Learners 2.0 (Pt. 2.0)

                                                 http://www.khouricc.com/Portals/70119/images/motivation_istockphoto-resized-600.jpg




Let's start with a question to get you motivated...

What impact does technology have on the 21st Century (gifted) learner?

With the development of the Internet, students are no longer limited to the information provided by the gatekeepers of knowledge.  As James Gallagher points out in Gifted Education in the 21st Century (2002), some of the effects of technology include:

The Effects of Technology

Pre Computer	Computer Age
Teachers and professors were the gatekeepers of knowledge, controlling one's access to understanding the wisdom	The internet opens access of information to students who no longer have to be dependent on their teachers.
This powerful position controlled the flow of information and often limited gifted students' growth.	An unsolved problem is how to evaluate valid from invalid information and how to rate the sources of information.

The good news about this is that gifted students can no longer be held back or denied access to information by the "gatekeepers."  However, students often do not have the ability to judge the good stuff from the bad.  Furthermore, to quote Dr. Rick Schwier (shameless namedrop), "I think a large number of kids are skilled at operating technology to accomplish a particular range of tasks, but they aren't as literate in the sense of being able to use technology on their own to learn effectively. We have a big job ahead of us as educators to help our students become intelligent consumers and creators when they use technology."

Indeed.

Part of this delicate task, especially for teachers of gifted students, is to modify the models of instructional strategies so that they are infused with sophisticated content.  As the stimulation of higher order thinking has long been at the core of instruction for gifted students, it is important to maintain higher level thinking, while implementing new strategies.  Gallagher notes this change as:

Paradigm on Instructional Strategies

Old Paradigm	New Paradigm
Teach advanced thinking processes to gifted students (creative problem solving, logical analyses, etc.) with the assumption that they can be applied to various fields.	Teach students instructional strategies that encourage student independence and inquiry (e.g. Problem-based learning) within the framework of specific curriculum content.
Emphasis placed on mastering systems of thinking (Sternberg, Gardner, Guildford, etc.)	Emphasis on mastery of content standards through inquiry, problem finding, etc.

Technology lends itself well to this new paradigm, and as our web tools continue to grow and improve, and teachers master the art of scaffolding in this new reality, gifted learners will become the masters, constructing their meaning through independence and inquiry.

Coming up next...Create!

Gallagher, James.  Gifted Education in the 21st Century (2002). Gifted Education International.

Learners 2.0 (Pt. 1)

I remember learning about the motivational set in my first year in the College of Education.  This seemed like a great idea, and it is something that should still be employed; however, upon further reflection, there is something wrong with this element of a well-crafted lesson plan: it happens at the beginning of a lesson or unit.  What about the rest of the time?  Are we to assume that this five minute activity is to engage the learner for the next month?  We need to engage students throughout the unit, lesson, and year.

As noted by Dr. Rodgers et al, the 21st Century learner has many educational traits that older educators may not be familiar or comfortable with.  Today's learners are digitally literate, mobile, always on, experiential and social.  Other traits of the 21st Century Learner include:

• hypertext minds
• crave interactivity
• read visual images easily
• have strong visual-spatial skills
• prefer inquiry/ discovery
• enjoy finding and making new connections
• look for faster response times and feedback- "Ring a bell and I'll salivate, how'd you like that?" (thank you Barenaked Ladies for giving props to Ivan Pavlov and making Classical Conditioning fun again)
• Unfortunately, this response time might also be leading to shorter attention spans, but we'll move on...

OK, given that we all have short attention spans now, a short video by M. Wesch should explain the changes in the way we find, store, create, critique, and share information.

As I always have my students ask, "So what?" 

Well, consider this:

• the future of our students is full of unknowns
• it is likely that many of our students will work in jobs not yet invented
• what do our students need to learn and do in order to prepare for their future?

Hmmm... driving you to think?

At this point, you might also be asking: "What does this have to do with gifted education?" Good question.  Check out Learners 2.0 (Pt. 2) for more.


