A HyperDoc for The Outsiders an Instructional Design Proposal

My proposal is for the creation of a HyperDoc to use while teaching a class novel, The Outsiders. I am hoping to incorporate more technology into the teaching units of my novel. I am also hoping that by creating and using such a document I will encourage other staff members in my school to use it as well. 

The Process

The process for this project has been interesting. I have learned to analyze the assignments that I put forward for students from multiple perspectives including learning styles but also by soliciting feedback from teachers and students prior to implementation. In general, I think that I have learned a lot, and this project made me approach the novel in a different way than I have in the past. I focused more on student connections and reflections and less on written responses and questions. I am hoping that this will be a better way to teach the novel and will keep me more engaged with a book that I don't love. I think that the students will appreciate the more interactive tasks, and while I'm not certain they will love the idea of being on camera, I think when we are finished they will have overcome their hesitation and will like the video portion.  For these reasons I am excited to start teaching this unit in January when we return from break. At the very least I'm curious to see if organizing it this way makes things more efficient. 

Challenges

The biggest challenge that I have faced is finding time to actually create the HyperDoc. This is a time consuming document to create. Both re-engineering a unit that I have taught for 20 years with minimal changes, and the actual copying, pasting, linking, image finding, etc. are both time consuming tasks that would be better done with a team or partner, but I am working on this alone. My colleague will likely try and implement at least large chunks of this HyperDoc, but she is not interested in putting forth the time to re-create a unit that exists in a perfectly acceptable form already. 

Positive Aspects & The Role of a Coach

The most positive aspect of this process has been reminding me about the roots of my teacher training program. I attended my undergraduate courses over 20 years ago, and while the technology aspect looks vastly different now than it did then, the research behind the units, lessons, assignments, and activities is much the same. Over the years though, we tend to focus more on the day to day than the big picture. This course was a good reminder of what that big picture should look like and will help me as a technology specialist who is looking to help other teachers re-make their own units. Ideally, this will be a part of my job when I finish the program. Currently my position is part-time and generally consists largely of support and "fun stuff." As I finish this program and move to a full-time role, I'd really love to help my co-workers rethink their units rather than just their individual lessons. There are several good examples from this class about how to do that in a way that is helpful and not overwhelming. 

Changes

The biggest disappointment of this class was the fact that I did not have a chance to complete the HyperDoc I was hoping to create yet. The process was helpful, and I have the HyperDoc started, but it's only about a quarter done. It would be helpful if completing the assignment instead of creating the presentation was an option for the final piece. For many of these projects that require approval or much lengthier time line I understand that it wouldn't make sense for them, but for people who are working on an project that is just for their own personal advancement I think it would work. Seeing the HyperDoc completed would give my classmates an overview similar to the presentation of the process would I think. Just a thought. 

 

Instructional Design Project Reflection One

You are at the mid-point of your proposal preparation, so it is time to reflect on the steps you have journeyed through.  

Background on the Project

We are going to include more technology tools this year during our class reading of The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton. Novel studies in my classroom have historically used more traditional tools and basic technology. Discussions, questions with answers, quizzes, and essay writing comprised the bulk of assessment. Most of these things had moved from paper and pencil tasks to a digital version, but the type of work was the same. This year I  am using a HyperDoc to plan a research project for the final assessment. Students will relate the theme of the book to a research topic. They will study that topic and then create a presentation (video, movie trailer, interview, or possibly document) to demonstrate their understanding of both the book themes and their supplemental research. 

How Has the Process Been?

This process has been interesting for a few reasons. First, the discussions with my fellow teachers were interesting. Generally speaking, all are fairly tech-savvy and use our student chromebooks with regularity. These teachers are comfortable with basic levels of technology, attend our yearly school-run tech camp program and and are generally people I  felt would be interested in increasing their use of technology to achieve greater student learning in more creative, student-centered ways. These teachers are not opposed to what I am creating and suggesting we try to implement, but they are skeptical about their ability to incorporate it. There are concerns that the benefits will not be great enough to justify  the amount of time and effort needed to implement it into the classroom. Going forward, there are also concerns about the amount of time it would take to prepare similar units for other grades and novels. There are also justified concerns about student behavior in some of our classrooms. While I understand these concerns and am sympathetic to them, I was quite surprised that these teachers were so fully satisfied with their current level of technology inclusion, and that they weren’t all that interested in working through these issues.

