Tech Integration: “Pure” Tech Skills

After all the holistic thinking: relief. Now we can talk about what practical tech skills students should acquire and when.

Even so, we do have to think about one unifying skill: Figuring it out. The screen is full of symbols, some of them changing and responding. What are they saying? When should we learn by clicking and hoping, and when should we learn by reading or (gulp) reading the manual?

As someone who has fought his way through some of the worst interfaces along with the best and usually moved forward, let me give you my reflection. Think of learning a foreign language. It is possible for an English teacher to learn French by painstakingly substituting the English equivalent for each French word. So “chaise” = “chair”, for example. Then we let the English word do the work of corresponding to the thing in the world. No one recommends learning languages this way. Until we induce our new words to actually get involved in our thinking, they remain too much at a remove for us to care about them.

Similarly, interfaces are trying to engage in a conversation with you. They are often doing so in a confusing or limited way, but they are trying. If you write down what to do, you are translating what the interface is saying into another language. This is easier at first, but in the long term it limits your ability to converse with the interface.

We need students to hear teachers engaging their minds with the interface, not with a lofty set of instructions that are about the interface. In addition, when teachers engage with students about the interface, they should do so in a way induces kids to reason with the interface. I will give some example throughout of the kinds of language that I think gets kids to think in the same terms as the interface. The summary: The interface is the authority.

K-2: Think out loud

This is not a great age for kids to be locking in to screens. We should be very reluctant to add screen time to kids who are processing the world in terms of human interactions and imagination. Computers are greedy about hijacking both.

That said, they should see their teachers negotiating interfaces. Generic good presentation style involves hiding the technical details from the audience. Let’s do the opposite here and talk through the struggle.

At this age, let students see:

• Editing text: Highlighting; changing fonts and font sizes; cutting, copying and pasting. The last can be so subtle that it’s worth to paste-paste-paste-paste to make sure the effect is obvious.
• Drag and drop. On the left is a collection of one thing, on the right is another. For example, fill one window with images of lions, and another with images of birds. Only have one lion in the bird window. Ask the students: “So what should I do with the lion?” If the kids say “move it to that one,” answer “so drag it to the other window? Okay, I’ll hold down the mouse button …” and so on.
• Enter addresses for web pages. If you go to the website Newsela, don’t just put it on the screen. Say “I’m going to type in the address of a web site: newsela.com. What do you guess we’ll see?” Students (and some adults) struggle with the idea of a web resource having an “address.”
• Do searches that make everyone smarter. For example: go to Google Images and say “I’m going to search for images that go with the world ‘fall’”. Now look:

Do you see the happy accident here? You could ask students if they see the letters that spell “fall.” Now, of course, we can continue with “winter”:

(I promise I did not fake the same happy accident happening in the same place.) Now we have two words depicted viscerally and vividly through the power of the teacher’s use of searching. It is lovely when students hear that teachers don’t know the answer to something, or don’t quite know how to express it, and get to see the teachers finding out with such satisfying results.

By second grade, we should be showing students that searching yields many kinds of results: images, web pages, maps, and videos. We should also be pointing out that searching is built-in to much software. Plant the idea of looking for the rounded bar with the little magnifying glass, or pressing control-f.

Citizenship: At this age, it is hard to sense the human interactions in the technology. Young children tend to view ethics as fair vs. unfair, and most do not look at a web page and see people behaving fairly or unfairly. We can, and should, help them pick out the people behind the websites. We can ask: Who wrote this article? What group made this website? Where do I find the people talking about this and what do they say? It is all abstract compared to the authorship of a book, and a little daunting, which is why we ought to begin now.

Grades 3–5: The first responsibilities

The number of computers skills we want of students suddenly mushrooms. Suddenly we would like students to write essays, find out information, keep track of their own passwords, make presentations, and conduct research. Keep a realistic eye on their progress: They may be both less and more capable than you can imagine.

Self-management. At this age, we can ask that students have control over a username and password, perhaps two (no more than that). “Control” means they can memorize them and enter them reliably. It also means they feel strongly about security: They don’t tell their passwords to friends, and they don’t leave them lying around.

