Invisible EdTech
Why technology needs to be used but not seen in classrooms — with examples and pictures.
I spend a lot of time thinking and reading about how technology and education can interact, I’m a fun kind of guy. I want a revolution (in education) as much as the next man, but let’s be realistic here: enormous overalls aren’t the way to go, no one likes having everything they use just disappear, especially when parts of it work. For now, at least, technology needs to be introduced gradually, and in harmony with what teachers are actually doing right now. So in this article I’m going to highlight some excellent features current educational technologies that could be non-intrusively employed by teachers today, single handedly, with no/little budget or school support. And then we can get our pitchforks and revolt.
Summary / List of websites.
- I talk about the following resources: Kaizena, Memrise, Socrative, and Twitter. Links are provided above.
- At least for now the edtech web tools we use need to go hand-in-hand with how teachers teach right now, there’s not impending revolution.
- The only way we’re going to get the best tools is by showing developers and funders that there is a need and a place for these apps, so long as they’re good. So we should start using them.
Introduction
I think my most recent revelation can be summed up in the following quote, from Joe Sparano:
Good design is obvious. Great design is transparent.
As I’ve mentioned in two previous articles (here and here) I see education changing in a way which fits each student’s needs, allowing them to learn how they learn best and are most productive. This is an essential life skill no matter what a person ends up doing, and (hopefully) will result in better educational attainment, understanding, and grades.
I see technology as a major driver in this process, however I’m starting to realise that technology, like everything else, is not a miracle solution. Recently I’ve been reading Hywel Robert’s book ‘Oops’, as well as a number of online articles: one by Ben Stern, and another older article by Jeff Dunn. It seems clear that often we’re so focused on new technologies, interventions, media, assessment methods that we forget what we’re trying to do: educate.
For the students, it’s not about the fact that they’re using a tablet at their desk to answer questions on the board (though that’s certainly a cool way to gain and keep attention). It’s about students understanding why y, in this instance, is a non-linear function; it’s about students understanding that sodium and chlorine really really want to be together, in an ionic sort of way, because of valence electrons, energy levels/shells, and not just because; it’s about a student being able to take a step back and listen to bars 1-16 because somewhere a chord transition just isn’t working. These are all problems that technology can help students solve. Rather like that girl crying outside the toilets at pretty much every anniversary or birthday: this isn’t about you, technology, it’s about maths/chemistry/music respectively, but more importantly it’s about learning and education in general.
With this in mind I just want to highlight a few really useful education web apps which have applied this. By no means is this an exhaustive list of web tools, nor is it a recipe for success. It’s a few tools which are worth checking out because despite being really cool and look sleek, they’re finished (though not static) tools which are easy to use, simple, and genuinely could save time. I’m going to assume the reader is somewhat technologically literate, so I’m not going to cover Dropbox, Google Docs/Drive, or Evernote. Nor am I going to cover Kahn academy or YouTube — which I’ve kind of touched on here, but will no doubt cover in greater detail in a future article.
Kaizena
Kaizena is a beautifully presented, simple, yet powerful tool which students can use to submit Google Documents to a teacher.
Why it’s invisible: It integrates Google accounts and Google Docs — two massively prominent technologies on the internet; It doesn’t tell you or your students what they have to do, simply gives educators a way to collect, comment on, and return work without the need for a red pen.
The Good: Really well presented; Simple; Easy and even pleasurable to use for student and teacher; Excellent way to acclimatise students to working in web environments.
The Bad: Must have Google account; Requires internet access; Limited to what will fit on, or can be formatted into, a word processor, spreadsheet, or presentation.
Summary: Kaizena’s goal is simple — to let students submit work to teachers, who can receive it, read it, comment on it, and then pass it back. The whole site is beautiful — following modern web design principles which really make it a pleasure to use. What’s even better is that it follows all of this up with exceptional functionality.
The whole thing integrates with a Google account, so all it takes is a Gmail address, which takes minutes to set up. Once that’s done, you set up your account on the site, which also takes minutes.
Students can see their teachers profile: a simple matter of clicking a URL supplied by the teacher. Students can submit work to be commented on by their teacher. These can even be filed into folders (e.g. for each assignment, class, year, whatever) by the students.
Once there, the teacher need only click on a submission, and they get a nice view of the document. They can highlight text and comment in text or audio, and comments can also be assigned colours, which is fantastic. Teachers are unable to edit the document.
MemRise
MemRise is a sleek, free, easily accessible tool for learning basic factual recall and vocabulary.
Why it’s invisible: It’s not a tool which takes a great deal of time to use, it’s very nicely designed, and can be used almost anywhere on any computer or mobile device, assuming they have internet connection. Like Kaizena it’s not a tool for the classroom, but one which can both introduce and fortify knowledge around existing sessions.
The Good: Free; Mobile and tablet friendly; Already has some packs made for specific exam boards or units; gamification aspects; user generated quirky / unique ‘mems’ to remember certain facts; Mixture of questions and answer methods; Gamification motivates for continual user engagement.
The Bad: Limited to factual recall, very little room for application of knowledge; Very limited semantics in answers;
Summary: MemRise is a platform for creating, sharing, and completing quizzes of single / simple answer questions. I was pleasantly surprised by just how many quizzes already exist to fit pre-existing syllabuses and exam courses, though I can’t testify for their quality of accuracy, the fact that they exist is very promising.
