What's It Mean to Innovate?

Source: dictionary.com

Do you think of yourself as an innovative teacher?
What do you think of this definition?

verb (used without object), innovated, innovating.
1. to introduce something new; make changes in anything established.

It's all relative, I think. What may seem like innovative instructional methods (new, challenging to the establishment) could be common place somewhere else. What I might do with my students on my class iPads when we are writing or even drilling with interactive practice might look innovative to a teacher who doesn't have individual devices for each of their students, but would be ordinary in an established 1:1 environment.

Here's a quick list contemporary buzz-word areas of innovation:

• STEM-integrated focus
• STEAM-integrated focus
• Game Based Learning
• Project Based Learning
• Flipped Classroom
• Flat Classroom
• Virtual School
• Global Classroom
• Parental Involvement
• Special Needs Learning
• Makers Spaces
• Robotics
• Coding

It doesn't take long reading blogs, scanning social media, or sitting at a technology conference to know that there is a wide range of implementation across education of all of the items listed above. Imagine you were in a school that does the flipped classroom very well and you were feeling very average as far as your implementation. If you were to move to a school in which NO ONE was flipping, you could make quite a name for yourself using the exact same instructional methods you had been using at your old school. When you have new skills and knowledge to share, don't you feel more innovative? I wonder if +Jon Bergmann still feels like an innovator now that he's been doing the flipped classroom for a decade. 

Do you have to be pushing the envelope on more than one of these areas to be "innovative," or just hitting one really well? Is there a layer of influence to earn the title of "innovator"? If you are the only teacher you know doing something new and no one knows about it, is it a "worthy" innovation?

Perhaps the answer is that "innovative" must be have a dynamic meaning because its definition is so subjective to its context. Remember, incandescent light bulbs were once an innovation.

Here's my own definition of innovative education technology practice as we teach at the end of 2014.

It should really go without saying that the teacher is using technology in the classroom, but where the "innovators" are defined begins in the varying degrees of student use of technology in the classroom. During an accreditation visit two years ago, we lost a lot of points for student use (or lack thereof) of technology in the building, so you don't have to be too far on the scale here to be a tech "innovator," but in a different setting, more would be required. 

So back to the "Are you an innovator" test. Let's just use the definition for where you are.

Are you making changes to what is established? Do you introduce new ideas?

#FLIPCLASS Tip: Organize Your Videos by Standardizing Links

I've written previously about organizing your videos per unit or chapter in a playlist, and of course, you can send out your videos via Remind, post them on Edmodo, have kids subscribe to your Youtube channel, or host them on your own website, but here's one more idea (that I think is more user-friendly if you're keeping accountability via kids notebooks instead of online).

Use a link shortening app or website like Bitly, customize the shortened links to your name and objectives, and follow the same pattern for all of your videos. Aligning your links' names to objectives or standards already listed in your syllabus will help students and parents match up which video goes with what needs more work or is to be made up.

Here's what I mean - I have a shared syllabus with 3 other teachers in my department for our Algebra 1b course.

Rather than simply posting my videos to Youtube and then sharing out a long, randomized link, or even YouTube's shortened version, I take each url and shorten to bitly.com/baker_starks_**, where the end of the link is a number that corresponds to the standards listed in that image above. So, if you go to bitly.com/baker_starks_5, you get my video on the Distributive Property.

But if you're posting the link on Edmodo and Remind, what does it matter that you've shortened it?

Good question, reader. Do you students ever tell you they "lost the text from Remind" or "couldn't login to Edmodo?" Following a standardized name for your links gives you another defense and the student another chance to get their notes done because if they remember the suffix you always include, they can make some guesses as to the ending.

Why not just name the videos as the standards are worded on your syllabus?

Bitly links must be unique, so only one person in the world can "own" the link to something like bitly.com/orderofoperations. You might be able to sneak in some, but I'd bet at some point you're going to run into a naming issue and have to deviate slightly from the way it was written on your syllabus. Then you've made it HARDER to find that video, instead of easier.

"Good" Use of Education Technology

What makes for "good use" of a computer lab, laptop, or tablet cart?

The prevailing pedagogy for "21st century" or "rigorous and relevant" learning would say the ideal involves students engaged in some relevant, collaborative inquiry-based project, or simulating/investigating a model not otherwise possible or enriched by software/the web.

But what about other times?

Is standardized testing good use?
Is practice-testing for computer based standardized testing good use?
Is content-related gaming good use?
Is word processing good use?
Is watching tutorial/flipped classroom videos good use?
Are drill and kill practice websites good use?

