The GSB Director of Academic Technology, Michael Chimes, offers commentary on technology in education. This blog also offers an opportunity for readers to stay appraised of technology uses and initiatives at GSB. Comments on postings are welcome.
In the period of time that spanned the 1890's through the 1920's, silent movies were an entertainment staple for millions of people. These movies are quaintly charming by today's production standards, but at the time, they were nothing short of miraculous for people of that time. These films typically featured strong, simple plot lines, fairly long shot takes and musical backgrounds. The final cut often appeared choppy or sped up because of varying standards in film speeds and projectors.
In our filmmaking class, students took on the challenge of creating a black & white silent film in the spirit of that long gone era. Below, four completed projects that are all successful attempts at recreating films from about 100 years ago.
James' film is called Teen Chef. It's the story of a young man who needs cash badly so that he can take his girlfriend on a date. It reminds me of many Charlie Chaplin films.
Cam's film is a morality tale, reminding us that many of the early films were designed to be instructive. With his modern take on an old theme, Cam suggests that honest, hard work is rewarded in the end.
Ryan's short film brings back memories of the old Keystone Cops. They were always frantically chasing someone or something. Their chase was earnest, but always funny to the audience.
Mikaela takes a contemporary cultural figure - The Minion - and makes it the star of short film that does a great job of recreating the silent film genre. Her use of sped up footage and overly dramatic acting really rings true.
Last week, I had an opportunity to visit a couple of Debating Social Issues classes. Students in the classes completed a brief technology survey. Their responses helped to guide conversations about how students use social media and how they evaluate the impact of technology on their lives. The survey began with a simple question: "Are you engaged actively in social media?" Every student in both classes said yes. Taking these students as reasonably representative of GSB upper schoolers, it's safe to say that our students are very likely to be engaged in social media platforms. The students were then asked about their preferred social media apps. They were provided with a list of eight apps that I thought were good possible choices, but were also given the ability to write-in responses. (The eight listed apps were Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, Facebook, Vine, YouTube, Yik-Yak and a personal blog.) They were asked to select their two top choices. Instagram and Snapchat were clear winners with 19 and 17 selections respectively. Facebook had 5 takers, YouTube 3. No other app was listed. These results mirror a recent survey conducted by Piper Jaffray which polled 6500 U.S. teens. In that survey, 28% claimed Snapchat as their more important social network followed by Instagram with 27%. In the Piper Jaffray survey, Twitter came in third with 18% followed by Facebook at 17%. No other app had significant results. A survey question asked students about time spent on social media each week. Answer options were divided into groups: 0 -7 hours/week, 7 - 14 hours/week, 14 - 21 hours/week, 21 - 28 hours/week and more than 28 hours/week. Self-reported results? Two students answered their usage was 0 - 7 hours/week, or an hour each day or less. Six students selected the 7 - 14 hours/week option. Twelve students chose 14 - 21 hours/week. Two selected 21 - 28 hours/week, and no one said they spend more than 28 hours each week with social media. In other words, more than half the group self-reported they spend 2 -3 hours a day on social media. In both classes, students generally agreed that social media time went up in the summer. I was reminded that between school and activities, especially sports, time for social media is somewhat limited during the school year. But the more flexible schedule of the summer allows for much great usage, sometimes as much as ten hours a day. Though plenty of time and attention were spent talking about social media and its impact on student lives, we also looked at the larger issue of technology as a shaping force. To that end, students were asked about other facets of technology that occupy their time and attention. Some examples of the "other facets" might be web surfing, video and music streaming and video games. Students mentioned listening to music, web surfing and watching movies with Netflix as top answers. A conversation built around SoundCloud as both an individual and a social activity. Music can be streamed for personal enjoyment. Music can also be shared out of the SoundCloud platform. In other words, it can function as a personal and a social media platform. In addition to these top three answers, there were other answers with multiple respondents: online shopping, working on homework online, viewing YouTube content, making phone calls and playing video games/Xbox 360. (Like SoundCloud, video games can be personal or social.) Watching TV was mentioned by one person, as was the usage of design-oriented software. Students were asked to make sense of the technology in their lives. These students grew up with the internet and smart phones have been part of their lives. They were asked "In