Holidays, Screen Time & Parental Guilt

Holidays are fabulous, and with them comes, especially for your children, time. In particular, more leisure time. And in a world where “screen time” is becoming simply “time,” for many—while we anticipate some great memories and experiences—with the typical 21st-century family it doesn't take long before the inevitable tensions caused by the multiplicity of screens in the home can start to cause problems. The fact is that a vacation inevitably means more time spent with screens, for the whole family, not just the kids.

Cue the inevitable pangs of parental guilt, brilliantly summed up in this article from The Atlantic:

"Tune into the conversation about kids and screen time, and you’d be forgiven for thinking that before the invention of the iPhone, parents spent every waking moment engaging their kids in deep conversation, undertaking creatively expressive arts-and-crafts projects, or growing their own vegetables in the backyard garden. There’s a tendency to portray time spent away from screens as idyllic, and time spent in front of them as something to panic about. 

But research shows that vilifying the devices’ place in family life may be misguided."

This post outlines practical ways to make screen time more productive. When screen media use can mean writing a short story on a computer, video-chatting with relatives, watching videos, reading the news online, or playing games, what is the point of documenting the total amount of time kids spend using screens? Instead of auditing, focus more on balance. The paltry amount of time our children spend active and creating (as opposed to passive viewing) with screens could be nudged up extensively by replicating at home some of the ways we encourage our students to use screens in school, only this time giving your kids much greater freedom of choice in terms of the focus of their creative endeavours...

Depending on where you will be spending your vacation, you may well find yourself in a situation where your children are stuck indoors for many hours. Obviously a long-haul flight means that kind of scenario and most families are prepared to tolerate a lot more screen time in that situation for the sake of maintaining sanity. But what happens when, at your destination, you are faced with, for example, inclement weather (yes my native Ireland, I'm looking at you). This means that potentially your children are stuck inside for days on end, and there's only so many hours you can spend persuading them to play board games and read books before screens and their many distractions become a temptation... Then when (not if) parents inevitably concede, it causes a great deal of guilt, not to mention potential condemnation from in-laws?

Screen Time - Not just a kid thing [Credit Paul Rogers]

How much is too much?

Common sense media have recently released the results of a huge census that they have taken, 'Media use by Tweens and Teens', researching typical uses of screen time. I've written about the issue of screen time before in the context of early childhood. But what make this census of particular interest is that it's focused on the screen time of older children. The findings are certainly worth reading, and for the most part they handle the issues it represents well, other than their tendency to grandstand with their "9 HOURS OF MEDIA DAILY" (which includes listening to music, something you could be doing while spending a week hiking in the mountains...) But my main gripe is their strange choice to exclude adults from the census—it's my contention (recently confirmed by another media census focusing on parents) that many if not most adults would rack up just as many hours as our children, if not more (especially if they're working on screens during the vacation, which many do). Given a comparison like that, it would put this kind of alarmist rhetoric into a much more reasonable perspective. For example, at least two recent studies show that the typical adult spends between eight and eleven hours on screens, although "to be fair, much of that probably happens while doing other things at the same time." (Statista)

"On any given day, parents of American tweens and teens average more than nine hours with screen media each day. Eighty-two percent of that time (almost eight hours) is devoted to personal screen media activities such as watching TV, social networking, and video gaming, with the rest used for work."  

The Common Sense Census: Plugged-In Parents of Tweens and Teens

As mentioned, the amount of "free time" available to everyone in the family during vacations increases, but you can be sure that especially for your children, with this significant increase, the likelihood is that your children will want to occupy most, if not all of this free time with "entertainment media". This was the focus of the census, and included media like books, not just screens, but as you will not be surprised to learn, screens dominated. A lot.

"entertainment media” is a very broad category, including everything from music, TV shows and videos, books, and websites to computer, video, and mobile games. But the fact that tweens and teens in the U.S. are using an average of six to nine hours' worth of media a day is still astounding. As discussed elsewhere, this does not mean they are stopping all other activity and attending only to media during this time; but it is still a large amount of time spent absorbing a large amount of content.
...
on any given day fully one in five 8- to 12-year-olds in this country is using more than six hours of screen media, and nearly as many teens (18 percent) are using more than 10 hours of screen media." (The Common Sense Census, 2015, p 30)

The survey provides little of anything in terms of advice as to how to manage this, although one particular statistic really stood out to me, and it is at the heart of my advice to parents in dealing with this tricky issue.

Media Use by Tweens and Tweens Report - Page 22

"Only 3% of teens' and tweens' digital media time is spent on content creation" 

Almost every vacation I get bombarded with emails parents and teachers desperately requesting ideas for ways that they can use screen time more productively during their vacation, so here is my advice if you want to try and make screen time more productive in your family this holiday.

Get creative

The notion of screen time as a one-dimensional activity is changing. Computers, tablets, and smartphones are multipurpose devices that can be used for, well, lots of purposes. Designating their use simply as "screen time" can miss some important variations. The Common Sense Census identifies four main categories of screen time.

• Passive consumption: watching TV, reading, and listening to music 
• Interactive consumption: playing games and browsing the Internet
• Communication: video-chatting and using social media
• ​Content creation: using devices to make digital art or music

21st Century Family Screen Time [image credit: pc.advisor.co.uk]

If your children are dual language learners (DLLs), this is an excellent way to encourage them to reinforce their language other than English (LOTE), by replicating some of their school projects in their mother tongue.

