Adapt to changes not to gadgets…

"The school system is in need of overhaul, but as mentioned above, the overhaul is needed because society has changed, not because learners have iPods" or iPhones or iPads… 

I agree with Siemen's critique.  Students that are users of technology are not necessarily the best of learners.  A digital native who is content to use technology for communication and entertainment is not necessarily keen on using it demonstrate learning!  While they would be happy to use their smart phones to record fun moments, using it record an interview would be a challenge!  Again, not all 18 year olds are digital natives and hence learning of the technology overpowers the actual lesson being learnt.  This makes the whole experience stressful.

What then is the best way to deal with digital natives?  A question that I ask myself is what is the objective of this learning opportunity for students?  Is it to demonstrate the mastery of technology or present a solution to a real world problem?  Does the learning opportunity have the right mix?  Is it skewed either way?  If it is then it needs to be fixed.  A critical examination of the lesson plan/assessment and the rubric with a peer helps to refine the objectives of the task and the evaluation. 

A good understanding of abilities of students is important - are they all at the same level?  How can the "expert" students be used?  I have also learnt that setting students a series of tasks that simulate solution to a real world problem or a having a shadow case study helps to a great extent. I have also found that it is important to scaffold skills and allow students to learn incrementally.  This makes students more confident in their skills before they attempt a "real project" .

Does a teacher have to be a digital native?  Not necessary, I would say.  A good teacher attempting to create an authentic learning experience reflecting the practices of the real world need not have mastery of the technology being used.  Personally, I have never been involved in a virtual learning experience or in creating a wiki, but that should not stop me from having my students use them.  I would focus on creating a framework for my students to research, learn, create, communicate and reflect using the latest tools that they have.  A teacher's role is to guide them through the process of learning.  In most cases student enjoy demonstrating what they have learnt without being taught!  Students enjoy "showing off" their knowledge to peers and to their teacher.  This develops a passion for learning which is critical in adapting to changes and becoming life long learners.

Student Engagement in their project

The project assigned to students studying Quality Management was to conduct a study of quality culture of an organization and the application of quality tools in solving problems.  This project required students to work in groups to develop the poster and do an individual presentation on the topic assigned.  They were required to define and analyse a quality problem for a specific organization and recommend an solution plan.   Students were given one month to complete this assignment.

This project was kicked off with a discussion of requirements followed by a short workshop on the use of Glogster.  Students had just completed a poster for a different course which I reviewed and that gave me an insight into their abilities.  There are some great advantages to reviewing what your students do for their other courses - gives a teacher a good insight into competencies of students in various areas and understand if students transfer their skills easily.

Most of the students were engaged from the word go.  They were looking at doing their best on this assignment to improve their grades!  Their initial reaction to preparing a poster was "This is easy".  However as they worked their way through the project they appreciated the need to create a mock of the content as a text document and have it reviewed by me.  This was done two weeks in the assignment.  Again most groups were good about having their work reviewed and incorporated changes into their project based on the feedback, which worked to their advantage.

One of the features of an online poster is the ability to incorporate hyperlinks and videos.  Having to incorporate these had students doing some good internet based research. 

There was a session held to discuss the rubric of the poster and requirements of the presents.  These regular meetings required students to keep in touch me with and not go away to work on their projects on their own which does not always meet requirements.  It also helped them modularize their tasks and assign responsibilities to members of a group.

The project culminated with students conducting presentations individually on their study.  They also did a short survey on the use of Glogster, giving me some feedback on the use of Glogster.

This was one project where all the pieces fell in place without too much trouble! 

Student Engagement: Lessons from Gamification

Rick Raymer's article on Gamification has got me reflecting.  As a teacher, it really gladdens my heart when a student says "I enjoyed doing this assignment".  For this to happen, students should be completely engaged in the assignment and find it a rewarding experience.  In this case, Grades are only an outcome; the true reward is the process of doing the assignment itself. 

Alas, a complement like this is not commonplace, particularly with elearning assignments.  Students are usually intimidated and stressed by a requirement to use technology.   "Why do I need to produce a digital poster?  Can't I just use a paperboard?'',   "Why do I need to use google docs, I will email the document to my partner and he can edit it".  I could go on.

Considering that I do set goals and objectives, provide feedback, encourage incremental learning of new skills and scaffold skills through the assessment, I found the concepts of peer motivation, rewarding of effort and presenting an elevator pitch of the e-learning assessment very interesting.

Peer motivation can be a great tool in getting the reluctant students to engage better.  Identifying a few technology champions and using them to showcase their enthusiasm, help and motivate peers would help to increase engagement in general. I would like to try to use more of this in my assignments.

Rewarding the effort and not the success is a good idea.  I find that students are more likely to experiment with technology and buy into e-learning if they don't have to create a perfect product.  Informal evaluation and feedback to students during the project helps to improve the quality of their product and builds their confidence and engagement.  From a student's perspective, receiving feedback and improving their project, helps to create a feeling of ownership and pride, increasing engagement. Doing this takes up a lot of time for a teacher but the efforts are worth it.  Digital tools naturally help with this task, with their ability to allow for comments, feedbacks and posts.

Elevator pitch of an e-learning assignment - This I must confess, I have never tried.  All my assessments begin with a set of detailed requirements with milestones and deliverables - very linear.  This can be a bit daunting to some students.  So perhaps a two minute pitch with a simple demo of the product and processes would help to market the assignment.  A new concept - selling an assignment to student, but perhaps that is the trend with digital citizens.  I'm certainly willing to give this one a try.