an outline, or a graphical organiser, or even a table. The important thing is that students know where to add their input.

Allocate writing locations

If you are using a collaborative tools where everyone is accessing the exact same space (eg. Google Apps, Office 365 or Titan Pad), then, initially, it is important allocate where each student can write. Either by using templates, or tables etc. This prevents students from writing over each other.

Use chat and comments

Many on-line collaborative tools have chat or comment features. These are great for when a student disagree with another student's contribution. If your tool has these features, then I suggest that you establish the rule "Do not edit any other student's work". If there is a disagreement or a point of contention, then use comments or chat to come to a resolution. Then the contributing student can make the edit.

Postpone formatting

Some tools will allow formatting. Often, when classes first start on-line collaborating, time is wasted as students continuously change text types and colours. This is frustrating, as you want the students to focus on the content. Never-the-less, a certain percentage of students are concerned about the aesthetics of the document

I have found the best way to address this is to explicitly allocate time at the end to format the document and inform students as such. An extension of this is to get each student to make a copy of the final document and then do their own formatting.

Conclusion

I hope these tips make your class' first adventures in on-line cooperation run smoothly. I know I'll be using them the next time I use on-line cooperation in my class.

Mobile Devices and Education

The Report

The recently published discussion paper Technology, Distraction & Student Performance has led to renewed calls for the banning of mobile phones in schools. The paper assessed the impact of mobile phone bans by comparing pre-ban and post-ban standardized test scores. The authors concluded:

• Mobile phone bans improved student performance on standardized tests by 6.41% of a standard deviation.
• The distraction of mobile phones can have a negative impact on productivity.
• Low achieving students are more likely to be distracted, while high achievers are barely effected.

While I can see no basis for questioning the validity of the statistical findings, I do have concerns about the assumptions on which the conclusions are based. The first assumption I am concerned about is equating educational performance with standardize testing results. Any teacher, or administrator, working in schools knows how poorly these tests assess what education is about.

The second assumption I'm concerned about is the belief that disadvantaged students cannot develop the impulse control of high achievers, and, therefore, need to be protected from their mobile phones. In other words, deficit thinking.

While both of these assumptions might make sense from an economic point-of-view, they have no place in a pedagogical framework.

An Alternative Approach

In response to these assumptions I would like to propose two alternatives. Firstly, that education is about helping students to develop the skills they will require to live a fulfilling life as a member of their society. The second assumption is, that every student is capable of developing these skills. The fact remains that mobile phones will distract students, particularly disadvantaged students, but using these two assumptions will lead to a very different resolution.

Firstly, mobile phones are not seen as problems that need to be removed from education. Rather, the new approach acknowledges that mobile phones are part of the student's society. Therefore, students need to learn the skill of appropriate use of mobile phone. They need to learn how to be productive while having access to their mobile phone.

Secondly, instead of believing that this skill in simply indicative of high achievers, the new approach looks at high achievers as an example that students can be productive while accessing their mobile phone. Therefore it is a skill that all students can be taught.

Consequently, I would like to propose an approach where schools teach students how to not be distracted by their phone.

Practical Application - The Pomodoro Technique

Just like the teaching of any skill, there are uncountable possible approaches. What follows is an approach that I have found to be effective. A small caveat, the subjects that I teach contain a significant component of individualized project work.

For a while now my classes have been using the pomodoro technique. It is a common technique for focusing on work, and curbing distractions. This technique involves breaking your work into focus blocks, separated by small breaks.

I use this technique when students need to focus on producing work (eg. assignment writing, or completing individual tasks). The process is as follows:

• Preparation
• Students log onto computers and open required programs.
• Students cue up enough music to last for the focus block.
• If they use their phone for this then it must be on no notification (ie. not even vibrate) and face down on the desk.
• I set up a timer on the projector (I use moosti, but there are plenty more).
• Focus Block
• The timer starts and students start working (15 - 25 mins).
• During this time the only person students can talk to is the teacher.
• If they think of something they need to do or say, they make a note of it, and get back to work.
• Break
• When the focus block ends, the short break starts (3 - 5 mins).
• During this time students stop work and:
• physically stand up and move around
• attend to the distractions they noted down during the focus block
• talk to their friends
• send all those 'emergence texts' to mum

The anecdotal evidence which I can provide suggests that this technique has been effective in helping students focus and reducing distraction. Even the students who struggle with focus work well through this process. I suspect there are two interrelated reasons for this:

• The process is about delay not abstinence. Students seem happier to accept "not now" rather than "no".
• The working block is small enough, that students are willing to postpone their distractions. This is reinforced by the timer which show how little they will have to wait.