Second, this project has challenged me to not only just think beyond, but to actually move beyond my comfort zone with student technology use in the classroom. I am doing this project mostly alone. It would be great to have had a partner teacher, but that’s not in the cards right now. I  am going to be the model and the lead for the building. Hopefully it works well, and we’ll be a positive example for others to follow. But it’s a little scary because I ‘ve not done a lot of work with video. I  can usually figure it out, but I like to be prepared for all eventualities in my lesson planning. I don’t like to waste time. This project, these readings, and this class has reminded me that ‘learning as we go’ is still learning for students. I  don’t want our class time wasted, but problem solving tech issues and figuring out how to produce a product is also valuable. I  just need to remember that students shouldn’t be looking to me as the answer to all their questions. They need to lean on and learn from each other to ignite their constructivist learning. 

Challenges

The biggest challenge that I  have had during this project is that I  am always reshaping the focus and resizing the scope of my project as we learn more. I  started with a very broad idea that incorporated predominantly substitution and modification type tasks.  As we’ve learned more about social constructivist theory and the benefits it brings to student learning, I have shifted my project to focus primarily on activities and instruction that support this theory. I'm constantly reworking the ideas, setup, resources, and directions in my head.

Looking Forward

I  am looking forward to teaching this project. I am optimistic that it's going to be a great experience for students, and that they will really demonstrate their knowledge and understanding in a creative way that I would never have considered. I believe that I can set up parameters and structure the assignment in a manner that helps students immerse themselves in the process and develop a rich final product. However, this type of creative technology usage is not something that I  have much experience with, so I am also nervous. I have a really great class this year though, and it’s a good group to try new things with so I  am excited that we are going to learn together.

This is also the type of learning, unit creation, and technology usage that  I have set as one of my own professional goals. Once I get comfortable doing this type of work on my own, I  will also be able to use this experience to guide other teachers in our building toward using these collaborative, creative tech tools to generate  content driven instruction and assessment. This a big part of my future role in the building.

The Best Part

I  have taught The Outsiders  for years, and I ‘ve never particularly loved it. In my opinion, the writing is sub-par, the vocabulary is ostentatious (oh, there’s some irony for you), and the themes are cliche. However, the students love it and my colleague loves it. So I  teach it. This project has made me excited to teach the book this year. I ‘m looking forward to having a better plan and more in-depth objectives and assessment. This project has increased my investment and interest in the novel, something that my previous teaching lacked.

The Worst Part

There have been some disappointments in this process as I  stated above, but I haven’t had any truly negative experiences. 

Technology Specialist as Instructional Designer

The idea of the technology specialist as an instructional designer gives me a lot of ideas and hope for the future of my school. Currently, as the part-time instructional technology coach there isn’t the time (on my side or the classroom teachers) to approach our technology integration is such a systematic way. We are integrating based on what we feel capable of, what looks fun or interesting, and what we can do easily without much planning or prep time. Teachers are overwhelmed and always juggling new expectations; it’s difficult to ask for time to integrate one more thing into their classrooms. This piecemeal approach has been slow and isn’t resulting in the type of tech use and teaching that we ultimately want to see. The idea of using instructional design and working on tech integration from a top-down, wide lens approach makes sense and reaffirms my belief that tackling units rather than individual lessons or skills for tech integration is a better long-term approach. As my role grows into a full-time position, this idea will provide a more comprehensive approach and make the outcome more valuable for not just me, but also the classroom teacher.

Social Media

This week I was really interested in the presentation on danah boyd's book It's Complicated.

Image Source
 from Google Images

 This book had already appealed me earlier in the course and I had put it on hold at my local library. This presentation has further piqued my interest because I tend to agree with a lot of the quotes that were pulled from the book for the presentation created by Nicole Zumpano. 

How Society Views Tech

Quote from It's Complicated by boyd
Image Source

Quote from It's Complicated by boyd
Image Source

Two quotes that caught my attention were about how the media uses technology to amplify an idea or a position, and how everyone wants to blame technology for the problems with people today. I think it's far more likely that the root problem or behavior has always existed. It was just generally more hidden. Technology hasn't necessarily changed people; it's just given them a voice and platform. This is celebrated when we like the that voice and platform or when it brings good to our world, but instead of recognizing that the opposite can also be true we tend to blame the tool rather than the situation, person, or cause of the bad behavior. 