A model I use for framing our use of screens at UWCSEA is something I sum up as 'vitamin digital' of 'VITAD'; five domains of tech use. Even better, as your kids have been working within many (if not all) of these domains, they will already have a good idea of the kinds of tools they need to use, without you needing to teach them! Each of these domains is powerful in its own right, but they really come into their own when you start exploring combinations of them...

VITAD - Video, Image, Text, Audio and Data Handling - Core Domains of Tech

Video editing:

Make music videos, animation, stop motion video, 'supercuts' from YouTube clips. Why not appoint your kids as family 'media journalists', why not give them the job of documenting the holiday? I'm sure they'll let you contribute some of your media to the project...

Many of our students use this model for their iTime projects in the Junior School, see this post for lots of suggestions for holiday iTime projects that are fun for your kids, without being a headache for you to manage as a parent. Below are some examples:

Image creation:

Image montage/mash up, slideshow, add music to convert the slide show into a music video? Image editing, filters, layers, digital artwork... 

Text: 

Make an ebook, presentation, blog, choose your own adventure (hyperlinked Google Slides), coding, website, browse (research holiday destination?) persuade, demonstrate...

Learn to touch-type, for more advice on this see my related post, but it's safe to say that if you/your child dedicated 15-30 minutes a day to this everyday throughout the holidays they could be proficient by the start of the new school term in August! 

Audio: 

Slideshow commentary, soundtrack, podcast/radio show, composition in GarageBand, or remix of favourite tracks? 

Data handling: 

Spreadsheets: pocket money, trip budget, holiday costing, problem solving, graphing stats (choose data and gather ie how many times does 'x' do 'y'???

Maths:

Do not be mistaken, just because they are working with Maths activities on a screen, doesn't make the experience much more palatable for your kids. That said, there is no doubt that using screens to encourage greater numeracy is a no-brainer, these tools are brilliant at enabling practise, with immediate feedback, and developing 'automaticity'. Despite this, Maths practise will most likely need to be encouraged with tangible rewards for completion of certain achievements. I expect my kids to do a half an hour of Khan Academy before they do any other screen activity, half an hour a day during vacations is the goal. Maybe offer them rewards as they complete certain mile posts or missions? In order to keep vacation stress to a minimum, I find it a really good idea to ask them to go back and master grade missions that precede the grade they're in, as this is an effective form of revision/consolidation/practise, even if this means a Grade 5 student working on the Early Years mission to get started, if I did it, so can they! This way you're also less likely to be called on to help with problems that they can't solve independently, and they are more likely to enjoy the sense of fluency and confidence that comes with working speedily through concepts that they have practised in previous years, not to mention the reward of mastering a grade level. That said, both you and they might be surprised at how many foundational skills they are less confident in than they thought, just as well you did this then, isn't it?

... Better still, why not join them in a little Maths revision yourself? The Khan Academy App on the iPad is particularly good for this.

There are plenty of other options besides Khan Academy, especially if you don't have a reliable WiFi connection, these can be really useful. One of my favourites is the Ken Ken App, like Sodoku, but with basic operations thrown in. Also, pretty much anything from the developers behind Squeebles is a safe bet—there are many tried and tested Maths Apps, such as these, and these, that you can install on an iOS device near you, I'm sure many if not most of these are also available on Android.

Coding

Check out my coding posts on this blog and you'll see a complete guide of many kinds of apps and sites to fill any vacation... :)

Focus on the Meaning not the Medium

Now I'm not going to pretend that all these ways to use screens to create are going to trump the use of screens to consume, interact and communicate, any more than you have any intention of only using screens in your life for creating. For this reason you may need some incentives are going to have to be in the form of some essential agreements; with a bit of careful negotiation I'm sure you can work out some sort of compromise...

Finally, some wise words from the American Association of Pediatrics (updated October 2015):

"Media is just another environment. Children do the same things they have always done, only virtually. Like any environment, media can have positive and negative effects. 

Content matters. The quality of content is more important than the platform or time spent with media. Prioritize how your child spends his time rather than just setting a timer."

What about Video Games?

No doubt if you've got this far you're probably wondering, well this is all well and good, but even if I do persuade my child to do a little more creating, they are still going to want to devote way more time to playing video games than most parents are comfortable with. I'd advise you to look on the bright side, playing games like Minecraft and Roblox are arguably very creative—and even more traditional games like Mario Kart and Fortnite are clearly very socially interactive, or at the very least provide activities that require active engagement as opposed to the most common alternative of mindlessly staring at screens as the time wiles away at 35 frames per second (like many of us did, where we were their age). 

So, gaming can be a great from of screen time. If you're not convinced I've compiled a post here, answering the many questions I have received from parents over the years in relation to their children's playing of video games. At least give it a try, you might be surprised how removing one more thing to nag about can improve your relationship with your children!

Stop Motion - G5 EXPO

Stop Motion - G5 EXPO

Inspired by various TEDtalks, a group of students in Grade 5 wanted to create their own animated talk to share their thoughts with 'G5 Expo of Learning' visitors.

They planned out their talk and decided on the visuals they would need before starting the project. Some students chose to draw on whiteboards while others used LEGO to tell their story.