your lifetime, what's been the technological change that has had the most impact on your life?" The number one answer was smart phone with 10 respondents. (Most specifically said iPhone.) Three others said cell phone remembering their older flip phones as transformative. With either two or one respondents, the following also made the list: Microsoft Office, Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, Internet, working with design software and touchscreens. The survey, and the conversation, wrapped up with students asked to consider the role of technology in their lives. Has the impact been positive or negative? Most students saw both positive and negative elements of technology as a force in their lives. On the positive side, many cited how easy it is to communicate and stay in touch (12 respondents). Seven students mentioned the accessibility of information. A few mentioned that technology provides a way to occupy time as a source of entertainment. When considering the negative implications of technology, six students mentioned how technology facilitates procrastination. It's a source of distraction according to six respondents. Four other students said that it reduces time for actual face-to-face contact. A couple of students mentioned technology as a source of anxiety or a source of too mcuh information that can be overwhelming. Without drawing too many conclusions from such a small sample, we can still assume that at least among GSB students, technology plays a significant role in student lives in and out of school. It occupies their time and attention for large blocks of time and shapes they way they do school work and the way they spend their leisure time. But our students have the ability to reflect on their own behaviors and see both benefits and liabilities to their technological dependencies. I came away from our conversations with a more full understanding of the ways in which technology is shaping this generation of school students and with an ongoing appreciation of our students' thoughtfulness and honesty.
I've long been a fan of infographics. These are visualizations of information. A good infographic is well designed, clearly portrays information and offers insight into how information can be interpreted or utilized.
A few years back, a bit on a whim, I enrolled in a MOOC out of the University of Texas that taught infographic design. The class was very well organized and informative and helped me to realize there are theoretical underpinnings to infographic creation. Font selection, color combinations, choice of chart design, etc. all can make a difference to the end product.
As part of the class, students created a few infographics. Those projects gave me a much fuller understanding of the challenges inherent in infographic creation. But I also realized that by creating an infographic around a topic, I necessarily immersed myself in that topic. I also was forced to consider if viewers would look at my infographic and come away with a better understanding of that particular topic. In short, I became engaged not only in deep learning, but also in empathetic presentation.
We want our students to deeply understand classroom topics. We also want them to have a sense that when they present information to other people, the information should be understood clearly. Perhaps having students create infographics as part of classroom learning is a useful tool towards these learning goals.
Some years back, designers at Cisco took internet megadata and created an infographic called "What Happens in an Internet Minute?" Their data showed that in a minute of internet usage (worldwide, on average), YouTube, Google, Facebook, Twitter and Flickr accounted for an outsized percentage of internet traffic. To me, the design gives the information an impact greater than the same information conveyed in text.
You can see that original infographic below as well as a number of design variations. It's interesting to consider the varying approaches with questions like "Which conveys the information most clearly?" and "Which grabs and holds attention best?"
Cisco's original design for the infographic.
The same information is conveyed with a pie chart.
In this infographic and the one below, a clock is the central design element.
This infograpahic uses design elements from the Windows 10 desktop interface.
There are a number of web sites that facilitate the creation of infographics. They generally have a library of templates which are editable for color, font selection and size and shapes, and allow images to be added or imported. Some sites offer a free level of service with additional features available at a cost. Best to check a few for your self to get started.
If you'd like to look at examples of infographics, a quick web search will offer thousands of examples. Additionally, some truly great examples are available in a book edited by Gareth Cook called TheBestAmericanInfographicsof2015. It's part of the GSB library collection in the Upper School.
The video below is from the easel.ly web site. It gives you a sense of how most sites function to help students create their own infographics.
What's a LibGuide? (The name is an abbreviation of Library Guide.) A LibGuide is a website that allows a library to consolidate various sources of information for users. LibGuides have been established by public libraries, research libraries, school libraries K-12 and at the university level.