Rodgers, Dr. Michael. (2006). The 21st Century Learner. Retrieved from http://depd.wisc.edu/series/06_4168.pdf

Just Breathe Part Two: Common elements of strong presentational software to get to transformational usage

                                             image courtesy http://bit.ly/KgQCBo

As indicated in Just Breathe Pt. 1, Power Point Presentations and Prezi are both types of software that are capable of taking a presentation to higher ground.  The following elements must be considered in order to transform a presentation.

1. Focal point –foreground and background; power importance- key image

2. Use of symbol- Students must defend their choices.  When choosing a symbol, students are required to employ higher order thinking 

3. All text is purposeful- colour, music, sound

4. Main point and supporting arguments- The brain is slow, therefore you need to do expository in many different ways.  Even if it is an ode to “my shoe” you must have subsequent details. The human brain is slow, so give me the main point, and then reinforce it in a number of ways- music, sounds, variety of examples, words, etc.

5. Consistency- anything that is the same focuses on the message; as soon as there is constant change the brain is questioning why the change.  Common conventions (caps, main image)- if anything is the same- the brain is attending to the meaning; if anything is different, the brain will focus on its importance and try to track it (scrambling to figure out what their trying to do rather than what their trying to say). The more consistency there is, the more we focus on the message.  This is where you can teach conventions: text size, periods, grammar, the establishing shot in a film, etc.

When students employ these five elements, they you can reach higher ground quicker.  As students need to justify their choices, it not only makes them accountable for their work, it also helps them transform their work.  These elements help the students be critical, which allows them to make the move to transformational.  As soon as you ask students to think deeply about what they are doing, higher level thinking is employed.  

At the end of these presentations, it is important to ask students what the technology didn’t do, when asking why they chose that software, as opposed to what it did do.

When students consider the elements above, and defend their choices along the way, all that is left to do before a presentation is not to panic, but to just breathe.

*Special thanks to Wendy James for introducing me to these elements.  Further thanks to Michelle Pantel for reminding me about them.

Just Breathe (Part One)

Ah...student presentations.  I have seen presentations from one end of the spectrum to the other: from the student who stutters over every word, to the over-enthusiastic go-getter that has nothing to say, to the hyperventilating-so-much-that-the-breaths-are-louder-than-the-words presentations. However, in my current class of academically talented students, I have seen steady growth in their presentations.

In order to help the presentation reach higher ground (and be far more interesting), we need gifted students to use epitome examples that proves their thesis, and represent their idea.  From a cognitive position, teachers should want gifted students to think in metaphors, as this transforms the understanding of a concept to higher ground.

Here are two examples of presentational software to get transformational usage:

1. Power Points

I know, Power Points have been done to death.  However, they still serve a purpose.

What does a strong usage of PowerPoint look like?

- not a wall of text, 

- student should be centre of presentation with key words or phrases

- 3-5 points per slide (3 is ideal)

- layout: colour, font, images (on right it complements the idea, on left it is the idea), gradient

- linear, explains how to very well

- outline skills

2. Prezi

I am not a huge fan of Prezi, but it too can help a student present information on higher ground.

What is so great about it?

- can imbed ideas within ideas, the job of a prezi is to go deep

- better for the thesis

- pick a central metaphor and use it to demonstrate the idea/thesis

- not just one path, can build up/out/down

-prezi teaches mind mapping skills

- images within images

-if there is no depth to the assignment then don’t use prezi

-builds outward

- don’t organize a prezi initially, just put the points on, then map

An example to begin Prezi or Power Point use is to pick a topic and represent it through an image from SmartArt in MS Word.  This will help students visualize their concept and then think in metaphor.

Still not convinced?  Stay tuned for Just Breathe Part Two: Common elements of strong presentational software to get to transformational usage

*Thanks to Wendy James for opening my eyes to this process!

Where is My Mind?

Are you paging through your educational psychology texts and wondering how to work Bloom's taxonomy into your lessons, particularly with regard to technology? If yes, then refer to the graphic below.  If you answered no to the question above, then feel free to add more ideas and links to each level of this graphic.

For live links on the pyramid, visit http://www.usi.edu/distance/bdt.htm


If this isn't enough to think about (and hopefully use), you should check out what Shelley Wright has to say about Flipping Bloom's Taxonomy.