We discussed the importance of finding a suitable space to work in, paying attention to lighting and shadows as well as comfort and safety. Using the area outside Margaret Chhoa’s classroom allowed all the students to fit in and work without disturbing each other. We began by setting up the Justands over the work area and got all of the equipment within arms reach.

We explored how the iMotion HD app worked and decided whether to use the manual or time-lapse capture option. Another interesting option is to use the microphone to listen for a clap or a sound from the user to take a picture. This, along with the time-lapse option, takes away the opportunity for movement of the iPad or for it to lose focus on the image below.

 

When the stop motion movies were complete the children exported them from the iPad via email. Once back on their laptops they imported the stop motion into iMovie to add finishing touches; an introduction slide, a voiceover and an end slide. The voiceovers really gave another dimension to the movie and they required the children to think carefully about how what they were saying supported the visuals on screen.

Many visitors to the G5 Expo of Learning were impressed by these videos and the children who produced them were proud of their work. From a teacher's point of view the children used a variety of skills and developed new ones through this project.

Enjoy the finished movies.

Poetry - Made Multimodal!

This incredible, beautiful example inspired me to approach our English teachers to consider making their work with poetry multimodal; showing this to them was a pretty persuasive pitch.

One of the many great things about my job is that I get to work with teachers and students throughout the college, from Kindergarten to Grade 12. One of the fabulous aspects to this is how often the fundamentals that are introduced in the Primary School, are just as effective and just as powerful in the Middle and High Schools.

We have been making a concerted effort to ensure that when we talk about 'digital literacy' we back that with some fundamentals, specifically the expectation that as our students move through the college they move from introduction to consolidation to competence in the five core domains of video, image, text, audio, and data. What follows is one example this year of integrating three of these into students experiences with poetry, by making it multimodal.

Multimodal Poetry

This work began by focusing on our Grade 4 students, nearing the end of a Writing Workshop focus on poetry. Instead of leaving it as a text only celebration, we asked the students to reimagine one of their poems, adding imagery—be it still or moving image. Some students were more literal in their interpretation, others more abstract, but the best skilfully combined both. Then they added the power of sound, choosing music and even sound effects to complement their own narration.

What I find really exciting though, is that as why I was able to take these videos to our Grade 7 teachers, whose students were ending a focus on poetry, only in this case they had been analysing and exploring an anthology of poetry. So we asked them to choose one... and make it multimodal. 

Grade 4

Grade 7

Whether it was a grade 4 poem the students wrote themselves, or a poem chosen by a Grade 7 student from an anthology, the teachers consistently commented on how powerful and insightful it was to see each students understanding of poetry made visual, made audible; made multimodal. 

Resources

If you're keen to have a go, here's a link to the site page where I collated the resources—I used the same resources with both Primary and Middle School classes. 

http://findsounds.com/ 

http://bbcsfx.acropolis.org.uk/ 

These sites are fabulous for downloading music:

https://www.bensound.com/ 

http://freemusicarchive.org/

https://www.jamendo.com/ 

iTime Tech Tips

iTime, also known as Passion Projects and no doubt many other variations is a popular and essential element of our Primary School experience, what is it?

What is iTime?

iTime is an independent opportunities for students owned and student driven enquiry.

The "i" stands for a couple of things:
inquiry: This is an opportunity for students to ask questions and learn about something they are interested in.
​
individual: This is their project. They choose what they are going to do.  They decide how best to present their learning.
(http://gwaitime.weebly.com/)

iTime can focus on any endeavour that is practical to pursue in the classroom, from knitting, to learning a new language, to building a cardboard game arcade. But one of the challenges is managing the disparate resourcing requirements, and managing the logistics of this, especially if the students are working on this at home and at school, which, if they're really excited about it, is highly likely.

Enter digital technology. Now I'm not for one second advocating for iTime to purely focus on digital artefacts (as my examples above imply) but there's no doubt in my mind that focusing on creating and learning a digital skill to create a digital artefact is relatively simple to manage, assuming your students are fortunate enough to work in a 1:1 school like ours.

In order to facilitate this I created the document below to inspire students and teachers who are keen on using their iTime for something digital. This document will grow over time, and please feel free to suggest additional ideas in the comments below, and I will add them to the doc.

Five ways to get creative with tech: video, text, audio, and data.

\

Should all Children Learn to Code?

That is a good question—one I am commonly asked by both parents and teachers, but mainly parents.

The answer is no; not all. Should all children have the opportunity to experience coding, and possibly discover they have a gift for it? Yes.

Via Techcrunch.com "Please don't learn to code'. 

I'm not convinced that encouraging kids to become coders (actually computer programmers—coding is more of a slang term) is a great idea, I think they should learn to code, if they're keen, but only so they can understand it better, so they can be creative with it. You see you can employ coders, they are a dime a dozen, they're all over the web. It's the creative 'big picture' aspect that is lacking, ie what to code, not so much how.

That said... It's hard to know what you can do if you don't know how. Basically you don't need to be the best coder, you need to be good enough to really know what its potential is.

"Someday, the understanding of computational processes may be indispensable for people in all occupations. But it’s not yet clear when we’ll cross that bridge from nice-to-know to must-know." 