MemRise takes the analogy that your knowledge is like a garden, and you need to plant seeds (learn material initially) and then water them (practice them) regularly to keep a healthy garden. It even measures your progress in terms of what has been remembered in the long term, meaning students don’t just do the test once and think they’ve got everything. The fact that it encourages longer term learning and repeated visits is great. It even adds gamification and competition aspects such as high scores, levels, and completion bars, all of which can be bumped up by small 5 minute watering sessions.
However, the binary nature (i.e. this is either right OR wrong) can be quite inhibiting. One format of questions requires the user to place preselected words to form a definition, and even if what you’ve put is tangible and correct, if it is not the exact pre-defined series of words, then it’s not going to be accepted. This moves away from higher level learning, and application of knowledge, but arguably this is not what the ool was created for.
Nonetheless, if we take MemRise for what it is — a pretty, cool, easy to use tool to give students the basic definitions and promotes long term memory, and competition between students— it’s a very good tool. The ability for teachers to create a quiz suited to a class, year, or subject provides versatility. The fact that its self marking, and even identifies items which individual students have note quite grasped yet is brilliant, freeing up teacher time and increasing student awareness to focus individual study. Plus there’s the benefit that it’s open access — anyone can use the quizzes.
These benefits do need come with a word of warning, however. It’s clear that quizzes must be well designed — i.e. short answer simple questions, and not become overly ambitious. Additionally, while it is possible to see who’s doing the quiz and who’s doing well (registration is essential), long term tracking of a large number of students may become tedious. Nevertheless, the tool is fantastic, and I’d love to see it be implemented more and more, especially in non-language subjects.
Socrative
A quick and easy tool to ask simple closed and open questions to a class, which works on any device with a web browser.
Why it’s invisible: Socrative is so quick and simple to set up for teachers, and easy for students to use that once you’ve used it once, and invested that 5-10 minute bump, then you’re set to go.
The Good: Quick; Simple; Works on every mobile device; can pre-create quizzes for quick deployment; can share said quizzes.
The Bad: Some users report slow speeds at times; Somewhat clunky interface at times, especially for quiz creation; Limited in the type of questions you can ask students; Requires each student to have a device to use; No easy way to search for other quizzes so have to make you’re own if you’re independent.
Summary: Socrative provides a really quick, easy way for teachers to establish an online ‘classroom’, which students can then join.
In the classroom, teachers can pose questions to students. These questions can either be multiple choice, true/false, or short text answer. You can ask one off quick questions, or create your own quizzes. You can also use ‘space race’ in which students can answer quiz questions in any number of teams. Even better, you can add explanations (which can include pictures!) to answers so you can follow up any misconceptions. Teachers can also let students answer at their own pace, or within any given time limit, defined by the educator.
The tool is so simple to use, and I’ve heard really positive things from teachers I have spoken to. It basically acts as a way for teachers to replace those ‘clickers’, but you’re not going to have that one clicker that doesn’t work, you don’t have to worry about them getting around or collecting them, students can use their phones, tablets, laptops, or computers if you’re in a lab.
It’s a way for quick formative assessment to make sure students understand something before you move on. Something that also struck me is how easily it could be used to help students request help. If you’re running a workshop style session (i.e. given students problems to solve individually or in groups), and a student is stuck, if they don’t want to stick up their hand they don’t have to — they can even post their problem in full which could then be opened up to other students to answer.
However the nature of the questions is limited by the format (binary, multiple, short answer text). Also, if you’re putting time limits on questions, it’s not as easy to type on a smartphone as it is on a laptop, so it’s not always going to be an equal playing field. It also relies on the classroom having wi-fi connection, and all students being able to access it (which involves having a device to do so). Nevertheless, it’s a useful tool which can be used in conjunction with good practice — like MemRise, it exists to enhance, not replace.
Why it’s invisible: It’s a fully formed, globally successful framework for communication which a lot of people already have and use, it’s already a part of so many people’s lives and so integration for many teachers should be simple.
The Good: So easy to use and access; Many people already have an account; Easy communication.
The Bad: Potential source for distraction; Limited to 140 characters.
Summary: You know what Twitter is — that site where you create an account and Tweet a message of 140 characters or less where anyone can see your tweet, and people who follow you will have it pop up on their Feed. It’s also the founder of the Hashtag (#) which allows users to mark a message so it can be found easily. This means that if I wants to find an article about edtech, I can search for #edtech.
More prominently, this also means you can mark items or tweets with any unique identifier. Take #UOSM2015 for example — UOSM2015 is the module code to an interdisciplinary module at the University of Southampton on sustainability. The module was run by award winning education innovator Simon Kemp — who is by far and away my favorite Welsh, ginger, shouty, lecturer I’ve ever encountered (in all seriousness, this man had a profound impact on the way I see education, and how I could change it, so you know…thanks, Simon).
Simon encouraged #UOSM2015 as a way to promote discussion among the coursemates, and prompt relevant articles. Though this reality may not have materialised to its fullest extent, I say it’s definitely one we should be pushing, as Twitter is a fantastic tool for communication, promotion of material, which I’ve found indispensible.
I’d love to see Twitter being used in classrooms as well as outside of it. In class time this could mean students are able to tweet in with something they don’t understand, share hand-drawn diagrams or notes. Outside of class students can easily communicate with teachers, and because this is public it comes with greater accountability. Didn’t reply to that message? Everyone can see. Also it saves you answering the same question over and over. It also lets you open questions up to other people, to promote peer-to-peer learning.
I’d love to see Twitter taking off in classrooms, and really encouraging a positive use of social media — because it’s here to stay so we may as well use it for good, right?