The answers to all of these questions depends on the current situation in your building and the current needs of your students. Clearly, if all of your students have access to computers and a lot of bandwidth at home, using  the lab for students to finish projects or watch videos may not be a good  use. However, if you're choosing between students turning in 1970s-era projects or giving kids access to create polished, media-rich projects at school, the best use of resources is to have kids create in the lab.

Bottom line, the best use of school technology resources is to USE THEM. Once we're fighting everyday for access to the lab or carts then we'll be more selective and demanding of the way they are used. 

Create Digital Manipulatives with PicCollage App

Searching for a fun way to enrich my students who had already watched and accounted for the videos for today's lesson, I decided to have them create and use manipulatives to model the addition and subtraction of integers that I had presented in my flipping videos.

My first decision was to just have them use paper, but with other kids in the room catching up on the videos on the class iPads, that almost seemed like a PUNISHMENT. "Good job doing your homework and getting ahead. Now give me back the technology - you can cut paper squares." Not exactly the engaging environment I was hoping to create. While rethinking it during my prep, I opened my iPad just to look through my apps to see which of them might give me some of the create-a-shape-and-then-move-it-around functionality I was seeking.

I settled on the app PicCollage (iOS | Android), which I previously used last year to have students construct a Frayer Model for our exponent rules.

Here are some student examples. Taco vs. Nachos was my favorite. :)

That was "-6 + 12 =" in the blue text, in case you're thinking this kid was as lost I was first thinking when I looked at it. :)

This was is also -6 + 12

7 + (-12)

The real winner was when the creator of smileys vs slushies above used HIS OWN MODEL to help out the kid next to him who was a little confused on how to use the model. Student win!

SMART Notebook Template for your #Flipclass Videos

One of the more common complaints I here from students in flipped classrooms are that they want their teacher to teach the class. This is usually in response to the model as a whole, but using other teachers' videos definitely exacerbates the complaint.

+Lodge McCammon's method suggests teachers K.I.S.S their approach and do their video with a simple whiteboard behind them in one take. The approach is certainly more luddite-friendly than editing an iMovie project or even screencasting on an iPad or other tablet, but it also passes on the opportunity we have to include multimedia in your lesson.

For the first time in the "studio" this year, my Algebra 1 co-teacher and I decided to put some slides together in SMART Notebook and present at the board as we would in class. Expecting that he and I will be doing this dozens of times throughout the year, I created a template to make our video sessions more efficient during our common planning period or PLC times once the school year begins.

Download this template as a SMART Notebook file here

Here are our first efforts. I think we're still working on the lighting - putting the guy with dark skin on the dark side of the room was obviously a problem. :)

Blended Learning and Unintended Consequences

A relationship with one of my AP Stats students went sour this week, and it was a little unexpected.

Stats is the class in which I usually have my edtech act "together" because its easier to pilot apps or tools in the smaller classes, they're better at "playing" school so they're more readily willing to try new things, and because they're generally more mature, if things don't go well, we can generally recover, go more "traditional" and still have a worthwhile class period.

Of my preps this year, AP Stats class is the most "blended." Many of those students contact me via email or texting my district monitored Google Voice number. Every project I have them complete is submitted (and completed) electronically. I have a Google Drive folder that they all have viewer access to for notes, handouts, PowerPoint files, worksheets, lesson plans, etc. - there's a lot in there. 100% of these students are signed up for my Remind101 messages. 

So when I had a student complain Friday morning before our quiz that I hadn't "taught [her] the Central Limit Theorem" because she had missed some of class on Tuesday, I was at a loss for words. 

All teachers have to lie (to themselves).

For many reasons, chief among them hope and forgiveness, there are many instances in which teachers have to "lie" to themselves about their students or their classroom in order to walk through the door the next day, teach students, and inspire whatever growth they can conjure from their pupils. It's quite common to give the benefit of a doubt to the student. "She does have a job, 3 other honors classes, and plays basketball - she's got a lot going on." "He has to spend a lot of time looking after younger siblings." "I could have done a better job catching her up after she was absent." "I forgot to get him the homework assignment from yesterday..." 

But. The more we blend our classes, put our materials online, make ourselves (technically) available 24/7, the more we must be real with ourselves. The more the learning opportunities extend beyond your 4 walls and 50 minutes, the more you've got to let it go.

You can lead a student to water, but...

This student was frustrated because she felt like I had not done my job in this particular respect. It's arguable; "if there is no learning, then there is no teaching," might certainly apply to this student's circumstances this week, but when you teach high schoolers, where does your responsibility for effort ever end?

Does it?