Word processing. Let’s include typing here. 3rd grade may or may not be the right age in which to learn typing. The idea of finding keys by touch is a hard sell at this age; about half the students, in my experience, will fight very hard for what feels like their right to find the letters with their eyes. The answer is simple: Cover their hands. Be prepared for some frustrated students.

In addition to touch-typing skills, we should expect students to understand how modifier keys (shift, control, alt, etc) work. The sooner we get them to rely on keyboard shortcuts, the better. If we have to prioritize, insist on ctrl-c (copy), ctrl-x (cut), ctrl-v (paste, as in velcro), and ctrl-z (undo).

As for using word processors, stay alert to students who type return at the end of each line (it happens). Carefully observe that if you teach a typing program, students will almost certainly forget to deploy any of their typing skills when they are writing.

If you learned to format in the era of the typewriter, please distrust your own instincts. For instance: We learned to put two spaces after each period on typewriters because the type was monospaces (a lowercase i takes as much width as a capital M). Now that we are on computers: Insist on one space after the period (sorry). Anything you learned about centering titles with spaces or even tabs, forget it.

Good users of word processors use styles, and they use them to show the structure of documents. Look at what you are reading right now. The larger type of headers separates sections. The bold “slugs” at the beginning of certain paragraphs mark sections within sections. Of course there is the title at the top of the document. All of these can be accessed by using styles in either Google Docs or Microsoft Word. Learn to use them, and expect students to use them.

Programming. The basic idea of programming is thinking in algorithms: Exact, repeatable routines that work every time. Finding the algorithm that will make a certain outcome happen is simply a kind of puzzle solving, and should be accessible to any student who likes solving puzzles. That said, not everyone likes solving puzzles, so this may be a tough sell at this age.

There are so many good resources for teaching programming online, and programming as a subject is so amenable to online teaching, that it really is possible to teach without the teacher having a knack or interest in the subject. I think we can feel fine about providing a few students with the chance to learn programming on their own.

Let them see more advanced uses of software. What can we teach by using spreadsheets in front of the students? Put a series of numbers into one column, then put a formula into the first cell of the next column and pull it down into the rest. You are demonstrating how number series emerge out of formulas. Take a look at the first example of how to generate the Fibonacci sequence using Excel. (It all gets a little too heavy as it goes on, but you get the idea.)

Whether this is a compelling way of demonstrating numbers is less important than giving students a view of how numbers can be processed in a spreadsheet.

Similarly, let the students see their teacher generating web pages using a tool such as Adobe Spark; or slideshows with Google Sheets or Prezi. If there is a technology you like to rely on, let them see you use it. Perhaps most importantly, do your research while kids watch; let them hear you process what you find and synthesize it into coherent results (see this essay on search and research for more).

Digital citizenship: Now that children are making things online, and making decisions about what they are making, we have a context for digital citizenship. Let us focus on three issues:

• Stay safe. Be suspicious of the identity of people you don’t know in life. Be suspicious of what web pages and other communications are telling you. For now, rely on the direct guidance of adults.
• Be good. Say kind and helpful things to others. Steer clear of arguments. Treat your online identity as if it were just as much “you” as your daily behaviors.
• Respect property and authorship. If we cut images and words loose from their source, they lose meaning. Always cite your sources, and learn to cite as far back as you can (e.g., find the photographer rather than “Source: Google Images”).

As we did in earlier grades, we must seek out the humans at work in digital resources. Now we can complicate: Who are the authors of a Wikipedia page, or a gallery of photographs and amazing facts?

Grades 6–8: Adeptness and adaptation

If we have done our work well so far, now we have students who seem competent and confident with their tech skills, enough to do most traditional educational tasks with computers. If they were to acquire new skills, we might find them beyond what many teachers know how to do themselves. We might also find that we can only go further in technology by changing our outcomes.

For that reason, we can be tempted to let students coast through these years. Let us reject this option. Students at this age are exploding with new fascinations and capacities, and incorporate whatever skills we expect of them throughout their lives.

Design. As Steve Jobs said: “Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.” We can help students become concerned with the craft of how their work feels and works. Photographs should be clean and focused. Web pages should be readable and easy to navigate. The intention of the object made should be clear.

