Gaming Education

Is education a game where only some understand and play by the rules? Are others even playing the game? Do they know it even exists? Are educators just proliferating a lie of the system to control the masses?

Let’s face it. If we truly wanted all of our students to be successful we would go back to the foundations of what defines success in education and rewrite it all. Around 30% of students in high school pursue higher education in America. While I’m not a believer that this is the only path to success this is often a good indicator. Are the two thirds just getting and buying into the game of school?

I had the opportunity to discuss the topic an more at Philadelphia’s Hack Education at ISTE this week. The bullet point take aways:

• Shepherds are effective in supporting students.
• Education needs to take in the whole child
• Mindset matters
• The system is broken

One of the points which has crossed my mind and come up in conversations is a bit of a taboo subject in education; education is structured to support governmental management of populations. Even writing about this I find myself hitting a dead-end of thoughts. I have more questions than answers but can clearly see the affect on my students and education as a whole. But really how else do we create a stable society? These are big philosophical questions deserving of long term conversation.

Students need a shepherd to help them through education. For many this is in the form of a parent. But what happens when the parent wasn’t good at the game of school? A Student needs more than a role model. They need some one that can support and help them through the system. Truthfully it’s the system that is broken.

The education game needs to change. I am at ISTE in lectures discussing AI in education and it’s striking how much our students will need to know that they aren’t taught and how much they are being taught that they don’t need to know.

Let’s reimagine what school is. Even the word school. We no longer need to go to a place of learning. Resources are online to help and support us. Perhaps we start to consider education as a personal path to personally defined and coached success. Let’s not define students by a datapoint but recognize that education is more than the core elements we have been teaching.

It’s time for an overhaul of the game. Knowledge is at our fingertips. Our students need the skills to interact and work with the information they can access 24/7. Memorization of facts is no longer a necessity in school.

The idea of a game for school exists because there is a winner; a score. There are rules to the game, though the rules aren’t clearly written down. There are penalties if you break the rules but no one really tells you what they are because they don’t know themselves.

What can education be? How can we measure learning without using a number or scoring? How do we teach with the whole child? How do we heal the wounds education has caused?

Microsoft is supporting schools in transforming education. Gutting what is education  as we know it and redeveloping something else. We need to all pursue an exploration to transform what we know if as education.

Don't Talk At Me, Talk With Me

I had an opportunity to attend the Google Cloud OnBoard ML yesterday in NYC. My expectations were an introduction to the Google Cloud, some Machine Learning, and a bit of a sales pitch. I expected to walk away with some minor new skill in doing a linear regression on Google's Platform. What I walked away with was a clear experience of what education should not be. Even as a theatrical experience it should not be what Google gave us. Large companies would benefit from engaging with life long educators on how to model and connect with other during their events.

On arrival I set myself up at a hightop to do some work. It wasn't long before a Googler was engaging some attendees behind me. Of the three being chatted up there was a vast range of skills sets with their experience in cloud technologies and machine learning. One had no experience, another had played with cloud products and another had run some machine learning with scikit-learn. This was a good snapshot of what I saw the rest of the day; various skill levels with a common interest to learn and know more about machine learning.

The event started in a large ballroom with close to 1000 of us seated at thin tables facing a presenter and two large screens. This was my position for the majority of the day. A brief video was presented on organizing data and machine learning. Then a kickoff by a customer relations manager. All a basic intro with housekeeping format to begin the day. This degraded educationally from here.

ROITraining lead the training elements of the day. The format was a lecture that almost wanted to be socratic but failed in a large room. Followed by a demo that moved so fast if you wanted to follow along on your own terminal you needed to have an understanding of what was being demonstrated before the demonstration. This went on for six modules with lunch and a break in between.

While I soaked up the knowledge of the Google infrastructure and gained a better understanding of how the cloud worked there wasn't an opportunity to try the skills presented or anyone easily accessible to support when stuck. The intention is to "on board" the users to machine learning on the cloud. What I experienced was being talked at for a day.

Teachers capitalize on the basic fact that students show up everyday to learn something. Often not all students want to be in the classroom learning. Large events such as what Google offered provide rare opportunities of a filled space of eager learners. When you have that level of attention on a topic of product every moment counts. Engage the learner, build connections, and develop entry level skills. Avoid a chalk and talk scenario.

