I'm sure many teachers are wondering what to do with IPads and how to make them interactive and better learning tools. I will continue to raise questions about the appropriate use of technology and Common Core which is - despite claims of making student learning "better" - a rather vague term - missing the mark. I believe the vision of the educator or teacher as end user will create solutions. We will design measurable outcomes (testing anyone?) to a level that gets our community to a "best practices" ideal for our students.
My problem with a lot of what I am investigating (reading about) is when students have difficultly with applying/retaining knowledge to engage in problem solving, teachers know the source of the failure is that "true learning" has not occurred. Knowledge has not been tied to an association or knowledge source that the student already has in place, the new knowledge has not been practiced enough so that a memory "key" has been created so that the new and old associations are blended and the brain can access the new knowledge synapse/pathway. In fact, the pathway may not have even been created.
For the above average learner, the new pathway is created naturally for lots of reasons. Environmentally, their world is not unlike the environment offered in school so the associations created in the classroom match. It's easy for them to create a mental filing cabinet to store the new or related knowledge in with the old. The term for this is scaffolding.
Scaffolding has been defined in many different ways and work-shopped (sorry for the verb creation, but this one is just too much fun) in various manners, but the main thrust of the practice is to build the logic, file cabinets, associations and keys for the average to below average learners so that new and old knowledge will be linked.
To gain knowledge I have turned to an inspiring Meet-Up group titled: Interactive Storytelling and Data Visualization which is sponsored by USA Today/Gannett Corporation. It's a wonderful insight into their creative and technical process for a new way of telling a news worthy or timely story and giving the reader a real way to interact with the data that underpins the story.
I am providing the links to four of their projects because I see this use of technology as a way to complete the idea of research, storytelling, creativity and so much more for students. I hope this will give teachers with IPads and other technology a place to go to find some relevant examples. Sources: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2014/07/22/coffee-prices-starbucks-cost/12991971/ http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/exp/spelling-bee/index.html
http://www.usatoday.com/longform/news/nation/2014/06/12/lies-coverups-mask-roots-small-aircraft-carnage-unfit-for-flight-part-1/10405323/ for this one - you will need to scroll down until you see the outline of the helicopter and the timeline under it - the video is very effective - http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/exp/nineties/index.html This last one is really fun - based on the Matrix - click on the quotes spilling from the top and a nineties factoid will pop up.
The Meet-ups are usually once a month - so I'll keep adding info as it comes to me - but the arc of these stories from playful to serious gives you a taste of how this group is working to increase reader involvement.
On a side note - many of these people are tech wizards and I'm totally out of my depth when they say I did this with Java Script or D5 (maybe Dreamweaver?) Teachers may want to contact the USA Today team and I have a feeling that they would be very open to sharing the creative process and some of the more technical aspects. If you have an interest in doing this - let me know and I'll see if I can put you in touch. I will limit this by saying these are very, very hard working people and you would probably want to have some technology in place and very specific goals in mind.
Can you believe it's almost August? I was always waiting for my room to be cleaned so I could go in and try different room arrangements and make new posters - wishing you all the best as autumn approaches.
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