Monday, January 21, 2008

Return to the ICE Age

This week I am returning to the Indiana Computer Educators Conference as a presenter. My first ICE gig was in January of 2002, when I presented as a participant in the Indiana University School of Education TICKIT Program. Lately, I've been thinking back over the past six years of technological, professional and personal growth, so I thought I'd jot some of those reflections down here.

At the January 2002 ICE Conference, I presented my first (and only) webquest. In this activity, students were asked to put together a virtual Art Gallery in PowerPoint. I was just learning to create web pages, so I was eager to show off my new found technical abilities. My webquest was comprised of 35 (yes, THIRTY-FIVE) web pages, each with custom graphics, rollover effects and any other eye candy I could throw at it. Although I would later learn that my "webquest" was nothing close to the sort of thing Bernie Dodge had in mind, it was a far cry form the photocopied worksheet version of an artist research project I had passed out a couple of years before as a student teacher.

For all of its excesses and shortcomings, however, that webquest taught me a lesson in the value of simplicity. Once doesn't need to throw in everything but the kitchen sink to generate interest and spark enthusiasm.

As I spoke at that conference in 2002, I was already thinking ahead towards the next project. I wanted to start using an online classroom and I also wanted to do digital video with my students. I combined the two into a Public Service Announcement project for 8th Graders. I set up an online classroom at Nicenet.net which is still on the web, still free to use, and devoid of advertisements. Nicenet has a conferencing feature that is quite similar to a blog. It was then and remains today a really great, free web tool.

I asked my students to generate a half dozen or so topics, social and political concerns, that we would discuss on Nicenet. I set up the classroom so that I was the only person who knew the identities of the participants. I even asked some adults--teachers and college professors--to participate. The discussions were spirited, although respectful and remarkably mature for 8th grade students.

After a week of online discussions, my students broke up into small groups, chose a topic from the discussions, and began crafting 90-second public service announcements on their topics. In my 7 years of teaching, I have rarely seen a classroom come alive the way it did during this unit, and the work these students produced remains among the very best I have ever seen.

Over the next several years, I did my best to introduce at least one new technology-based activity in my classroom per year. Here, it was not just a matter of putting a new spin on a previously used technology, but an attempt to integrate some new or emerging technology into my classroom practice. I did online writing prompts, streaming video demonstrations, and blogs, all with varying degrees of success.

I've come to realize that technology alone cannot make the learning experience. This became crystal clear to me when one of my current students remarked to me that he thought PowerPoint was "boring." Back in 2002, my students PowerPoint. It was new. It put their ideas up on the video projector or TV for everyone to see. Sure, they all overdid it with the transitions, animations and sound effects, but that was the fun of it for them.

Now, it seems, PowerPoint is passe.

Back in 2002 I felt very strongly that technology had the potential to fundamentally transform education.  I still believe that, however, six years after my first ICE Conference, I can see more clearly why instructional technology can and does fail.  When technology is viewed and used simply as a new conduit, it loses its magic once the novelty wears off.  Just because students are viewing educational content on a computer screen rather than in a book, on a television, or a filmstrip (remember those?LOL) doesn't effect student motivation and performance significantly.  Students who type papers in MS Word don't really enjoy writing any more than they did back in the days of the electric typewriter.

The transformative power of technology resides in its potential to transform the relationships between learners, teachers and content.  The transformative power of technology resides in its potential (which is rarely used) to take learning outside of the classroom and, indeed, out of the school building altogether.  Let's not forget that, among many things, current technology is primarily a tool for communication, for sharing ideas, for connecting to other people, other cultures.  But it's not just about saying your piece, it's also about knowing you've been heard, it's about feedback.  This is why myspace.com and youtube.com remain two of the fastest-growing sites on the web.  

So, this year, I've kind of gone back to my roots.  Not to the 2002 webquest, but to that video project.  With the advent of Blogger.com, streaming video, and podcasting, my students now look forward to something that was far less accessible to my 8th graders of 2002--a world-wide audience.

Now that I think about, though.  I still have one or two of those old PSA's on my computer.

Better late than never, I guess.

This video, "Get Over It,' addresses issues of tolerance.  The main brain behind this was an 8th grader named Nick Hurm.