• Provide opportunities for intimate questions or anonymous questions. Have a back channel going. a place for some one to ask that question they don't want to feel stupid for asking publicly or wasting time on. 
• Setup sections for various levels of support help. Provide the support for that section. 
• Direct attendees to live help in the moment. You have me in the room now. Don't direct me to an online course. I would stayed at home and done in. 
• Connect members in similar and diverse fields. Such similarities and diversities can solve more problems when connected than apart. Create the opportunities for connections. 
• Talk with me, not at me. You have me present engage me. Work with me. Provide opportunities for me to explore and be successful under your guidance. 
• Give immediate reference resources. Don't assume everyone knows how to begin a demo. provide the lowest level documentation or be clear about prerequisites. 

I've been in many effective classrooms. The most effective for older learners provide autonomy to the learner with direct facilitated support and easily accessible resources. Consider the least skill level in the room and provide ways for them to be successful and grow. 

Vlogging to Support the Writing Process

Vlogging to support the writing process.

Learning how to write a well crafted paper can be a frustrating process for many students. It can be just as frustrating for teachers teaching students how to write an essay. Vlogging can help students to structure thoughts and provide a framework to build off. I've created some slides to support the process with iMovie.

I was recently asked to provide a short workshop for an Apple related “unconference” event. It allowed me the opportunity to put down ideas I had regarding digital media and teaching writing. I chose to explore the use of vlogging when teaching writing. I chose to use Casey Neistat as my example. You may know him from “Bike Lanes” https://youtu.be/bzE-IMaegzQ Being in NYC I needed a vlogger students could connect with while also getting something academic out of the content. Casey had vlogged on a recent event “Living in NYC during a Crisis”. Looking at the Vlog I could identify the main parts and connect the pieces quite clearly to an essay format. It also didn’t hurt that he had a video on “How to Vlog like Casey Neistat”.

Students can often feel intimidated by the written word. They may struggle putting it down on paper. Frequent student concerns are about word choice, spelling, punctuation, grammar, etc. It can be frustrating even thinking of what write. 

Fortunately vlogging can help to make this easier. Students can concentrate on the structure of what they want to say. It’s easy to take a recording and make corrections. Students can record a point or section at a time and put it back together like a puzzle. Many think when we write we have to start at the beginning. It can be made very clear with a vlog that students can start at any point. 

Yes, you get a room full of students talking. Some will preen in the camera. Others will make faces. They’ll move past this and use it as a tool. 

Some students will be uncomfortable on the camera and some won’t want to be seen. Have them use puppets, their hands, or other visual elements. It should be noted that a vlog can be easier to edit because students see where they said certain things. A podcast doesn’t provide the same visual but can also be used as a tool to support writing in the same way. 

The parts of a vlog can be related to the parts of an essay. Have students deconstruct professional vlogs and relate them to essays. They can do the same on their own works. 

Vlogs have a built in hook for students. Many want to be famous and recognized for something about them. Learning to vlog can support them having a platform. And it’s easily within reach for many. This would also be a point to talk about being a  digital citizenship leader. 

Vlogging can free student’s voices and open them to the written form. The effort for some to put the written word down can be immense. The framework of talking through something piece by piece provides a structure they can use later to support getting words on paper. Closed captioning generation can also help by providing the speech to text transfer they struggle with. Students can focus on their writing structure and word choices from this material. 

The Vlog framework

1. Starting state - this is unique to a vlog. We get an establishment of the beginning. I often think of this as the heading on a paper or the title page. We say where and when they are. Sometimes we get a who they are as well.
2. Opening overview - here we establish what we are about to talk about. We identify the points we intend to cover. I consider this to be part of our intro paragraph; our thesis statements. We hook our watchers here. *The starting state and the overview can be interchangeable in their order.
3. Inciting Incident - why are we taking about what we are talking about? It’s important to establish a personal reason for your choice of topic. The opening needs to be passionately justified for you and us to want to continue. In our paper this would be brief supporting statements for our thesis statements. 
4. Main points - we elaborate on each point we made in our overview. A point in the overview would be made a section of our main point we intended to talk about. We give supporting details, data, facts or our opinion to support our point. This would be the body of our paper with a paragraph for each point. 
5. Recap - we summarize our main points into a brief bit of information we want our watcher to take away. This is the conclusion in our paper. 
6. Ending - where we thank everyone and give credit. We also urge people to subscribe to our vlog. This would be a bibliography on our paper. The subscriber urge is particular to a vlog. 

