I think about this exchange frequently as I see presentations that list so many choices of tools that many teachers I talk with seem overwhelmed. Those of us who support teachers need to be mindful of how we present technology and learning tools to teachers.

“To Make Better Choices, Choose Less” an interview with business professor Sheena Iyengar caught my eye in the June 2010 issue of Money magazine. Her new book is the Art of Choosing.

Here are my keepers from this article.

• Choice is powerful.
• Choice can overwhelm.
• Three tasks involved in choosing
  • You need to know what you want. (Difficult if presented with something new.)
  • You need to be able to understand the relevant options.
  • You need to make trade-offs.
• The “jam study” in the 90s illustrated that more options hamper decision making.
  • 24 flavors drew in 60% of passersby. Only 3% of them bought jam.
  • 6 flavors drew in only 40% of passersby. 30% of them bought jam.
• Brain research from the 1950s indicates that we can manage 5-9 choices. More choices than that created paralysis and frustration.
• 3 x 3 model for scaffolding choice. Present three tiers. After one is selected, then present three choices within that tier.
• Personally, select four or five areas to become an expert. Make the choices within that area. Other than those areas, defer to trusted experts.

Since this was written in a business magazine, she interpreted the results as they relate to investing in retirement funds. The more choices presented to employees, the fewer people enrolled in them.

This makes me wonder about what we do to teachers when we give them so many choices of websites, tools, learning opportunities for students. How can we better structure our offerings so that it is helpful to teachers and now overwhelming?

For the record, I really do like that mustard with the horseradish in it.

The group that conducted this research contain a variety of professors of psychology, education, neurobiology and behavior. Here is the link to the entire paper.

7 Ways to Organize Instruction and Study to Improve Student Learning

1. Space learning over time. Moderate effect.
2. Interweave worked example solutions with problem-solving exercises. Moderate effect
3. Combine graphics with verbal descriptions. Moderate effect.
4. Connect and integrate abstract and concrete representations of concepts. Moderate effect.
5. Use quizzing to promote learning. Pre-quizzes=low effect. Quizzes to re-expose material to students=strong effect.
6. Help students allocate study time efficiently. Low effect.
7. Ask deep explanatory questions. Strong effect.

The last item of this list is the one that caught my eye. I have been working on redeveloping a questioning guide to use in conjunction with our projects.

Remember, all learning structures do not work for every situation, but here is a list to get you thinking.

• Open Discussion: Ask the question and let the discussion take shape naturally.
• Response Cards: Ask students to answer the question by writing on the index card.
• Whip Around: Have the group stand and in a brief statement share a connection or learning.
• Calling on the Next Speaker: After a student shares her opinion have her call on the next person. Good to use when the group is highly engaged with the topic.
• Self-Rating System: Have students rate their knowledge or understanding by using numbers from 1-10.
• Take a Walk: Pose a question to discuss or a concept to review and take a walk with a partner around the building.
• Stand if You’re Like Me: Left-handed, like spiders, eat pizza, wear a watch, like to play soccer.
• 5-3-1 Jot down 5 words that were key in the last lesson. Share with your partners at your table then choose 3 of them. As a group selects the one word that is the key theme or concept from the last lesson.
• Turn to Your Neighbor and …
  • Reflect on what I just said
  • Repeat the directions I just gave
  • Define the following word _____
  • Tell them why you agree or disagree with what the character did at the beginning of the last chapter.
• Touch Blue
• Write Your Name in the Air (or your spelling words!)
• Hand Dancing!
• Content Graffiti: Give each group a poster board with a content topic already written on it and a marker for each person in the group. The group reviews content related to this topic and then each person in the group adds their comments and key points to the poster.
• Group Juggling: Using a koosh ball, have the group stand in a circle and toss the ball to each person in the group to establish the pattern. Each person gets the ball one time and the person who begins it is the person who ends it. Repeat again with the same pattern. Repeat again adding additional balls.
• Sentence Completion (Don’t always do this in written form! Sometimes let them journal orally!)
  • I used to ________________ but now I _____________________.

Photo credit: Tela Chhe

What are some strategies that you have seen used effectively to shift the energy in a group of learners or to reconnect them with learning? Have you connected with certain content providers that excel at this? What ideas have your teachers used in Read Around the Planet or other collaborations?

Many thanks to all the helping hands and staff from zoos, museums, and other organizations that made this a smashing success.

We are already planning for Philly.

The goals of the session were for participants to experience Skype and H.323 video conferencing and learn how to use a wiki and Glogster. I designed it to be hands-on from the beginning with about half of the time for learning the technology and the second half applying the technologies within the novel in an hour format. This would have worked perfectly….in a 6 hour workshop format! Here is a link to the workshop wiki.

I love the Plus/Delta format and am going to analyze the workshop through that lens.