The Unintended Consequence:
Because I felt completely resolved in my efforts to share everything with my students, because I had made two content videos last week for note-taking, because I had posted students' class Evernote summaries in our shared Drive folder... I could not rationally wear my teacher-lenses and excuse this student. All I could see was a girl who wasn't taking her responsibility for learning all she could about sample means this week. Using tech in the classroom is supposed to make you feel better, right?

---

RESOURCES I USED THIS WEEK:

I've asked a lot of rhetorical questions in the post - I hope you made it to the end. Just wanted to share something useful, too.

Evernote - after I noticed a student was doing it on his own with his iPhone, I decided to designate a kid a day take the "official" notes for class in the Evernote app and send them to me so I could post them on a doc in our Drive folder. I'm already in love with this because it saves me 1 or 2 steps in my desire to archive our class sessions for the students. We used the new doc-scanner settings, text, and audio. If I had a premium account I wouldn't have to touch the notes at all because students would be able to upload to a shared Evernote notebook. #gotmethinking

Present.me - One of my videos for the week was made with this #flipclass tool. I like that it makes slides+you easy to create, but there are no YouTube upload options, so it fragments my resources.

Touchcast - The first video I made this week was via the Touchcast app in iOS. This was needed more actual examples worked out, so I needed the whiteboard functionality that present.me does not have. I wrote about my students using touchcast here.

Remind101 - We started a really cool activity from our textbook about the ages of pennies, but didn't get as far as I thought we would be able to, so I had to switch up the plan for the next day. I compiled some numbers they would have had if we'd gotten further, got a share link, and sent it out with instructions for the next day.

Google Voice - Two students texted to my Google number (which shows up in my Gmail inbox) to ask clarifying questions on what I'd sent to them with Remind101.


Google Drive - cre

Flip Student Project Presentations w/ iOS App Touchcast

I asked a few of my colleagues in the math office about any the reservations they had about having their students make class presentations.

"I think I'm always disappointed with the end product."
"You do it for too long, and they get bored. They don't listen to each other."
"I worry that so many kids are off task and not engaged when the other students are presenting."

When I asked one of them how many days they usually allocate to project completion IN CLASS, her response was, "Days?! How about weeks! If you don't give more time, even those honors kids won't do as well because they're so stressed out about their other classes."

Needless to say, taking out time for project presentations is not something we usually get warm fuzzies about.

THE PROJECT
At the end of every chapter in AP Stats, I usually alternate between summative exams and summative projects. The exams are good because they get more practice preparing for the AP exam, but I think the learning is usually more evident (or lack thereof), and more authentic.

We usually write papers to practice formal, technical writing and integrating math with charts and text, but I was excited about using the Touchcast app recently for my flipped lessons in another class, so I thought I'd have my students kick the tires.

The students had a choice between two projects requiring similar skills, "A Fair Coin," or "Airline Overbooking."

THE PROCESS
The most I usually commit to these projects is one day to allow for questions and clarifications, but there was an obvious need for more support on this project (especially because students under-performed last year), so gave a day for stats work and a day for putting together the slides.

After the slideshow was together, students copied the share link and inserted it as an interactive app in the iOS broadcasting app, Touchcast.

RESULTS
Students were really nervous about being on camera and talking about their slideshows. In a good way, I think. I enjoyed the creative tweaks many of them inserted in their presentation, risks that I think they may have been less likely to take if they were up in front of the room. (even though they knew I would be sharing their videos).

Getting in Touchcast took about a day and a half, but it was time we would have taken any to present, and using Touchcast, everyone was ON TASK because they were making their videos at the same time.



OTHER WAYS TO USE IN YOUR CLASS

• Students create a current events broadcast for a social studies class
• Adding in a browser-based whiteboard (like Twiddla) and having students create tutorial videos
• Students discuss themes of a piece of literature
• Students create a news broadcast about historical events
• Demonstrate a procedure for a science experiment
• Present and critique a work of art or song

10 Free Tools for your #Flipclass Videos

"We're making a video tomorrow, and I don't even know what we're using to do it, or where we're saving it, or what we're doing after we save it..."

We had the honor of hosting +Jon Bergmann in our district last week, so my colleague is really motivated to begin flipping her classroom, but she's feeling overwhelmed to say the least. So where can she begin?