Word processing. We are likely to encounter all kinds of improvised typing methods at this age, most involving two fingers and looking at the keyboard. Let us make one last stand towards touch typing. At this age students can probably take on the aggravating challenge of having their hands covered, forcing them to touch type.

Students should have greater control over the mechanics of a word processing document. They should know how use tables, columns, tab stops, style sheets, line spacing, headers and footers, footnotes, bulleted lists, numbered lists, indexes, and images with good judgement to make readable, useful documents.

Mastering digital media. At the end of the process of firing up the word processor, we get an essay—something we might have had before word processors, with some efficiencies and nicer type. But what about media that we never would have asked student to create in, say, the 1980s? Consider:

• web pages (blog, wikis)
• slide shows (both linear, as in PowerPoint or Google Slides; and spatially elaborate and animated, as with Prezi)
• interactions (games, simulations)
• self-broadcasting media (Twitter, Instagram, YouTube)
• mind maps and other graphic representations of a subject
• posters, brochures and other print designs

(n.b.: Of course posters and brochures existed into the 1980s, and of course we occasionally gave out the assignment to draw a poster by hand. But well-produced print media were beyond the reach of the average person.)

We should assign work in such media. But we should also teach the lay of the land. Students ought to have a sense of what kinds of skills go into the production of each form of media, and know how to get started. They ought to be able to spot real examples of each medium, and think of them critically.

Students should also begin to choose forms of media on their own, and make judgement calls with reflection and feedback. Why would a particular subject work best as a wiki with three editors, rather than as a simulation, or an essay, or a series of tweets?

Programming. This is a good age in which to transition from drag-and-drop visual programming (Scratch, Snap, Code.org) and introduce text-based programming. Python, Ruby and JavaScript are all reasonably friendly languages that can still do work. Students should be ready to absorb the notion of functions (repeatable code) and variables (names for values that can change). Expect a small subset of students to really take off — the obsessive 13-year-old coder can become voracious—and have supports in place for them.

Spreadsheets. Believe it or not, these can be made exciting, or at least useful for students. Put spreadsheets to work in a science context. Pour social science data into a spreadsheet and teach students to view the results from many perspectives (by sorting, filtering and charting). If we can send students into high school having mastered the basic metaphor of the cell = row + column, the teachers at the high school can go a long way.

Self-directed mastery. There is an unwritten ethos among those who are adept with mastering tech skills. They tend to avoid manuals and step-by-step instruction; they do not write down what they learn. They learn by practice, direct experimentation and reapplying what they have learned. They cherish efficiencies, especially keyboard shortcuts. Getting work done without touching the mouse is like manual transmission for professional racing drivers: You feel connected to the machine, and you can go faster.

Even people without an affinity for tech can try on some of the attributes of the power user: resilience, curiosity, fearless climbing of the learning curve, self-assessment, and a love of mastery.

To cut to the chase: Teach how to improve by exploration. It always feels easiest to hand out step-by-step instructions, but doing so is a drag on the progress students need to make. Use the power of the crowd: When students use a tool together, someone makes a discovery, and news of that discovery spreads. Keep asking and re-asking: Is there a faster way? What did you find out? Expect students to use tool tips, quick help, instructional videos and cheat sheets to build skills on their own.

Remember two traits that often emerge at this age: collecting, and a will to independence. Teach so students can play to these traits as they learn.

Citizenship: Our world is growing very complicated, and our students are likely to be volatile, socially and emotionally. In other words, we are at a prime age for online turmoil, with a risk of real consequences.

We need to work through as many hypothetical scenarios as we can, and make them close to the kinds of situations students will face. Think of taking or sharing photos without permission; making or responding to insulting statements; assuming a fake identity; revealing secrets about others. Sadly, there are many real stories of middle school-aged children driving each other to disaster through cyberbullying.

Authorship is mysterious. We now live in an era of state-sponsored phony accounts and computer algorithms posing as humans. We need to coach students in keeping the integrity of their online identity, and to judge the integrity of others. We should teach students to figure out not just who created something online but also who is paying for it to reach you: The site, the publication, the advertisers.