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/01/business/computer-science-for-non-majors-takes-many-forms

"But is it really crucial to be able to code? Many content producers use technology virtually every waking hour of their life, and they don't know a variable from an identifier, or an integer from a string. Personally, I'm conflicted: I have a technical background, but for most people I just don't see how being able to compile code is going to prove useful."

http://m.gizmodo.com/5897020/is-learning-to-code-more-popular-than-learning-a-foreign-language

"Coding is not a goal. It’s a tool for solving problems. [...] However, much of the “learn to code” frenzy seems to spring from the idea that you can achieve fame and riches by starting a tech company and you need to actually code something first. Programming is not a get-rich-quick scheme. Even if you do hit the jackpot, the CEOs of successful tech companies do not spend a lot of time coding, even if they started out behind a keyboard. There are simply too many other tasks involved in running a company. So if coding is what you really love to do, you probably wouldn't want to be a CEO in the first place.."  

http://www.fastcolabs.com/3020126/no-you-dont-need-to-learn-to-code

Please don't advocate learning to code just for the sake of learning how to code. Or worse, because of the fat paychecks. Instead, I humbly suggest that we spend our time learning how to …  research voraciously, and understand how the things around us work at a basic level. communicate effectively with other human beings. These are skills that extend far beyond mere coding and will help you in every aspect of your life.  

http://gizmodo.com/5910497/please-dont-learn-to-code

..."engineering and programming are important skills. But only in the right context, and only for the type of person willing to put in the necessary blood, sweat and tears to succeed. The same could be said of many other skills. I would no more urge everyone to learn to program than I would urge everyone to learn to plumb." 

https://techcrunch.com/2016/05/10/please-dont-learn-to-code/

Clearly there is no shortage of people that want to code, and those that have the predilection will. I mean, the point is it's not hard to act on it, to make it happen, and ... if you can't, then coding is probably not an option for you.

Compare that to say … learning the oboe, well that's not quite so easy to learn if you only have a computer and an internet connection. But there are millions of people out there who do, and are honing their abilities every day, and they don't expect to be paid as much for it as you might think.

A useful analogy to use here are car mechanics, or plumbers—cars and toilets are arguably essential aspects of our lives, in fact it's hard to imagine how we would ever cope without them (especially the latter). But, despite this, does anyone seriously expect car mechanics or the fundamentals of plumbing to be mandated for all students to learn? No. So how do we cope when we need help with a malfunctioning car or toilet? We call the professionals, that's what we do, and that's what we do when we need something to be coded.  That's okay, let those that have the unique competencies and interest in those fields go on to master them, after they have left school, just like all the other professions, there is no rush, no shortage of coders (or plumbers, or car mechanics) nor is their likely to be.

So - how do we learn this stuff?

All the people I know who are competent users of IT and ICTs (yes, there is a difference) are those who basically taught themselves (including myself). It's almost a rite of passage. My instinct tells me that the kind of kids who can code WILL code, and if they can't find ways to teach themselves using the plethora of resources online, then... they probably haven’t got what it takes to code. Despite the glowing 'FUN, FUN, FUN!' messages that proliferate from some quarters of the web, the truth is, if you want to code, really code, you will need to work hard, you will need to persevere, nothing that is worth having comes easy, and coding is no exception. It is as simple as that.

"Top companies expect you to know what a recent comp-sci graduate would know, which could include SQL vs. NoSQL databases, the time complexity of some algorithm, or how to implement binary search. ... opportunities are few and far between."

"While there are some excellent companies willing to hire driven and intelligent self-taught engineers, they lie in the minority. Many companies pass over candidates without a formal degree in computer science before reading on; the stigma of low experience is a hard one to break in any industry but especially in those involving technical abilities."

http://qz.com/193896/no-three-month-course-can-teach-you-how-to-code/

I have never been taught 'IT' but I had to teach myself HTML to design web pages, and ActionScript to create Flash animations—at its best, that is what things like coding 'computer science' and subjects like DT teaches kids - YOU can solve your own problems, and you can teach yourself how to do it. It's all about the WWWHWW of getting from A to B, even if it means going through D, H and X to get there. The first time.

That's another argument for coding, not so much as a skills for the workplace, but the process, the rationale it demands, here's a quote from my colleague Helen Leeming who teaches IT in MS and HS, from an email exchange we had on this subject: This point about developing critical/analytical thinking through coding is powerful - (my emphasis)

"It isn't the coding… it's the critical thinking… they don't need to code any more than they need to be able to do quadratic equations - for most people either would be redundant the minute they walk out of school. But they do need to have stretched their minds, to have made their thoughts work in a different way, which both of those will. Almost none of them need to code (or indeed use a lot of what we teach them in school - oxbow lakes for example), but the ability to problem solve is essential. It could be taught through other things, it simply isn't in many cases… And people rarely choose to learn critical thinking unless they are an 'IT geek' and they are the ones that probably can already do it."