There is one more aspect of this process worth mentioning. In introducing the process I explain the rationale behind it. Students are informed of the recent research which show why multi-tasking doesn't work. I find that students accept the process more readily when they understand that it is based upon scientific research, and not just some arbitrary decision by their teacher. I have found that this 2 minute video from CNN's Dr Sanjay Gupta is a great way to get this message across.

Conclusion

I know that mobile technologies can be extremely distracting, and that adolescents, by their nature, have very poor impulse control, but I don't not see this as an excuse for teachers, to shirk our responsibility. Our students will be inhabiting a world with increasingly pervasive technologies, and therefore need to develop the skills required to be productive in this world. As a teacher, I believe that this is one of the skills I am responsible for teaching.

Control Over the Screen

"IMG_4646" by Tom Woodward (licensed CC BY-NC 2.0)

For years I have worked in a computer room that our head of IT services designed with classroom management in mind. There are two distinct design elements he used.

Firstly, where I sit behind all the students and we all face the projector. This may seem a bit weird, but it gives me a very important advantage, I can see all of their screens from my desk. The second designed element is that the computer room has two separate electrical circuits. One of those circuits is for the monitors and is fitted to the kill switch, so at a press of a button, all the monitors go blank.

While these two designs may not be possible in a normal classroom, but they do highlight a very important classroom management concept - having control over the screen. So how can this be applied to the normal classroom?

Viewing the screen

Ok, so talking to the back of your students' heads, or having them turn around to face you, may not be a practice, you wish to use. It is not a big issue for me, as most of my courses are designed with minimal 'face time' from me. 

In practice, viewing a student's screen isn't for when you are in front of the class. Viewing their screens is for when the students are engaged in their task. The time when a teacher traditionally moves around the class observing students' work. During this time it is really helpful to have students arranged so that you can easily see their screens. I even go as far as to state it explicitly "Please turn your laptop so I can see it.". 

How you arrange this will be dependent upon your room, it may be easier to mover yourself rather than all the students.

Remove temptation

There are times when you are addressing the class and the students do not need to use the laptop. During these times make it easier for them to focus by removing temptation. 

I remember my teachers saying "pens down", so why not use the digital equivalent? The most commonly used phrase is "Screens at 45 degrees". This means that students tilt their screens down enough that they can't see them, but not far enough to put the laptop to sleep. A colleague of mine has a different take, he tells the students to turn the laptops around to face him.

Conclusion 

Remember, focusing on work is one of the skills that we have to foster in students. Both of these methods will assist you in preventing the students from "digitally wandering off", but, in the end, especially with younger grades, some students will need assistance to focus on their work.

Just another technology

"Low-tech Texting..." by Jon Mott (licensed CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

The introduction of new technologies into the classroom always presents new challenges in behaviour management, but maybe the adjustment is not as big as it first seems.

Technology may continuously change, but student behaviour remains constant. Therefore, use the skill you have developed over the years to address the behaviour not the technology. This frame of mind enables you to approach ICT use in your classroom with your normal classroom management techniques.

Draw Parallels

The way I apply this methodology is is to draw parallels between the ICT behaviour and the non-ICT behaviour. Since I was far from a model student, I may have the advantage of personal familiarity with the non-ICT behaviours, but I'm sure that you will recognise them from your time in front of the class. Below are some examples.

• Texting - Passing notes
• Online chatting - Passing notes
• Playing computer games - Playing tic-tac-toe or dots-and-dashes
• Watching YouTube - Staring out the window
• Surfing the web - Reading a book
• Cyber-bullying - Bullying

Once, the parallel has been draw between the behaviours, then it's a short step to applying your classroom management techniques.