Finally, students need to form convictions about the rights of digital citizens. For issues such as privacy, the right of access to public data, and the rights of free expression, students should learn how to reason from principles.

Grades 9–12: Autonomy

Let us think of the high school student using technology to become an autonomous individual: an expressive, capable, self-determining person.

Self-organization: Organization is crucial at this age and beyond. Connect students to many tools that help them track time, manage tasks, create goals and chart their own progress. There is plenty of software written around these specific issues. Other tools are more general. The gadgets that many students carry include ways to track their sleep, their fitness, their food, their daily thoughts.

Self-representation: How are public figures represented in the world today? Let’s consider the scientist and author Steven Pinker. A Google search for him turns up, in order:

• His website.
• His Wikipedia entry.
• His Twitter feed.
• One of his TED Talks.
• His departmental page at Harvard.
• A link to one of his books on Amazon.

Casting more broadly, we find news articles, interviews, images, a Facebook page, and so forth. Taken together, this a typical presence of a reasonably active figure in current society. Even for less public figures, being an active member of the digital world involves switching among modes of communication, managing the expression of self across domains.

Ten years ago, teachers taught, and sometime sent letters home. Now they manage websites about their class; communicate to students via email and comments; and some are using social media to enlarge the scope of their communication. This is a growing aspect of many people’s lives.

Even if people choose to retire to a farm and withdraw from the digital world, we can give them practice and exposure so they can make a conscious choice.

The specific recommendation: Give students access to a well-curated batch of tools they can use to build their own presence and portfolio. Move beyond thinking of learning as a private experience between the teacher, the student and the report card. Think of ways that students can summarize and broadcast what they have accomplished.

Our first impulse will be to build portfolios of students’ academic work. Let us go further: Include artifacts of the students’ lives: wishes, accomplishments and interests outside of school, whatever from their personal lives helps them present themselves as complete people. In so doing, we will help students encounter a variety of means of expression through technology.

As we encourage students to build their versions of themselves, we should lead them to think critically: How are we distorting our views? Which media truly represent the depth of what we are trying to convey? We might not find that high-tech solutions have more explanatory power; we may find, as Edward Tufte wrote in his overview of visual representations, that words becoming sentences, sentences joining into paragraphs are the most powerful technology we have for most purposes. But we will have this insight in context.

Modeling real-world problems: Traffic engineers do not solve problems with pencil and paper; they run simulations. So do statisticians, biologists, weather forecasters, and epidemiologists. If it all sounds daunting, it is; agent-based modeling and other tools for creating simulations have a steep learning curve. But look for the entry points, especially in science, math and social sciences.

Programming: We should maintain both a friendly entry point for learning programming and a rigorous path for students who find they have a knack and the interest. At this point, leading with a human-friendly, text-based language like JavaScript or Python is fine.

For the students who keep pursuing programming, we should encourage them to create full projects, even if they are only a few files and 10–20 functions. The core of programming is in data structures and their algorithms, and we should move students towards fluency in both. Students should make sense of object-oriented programming and type systems.

The tools that programmers use to create and collaborate are usually free and work well in the academic setting with minimal adaptation. In this way way, we can connect advanced and self-motivated students to real programmers or projects and put them to work.

Spreadsheets: Students should feel comfortable populating spreadsheets with formulas. Spreadsheets are good for what-if analysis, filling in the missing data given a starting point and endpoint. We should teach students to connect to outside data sources. We need to introduce data visualizations: the good, bad and ugly.

Citizenship: Let us step away for a moment from the perils of digital communication. How do we make the world better as digital citizens? Use your own answers so you can speak with conviction. My answers include curating others’ work with integrity; giving strong credit to content creators; claiming the authority to describe the world away from central authorities and giving it to small groups and individuals. The answer of any student may be again different, but consider how we can bring out a hopeful vision.

Having envisioned a world we want, consider what values enable that vision, and what habits and etiquette abide by those values. Think about how we communicate: how we convey tone and intent; how we draw out the best ideas of others; how we elevate dialogues rather than degrade them.