The Basics: No Frills Approach to Jumping In

• Shoot video of you and/or a co-teacher in front of a whiteboard with a digital camera, webcam (we have really handy iPEVOs in our district), smartphone or tablet. Upload video to YouTube. Link to that video on your class website, email students the link, or send them to the url for your YouTube channel
• Features: 
• Easy to implement
• tools probably already at hand
• Cons: 
• Hope you get it in the first take! :) If you're not going to edit, you'll have to rehearse once or twice to hone your timing and scripting.
• Sound quality dependent upon built-in microphone

• Take a screencast of your SMARTboard using the SMART recorder. This "SMART tool" is included with the install of SMART Notebook on your Windows or Mac machine.
• Features: 
• Because its a screencast, you can focus on what you say rather than how you look
• Your students are probably already comfortable with the look of the video
• Pause button is always on top, so you can pause to change colors, insert images, etc., without adding to the length of your video
• Cons
• Some students may miss the personal connection of seeing your face and inflection unless you pair with a webcam in the recording area
• Similar to shooting with your smartphone or tablet, you'll need to rehearse or end up spending a lot of time editing (which you probably don't want to/know how to do, which is why you're using SMART recorder)

• Screencast-o-matic: This is my go-to screencast utility. You can use it as a web app or native application. 
• Features:
• All of those listed above for SMART Recorder
• Can layer recording window on top of Notebook, but also over a web browser, PowerPoint, or content-specific software for demonstrations. We have a teacher in our department who loves using Geometer Sketchpad that could really take advantage this point
• Multiple save options. Save directly to YouTube, Screencast-o-matic, or just to your file on your machine
• Can scale recording window however you like, hiding other applications you have running without closing them down.
• Clip, trim, and review clips before saving or continuing

Free iOS Apps:

• ShowMe - easy to use screencast whiteboard, import images, search library of other teacher's videos 
• Educreations - easy to use screencast whiteboard, import images, search library of other teacher's videos
• Touchcast - Can be used as a screencast whiteboard, a camera of you in front of a whiteboard, or you picture-in-picture in front of website/image
• Ask3 - easy to use screencast whiteboard, import images, classroom community and message board built in. "Ask3" is derived from the strategy "ask three, then me," so the app is designed around students collaborating and answering each other's questions from your video.
• Vittle Free - import photos, limited to a minute recording in this free version

Other Free Websites and Software with Extra Features

• Present.Me
• Features:
• Easy to set-up
• Video of you along-side slides or of you alone
• Trim/clip/review recording if you make a mistake
• Link to your Google+ account
• Cons:
• Requires flash, so not an option on iOS 
• Jing (from the creators of Camtasia Studio)
• Features:
• Available as a native app, so it will be available even when WiFi is not
• Videos stored at screencast.com
• Restart a recording if you make a mistake
• Pair with webcam to shoot yourself, too

Use a tablet to annotate on whiteboard software, or just present alongside a slideshow

Summary

Try out several tools. Find the right combination between polish and ease of use. Give yourself permission to grow in your skills presenting and editing. 

You're more likely to persevere through hiccups of your implementation of the flipped classroom if you'll allow yourself to fail every once in awhile. (So that you know what to improve upon.)

Jeff Bliss, Luddites, and Graduation Credits

Just happened upon this editorial from Trinidad and Tobago (you know, that country with the TieDye hockey sweaters in D2: The Mighty Ducks) calling for a new Luddite movement, and I'm not quick to disagree.

Wait, what? 

What's wrong?

This is a math and EDTECH blog. Why are you trying to champion the Luddites?

Do you KNOW about the Luddites, or do you only use the word synonymously for tech haters that make your job training and collaborating more difficult (depressing?)

Luddites were about quality. Is it in your life? Is it in your classroom?

All the championing of teacher-teller-offer Jeff Bliss this week has been largely about his passionate plea for impassioned teaching. I get it. The kids our one-size-fits most educational system hurts most are the ones who burned out once, realize they really want it for themselves, and then remember the whole reason they left in the first place. Sometimes school sucks.

Enter the machines to save the day! Flipped class! Online courses! Blogging! Differentiated objectives!

These are great strategies to turn the industrial system on its head - in the right hands. Online courses are wonderful for students who cannot participate in the time or space of the local traditional school. I love how the flipped class gives more time for peer discussion and productive struggle. Mastery systems that deliver differentiated objectives for individual students and groups lead students in goal setting, self pacing, and reward students who want to work ahead without punishing those that need more time.

None of these matter, however, if teachers and admin just go through the motions, gaming the new systems, getting kids through their new technology-enriched courses while patting themselves on the back with the credits they're rewarding. The teenager in front of you is more than willing to get his credits (that word has me thinking about arcade tokens, which is all I feel like they're worth sometimes) from "passing" that course. Are you REALLY helping them? I'm not sure.

