Lessons Lessons Learned

Soon I will be putting the wraps on another school year and my first experimentation with the flipped classroom. For those who are not familiar with the flipped classroom, it is a teaching style where the teacher records lectures for students to view or listen to at home instead of in the class while the students would do their "homework" or other assignments normally given to do outside of the classroom. In other words, the class is flipped. My experimentation is a hybrid of the true flipped classroom style. My lectures and demonstrations were recorded and made available to students but most of the viewing was expected to be done in class as well. My reasoning was for students to attempt to view what they needed to do then attempt to do the task themselves. This would free me to work with students who continued having problems with an assignment. After trying this with four classes over the last year I must say it was somewhat successful but I did learn some things along the way.

Lesson number one is that students need to be taught how to watch a demonstration video. One of the reasons I went to my flipped style class was based on how students performed after watching me do demonstrations in the past. Usually, it was like I did not do a demonstration at all. I would still have to go over the task about 30 times because students only saw the demo once and rarely bothered to take notes. When I told students to watch the video I created, they would watch the video all the way through and not stop to attempt the steps as the video progressed. Then they would look up and say they did not get it. Once I showed them they could stop the video at any point and rewind when necessary did the videos become more effective.

Lesson number two is that it is hard to break years of conditioning. This did not really surprise me because I have done other things in my class that runs counter to what students have done in other classes. Still students would sit at their seats and wait for me to do some kind of lecture even when I told them their assignments and resources are on Edmodo. This usually took a few days for students to get used to.

Lesson number three is the grades will be horrible at the beginning. As I implied in lessons one and two, students need a period of adjustment. They will keep trying to do things they are used to without success and get frustrated. Administrators and parents will want to know what you are doing by suddenly becoming the hardest class to pass in the school. Hold your ground because it is almost like a light switch turning on when students finally figure it out. The grades will shoot up like a rocket. Most parents who meet with me to put my head on a platter usually look at their child and say "I wish I had this when I was in school" after I demonstrate how the videos work.

Lesson 4 is to have your gradebook with you as move around the class. The grades will quickly let you know who needs the extra help and who does not. I carry around an iPad that is connected to my computer via Splashtop. This allows me to see grades at an instant to determine who needs help. Also, it allows me to enter grades immediately when a student shows me a successfully completed assignment which save a lot of time come grade report time.

Lesson 5 is to hold the students accountable. Many times a student will tell me he or she does not understand what to do. The first question I ask is if the student watched the video. The answer is usually no because students who watch the video usually have a more direct question about a certain step. In the past some students did have a legitimate complaint because the videos did not work due to technical problems but I would quickly work to fix the technical problems. If students are not working quickly enough then I make a call to parents to offer my after school services to give extra help. While that cures most problems, there are students who are in legitimate need.

Here is a lesson I learned from another teacher who is doing it with her class: make sure to upload the lecture video as soon after school as you can. I heard one parent complain that a video lesson to be viewed at home was not uploaded in a decent hour. The problem was technical but you should be mindful of parents who want to download the videos so their children can watch it. Also, there are those high-maintenance parents who can never be satisfied.

Now that one year of using a flipped classroom is almost in the books I will be looking and reflecting on what happened. There will be videos that will need updating as tools change. Also, I will look at lessons that need videos if no other reason than to show what a successful product looks like. Over the summer I will be sharing my experiences with teachers from one end of South Carolina to another and help them create their own flipped classroom lessons. Then I will be looking forward to doing it again next year.

Greetings Pizza Maker

One of my favorite science fiction movies is The Last Starfighter. The story is about Alex, a teenaged video game wizard, who beats all the levels of the game "Starfighter" which pits the player in a simulated war against an evil empire. Little does Alex know that the game is actually a recruiting tool for an alien society needing warriors to repel a real invasion by an evil intergalactic empire. Our Earthling hero must use all of the skills he learned playing the video game to save the galaxy from tyranny. Game-based learning is one of the hottest topics in envisioning the future of education. Many of the skills needed to be successful in video games such as learning new skills, figuring out solutions to situations, and teamwork are considered vital skills in the 21st Century. It would only be a matter of time when a game would come out that would serve as a recruiting tool and it finally happened. Surprisingly, it is not from the military.