Professional Learning Networks

Recently I had the opportunity to educate teachers on the Common Sense Education curriculum at the NYC STEM Institute. While facilitating some really great conversation I was struck by the excitement of the group. Tech always excites me. Especially when it gets used for positive unintended purposes. When I see an educator excited I know it will bring more to their communities. It also indicates they may have been missing out on belonging the right professional learning networks. 

I sometimes assume everyone knows and has see the basic educational technology available; GSuite, Office 365, Apple iWork. And I’m often wrong. Just seeing these things doesn’t mean an educator is taking advantage of them or knows how they work. It also doesn't mean they know how to infuse them in their practice. Giving EdTech to educators doesn’t change practice without proper training. This is where a good PLN, Professional Learning Network can help. 

PLNs take all forms, in-person meetups, conference video chats, online groups, etc. They can be asynchronous happening by email correspondence to bulletin board posting or synchronous through chat, conference calls or the old school face to face meeting. These can be invaluable resources of places to go when you have a question. They allow members to share materials and best practices. They engage people in improving their practice. But I’ve also seen the other side. Some great groups lay quiet and unused. Members join but then don't take the opportunity to engage each other as a resource. PLNs are good when they make an ongoing effort to engage with members. 

How do you know a good PLN:

1. Engagement- Members and Leadership make an effort to regularly engage others in a group. The once a picnic isn’t enough. The group should pose thought provoking questions. Provide cutting edge resources. And provide a platform for discussion. It’s also helpful if the group doesn’t take itself too seriously. 
2. Multiple ways to Connect- Not everyone can make it out on a Thursday night once a month. Providing multiple environments for members to meet is key in supporting engagement. Offer multiple digital environments and find a member to upkeep each. Take advantage of live-streams at meetings so members can virtually attend. Make a calendar of events physical and virtual so members can best plan to participate. 
3. Positivity - It’s an exciting thing to be a part of a community you have been hoping to find. No one wants to be bashed for their opinion. Groups should be very conscious of what their rules are and clearly communicate them. Promote positivity in the group. Celebrate what others are doing. Provide a space for members to show off and talk about what they are doing. Engagement is much richer when it’s positive. Consider at times using a protocol when responding to others. Just saying everything is great defeats the purpose of growing as an educator. A framework of how to give feedback to promote growth supports everyone.
4. Willingness to Collaborate- If we hoard all the cool things we are doing and how we do them we don’t participate in building capacity. We are past the time that things get created by one person. The best products are a collaboration of many ideas all supporting one another from different sources. 
5. Wide range of resources- While a Google PLN will focus around Google topics the resources should not eliminate or exclude other tools which can be very valuable. Good resources are often that way because they can be used so universally. Your PLN should be curating resources for easy access by old and new members. 
6. Partnerships- Networking inside the group is a great way to share practices. But what happens when the sharing gets stale? Developing connections with other networks, communities, and professional businesses can help to infuse new ideas into the group. Support when members really struggle is then just a connection away. 

I’m lucky to have stumbled on the #NYCSchoolsTech PLN in NYC. The group engages teachers through regular posts online by members and group leaders. In person meetings are organized Monthly as part of the PLNs Google Educator subgroup. Opportunities for training events and conferences are regularly posted. Most importantly there is a wide range of positive posts discussing practice, tech issues, job opportunities, and celebrations of work. While I may not always be at an event I gain from it through my colleagues. 

Find yourself a great PLN or make one. Your professional practice has everything to gain. 

#NYCSchoolsTech GEG Meetup NYC

Update: Added Partnership thanks to members of my PLN Andrew Liebowitz and Lisa Nielsen pointing it out. See how wonderful a PLN can be?