Embedding Digital Texts.

How can digital textbooks, e-learning and open course sites be used in education?

Two years ago, the Secretary of Education called for a switch to all digital textbooks in the next few years (E-School News, 2012). I think it will take quite a few more years for us to get there, but I believe it is the way of the future. When I worked for a computer company many years ago and they were talking about doing away with printed user manuals, I was incredulous. But here we are in the 21st century and computers do not come with manuals. The consumer must go online to access user guides. In my graduate program, I personally have used digital texts more often than printed textbooks, whenever it was possible. I prefer to use digital texts to highlight important points, just using the Kindle reader, and am able to go back and search for those highlights and bookmarks.

http://www.writerswrite.com/pics/apple_ibooks_textbooks_highlighting.jpg

Digital textbooks can offer many more resources, like in-text videos and even Augmented Reality which allows 3-dimensional interactive images of the subject matter, rather than just 2-dimensional photos. Digital texts can also be updated to add up to date information, something that cannot be done with paper textbooks. Using Apple's iBooks Author, teachers can create or add to existing texts. Apps like Subtext allow students and teachers to discuss books online, and highlighting passages and insert comments.  Other apps, such as VoiceDream Reader and Read2Go, help struggling readers and people with disabilities by converting text to speech, highlighting each word as it is spoken, and also may allow students to highlight and save passages for digital note-taking.  

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.berlin.reality.augmented.landscapar

E-learning comes in many forms. Using mobile apps to play educational games extends learning in math, spelling, social studies, and gives students a fun but educational way to enjoy learning. Note taking apps, like Notability and OneNote make note taking easier and more efficient. There are many educational sites that help learners to practice skills, such as Reading A-Z and Education.com. Use of social networking sites, including Edmodo, Twitter, Google Plus, Pinterest, Educlipper and Learnist, to name a few, allows teachers and students to share information and interact outside of classroom time, allowing for on-demand learning. Google Drive and wikis provide a tool for students to collaborate synchronously and asynchronously on projects and create products. Social bookmarking tools such as Diigo, Evernote, and Delicious can also be used to share resources with and between students.  Many sites, such as WriteAbout and Scratch include communities where kids can share create and learn from each other. As Fran Smith (2007) said, "Schools should reflect the world we live in today. And we live in a social world. We need to teach students how to be effective collaborators in that world." Although many teachers and administrators are wary of using social networking tools, many can be made private and moderated by the teacher while students are learning social media and digital citizenship skills. 

http://ocw.mit.edu/high-school/

Open course sites, also known as MOOCs, provide a wealth of additional courses for free that teachers can use to enrich the school curriculum, flip the classroom or to supplement courses that may not be available locally.  They may also be used as transition courses, to help students decide on a future college major. Students learning from home can benefit from these courses, many of which award certificates of completion for each course. Free open lectures are offered by some of the most prestigious colleges, like Harvard, MIT and Stanford. Sites like Khan Academy and iTunesU offer free online courses. Khan Academy measures and documents students mastery levels and adjusts lessons to adapt to the student's level.  Another free open course site is ALISON, which stands for Advanced Learning Interactive Systems Online. ALISON provides a multitude of courses including vocational diploma and certificate courses free of charge, which can help lead to employment (Bornstein, 2012). Learners must pay a fee for a printed certificate or diploma, but they can also print their transcripts if they do not want to pay for the certificates.  Open Culture has a massive listing of free online course sites. 


Sources cited:

E-School News. Education chief wants textbooks to go digital.       http://www.eschoolnews.com/2012/10/03/education-chief-wants-textbooks-to-go-digital/?

Borenstein, D. (2012). Open education for a global economy.              http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/11/open-education-for-a-global-economy/?_r=2

Khan Academy. Mastery levels. https://khanacademy.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/203404054-What-do-Khan-Academy-s-mastery-levels-mean-

Smith, F. (2007). How to use social networking technology for learning.     http://www.edutopia.org/how-use-social-networking-technology

MIT Open Course Software. Highlights for highschool. http://ocw.mit.edu/high-school/more/for-teachers/

Open Culture. (2014). 1100 Free online courses.  http://www.openculture.com/freeonlinecourses

Building Media Literacy

We live in a society that is “media saturated, technologically dependent, and globally connected” (NCSS, 2009, p. 1).  People are bombarded daily by images and sound bites about what is happening in the world not only from books, newspapers, magazines, television and radio, but also online via mobile devices, including cell phones, iPods, and computers. Students today spend the majority of their waking hours plugged in to the net in one way or another; and they even take their devices to bed with them, which leaves them with a 24 hour access to information, from the music to which they listen to the social media sites they frequent.