I don't understand why people question that this needs to be taught as people won't be coders, while we still do teach algebra and the periodic table to kids that will not be mathematicians or chemists. Education is not about learning a set of knowledge or practical skills that you can use later, it is about teaching you to think, to think in many different ways, to play with ideas in many different ways and to have a toolbox of techniques to address puzzles or problems you meet later. Abstract, critical thinking is one of the tools…"

It should be remembered that one the best ways to get to grips with the kind of logistical thinking skills demanded by coding is by using spreadsheet functions, such as google spreadsheets, right there in the browser, and then move on to writing your own formulae, to solve basic mathematical problems, that right there is the basis of writing code. Starting with a formula as simple as =A1+B1 to things like IF functions:

=IF(A1<B1, "awesome",IF(B1<A1,"amazing"))

So, my advice to potential coders would be learn to walk before you run, or more precisely, learn to walk (scratch) run (stencyl) jump (alice) then you can really get creative 'dance' with the source code:

All of the the tools below are free, come with great support materials, tutorials, and communities to get you from A to B, even if you have to travel via N and X.

Coding for kids

Some of the iPad Apps we use to introduce kids to coding

Here's a great set of Apps you can use to introduce our child to coding, even from Kindergarten, this is my suggested sequence of progression, from games that teach the kind of logical thinking needed for coding, to Apps that allow free form creation:

1. Daisy the Dinosaur
2. Tynker
3. Lightbot
4. Move the Turtle
5. Hopscotch
6. Swift Playgrounds (Apple)
7. Grasshopper (Google)

Our Process

1. Start with iPads to learn the basics of control, computer programming thinking, Apps like Daisy the Dinosaur, Hopscotch, Move the Turtle. Apps like these use a drag and drop interface will intuitively grasp the basics of objects, sequencing, loops and events by solving app challenges. 
2. Move to Code.org 
3. Google CS & Scratch http://scratch.mit.edu/ 
4. Progress to Stencyl http://www.stencyl.com/ for iOS App coding using a similar 'block' interface, or alternatively App Inventor.

One of the problems with Scratch, as powerful a tool as it is, is that it doesn't have much in the way of structure, so the problem is, left to their own devices, kids can easily just end up distracted by the myriad games there are to play, and learn absolutely nothing about coding... A great solution to this is to use Scratch in combination with Google CS, they have a whole curriculum ready to roll, pitched at all sorts of abilities, and all come with prepared Scratch Projects, and step by step video teaching. 

Coding vs Programming

Despite the hype that is common around this area, the fact is that no matter what you may have been told, the block interface that is at heart of most, if not all the apps that purport to be teaching coding, are not really. This article from Quartz clarifies this issue:

"The light and fluffy version of computer science—which is proliferating as a superficial response to the increased need for coders in the workplace—is a phenomenon I refer to as “pop computing.” ... This accessible attraction can be catchy, it may not lead to harder projects that deepen understanding.

... an important distinction must be drawn between learning “coding tutorials” and learning “computer science.” I think of it as playing with coding apps as compared to learning to design an app using code. Building an app takes time and requires multi-dimensional learning contexts, pathways and projects. One thing is for sure, it can’t be done in an hour or two, with a few simple drags, drops and clicks." 

American schools are teaching our kids how to code all wrong - Quartz

So to avoid any confusion, I refer to the control activities that rely on blocks as 'coding'—the blocks act as a code that represents the actual syntax you would normally use with a programming language. So let's call programming, programming; and while the block 'pop computing' 'coding' interface serves as a useful preliminary experience, the actual skill of programming is very different. When a student feels ready, here's a path they could take:

1. Khan Academy has a great online course for introducing kids to programming (not coding), the introduction to JavaScript is a great place to begin.
2. Apple have a fantastic app that teaches Swift coding, called Swift Playgrounds, and Google's equivalent Grasshopper, both are available as apps, or can be run in a browser. 
3. For developing apps, you can download the Xcode App for free from the App store if they feel they are ready to actually use Xcode, there are many online tutorials that can help with this, such as this one.
4. Try http://www.codecademy.com/ for learning a range of programming languages. 
5. Then possibly Alice http://www.alice.org/ 

By then you should be ready for the source code, this site hackerbuddies http://hackerbuddy.com/ will help with this final stage... One-on-one mentoring for startup hackers.

… but even then, which language?

C
Python
JavaScript
PHP
C++
Java

or Xcode for coding iOS Apps

And there are many more ... http://langpop.com/

But I would imagine for most kids the biggest motivator would be to create an app, using xCode (a free App from the App store). Which you can port to from Stencyl, but you have to pay $150 to enable that feature, so you can learn for free, you only need to pay when/if you're ready to put into the market place. Clearly it is the desire to create 'Apps' that is driving the current resurgence in interest in coding. For more on this phenomenon, read this article.


We now also facilitate the UWCSEA coding community through our ECA programme, for MS and HS students. If your child is in Primary and impatient to get going, learning Scratch and Stencyl will ensure they are more than ready by Grade 6, and of course from Grade 9 students have the option of choosing to follow a course in Computing, all the way through to grade 12 if they so choose. Middle school includes a module of coding through Lego Mindstorms in DT and we offer IGCSE Computing and IGCSE IT, and IB Computer Science in High School.

Stop Motion Art & Animation in Grade 3

What happens if you take 180 Grade 3 students, 2 magnificent Art Teachers, 24 iPad (Justand) stands, clamps and 24 iPads?

Well, you achieve a level of creativity that is truly inspiring—and that is the only word to describe the fever pitch that has been Grade 3 Art classes this past month, the synergy between 'real life' art work (paper, scissors, paint) and the literal bringing to LIFE of these creations using the stop motion animation via the iPad app - Stop Motion Studio was exactly that, INSPIRING. You don't need to look any further than this is to see the true embodiment of the '4 Cs' of '21st Century Learning' described by UWCSEA profile in action.