Does Jeff Bliss just want to get through high school? I'm sure he wouldn't hate it, but is that what he deserves? Jeff Bliss wants to star on the movie about his life where he made the choice to return to school and in return found teachers who shared an kind of passion with him.

I don't think Jeff Bliss wants his math teacher to be his best friend, but I do think he wants to know his math teacher isn't counting down the minutes until he's out the door. It doesn't matter how shiny and differentiated our systems are if the teachers (even in online courses) are bland robots going through the motions.

Technology is great, but remember, you're also a craftsman.

(Effective) Teacher Technology Use Is Growing (INFOGRAPHIC)

A friend of mine, +Dave Hallmon , forwarded this infographic from onlineuniversities.com today and it had some points that really grabbed my interest.

1. 68% of students reported in 2012 that their teachers used technology effectively.

It doesn't go into what technology proficiencies made for "effective," or at what level, but that seems like an encouraging number.

2. Of teachers surveyed, 90% have a laptop or PC in the classroom.

This astounds me that is NOT at least 99%, but good for perspective, I guess. Even on days you're upset that your favorite tech tool isn't behaving, it could be WORSE.

3. 3 in 4 teachers say that tech allows them to reinforce and expand on content, motivate students, and accommodate multiple learning styles.

Is it statistically appropriate, then to link my first point, and this one and assume that of the ~75% of teachers that report these benefits, only 7% aren't doing it well? (Probably not, but it would be an interesting test of significance to run)

4. In a study of AP Calc students, the half in a #flipclass model scored an average of more than half a point higher on the 5 point AP exam scale

I feel like my most effective days teaching in AP Stats are the days we clarify misconceptions and reinforce what is understood. Giving lectures, which is something my kids DID ask for more of, seems like a bit of a time waste for kids that I know can and will mostly read/watch when I tell them to.

I have a hunch that at least a segment of these higher AP scores are because the brighter kids benefited more from the self-paced learning afforded by the video model, but it's significant enough for me to give it a shot next week when we return from Spring Break.

The Day 2nd Hour Functions "Got" It.

Contrary to some teachers worst fears (and, I suspect, most "old-timers"), I long for the day when students and their parents figure out that I don't have all of the math knowledge they could ever need in their lives.  I try to promote this by encouraging my students to search YouTube.com, BrightStorm.com, or khanacademy.org when they're at home and need additional tutoring, and by also encouraging them to help each other.  I even introduced a new standard in my gradebook this semester that aligns to peer-communication and presentations.  (Although I have yet to make good on my promise to use it).

Tuesday was one of those days where the "sage on the stage" was behaving quite un-sage-like.  I wasn't very well prepared for the lesson because I had needed to have a conversation with our precalc teacher before school about the necessity of one of the lessons I was thinking of doing this week in terms of preparing my students that will be going on to him.

After probably 10 minutes of word-stumbling and some ineffective instruction, one of the kids said, "Hey, why don't we just get a YouTube video?"  Ding!  "Great idea!" I said, as a ran over to the computer to search the channels of some of our favorites.  The rest of the period went much, much better as we watched a few videos and I served as expert tutor/guide instead of guest lecturer mathematician.

Thinking back to those "old-timers"...  ...maybe they would just say that I need to have my lessons more prepared and that this was proof of the ultimate teacher #FAIL, but I see it as evidence of learning.  When the sage on the stage paradigm fails, my learners are finally free to explore and trust their intuition.

Update: 4/25/2014
When I wrote this post three years ago, I was so very excited for my students because I knew that they not only knew that there were other resources, but that many of them had the initiative to go and get them. The "peer communication" standard I referenced above was directly inspired by one of my students that was constantly asking for more resources she could use at home, and then went home and used them.

I'm feeling nostalgic for this class today, because I have a hand full of students this year that refuse to take any initiative to look up things for themselves. Basic, DOK 1, reference type things. I had a student stay after school yesterday to work on our Google SketchUp project that was moving on to finding the area of the swimming pools on his design. In the span of 10 minutes, I think he asked me the area formula for a circle 3 times. While he was sitting right in front of a computer with a Google search tab open.

So to answer the question on the graphic above, when your students think that you know "everything" and can (or must) be their only source of knowledge, they miss out on any ability to explore their world! Think back to the first time you found an encyclopedia and just sat on the floor, reading some, looking at all of the pictures. As that small kid, I remember feeling like I now knew everything, because I could look it up. I (thought I) could explore the answer to any question I could think up, and this was pre-Internet!

Is this student an isolated case, or do some "digital natives" take the collective knowledge of the web for granted to such an extent as to IGNORE it?