GSB has a LibGuide. In fact, it's probably more accurate to say we have three LibGuides, one for each division. The school's first LibGuide was created to serve the Upper School. Using a template that allowed for visual and text content as well as links and embedded video, a home page was created with a variety of information about US library resources.
This home page has undergone ongoing revision to highlight new accessions and programs. For instance, newly purchased books can be displayed so readers know what's available. Promoting an event or a celebration is also easy to do on the LibGuide's home page.
GSB's LibGuide home page offers plenty of information and is presented in a user-friendly format.
One of the real strengths of a LibGuide is an ability to build custom LibGuide pages for particular assignments. Say, for instance, a Comparative World Cultures class is doing a research project on "Lost Empires." A LibGuide page might specify the holdings in the library that students would likely find useful for their assigned work. Additionally, this particular LibGuide page might also have information about citing work or about pertinent databases. Teachers can have LibGuide pages created for assigned work or simply as a class resource. On the Upper/Middle/Lower School LibGuide sites, you can take a look at the additional LibGuide pages that have been created by clicking on the LibGuide list prompt.
Looking over the LibGuides that have been created for GSB's three divisions, I have noticed that ways each division shapes their LibGuide to their students' age and stage. The US LibGuide, for example, has significant database information and a fair number of additional LibGuide pages built around class needs. In the MS, you can find YouTube trailers for books as a tool to encourage reading among middle schoolers. The LS LibGuide has built pages not only around subjects like coral reefs and large marine animals, but has also created pages around character virtues like Gratitude and Trust/Loyalty.
The Lower School's LibGuide List for Gratitude
Curious? Want to know more? Probably the best place to start is by taking a look at our LibGuides. There are links on the Resources page of KnightSite, or simply click a prompt below:
For additional information about how a LibGuide might offer support for the work you do in your classes, you should speak to Hope, Lia, Kristen, Claudia or Emilia.
A few months back, the New York Times sent me information about a new project. The paper was seeking to reinvent the way it produced video content to accompany online stories. To date, many stories online were accompanied by a short video. These were quickly produced and did not in any way introduce viewers to new technology. These videos simply took the place of the photographs that for decades have accompanied stories in newspapers' print versions. The new project would produce immersive video content. These videos would be created with the use of a 360 degree camera. To access these videos, viewers would need a phone, an app and a viewer. This new project is an example of virtual reality (VR), defined by Wikipedia as "immersive multimedia or computer-simulated reality, which replicates an environment that simulates a physical presence in places in the real world or an imagined world, allowing the user to interact in that world. Virtual realities artificially create sensory experiences, which can include sight, touch, hearing, and smell." With VR, viewers get the experience of being in an environment even though they are not physically there. The Oculus Rift made a big splash by bringing this technology to consumers in the form of personal entertainment. But what about this technology for educational purposes? Is there a future in schools for VR? The NY Times project suggests so. For instance, imagine a history class examining the conditions in Syrian refugee camps. Accounts, pictures and video would offer information, but an immersive video might offer a more visceral understanding of conditions in these camps. These types of 360 degree videos are being produced as supplements to NY Times articles, but there is every reason to expect the technology to migrate to classroom environments. Google is another major promoter of VR technology as a learning tool. The Google Expeditions Pioneer Program is specifically designed to deepen students' understanding of world geography and cultures through virtual reality. The program is in a beta stage as of this writing, but look for the program to gain traction in the months ahead. In the video below, there is some brief description about how the technology works and, with the help of a student volunteer, a peek at what the experience is all about. If you're interested in checking out the technology, just let me know and you can try it for yourself.
KnightSite, our password-protected intranet, continues to change and evolve. I'd like to use this post to give a very brief overview of KnightsSite and mention some upcoming changes.
A few years back, Gill St. Bernard's made a decision to overhaul our web site. That decision involved considerable deliberation but ultimately the school decided on Whipple Hill as our provider. Whipple Hill was a company with deep experience building custom web sites for schools.