This mindset does not require us to be reflective or proactive in trying to solve the problem. The blame lies elsewhere and there's little we can do about it because technology is such a big thing that's beyond our control. 

Technology and Children-The Parent View

Being a parent isn't easy today. However, I think that this statement does a huge disservice to parents who came before us. I don't think being a parent has ever been easy. Sure today we have to worry about screen time and cyber bullying, but we don't have to worry about smallpox or polio. It's all about perspective. I think families have always been balancing a parent's need to protect and educate with a teen's need to privacy and independence. Having parents look at social media accounts is the modern day equivalent of reading a diary or listening to what you said to your friends on the phone. I'm not positive, but I'd guess that many families used to fight about those issues a few decades ago. Finally, I think the final quote I included about teens today having less freedom is a sad state for kids and parents. I think that kids need independence in order to navigate the world and figure out how to get along without their parents. I try very hard to keep that philosophy in mind when raising my own kids. It's not always easy and there are times when it's actually quite scary, but I am also happy to be in a neighborhood where it's generally safe for my kids to be out exploring and growing up without me always around. I think that's important. Yet, ironically it's also getting harder as my kids get older. It's never easy and I think that society would benefit greatly from working together to make sure our kids can safely navigate the real world, a little patience, understanding, and guidance for all can go a long way toward building a community that raises all  of us up.  

Quote from It's Complicated by boyd
Image Source

Quote from It's Complicated by boyd
Image Source

  

I am excited to read this book and am looking forward to the author's reflections on these topics.

Looking Back, Looking Ahead

The Best Take Aways

I have learned a tremendous amount from this class and have already starting many of the new sites, apps and resources into practice in my classroom and in the lessons I am making to help the teachers in my school. The most frequent new tool I have used is Flipgrid. I started studying how to use video in the classroom in Week 2 when I started making my presentation on Flipped Learning and then continued it in Week 6 when we took an app into the classroom. Since this time we have started using Flipgrid at least once a week for something. I am still working on managing the response time. Students are working to lengthen their responses, but it's getting better.  

The other resource that I am loving was something I found when we did our project with Twitter.  While I am still not a huge fan of posting on Twitter, I have definitely found a number of great resources by following people there, particularly the Google Teacher Tribe (GTT) Podcast. I listen to it each week on the way to work and then follow up with all their resources online. I'm considering trying to start a "podcast club" at my school, similar to a book club where we all listen to the GTT podcast and then meet to talk about what we like and how we could use the ideas in class.   I also found the Twitter chat surprisingly fun and helpful. I think I will definitely follow one of those again. 

What's Changed?

I think that I have made a lot of personal growth and gained a ton of knowledge because of this class. It has definitely opened me to new experiences and encouraged me to try new things in the classroom. It has been great to learn about some new websites and apps that I wasn't familiar with and also to see how other people have used them. I am still really excited to find ways to start incorporating blogging, podcasts, and more video into the classroom. I have lots of ideas about how to help bring some of our big traditional school projects to the 21st century.  

What's Stayed The Same?

I am not sure that I have grown quite as much in my sharing side. I am still hesitant to share on social media and prefer to maintain a small digital footprint. However, I am taking into account the argument that the absence of a professional digital footprint isn't necessarily a good thing. I'm still not convinced I plan to put a lot of information out there publicly, but I am definitely looking at it in a new light, and can see a value to have a professional web presence even if I keep my personal profile limited. 

Tech in School

This class has really helped me a lot in my new position this year. It has exposed me to websites and apps that I didn't know existed, shown me new ways to think about student learning, and really helped me to try to move my teaching to a new level. In Week 2 I analyzed the SAMR model and compared my teaching. At the time I put myself solidly in the Augmentation level, but I think I am definitely moving more into the Modification level, and part of my new job has me really helping teacher to do the same thing. They are much more comfortable moving from S to A to M when there is someone there to help them. I was nervous at first about this class and this position, but the last eight weeks have been really exciting and interesting to me, and made me really happy that I am embarking on this new career path. 

Data Mine--Digital Tattoos

What's out there?