Coming up next... Just Breathe

Stepping Stones

As indicated in my checklist, it is important to know where the students are at with regard to technology (perhaps this is something that should be addresses by curriculum writers?). While this might be more of an elementary school problem, I know that I have also had students in grade nine that were not overly tech savvy either- either because of little exposure or no desire to use it. It is important to know the developmental stages of technology in order to know how to progress. For example, if the students have never even made a power point presentation before, then it is unlikely that he or she will be able to make a movie complete with editing, sound effects, and animations (although iMovie does make it dreadfully easy to do so). Therefore, it is important to introduce "basic" programs and tools to the students before diving into big projects. Furthermore, once students learn the basic way of thinking with technology, the rest follows intuitively for them.

The basics:
Word Processing: MS Word- Yes, very basic. But have you thought about how this can be limiting? For example, if spellcheck is left on, two things happen:
1. Students don't have to recognize a wrong word
2. The whole time students are typing they are told, "You're wrong, you're wrong, you're wrong."

While the latter point might be true, if students are negatively reinforced every time they type "reinforced" incorrectly, then they might disengage from using tech tools.

When writing a short story, start with: "Stop after two paragraphs, then then have students read those two paragraphs and make them more descriptive, add transition words, etc." Word will then keep track of the editors with different colours. While collaborating is important in any class, it is highly effective in the gifted classroom, as students feel comfortable with sharing and striving to improved (most students, anyway). Furthermore, by writing a little at a time (2-3 paragraphs), and then stopping fixes the problem quickly without irritating the hell out of the students.

Other ideas for word processing include:
1. Use the writer in residence at the library
2. Turn the documents into blog posts. My students recently posted on Posterous and it turned out wonderfully. Students researched an activist, and then posted this research (which they synthesized and wrote), embedded a video or audio clip, and a picture. Then students would post questions on the other blogs, and respond after that. This was an easy project for students to do, even if they were not tech savvy.
Furthermore, our blog is closed to only people with a password (a good decision if you have students or parents who are iffy about leaving a digital footprint- more on this in subsequent posts).

Another initial phase step on the tech journey is to familiarize students with the teacher's virtual classroom and/ or wiki (or other website). Tell the students to post a comment on the discussion board, add their birthday to the calendar, upload a file, add a link, etc. These are all simple steps, and seem trivial, but they are baby steps to making students feel comfortable with their digital progress. Plus it makes for easy homework for them and even easier marking for the teacher.

Coming up next...Where Is My Mind?

Technology Checklist

image courtesy of http://bit.ly/KHmNaH

Below you will find a "Technology Survey" that can be used to gauge how savvy students are with technology.

Technology Survey

1. Do you use proper keyboarding position?

2. How often do you save your work to multiple locations (example: USB, M: drive, email)?

3. Are you able to use more than one concept mapping tool (example: Wordle, Inspiration, Glogster) comfortably?

4. Are you able to use more than one type of presentaion software (example: PowerPoint, Movie Maker, Prezi, Photo Story)?

5. How often do you use the dictionary tool while working in a Word document?

6. How often do you use the thesaurus tool while working in a Word document?

7. How often do you use the grammar tool while working in a Word document?

8. How comfortable are you at taking a picture image and importing and manipulating it so that you communicate your image with clarity?

9. How often are you able to define symbols and icons (example: italics, bold, colour changing) commonly found in application programs (such
as MS Word and PowerPoint)?

10. When you have choice of what technology you can use, what factors do you consider?

11. Describe unacceptable and acceptable computer etiquette when using technology.

12. Describe how technology improves your ability to communicate, be productive or achieve personal goals.

13. Describe how technology improves your ability to communicate, be productive or reach personal goals.

14. What computer programs or apps do you use at home?

15. What programs do you think the school should have to enhance your learning?


***This checklist was created by the Greystone Heights AcTal team: Aaron Hansen, Jason Kimberley, Tanya Orosz, and Michelle Pantel

Gathering Bananas

German psychologist Wolfgang Kohler's study of apes on the island of Tenerife, which is documented in The Mentality of Apes(1925) presents the "dissenting opinion to the associative view of memory. (Furthermore), instead of allowing that the mind learned simple connections between ideas or associations between stimuli and responses, Kohler argued that his apes learned relations among stimuli and could modify their behaviour by perceiving stimuli in new ways." (Driscoll, Marcy P., Psychology of Learning for Instruction. Pearson Education Inc., 2004) In other words, the supporter of the Gestalt Theory believed that knowledge does not just come from experience, it also involves the knower actively imposing organization on sensory data (Driscoll).