Plus (+)

• Two screens was wonderful. Had Polycom connection on one and desktop showing on the other.
• Pre-workshop survey to help understand the needs of participants.
• Workshop wiki to organize information by co-teachers for participants. (This also worked for Rich to see what our participants were creating.)
• The assessment piece! (Even though we did not get to it, we had a rubric to assess the presentations and other creations by the participants and a post-workshop survey to gauge their learning.)
• Hands-on with laptops.
• Co-teaching with Christina and Rich! That gives such pop to use the video conferencing technology to span the distance and show participants the power of connecting with experts.
• The video conference connections were beautiful!
• Pass out the bookmarks and let people know about additional learning opportunities related to video conferencing throughout the conference.

Delta (Δ)

• Skype did not work. Could not connect or accept contacts. Could not chat. Would work via the app on the iPhone. It was weird and quite frustrating. Shane and Paul tested the network and for a while we thought it was that funky bug back when 4.0 first came out and you have to share contacts with the 3.8 software. Ultimately, we think it was bandwidth because four ladies who stayed after finally got it working.
• Make this a 6 hour session. 75% of the participants were new or newish to many of the technologies and we needed all morning to tinker with them before hitting the application of the technologies into the novel in an hour format.
• Switch the screens. Put the Polycom screen closest to the camera so that when they are working with the remote, they will be able to look at the remote site without looking across the room.
• Need to completely test ALL technologies. We lost a lot of time tinkering with Skype. The positive is that we modeled problem-solving in the context of learning new technologies.

Questions

• Can you change a regular Glogster account into an edu? Or do you have to make another account?
• Why could we not get Skype to work? I want to agree it was bandwidth, but I was able to connect just fine with everyone that I already had in my contact list. It was such a mystery.

The idea began last summer at NECC in D.C. Anne Marie and I attended several showcase sessions and listened to the questions at the end of the sessions and many people were confused about the technology and were not getting accurate answers to their questions. So, we pitched to idea to the SIG leadership and next thing I know, I am leading a team to create a playground.

Early in the planning process, we established our goals and objectives for the playground and our planning wiki so that all could contribute in a decentralized planning process. This is crucial to achieve maximum results from a high-functioning team.

Purpose: To share our passion for interactive H323 video conferencing with others in a hands-on, easy to learn format.

Strategies

1. Develop a fun theme for the playground that costumes, print materials and content providers could easily join in. (Pirates!)
2. Develop a web presence to continue sharing information after the playground.
3. Market the playground using printed bookmarks beginning on Sunday with the first workshop at 8:30 AM. Pirates passed out bookmarks during the IVC Showcase, SIG Open House, poster sessions and any additional sessions related to interactive video conferencing.
4. Have volunteers “be the pirates”. Many people kept seeing pirates and joined us Wednesday to learn and participate.
5. Create partnerships with providers and obtain a hefty amount of swag and pirate booty to give away. The total this year was over $4000 in prizes.
6. Design the playground around constructivist learning theory and differentiated strategies. We could share information with the novice to the expert in an engaging, hands-on format.

Design

• Set up 6 islands where participants could practice dialing, muting/unmuting, moving the camera and talk with someone trying to discover where that person was located.
• The Pirate Queen would welcome participants and issue them their letter of marque to enter the playground.
• Provide the “island pirate guides” with instructions on how to let the participant drive the interactions. We wanted this experience similar to the first day in small groups during JAZZ.
• Establish a rotation of content providers to be connected for one hour at a time. (During the playground, we connected with 30 different locations.)
• Anyone who visited at least 3 islands was eligible to participate in our drawing for content provider programs, online classes to learn more about video conferencing, workshops on various topics, and gift cards.

Outcomes

1. 132 participants completed the scavenger hunt and registered to win prizes.
2. Volunteers who originally offered to help for one hour stayed the entire length of the playground.
3. The Pirate Crew provided flexible support during the entire playground.

Ideas for 2011

• Add some Virtual Pirates (VPs) who cannot attend the conference IRL, but have some creative projects or collaborations to share. Think mini-showcase.
• Strengthen the vendor/pirate guide structure and relationship so that we have additional knowledge in the playground.
• Continue to recruit additional pirates so that our crew can have a break during the playground. The Queen got quite tired.
• Better signage for Treasure Island.

We will be gathering additional data via our post-playground survey and will be sharing ideas during the coming year. All in all, it was a great way to introduce video conferencing to attendees. Thank you to ISTE for their support and the SIG IVC for permitting The Pirate Crew to create a fun, learning environment. See you in Philly next summer.

What is the most important educational event you’ve experienced?

I would have to say that the most important educational event I have experienced would be VirtCamp, the first week of my masters program at Pepperdine University in 2000. My professors structured the environment so that each learner could contribute to our final project and document our learning. It was a dramatic shift for me as a learner from the directed instructions that I had been accustomed to. During that week, I learned that it is not the technology that is important, but rather, how you structure lessons and enable learners to guide their learning and how meaning is constructed through social, collaborative interactions.

This week introduced me to the concepts of constructivism/constructionism, Seymour Papert, and other educational thinkers that significantly shaped my educational philosophy. Everything that we learned was modeled for us by our professors. We were expected to be in charge of our learning and to document and share it. What we learned during this week was the foundation for how to effectively collaborate and co-create. That is what is sometimes missing in the explosive pace of “cool tools” in the current state of educational technology. The curriculum and how to collaborate comes first, not some blinky website where you can create an animation in “3 EZ steps”.