The game is the iPad app "Pizza Hero" and is published by Domino's Pizza. The player needs to create pizza with speed and accuracy to achieve the maximum amount of points. There is also a link to order your creation online when the game makes you hungry for that pizza you are slaving away to create. However, the aspect of the game I found most compelling is that if you demonstrate a high enough level in the game you may be invited to apply as a pizza maker at your local Domino's. At least that is what the game description in iTunes claims. I may never get to know if I have what it takes to become one of the elite Domino's pizza makers. So far it takes me too long to create a sad looking pie and the manager yells at me so much that I may quit if I don't get fired first.

Making virtual pizzas aside, this game is an interesting marketing ploy by Domino's. I am sure they hope people will get hungry for a pizza as they are tapping on those pepperoni and they will also tap on the order now button as well. Those people who are still out of work might also be playing this game as a desperate means to find employment. I am not sure how serious Domino's is about hiring pizza makers through their game but it would be cruel if they don't hire a few at least. This is not the first gimmick to use creative ways for companies to find employment. Once upon a time, Google secretly used a billboard with a complex mathematical formula to find potential engineers. If "Pizza Hero" proves to be a success in both selling pizzas and recruiting quality employees then I am sure other companies will also start using games to help screen potential employees. Our society is rapidly getting to the point where potential workers will need to demonstrate a skill to be hired and one skill I don't see a need for is filling in bubble sheets.

It's not always this easy

Many of the people I work with at my school must think that either my knowledge of technology was preprogramed in me at birth or that I was the result of some super secret government experiment (probably gone wrong) in which I was bombarded with radiation that gave me mystical superpowers of education technology. Actually, neither is the case. My knowledge of technology came to me by way of lots of research and even more time with trial and error. In other words, old-fashioned hard work. I have had more things go wrong, blowup in my face, and lost mega amounts of data, and said lots of words that would make my mother constantly wash my mouth out with soap. 

One example happened last weekend when I was attempting to download a book from Overdrive to my Nook. The process was so frustrating that it almost made me turn Kindle. First, I sent the file over to my Nook and of course nothing happened even though it was supposed to be an epub file. Oh wait, I needed Adobe Digital Editions which I downloaded. Tried the file again and met with failure again. The file would not open. That's right, I have to convert the file you silly person! Somehow I got the file converted then sent it to my Nook. I opened the file to only to see a message that my device was not authorized. Colorful metaphors were coming from my mouth at a steady stream now. After a couple of more unsuccessful attempts, the dog was seeking a place of shelter as far away from me as he could get. After about an hour or so I was finally able to authorize my Nook and open the book I downloaded. After that ordeal the only thing I could think was I wonder if it is as much trouble for Kindle owners as for epub reader owners. If not then Amazon stands to make a lot of money off Overdrive.

When I shared my Overdrive adventures and key lessons from the ordeal with our media specialist, instead of laughing along with my story she gave me the strangest look. The look was similar to what Glen Walter recounted in his book So Where's My Apple when a student saw him eating in the faculty dining room and exclaimed, "You eat!" Yes folks, I am human after all.

Be Careful of What You Wish For

For years, many in the EdTech community have been wishing for the day when students would come to school with a digital device that would serve as textbook, notebook, research tool, and homework folder all rolled up into one small, lightweight package. With Apple's recent eTextbook announcement along with (surprise, surprise) President Obama's call for students in the United States to use digital textbooks in the next five years you would think the day of jubilee has come. However, instead of shouts of joy, I seem to be seeing complaints about this move to the digital student. The funny thing is many of the arguments are the ones I used to hear from teachers who did not want to embrace technology at all.

The complaints I am hearing are the likes of the Adobe PDF format is too hard to work with or iPads and the necessary accessories will cost too much. One argument I can agree with partially is do we really need textbooks at all? It seems to me the attitude is that unless every student can take part in the new educational digital revolution then forget it, we won't play. What are people thinking? Steve Jobs was going to leave an iPad to every student in his will? This is the type of thinking that hampers education to begin with. Why don't we outlaw new safety features on cars until every car has them instead of seeing them on luxury cars first? Because we know these features will eventually come down to the masses as standard features eventually if they work. We should not act surprised about this digital education revolution either. If you read Steve Jobs' biography you got a clear warning that education was one of the next things Jobs wanted to reinvent. Actually, Jobs has been talking about this for many years but the pieces have now come into place.