Remember the old adage, consider the source? Students need to be able to identify who or what the source of the information is and how to find alternative opinions. They need to be able to analyze and evaluate the veracity of the information, using verifying sources to compare and contrast viewpoints. 

In order for students to make informed decisions, the National Council of Social Studies believes that students should ask probing questions such as:

• What social, cultural, historical, and political contexts are shaping the message and the meaning I am making of it?
• How and why was the message constructed?.
• How could different people understand this information differently?
• Whose perspective, values and ideology are represented and whose are missing?
• Who or what group benefits and/or is hurt by this message?” (NCSS, 2009, p. 1)

Project Look Sharp (2008) recommends that students should also compare different sources on the same topic and create their own media reports about a topic using different forms of media, showing the same information with different forms of media via opposing viewpoints. 

Here’s a great video about media literacy, by Melissa Fabello. 

Sources cited:

melissafabello.com. (2014).  Media Literacy 101. [Video]. From: http://youtu.be/lFF8wAqy-wo

NCSS. (2009). Media literacy. From: http://www.socialstudies.org/positions/medialiteracy

Project Look Sharp. (2008). From: http://www.projectlooksharp.org/Resources%202/12BasicWaysBooklet.pdf

Image credit:

Jagran Lakecity University. http://www.jlu.edu.in/connect-here/media/

Web 2.0 Tools

Web 2.0 is the next generation of the World Wide Web, which allows users to create content, interact with others to collaborate and share, download, remix and publish new content.  Web 2.0 tools help users to do these things and the great thing is they are accessible anywhere there is Internet access. 21st century educators use these tools to enhance their students' learning, communication and creativity.  

Discovery Education (2013) says that Web 2.0 tools fall into four categories: presentation tools, video tools, mobile tools and community tools. 

Presentation tools, such as Prezi, emaze, Google Slides, Slideshare, VoiceThread and HaikuDeck, help you to create presentations online and, in most cases, for free.  

Video tools, such as Animoto, YouTube, Vimeo, Jing, Photobucket, and Movie Masher, allow users to create and/or share their videos or photo slideshows with others. 


Mobile tools and community tools cover a wide range of tools from learning management and polling tools, like

PollEverywhere, Socrative, Nearpod,  Quizlet, TitanPad and Padlet to Nings, wikis, blogging tools, Google Drive, Edmodo, Twitter and other community-based creation and sharing tools that cater to gamers, game designers, writers, artists, music lovers, and even educators. 

One tool, that I have used with my students, is Google Slides, which we used to create a group presentation.  Each student created one slide within the presentation with a quote, which they chose from Brainyquotes.com and an image to pair with it, to illustrate something they loved or about which they were passionate. When it was done, we had a great presentation to share with everyone.  I like that Google allows you to control who can access each individual document.


I have also used Scratch to teach computational thinking and problem-solving (as well as programming concepts).  Scratch is a community-based website where users can create video games or animated stories and interactive greeting cards using drag and drop programming blocks. They can

share their projects with the community. It is expected that they will remix and reuse one another's projects to create their own. Scratch keeps track of each creator and automatically creates acknowledgments for each contributor to the remix tree. Users can also ask others in the community for help on their projects if they get stuck.  You can also create galleries, for curating projects by category. I have created a gallery for my class to share their projects with each other. 

Another tool, I have used, is Storybird which is a storybook creator which uses amazing artwork, submitted by artists, to inspire writers to create stories about the pictures. Students can create electronic books, stories or poetry, which they can publish or share with friends via social media or email.  There is an education portal where teachers can create a class library as well.

You walk into the bathroom
 to find this. Write the story.
(C) 2015, RSA group

I recently discovered another writing prompt tool, which is in beta version currently, called Write About. Write About is a social publishing platform (RSA group, 2015) developed in 2014 by two teachers, John Spencer and Brad Williams, and provides visual writing prompts or ideas, like the one on the right, to inspire students' writing.  I plan to use this tool with my digital literacy students this year.  This one also allows the teacher to set up a private classroom group as well as control whether students can submit to the public site or just the group. 

Sources cited:

Discovery Education. 2015. Web 2.0 Tools. From:  http://web2014.discoveryeducation.com/web20tools.cfm

RSA Group. 2015.  About Write About. From: http://www.writeabout.com/about/