The typical experiment conducted by Kohler involved him placing food just out of reach of apes in a cage. The apes would then try a number of solutions to obtain the bananas (usually sticks-tools- were what helped the apes). Kohler referred to this as insight, as the apes did not always behave in a regular, continuous fashion.

The modern learner also has this insight. Instead of using sticks to obtain bananas, though, they use computers to acquire knowledge. Furthermore, they will use these same tools to share their knowledge and understanding of concepts with their teacher, peers, and anyone else that is interested. These skills come naturally to young students, as this is what they have grown up with. That being said, there seems to be a naturally progression as to what the learner knows in, let's say grade 5, to what she knows in grade 8. It is the role of the teacher to determine what skills the grade 5 students have, and then work from there.

An effective way to gauge students' grasp of technology is a simple survey, which could be created on Surveymonkey or some other online server. Furthermore, a rubric of what students should know by grade x should be given to teachers so that certain skills are taught by a certain grade (with some variation based on the knowledge of the teacher). Once basic skills are taught, students will use their insight to solve future problems, and act accordingly.


Coming up next...Stepping Stones

The Gifted Learner: Defined

In order to understand how to use technology with gifted learners, one must first know what a gifted learner is. The Association for Bright Children of Ontario (ABC Ontario) defines giftedness as:

"...an unusually advanced degree of general intellectual ability that requires differentiated learning experiences of a depth and breadth beyond those normally provided in the regular school program to satisfy the level of educational potential indicated."

Furthermore, ABC Ontario defines bright as:


"...one who has the potential for unusual accomplishment in any of several areas, including intellectual and creative ability, musical, artistic and athletic performance and social and leadership skills."

Given that gifted and bright learners are generally (but not solely) perceptive, inquiring, creative, exploratory and original, the implementation of technology would be beneficial as it would foster these gifts, talents and passions that these learners possess; thus, deepening and/ or broadening understanding of concepts, and empowering these students to communicate their understandings in rich and powerful ways to a potentially mass audience, which, in turn, provides authenticity to the learner.

Coming up next...Kohler's Apes gather bananas...

Why not Technology?

I have been reading about gifted educations and learners lately, and I am disappointed that in most recommendations for differentiation that I have found thus far, that technology does not feature more prominently. For example, the Duke Talent Identification Program (Duke TIP), offers numerous "accelerative options," but the only option that deals directly with technology is "online classes that yield high school or college credit (these often lead to early high school graduation)." While this is a viable and valuable option, it is unfortunate that more suggestions were not made. This neglect to technology is not isolated to the Duke TIP site; unfortunately, many other sites and journals that I have read in the last few days are similar in their recommendations.

Being a teacher of "academically talented" students, and working and learning from other teachers in this field, I feel that the opportunities to enhance understanding for gifted and academically talented students with technology is endless. While I am not saying that we should neglect the other end of the special education spectrum, it is unfortunate that more attention is not given to gifted students. An unfortunate reality for many of these students is that when they quickly finish an assignment they are given more questions to complete. This does not make sense. If a student can demonstrate an understanding of a concept in ten questions, why make her do another 20 questions on top of that? This is where technology can be implemented. Give that student the opportunity to explore the concept with technology, and she will run farther or faster with it. Hold technology from her, on the other hand, and she will become bored with education. This is a shame.

Throughout this blog, I plan to make suggestions about the implementation of technology into gifted education- both in congregated settings and in a "mainstream" program- in order to help the student reach a higher ground.

People Keep On Learnin'

This is the introduction to my new project for ETAD 802. I will be investigating the use of technology for gifted and academically talented students, and its potential to elevate and enrich gifted students' understanding of their learning.