What kinds of technology tools were used?

This was before the advent of many of what are known as Web 2.0 technologies. We used AIM for text chat, websites for course requirements and portfolios, TappedIn for synchronous meetings, and newsgroups for discussions. I did not even have a webcam! All of these technologies supported learning quite well. The two tools that I use today that would have been helpful then would be video conferencing and RSS for keeping up with the flow of conversation and content creation.

How did this experience impact you, personally?

This event is significant in my development as a learner, a teacher, and a leader. As a learner, I learned that in order to get the most out of any situation, I must set goals and expectations for myself. I had to become comfortable asking questions, answering challenges, and leading groups. As a teacher, I must continually examine what my students need to learn, how to best model that and structure the learning environment to enable them to meet their goals. As a leader, it is my responsibility to set the ground rules and expectations for collaboration so that distributed teams can achieve goals in a timely manner.
I definitely believe without this week of learning to collaborate and learn with others from across the nation, I would not have developed the larger view of education and perspectives. This week enabled me to see what is possible and not to quietly accept the status quo. We can always to better.

One of my favorite quotes is from Margaret Mead, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

Collaborative technologies enable small groups of passionate, thoughtful people to achieve amazing results. The principles of collaboration, authentic learning, and active participation are the guiding principles for all of the student projects that I design for our clients at Whirlidurb™. The elements of how to teach effectively are the foundations of our 123VC training (www.123vc.org). It is the hardest training to prepare for and to facilitate, but the teachers who participate in the training continually rate it as one of the best professional development sessions that they have ever attended.
Without my journey beginning in the summer of 2000 at Pepperdine, I don’t think I would have the strong educational foundation to layer technology tools upon.

Project Links

• Shane Sings
• Monster Mayhem
• Read Around the Planet
• Mystery Quest USA

Resource Sites

• Whirlidurb Video Conference Projects
  Memberships available for schools with IP-based H.323 systems
• Blog: VC Rox
• Blog: VC Outonalim
• Projects Template Wiki
  Example for how to support a video conference project
• Projects Templates (Booklet)
  Ideas for how to structure video conference connections that support the curriculum
• 20 Days to Better VC Projects
  Janine Lim and I partner each January on a 20 Day Challenge focusing on some aspect of video conferencing. This year, we share tips for better projects.

ISTE Workshop in Denver

A Novel Hour: Extend Reading with Wikis, Skype, and Videoconferencing

Sunday, 6/27/2010, 8:30am–11:30am
Roxanne Glaser, Content Director of Whirlidurb, with Christina Hum and Rich Hum

Discover how to use wikis, Skype, and videoconferencing to create highly engaging learning environments for intermediate and middle school learners.

Read More

Thank you for your time and attendance this morning, and hope you have a great conference. ~Roxanne

The structure for the book is an extended game metaphor.

1. Play the whole game.
2. Make the game worth playing.
3. Work on the hard parts.
4. Play out of town.
5. Uncover the hidden game.
6. Learn from the team and from others.
7. Learn the game of learning.

Problem-solving vs. Problem-finding

This is the first thing that caught my eye because we hear “Our students need more opportunities to practice problem-solving”. Think about how your students or children behave when the problem is not clearly defined.

• Solving: The art and craft of dealing well with problems that are reasonably clear using explanation, argument, evidence, strategy, skill or craft.
• Finding: First, one must determine what or where the problems are. The problem must be formulated well and will probably need redefining before you can solve it.

Reframing JAZZ Small Group Projects as Whole Games

What if we added these questions to the preparation materials in JAZZ?

1. What would this topic be like if learners were trying to get better at DOING something?
2. What would they get better at DOING?
3. What would the topic be like if it were not just routine, if it required thinking with what you know and pushing it further?
4. If there were some problem-finding involved, where would it figure into the project plan?

I think it is important to continue to focus on what students are doing and learning. We can use the video conferencing technology to enhance projects and we need to think about how to do it in a smart and relevant way.

The basics of the project.

1. Find a partner.
2. Create a monster.
3. Write a description.
4. Exchange descriptions with your partner.
5. Create a second monster and try to match the original.
6. Meet in video conference to see if there is a match.

Why?

• Helps teachers integrate technology with supports and protocols.
• Moves ideas to implementation.

What Learning?

• Writing (How To, Sequencing, Descriptive)
• Math (measurement, angles)
• Reading (comprehension, following directions)
• Listening, speaking, problem-solving, alternative strategies

Adaptations

• Turkey Trade, Turkey Match, Ship Shape Turkey
• Easter Bunny Match
• Snowman Match
• Story Illustration Match

Links and Resources

• tweets from MACUL
• Making Learning Whole by David Perkins
• Linchpin by Seth Godin | blog via Twitter
• Presentation Zen Design by Garr Reynolds | web | @presentationzen
• Roxanne Glaser | Whirlidurb | blog VC Rox | @whirlidurb
• Janine Lim | blog VC Outonalim | @outonalim
• dana boyd | blog | @zephora
• Silvia Tolisano | blog | @langwitches