Response to "BYOD and Distraction"

This morning, I read a blog post by Ryan Bretag over at Metanoia entitled "BYOD and Distraction". In it, he asked several important pedagogical questions that I'd like to take a stab at answering. Here goes!

1. What is really causing the distraction?

Can we blame devices for causing distractions? Remember playing paper football with your friends behind propped up science textbooks? Students will always find something to be distracted by if they are not interested in the learning objective. This does not mean that all lessons must be centered around the student's own interests - I do think we need to expand and broaden the student's experience to increase their awareness of certain topics. However, we need to be like Apple, who have mastered the art of creating a want factor for something we didn't even know we needed. We need to be about the business of creating want factors for our students - giving them engaging lessons that intrigue them to want to know more about the world around them. These lessons need to grab their attention and interest.

2. How will you engage your students? How will we create environments where students can get into their flow?

This ties in nicely with my Google Teacher Academy application. I created a video where I highlighted the importance of environment in unleashing student creativity. If a student walks into a well-decorated, exciting classroom, they are going to most likely feel intrigued and interested in what's going to happen there. I passionately advocate for secondary teachers to not leave decorations to the elementary teachers. When a room is creatively decorated, students know that the teacher cares about them.

Proactively arrange your classroom to avoid common issues with devices. Make sure that students have spaces to collaborate in meaningful ways. Avoid squishing desks and tables into corners where you, the teacher, cannot reach every student personally.

3. How do we shift the of learning from object to process?

This is where BYOD adds to the conversation. In the real world, when we have a problem to solve (i.e. where is the nearest pizza joint that's open at 11PM and has gluten free options?) we each whip out our own devices and go through a series of events to get from problem to solution. Each person is going to have their own unique set of steps to solve the problem - and that's ok. We need to get better about allowing this natural flow to happen in the classroom, and highlight the steps as that's where the authentic learning takes place. The end result is what's usually graded, but the process is where growth happens. How can we better assess this? Some use rubrics, but I find that can inhibit creativity within the process. I've found it best to use a mix of participation points and student self-assessment to address this issue.

4. How do we best leverage these devices for learning independently and interdependently?

This ties into what we define as the learning objective. If we give our students a problem to solve, they can be unleashed to use their devices as they see fit to tackle that problem. Students can collaborate together when they have questions. Instead of following a set list of directions, by giving students more freedom they can learn problem solving skills in a natural way.

5. How do we redefine cheating in a collaborative culture?

This is a big deal for me. I HATE cheating. Few things bother me more than a plagiarized paper or homework assignment. I've been thinking this summer about how to use technology to create lessons that encourage students to synthesize and create rather than copy and paste. It's all in the instructional design. While it's important to teach students about digital ethics, it's also important to help students want to create something on their own, recognizing that their unique voices have value.

6. When are the devices needed and when are they not needed?

Devices are needed for everything from communication to collaboration to information gathering to sharing. When are they not needed? There needs to be a balance of activities both with and without devices to engage the students' minds and bodies. For example, when I teach Shakespeare, my students get out of their seats and perform. Shakespeare was not meant to be read, it was meant to be performed and observed. If I have my students only working on projects on their devices, I've lost some of my kinesthetic learners who need to experience Shakespearean plays in the first person.

7. How do we rethink the curriculum, instruction, and assessment when the sum of human knowledge is in front of them?

The focus is on solving problems and creating new meanings instead of regurgitating with repletion. How do we make sense of this digital world we now live in?

8. How do we shift our mindset to Connected Learning: interest-driven, networked-minded, and production focused?

Again, this comes back to curriculum design. Like I said earlier, I don't think every assignment needs to be interest-driven, but I do think that they need to be engaging enough to hook the student's interest to new things. To shift our mindset, we ourselves need to be lifelong learners, passionate about learning and trying new things while bettering our craft. This will help us to better understand how to create engaging lessons that are slightly off-kilter to wake up our students' thinking powers.

9. What do we want students to know (content knowledge), do (skills), think (habits of mind), and be (experiences & dispositions)?

Excellent (and packed) question. This is a good way to reflect on each unit. I don't have a concise answer, but I do know that I want my students to be creative thinkers who are prepared with a digital arsenal to tackle problem solving in new ways.