Creativity | Collaboration | Communication | Critical Thinking

• Creative and innovative
• Collaborative; and Communicators
• Critical thinker and problem solvers

A brief look at Caroline and Siân's learning intentions for this unit reveals how powerful this kind of activity is in providing experiences that facilitate this kind of learning:

• How to use animation software to retell a story. 
• How the creative preparation for an animation differs from other forms of art 
• How to use mixed media to create scenes and characters. 
• Look critically at their animation and consider how it can be changed. 

Video compiled by Caroline Sebunya

Watching the students in action it also became quickly evident that there was a great deal of 'Critical Thinking and Problem Solving' happening—not something the teachers had expected or consciously planned for but, I can assure you, if you ask them now they will tell you that this became a very powerful aspect of the students' learning - from assembling and adjusting the stands, to the realisation that they need to storyboard their animation to troubleshooting issues with the App, to making judicious choices about the kinds of materials that would help them to tell their stories—even logical mathematical reasoning as they wrestled with frame rates per second!

So the question is, how do we really teach creativity, critical thinking, communication and collaboration? These are right brain skills, those that are most difficult to teach in a codified, regimented way. With most school systems now fixated on measurable outcomes (usually test scores), how do we make these 'soft skills' a genuine priority when they are so hard to measure? Well ... one way is through Digital Art.

Designing & Making & ICTs = Creativity Cubed

There can't be many activities that come closer to the essence of what it means to be human than the sheer art of making, the magnificent process that links the mind to the medium. The ability to take nothing but a notion and to translate that into a tangible product that is as real as as the hands that made it.

As someone whose life is dominated by screens, I would be the first to extol the virtue and legitimacy of pixel manipulation as a creative medium, in fact most of my work is predicated around precisely that. But it still doesn't come close to literally getting your hands dirty, the assault on the senses of the noise and smell and sweat of actually cutting and shaping and forming with your bare hands. Nothing like it.

Real vs Virtual? You don't need to choose

Which is why I started up the Designers & Makers Activity with Carl Waugh (Head of DT Dover Campus) this year. You see, I think the most exciting use of tech is the kind that does not make puerile demarcations between the 'real' and the 'virtual' - yes sawdust is more 'real', more tangible, than symbols on a screen, but, and this is critical, you don't have to choose. Just as with the stop-motion activities we use in Art lessons and in Kindergarten, arguably digital technologies are never more exciting than when they is used in the service of 'real life' making and creating.

Clearly our kids agree. When I gave them the choice halfway through the ECA, between continuing working in 'resistant materials' (wood metal & plastic to you non DT types) with their hands, or manipulating a 3D model in SketchUp to export to the 3D printer, half of them declined, favouring the fervency of cutting and drilling and forming instead.

Pure focus.

Creating vs creativity

Which brings me to a concern I have here—the relentless emphasis on, creativity, yes it has it's place, but sometimes, sometimes it's enough to just have an excuse to shape something, without a care for it to be validated or endorsed by a 3rd party, let it be what it is. So often the kids come asking me 'is this OK?' or "is this finished?" and I tell them, again and again, you decide, you are the creator, you conceived of it, you are creating it, it's your choice whether or or it not it meets your expectations or not.

Create - to cause something (anything!) to happen (small c) 

Creative - the use of the imagination or original ideas to create something (big C) 

(Howard Gardner, Five Minds for the Future)

I won't lie to you, some, maybe most of their solutions, are not particularly 'creative' but they are creations, their creations—see the difference? That is enough. So they're not creative products that I would rush to purchase (actually, a few are) but that doesn't matter, when you see their beaming, ecstatic faces as they strut out of the workshop and later around the school) proudly displaying their designer bag/key/pencil-case fobs.

Howard Gardner explains:

"Creativity as a generalisable capacity [...] has distinct limitations. We recognise a variety of relatively independent creative endeavours. A Creator can solve a hitherto vexing problem, formulate a new conundrum or theory, fashion or work in a genre, ...

... 

We also [need to] recognise a range of creative achievements—from the little c involved in a new floral arrangement [or designing and making a bag fob] to the big C entailed in the theory of relativity." (p80, brackets mine)

According to Csikszentmihalyi, (try saying that without Googling it) creativity occurs when—and only when—an individual or group product generated in a particular domain is recognised by the relevant field as innovative and, in turn, sooner or later, exert a genuine, detectable influence on subsequent work in that domain. This perspective applies to the full range of creations, across spheres and across varying degrees of innovation (from the littlest c to the biggest C).
...
Well I can't see how we can have the critical BIG C conversations until we've given our kids loads and loads of 'small c' experiences—time to explore, experiment, and make loads and loads of mistakes, and enjoy it. What I do know is that regardless of your opinion or mine, these kids are solving 'vexing problems' (to them), 'formulating new (to them) theories', in the pursuit of 'generating products' that are 'recognised (by themselves and their peers) as innovative'.

That's good enough for me.

Creativity Cubed

ICTs + Powerful Pedagogy + Traditional Tools = Creativity Cubed

Creativity as making (small c), Creativity as innovation (big C), Creativity as problem solving.