Okay, we know there are not that many interactive textbooks, iPads in the hands of students, teachers trained to take advantage of these advances, and school districts that have the infrastructure to handle the rush of mobile devices. Well new content will start flowing with iBook Author. Also, there will be other products that will do the same thing for other platforms by the end of the year. As far as getting iPads into the hands of students, I am willing to predict that the iPad 3 will be the top of the line device but Apple will still sell iPad 2's at a cheaper cost. Apple is still selling iPhone 3GS's and iPhone 4's and they are plenty serviceable. Google and the Android supporters will not go sit in the corner and sulk? They should have something out before the end of the year if they wish to compete with Apple. Remember too that five years in the tech world can see many changes. Teachers have been warned for years this day would come so if they are not ready, it is probably their fault and they better start cramming. The new digital tools will change the way teaching in the classroom is carried out. 20th Century practices will not work in 21st Century tools. Likewise, districts should have seen this coming too. Some have taken steps to welcome the new technologies but I am sure the recent announcements also caught many unprepared. Do we really need to continue investing in interactive whiteboards?

There it is, the time is at hand to put up or shut up. When I was stationed in West Germany during my Army days, the idea of a divided Germany was a given fact even though West German propaganda talked about reunification. When I left West Germany in 1988, everyone (including myself) thought the East-West border would continue to divide Germany for many years to come. However, within two years the Berlin Wall was down and Germany was reunified surprising many people (again including myself) that it actually happened. Well the wall between old and new, analog and digital, paper and eReader has been torn down. It is now time for us to quickly gather our wits and forge the new future we have dreamed about but did not expect to happen.

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The First Ghost of Steve Jobs

Like Matthew Sobol, the protagonist in Daniel Suarez's book Daemon, Steve Jobs has come back from the dead to attempt to redefine society. Those who read Jobs' biography know the two areas Steve Jobs wanted to change was television and school textbooks. Well like how the ghosts of Christmas past, present, and future changed Ebenezer Scrooge, the first Ghost of Steve Jobs wants to change a stodgy and stuck-in-the-past education with the release of iBooks 2, iBook Author, and the iTunes U app. Whether Jobs' specter will make a positive change remains to be seen.

The most intriguing of Apple's recent releases is iBook Author. This is a free application for Macs which allows anyone to create a multimedia rich book. The primary target is teachers who wish to create their own textbooks that would help their students. Now all those teachers I know who do not like to share their curriculum unless someone pays for it have an outlet to share their great secrets to turn students into super learners at up to $15 a pop. However, I can't wait to see teachers who have embraced the flipped style classroom and teachers who have their students create a book as a review project start having their work popup in the iBooks store. This is a great creative outlet for both teachers and students alike looking for ways to share or celebrate learning. This could be a money maker for schools because students can contribute to a virtual yearbook that actually relives memories and they don't have to work with yearbook publishers. I would like students to become editors of a class companion or textbook and produce updates to a review book during the school year. The only downfall is it currently works with the iPad but I am sure that will change and other other programs will come along that will cover Kindle and other eReaders.

Tech News Today said Apple's education announcement could eliminate schools. While this was an attention getting headline for the show, the iTunes U app could have an impact on schools. I have often told teachers that iTunes U was one of the best kept secrets of education. Where else can one see lectures from universities around the world with the prestige of Harvard, Stanford, and Duke. It now looks like Apple wants iTunes U to become a place where students can retrieve course materials such as syllabi, lectures, and other course materials. While this is an interesting first step to make class materials easier to get on an iOS device, the lack of interactivity will not see iTunes U replacing classroom management systems such as Blackboard, Edmodo, or Schoology.

Like other Apple products, the introduction of iBooks 2, iBook Author, and the iTunes U app are not something never before seen products but are meant to make creating mobile online class content easier to do providing you are on the Apple ecosystem. However, you can bet others will be coming out with similar tools to support Android, ePub (Apple claims to support this but iBooks Author is hazy on this), and Kindle (is it real Android?). Hopefully, like Scrooge's transformation, this offering from Steve Jobs' ghost will transform schools to be more welcoming to mobile devices in the present and future than they have in the past.

Photo credit: everwonderpowdersplunder