Part of that purchase included the construction of an intranet which came to be called KnightSite. KnightSite, as you know, connects students, families and school personnel in a way that gives users ways to distribute and access information. Because it is password-protected, it affords privacy as well.
Last year, Whipple Hill was purchased by Blackbaud, a company built on data services. Blackbaud should be a familiar name; we've used Blackbaud products for years to manage data in admissions, development, academic offices and in our business office. Because our web sites and databases would all be under one corporate roof, we hoped that services could be more efficiently integrated over time.
Looking in to the near future, some of those streamlined efficiencies are now on the horizon. Soon, student schedules that are entered into our academic database (Education Edge) will automatically populate the student's KnightSite account. Similarly, changes in parents' phone numbers or addresses in our databases will translate to KnightSite changes. These and other similar connections between our existing databases and KnightSite accounts should result in more accurate information across our platforms.
Blackbaud periodically issues an update report that informs system administrators about changes. These updates are generally both in text and video form. A recent update included a number of items, but I edited the video to focus on the increased functionality available to faculty beginning February 10th.
I taught my first Filmmaking class in 2003. It was an upper school unit class. One of the class members, Adam Aresty, went on to film school and this year his script was used for a film that screened at the Tribeca film festival. The film is Stung, and it received critical kudos for among other things it's intelligent script.
Now I take no credit for Adam's success. None! But I did learn a valuable lesson from Adam. I learned that among student filmmakers, you never know who will chase a dream and catch it. Adam did. So did Sean Baker, another GSB alum. Sean graduated in the late '80s and also went to film school. He is now very successful in his chosen field of writing/directing independent films. In fact his latest film, Tangerine, screened at Sundance last winter and received significant focus as a possible Oscar nominee.
I mention these two alums as a reminder that each semester, we welcome some novice film students into the class and give them tools to create. The tools include not only assorted hardware and software, but also time and encouragement to do their work. As the first semester closes, I'd like to share a few student projects that reflect the type of work done in the class.
The first selection is a music video. Students are given an opportunity to put images to music.
The next short video responds to this assignment: create a short promotional video for any school club or activity.
This next video examines an important contemporary issue by drawing together words and images from two songs. (Though you see my name below on the title shot, it's not my film. I just loaded it on to my Vimeo account.)
One last video is a brief documentary on Home Winds, our most recent campus acquisition. It's worth a look.
Last winter, I had the opportunity to speak at the annual NJAIS conference for trustees. My presentation gave those in attendance an overview of how technology has shaped our schools. The presentation centered around several distinct themes.
During the course of this year, I'm using this space to re-visit some of those themes. The October 10th post reviewed how complicated the decision making process in schools is when confronted with technology questions. In this post, I'll briefly examine another theme. It involves the fact that technological change in schools is intimidating to many, and for good reason.
There's this handy way of looking at technology users that
has gained traction over the years.Users are either digital natives or
digital immigrants. Marc Prensky coined the terms in his 2001 article,
"Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants." This division refers to the
fact that people born after 1980 entered a digital world. Others, alive and
beyond childhood before 1980, are immigrants to this new digital world. Now one
can argue about precise dates and relative definitions of a "digital
world," but Prensky's basic point has many adherents. There's a difference between those raised in
a digital world, surrounded by hardware and software and those raised earlier
in an analog world. The difference finds a neat parallel in language; it's the
difference between one brought up speaking English and one who has learned
English as a second language. This division between digital natives and immigrants is
certainly not a school-specific issue, but Prensky himself, in that 2001
article, identified “Education” as the single biggest challenge facing the
digital world. Prensky understood the
central place education holds in our society and he also saw a full generation
of schooling defined by students who were digital natives and adults who were
digital immigrants. We're still in this
challenging time, and may yet be in it for another 10-20 years.