Creativity with breadth, depth and height—Creativity Cubed

I have to confess that, I am slightly biased towards Design & Technology (DT) as a field of human endeavour, that's my background. My first degree was in 3D Design, along with the PGCE in DT that followed it, which led to my first 5 years in teaching as a Secondary School teacher in South London, back in the 90s, while continuing freelancing as a Web/Graphic designer during evenings, and weekends.

Design Tech is, in my humble opinion THE place you should look if you want to see how digital technologies can really work seamlessly with traditional tools and skills. Even back in 1990s, the only area of the school I worked where you could expect to see computers in use for learning other than the IT Lab, was the DT lab; only in DT they weren't being used to 'teach IT'. No. They were actually needed as powerful tools for enhancing teaching and learning, and most importantly creating.  No one was even talking about an integrated model then, but in DT you wouldn't work any other way. From Graphic design on early Apple Mac black & White Classics, to robotic control with old BBC Micros, and CNC milling with Applications running in MS DOS, you couldn't really be an effective DT teacher without embracing the transformative opportunities afforded by ICTs.

Nothing has changed, except that the tools just get better, faster, more capable, and easier to use, in a process of iteration, or evolution, but certainly not obsoletion, and the DT facilities at UWCSEA are certainly no exception. The 'dream' behind this ECA was to see what could be done with some of the recent technologies brought in by Carl Waugh, the Laser Cutter and the 3D Printers, while also introducing kids in Grade 4 and 5 who have never set foot in a workshop their first experience at creating with  resistant materials like wood, plastic and metal.

ICTs & Synergy

So how did this work?

SketchUp Modelling of their TouchDraw Design

Gallery below:

For the first 3 sessions, the students focused purely on designing, using the vector graphic TouchDrawApp on iPads, this allows the kids to use some powerful vector features like subtraction and merging, but especially allowing them to export their designs as SVG files that the DT machines can handle. They had to design two versions, one to be made my machines, the other to be made by hand—the latter needed to be simpler to allow for their inexperience with working with resistant materials.

The fact that their designs were digital meant I could easily print them for transfer to the materials they would use, as well as export their machine designs to use with the laser cutter, before they commenced work on the hand made designs.

4 or 5 session later ... (making by hand takes a LOT longer than making by machine, something these students have a profound appreciation of now...) the students were given the option of modelling the design in 3D using SketchUp, before making it by exporting it to the 3D printer. As mentioned earlier, many students opted instead to stay in the workshop, so much for tech trumping traditional tools...

So, once again, the tech served to enhance the 'real world' experience. An approximate ratio of screentime to make time in this activity would be at least 1:5, one session with digital tools on screens for every 5 sessions with traditional tools in the workshop, less for those who opted out of the 3D printing.

So there you have it, the human propensity to make remains undaunted in the 21st Century, far from negating it, tech tools transform designing making, just as it always has with traditional tools, it's not either/or, it's both.


Gardner H (2006). Five minds for the future. Harvard Business Press.

Digital Artwork, 21st C Skills, & Stop Motion

What happens if you take 180 Grade 3 students, 2 magnificent Art Teachers, 24 retort stands, clamps and bosses from the High School Science Department (thank you Elaine and Martin!) and 24 iPod touches?

Well, you achieve a level of creativity that is truly inspiring—and that is the only word to describe the fever pitch that has been Grade 3 Art classes this past month, the synergy between 'real life' art work (paper, scissors, paint) and the literal bringing to LIFE of these creations using the stop motion animation via the iPod touch app was exactly that, INSPIRING. You don't need to look and further than this is to see the true embodiment of the '4 Cs' of 21st Century Learning in action.

See below for just a handful of creations, there are many more of like these, all of them are unique ...

In the Partnership framework, the Four Cs make up the “Learning and Innovation Skills” and are as follows:

1. Creativity and Innovation
2. Critical Thinking and Problem Solving
3. Communication and Collaboration


For creativity and innovation, the framework emphasises Thinking Creatively (brainstorming techniques, creating new ideas, refining and evaluating ideas), Working Creatively with Others (communicating new ideas, being open to diverse perspectives, demonstrating orginality, viewing failure as part of the process) and Implementing Innovations (Acting on creative ideas and contributing to a field). These are terrific guideposts.

A little closer to home, our own UWCSEA Profile describes students who are:

• Critical thinker and problem solvers
• Creative and innovative, 
• Collaborative and Communicators

A brief look at Siân and Caroline's learning intentions for this unit reveals how powerful this kind for activity is in providing experiences that facilitate this kind of learning:

• How to use animation software to retell a story. 
• How the creative preparation for an animation differs from other forms of art 
• How to use mixed media to create scenes and characters. 
• Look critically at their animation and consider how it can be changed. 

Likewise the assessment criteria emphasised most of the 4 Cs. Children were expected to:

• Produce a 15 to 20 second piece of sop motion animation. 
• Create a short, imaginative story that can be recreated through art work and animation. [Creativity and Innovation] 
• Use a variety of materials to make scenes and characters. 
• Talk about the animation process using art/animation vocabulary and describe how their project was successful. [Communication and Collaboration] 

But wait! I hear you say, what about problem solving?