This week we were tasked with uncovering our digital history. I have to say I was pleasantly surprised at how little I found about myself online.  I have consciously tried to keep my digital presence small up to this point in my life, and I am quite happy with that decision. If I decide to pursue the goal of creating a dedicated professional web presence I am happy that it will not be competing with my personal web presence. 

What I found

Personal Screenshot
of Google search result

I tried almost all the different sites that were offered. A simple Google search of my name is a shockingly ineffective way to find me. The first two and half pages of search results are devoted to an Entertainment Tonight host named Leeza Gibbons. (Who by the way, doesn't actually share my name).

Even on pages three and four, though you won't really find me. There are several other successful doctors who pop up instead.  When I googled my username, I also didn't appear on the first two pages. On the third page was a link to RateMyTeachers which knew my name and where I was employed, but there were no ratings posted. I searched through five pages of results without finding much of anything. Even the facebook candidates listed by that name weren't me. 

What Was Correct?

As I moved into more data searching sites, Nuwber was the most accurate source of information probably because it didn't have much listed. They knew my age rage and current address and phone number. Pipl definitely had the most information about me, and it was largely accurate. This site was able to tie my username to my pintrest board, my Google photo, and my husband. When I searched by my name, they knew my current address, former addresses, family associations (both immediate and my in-laws). Pipl was the only site that knew I was a teacher, where I taught and how long I have been there. They also had my Master's degree information listed.  The only inaccuracy was an incorrect phone number that I didn't recognize at all.

Where Did Things Go Wrong?

Intelius and Radaris seemed to have the most inaccuracies. Both listed my correct age, current town, and hometown, my husband and my immediate family. Intelius had my correct high school listed as well. However, Intelius listed many inaccurate family members who shared my married name, but are not known relations of my in-laws. Surprisingly, both sites listed me as related to one of my sister's friends from high school, plus another person who shares the high school friend's last name. These two sites also have me employed at Boeing. Radaris actually has me employed at five places I have never been affiliated with, and none of them are in the field of education.  

Spokeo found me by my maiden name and seemed to be one of the few sites that listed that as an alias for me. They also connected my username to an old Facebook photo I had posted, but there wasn't any information available unless you paid for results. I could not find myself on PeekYou, but at the bottom of the PeekYou page was an ad for BeenVerified, and I was listed there and correctly tied to most of my in-laws. BlockShopper also couldn't find me which I thought was strange because I know I'm listed as the owner of our home. So I searched my husband's name there and our property popped. I'm listed with him but there's a spelling error in my name so it doesn't show up on a search. 

Reflection

Overall, I am actually quite surprised at how little information was available about me. The name, address, and phone number information is too be expected and likely would have been public before the internet, although there was an option to keep it unlisted. I was a little surprised to see my old Facebook photo tied to my name. I deleted all my photos from Facebook but clearly they got to it before I took it down. A good reminder that the internet is forever. 

I have been giving serious thought to the idea of building an intentional professional web presence. While it's not something that I believe I need to do at this point in my life, I can understand the argument to be made for it and will continue to weigh it as an option. 

How Does This Apply to Schools?

I think this is definitely something that students will need to be taught explicitly. I think that it's a part of digital citizenship and schools can help students to recognize some of the long term implications of their social media presence. I think that most schools are at least starting to do this especially in middle and high schools. The difficulty is that for many kids (and adults) the reward of being active online is far greater than the risk of being active online. Teaching kids to change their behavior and plan for a long-term, hypothetical, potentially negative scenario far in the future is difficult especially if there's an immediate risk of negative social implications. Parents and teachers have to continuously reinforce to students that it's all being recorded.

Flipping for Flipgrid

Flipgrid

Check out this screencast to see how to use Flipgrid.

What Is It?

Flipgrid is a website that allows teachers to post a question and students can respond via a short video with their answer. Student videos get posted to the 'grid' and other students in the class can watch their peers and respond back with either comments or another video. Videos can be no longer than 5:00 minutes. Teachers can watch student responses and leave feedback or reply via video. 

Benefits of Flipgrid: 

• It's interactive. Students get to respond to me and to each other either via text or video. 
• It's engaging. Students get to make a video and "decorate" with stickers and emojis. 
• It's easy to use for both students and teachers. Teachers can check for prior knowledge, get feedback during a lesson or hear student reflections after a lesson. 
• Allows teachers to hear from every student even if they don't like to participate in whole class discussion.
• Students can hear many different perspectives. 
• Opportunity to teaches digital citizenship.
• It's free. All teachers get one free grid.