I wrote an article in 2013 that was published online in
T.H.E. Journal.The article was called "The Digital Resistors." It talked about why faculty in schools are resistant
to technology changes. The article
relates some quotes I've heard from faculty: "I'm
really not interested in learning much about my computer. Really, I just need
it for e-mail and maybe to write something." "I can't keep a grade book online. I'm
more of a tactile person." "These passwords are driving me crazy. I'm
just not doing anything that requires another password." "I'm not
using my class Web page. I think writing the homework on the board and having
students write it in their planners is still the best way to learn organization
skills." These quotes
represent a faculty segment that exists in every school. And please don't assume these teachers are
not effective members of your faculty.
It's not necessarily the case. But they do create some serious
disruptions because they often create more work for other people. What's behind their lack of enthusiasm for
technology-driven solutions? Generally, they're nervous about what they don't
know. Just consider the language of technology. Gigabyte. External Hard Drive.
RAM memory. Internet browser. 802.11 ac wireless protocol. CAT 5 fiber. Virtual
desktop. Cloud-based integration across multiple OS platforms. For
“non-techies,” it can seem like gibberish. Teachers generally
like being in control. It's a basic part of the skill set any teacher brings to
the job. Over the last 20 years or so, many teachers have felt less in control.And to add to the anxiety, the rate of change
seems to be accelerating. The theme we've arrived at: It's Intimidating. For a great many faculty members, every
technology change becomes one more thing to learn on top of the job they've
always had to do.
For the past several years, Gill St. Bernard's School has been an active participant in the Hour of Code program. (It's a key part of Computer Science Education Week, December 9-15 this year.) The program is huge, and growing. Tens of millions of students in dozens of countries participate. And each year, participation grows by leaps and bounds. What's the attraction? Why are so many schools promoting the program?
Computer Science as a fundamental academic course of study is late to the curricular canon. About a century ago, the Carnegie Foundation funded a prominent study that articulated the structure of the modern curriculum. English, History, Math, Science and Language were to be the key components. Computer Science, of course, was yet to be developed as an area of study. That would wait until computers were developed.
Over the last decade or two, Computer Science has increasingly become part of students' studies though it often is not part of a graduation requirement for high school students. So conceivably, for a great many students, they might go through their schooling with no exposure to the computer programming that drives software. Given an awareness that computers are inextricably linked to virtually all areas of modern life, and given the fact that a great many jobs depend on computer literacy, the Hour of Code program was developed to insure that increasing numbers of students have at least minimal exposure to computer coding and the ways in which it powers computer behaviors. The assumption is that through exposure, some will be inspired to learn more.
A certificate can be earned by completing an activity.
To access the Hour of Code tutorials that teach students about coding, one begins at code.org. At the site, there are coding tutorials for students as young as kindergarteners. Many of the tutorials are in object-oriented code programs like blockly which simply involve moving blocks that represent commands into a certain order to control movement. A blockly editor would look like this:
The rectangular blocks on the right that say "move right," "move left," etc. will control the movement of BB-8droid.
Older students might use Hour of Code to get introduced to JavaScript, a coding language that looks more familiar to many observers. With JavaScript, coders write lines of code to command the actions of computer software. The Hour of Code site partnered with Khan Academy to offer the JavaScript tutorials. Khan Academy also produced a short video to introduce learners to the exercise. It provides an excellent explanation as to why coding matters.
During our Hour of Code week at GSB, students from all three divisions participated. Jill Fedon ran the program for all lower school students K - 4 in the Cox computer lab. Carrie Petkiewich did the same for middle school students in the Conover computer lab. In the upper school, a variety of approaches help insure widespread participation. Ninth grade students participated through their seminar classes. The library held an open Hour of Code session during meeting time. Computer Science, Statistics and other classes offered Hour of Code sessions during class times. In short, GSB student participation in Hour of Code activities was widespread and well received.
This year, for the first time, upper class Tech Team students volunteered to be peer assistants in the lower school Hour of Code sessions. During available times, upper school students would help Jill in answering questions and offering pointers to students K - 4. Because of the Tech Team connection and because young children are always entertaining, I visited the Hour of Code classes for the lower school. Below, a gallery of photos from the week.