Watching the students in action it also became quickly evident that there was a great deal of 'Critical Thinking and Problem Solving' happening—not something the teachers had expected or consciously planned for but, I can assure you, if you ask them now they will tell you that this became a very powerful aspect of the students' learning - from assembling and adjusting the clamps, to the realisation that they need to storyboard their animation to trouble shooting issues with the App, to making judicious choices about the kinds of materials that would help them to tell their stories—even logical mathematical reasoning as they wrestled with frame rates per second!



So the question is, how do we really teach creativity, critical thinking, communication and collaboration? These are right brain skills, those that are most difficult to teach in a codified, regimented way. With most school systems now fixated on measurable outcomes (usually test scores), how do we make these Four Cs a priority when they are so hard to measure? Well one way is through digital Art.

I’m looking forward to exploring this question with our Art teachers, who will hopefully inspire many other teachers to create more of these kinds of learning activities.

I think what excites me the most about this use of ICT is it resists polarisation, the old, paper vs pixels arguments become meaningless in this kind of context,  we don't need to argue or choose; reality and virtuality can work in synergistic harmony to create learning experience that are truly and uniquely '21st Century'.

Anyway enough about that, here's another video:

Want to see more? http://goo.gl/bI75i


All images and videos provided by Siân Johns.

Bloom's Taxonomy - Relevant or Redundant?

It is amazing to me how pervasive Bloom's Taxonomy (1956) remains, despite its geriatric credentials. In particular advocates of TEL (Technology Enhanced Learning) are often the most ecstatic about it, keen to categorise many of the most ubiquitous digital tools under it's reassuring tiers – well the tiers of its ‘cognitive domain’ anyway.

Despite its 'common sensibility' Bloom’s Taxonomy was and is purely theoretical, without basis in cognitive research (Ritchhart et al, 2011).

The idea that thinking is sequential or hierarchical is highly questionable (Marzano, 2000), but nevertheless Bloom's categories capture types of mental activity that are embraced (rightly or wrongly) by many practitioners, and are therefore, it could be argued, useful as a starting point for thinking about thinking.

Anderson and Krathwohl’s revisions (2001), emphasise the importance of creativity, although understanding was still undervalued.

Understanding is a very deep, complex endeavour, and not in any way a lower-order skill as the revised taxonomy implies (Blythe & Associates, 1998; EO Keene, 2008; Wiggins & McTighe, 1998).

Cognitive research indicates that understanding is not a precursor to application, analysis, evaluating, and creating but a result of it (Wiske, 1997). Thomas and Seely Brown (2009) emphasise this idea, seeing ‘learning as reflecting, learning as making, and learning as becoming’ with creative play and improvisation as essential experiences – the kinds of experiences of ‘messing about, and geeking out’ described by Ito et al (2008). Wagner (2012) considers the unique motivation generated by creating as ‘the source of all good learning’, concluding that intrinsic motivation is fuelled by playing (experimenting), purpose (wanting to make a difference), and passion (devoting yourself to something you find deeply meaningful). Creating is not a single direct act but a compilation of activities and associated thinking. Decisions are made and problems are solved as part of this process. Ideas are tested, results analysed, prior learning brought to bear, and ideas synthesised.

With computers, the act of creating has never been more accessible – almost anything is potentially ‘buildable’ on a computer, and if it’s buildable, it becomes thinkable, discussable, and ultimately, learnable (TEL Report, 2012). Robinson (2009) makes the point that "digital technologies are now putting in the hands of millions of people everywhere, unprecedented tools for creativity and sound, in design, in sciences and in the arts (p 205).” Creativity is something that digital technologies excel at facilitating - people learn best when they are making things, and sharing what they’ve made with each other. Making something produces something to talk about, reflect upon, and ultimately learn with. Making is an effective way of learning – or as Luckin et al in the Nesta report (2012) neatly summarise, “mending, mashing, and making with digital tools (p 59)”, using suitable personal devices and flexible web tools to achieve clearly articulated goals.

Considering the high regard Bloom’s retains in the estimation of many educators, it could be argued that rather than rejecting (say in favour of simpler and more academically robust paradigms like deep and surface learning) that the process of learning in the 21st Century be better represented by ‘flipping’ Bloom’s (Wright, online); one that views learning as the process of joining a community of practice reverses this pattern and allows students to engage in “learning to be” (Brown & Adler, 2008) even as they are mastering the content of a discipline. This encourages the practice of ‘productive inquiry’ (Dewey, 1944) the process of seeking knowledge only as and when it is needed, in order to carry out a particular task.

Flipping Bloom’s [Revised] Taxonomy (Shelley Wright)

The point is, education has always evolved –  new ways of describing learning are just another just part of this ancient process. From flint and stone, to chalk and board, to pen and paper, to screens and cursors – excellent, experienced teachers have always been effective at utilising the most appropriate tools they have access to, to transform teaching and learning. What is clear is that these teachers need to move away from the traditional methods of teaching and utilise a wider variety of techniques, the best tools, for their students to build their own understanding through real world applications and interactions with their peers.

“To be productive contributors to society in our 21st century, you need to be able to quickly learn the core content of a field of knowledge while also mastering a broad portfolio of essentials in learning, innovation, technology, and career skills needed for work and life.” (Trilling & Fadel, 2009, p 16)

Teachers have always needed to prepare students to be creative and innovative within professions that do not yet exist, for products that have not yet been invented, but sheer breath of these experiences are growing exponentially.