In My Class This Week:

I started reading about Flipgrid earlier this semester when I was researching my EdTech presentation on flipped learning. My class is ELA and we do a ton of writing so I think that if students can  have an opportunity to get their thoughts and ideas across to me without have to write a paragraph or essay they are going to be thrilled. (However for my first 'real' assignment they are actually going to have to do both). I had students record a basic trial video introducing themselves and answering our "Would You Rather... Wednesday Question" via Flipgrid instead of on Google Classroom. For the first go-round it wasn't too bad. There were a few growing pains as we learned how to share the space so that everyone could be heard while they were recording, but it was their first experience and that's to be expected. 
We are going to do our first real assignment later this week. We are watching a tv version of the story we just read. After we finish watching the movie, students will respond to whether they like the book or movie version of our current story better. Traditionally, I have students write this as an opinion paragraph. I'm still going to have them write the paragraph because 1). they need the practice, but 2). I want to make sure they have good content in their video. 'The Would You Rather Responses' were a little light on details. I'm hoping if they prepare ahead of time then they'll give me enough information to show understanding. As we practice, this step will hopefully become less necessary. 

Tweet, Tweet

For this lesson, I revived my Twitter handle which was created three years ago for a different tech class that I took. I am pretty sure that the account hadn't been touched since I finished that class. I have been engaged in Twitter for the past 4 weeks, and I have to say that I still don't love it. However, I do respect that there are some pretty specific questions that hands down are best solved by using Twitter. First, real time updates to various scenarios. You can't beat Twitter for finding out what is happening at X event right now. But in a more professional sense, it's also a nice way to get a quick overview of ideas from people that I am following. It's a little faster and easier than checking in on all the websites and blogs that I typically read and follow. Twitter let me see a quick overview of ideas that I could then go follow up on the blogs. As is the case with most of my social media use, I can see myself as a passive user of Twitter, taking the information that is helpful to me, but rarely posting. Although maybe that will change. After my very first tweet, one of my co-workers mentioned the very next day that she followed my link and also read the article. So perhaps I'll end up using its power.

A new resource that I discovered via Twitter is the Google Teacher Tribe Podcast @GTeacherTribe. This show is hosted by Kasey Bell from Shake Up Learning @ShakeUpLearning and Matt Miller from Ditch That Textbook @DitchThatTxtbk. This podcast seems great. The new season has just started, and the first episode did a great job of summarizing all the new updates to Google Classroom. While many of the changes are pretty intuitive, there are some new things that I definitely learned from their podcast. There are also many people in my school who are just beginning to use Google Classroom so this is really helpful for me to reference as I try to assist them. After listening to the first podcast, I am also going to listen to some previous episodes on Google Keep. They were raving about all the ways they use it, and I have struggled to figure out how to incorporate it. I have trouble getting my notes in Keep organized, so I'm interested to see if they can offer some new ideas on how to manage that.

TweetChat

My tweetchat experience was much better than I expected. I have never participated in something like this before. I initially was planning to join the #ICEilchat, but I ended up participating in the #mschat (middle school chat) hosted by @Jeremybballer. I am really happy that I stumbled into this chat for my first experience. It was very slow moving which made it easy to understand and follow. There were only 6 or 7 other educators participating and only 6 questions asked during the hour. I could easily follow it and not be overwhelmed. It also happened that most of the other middle school teachers also taught ELA and I discovered a great new story writing app, Storybird that I'm excited to try out. I also watched a lot of the #ICEilchat, but did not actively participate. That chat was much busier with both questions and people, and more challenging to follow my first time. It did look interesting, and I have marked future #ICEchats on my calendar. I may try another one. 

@Jeremybballer was tweetchat host. Personal photo.

My PLN Going Forward 

In my district almost all websites related to social media and networking are blocked which makes it difficult to develop an online PLN. Our web access is slowly increasing as our school administration becomes more comfortable with the role of technology so I think that within a few years there's a chance that our teachers will have access to some of these resources while at work. In the meantime, its up to teachers to follow and read up from home or on a personal device.