PDFs, Pragmatism & WWPP

WWPP,  a pragmatic compromise: WP, WWW, PPT & PDFs

If there is one thing I've learned in my now almost a decade as a digital literacy coach (DLC), and from now over 20 years working with 'edtech' or the technology enhanced learning (TEL) in the classroom from K-12, it's that there is a fundamental shift, in terms of how opportunities to learn and to create with digital tools are experienced as students move though their school lives. There is a gradual progression. During their primary/elementary years, students at UWCSEA regularly (ie, at least once a year) work across all five of the domains that span what I what I would describe as true digital literacy, or perhaps a better word is competency; video, image, text, audio, data—or VITAD. Then as they progress through middle and then high school, there is a narrowing of focus as students become more specialised in their learning, and their range of learning experiences narrows, from VITAD, to something I call WWPP:

• Word Processing
• Websites & Web Search
• PowerPoint Slideshows (or similar)
• Printing, PDFs, Posters (yes I realise that's more than one P)

WWPP describes the fundamental domains that are the norm for most teachers in most subjects in terms of the tools they rely on to do their own work, and so, not surprisingly, represent the kinds of digital technology they are comfortable using with their students, and in (hopefully, but not necessarily) expecting their students to use. This means, whether you like it or not, this represents the actual reality in most secondary school classrooms, especially those that are organised around the premise of preparing students for high stakes examinations.

This doesn't mean that VITAD is non existent in secondary schools, it just means that it will be more isolated and consigned to certain subject areas, eg data handling in the Sciences, image in the Arts, audio in Music, video in Film et cetera. This doesn't mean these experiences aren't beneficial in other subject areas, the work they do in primary school clearly demonstrates that it is, it's just that, having worked on trying to facilitate this, I've had to concede that it just doesn't happen much, if at all, once students are taught by subject specialists. This observation is one I have observed both as a teacher and a parent for many years, and it is one that is borne out by the literature. I've already written a post about this phenomenon, that can be summed up by these quotes from two recent studies into the dominant use of digital technologies in secondary schools is in terms of their assumed and actual use: 

Laptops are typically purchased by schools and sometimes by parents, and they are largely used to write and revise papers, conduct Internet searches, and engage in personalized instruction and assessment using educational software or online tools. (Zheng et al, 2016, p2)

... schools revealed moderate use of many well-established digital technologies, such as word processing, presentation software, and quiz games. (Hughes et al, 2018, p1)

... students reported using word processing, spreadsheets, presentation tools, and web searches most frequently in class. (ibid, p2)

So the fact is that, like it or not, what studies repeatedly show as 'effective' use, is use that can be translated into evidence that is measured using a standardised test score. And if that is the only metric we are prepared (or able) to consider, then WWPP is the model that works, and WWPP is a model that works for preparing students for high stakes examinations; until those examinations change in terms of their expectations, then WWPP is here to stay. 

Now I'm not ecstatic about this, but I am pragmatic; by this I mean if we're going to accept that this narrowing of expectation exists, that the least we can do is teach these skills properly. The danger at the moment, is that in the same way that these skills reflect their teachers ICT skills, they also reflect their teachers competency, or as is more often the case in my experience, their teachers' gradually increasing competency. Now—don't get me wrong—I don't blame teachers for this, it's very powerful when a teacher can model for their students that they are also 'lifelong learners' and anyway, if they are anywhere near my age, they didn't actually own a computer until they were in their 20s, and even then they were never taught how to use them, they were just expected to figure it out themselves by trial and tribulation. I've written more on this skills issue in another post, but suffice it to say here, that at the very least, if we're going to narrow our focus, can we at least expect these skills to be taught properly? To be used in a skilful, or especially at high school level, a competent way? I think we can, and I think we should. The benefits to both teachers in terms of their ability to do their jobs more effectively, and to their students are clear. 

What does skilled WWPP look like?

It looks like the expectations for any adult who would be deemed to be digitally literate, any adult who wants, no, needs to function effectively in the vast majority of workplaces in the 21st century. Some suggestions below:  

Skilful Word Processing 

• Use and format tables: insert & delete rows, columns, & merge cells
• Use the tab key (also add new row to a table/indented bullets)
• Use commenting tools to give, receive & respond to feedback
• Paste text without formatting, or to match destination formatting
• Insert/format/manage page numbers
• Add/use headers/footers 
• Use, modify, and create templates
• Use document page breaks, section breaks & styles
• Use automatic features like table of contents (TOC), references, citations
• Reference source materials, ie MLA, APA et cetera
• Extend these same skills to the building of web resources/sites

Skilful Web Browsing/Searching

• Use History and bookmarks effectively instead of relying on excessive tabs
• Use multiple accounts with web browsers to manage private/professional practice
• Access and find information in an online database not just Google/Bing et al.
• Identify key words, names, & phrases for a search
• Appreciate the advantages & disadvantages of a variety of sources
• Use the find command to locate specific words on a page
• Upload & download files as appropriate, understand the associated file sizes. 
• Understand & carry out an (advanced) multiple field search
• Search using Boolean terms (site:, intitle:, —)

Skilful PowerPoints/Slide Shows

• Create well designed slideshows that rely on image, not text  
• Format & customise well designed themes 
• Create presentations that use multimedia effectively, eg video, sound &/or animation
• Format & edit master slides to manage the formatting of a presentation
• Use appropriate images, eg pixel width, proportion, illustration not just decoration
• Crop & enhance images to complement your slides 
• Select, trim and incorporate video clips/animations
• Visualise data effectively using charts and graphs 
• Understand the affordances of different tools, eg PowerPoint, Keynote, Google Slides... 
• Use slide aspect ratio intentionally (wide screen v 4:3)
• Use the slide sorter view to manage/organise your presentation 

Skilful use of PDFs & Posters

• Organised and synchronised online for ease of access/sharing
• Edit to isolate certain pages, extract specific content, reorder content
• Annotate, comment, and highlight 
• Convert (hard or soft) documents to/from PDF 

• Create well designed posters that balance the use of image with text  
• Format & customise pre-designed themes 
• Understand the differences between an infographic (screen) and a poster (print)

Pragmatism

I've been hesitant to concede these facts, but I console myself with the knowledge that if the students have been given the appropriate foundations and experiences what span VITAD in Primary and some extent, Middle School, their ongoing development in terms of digital literacy is now something they should be able to pursue independently throughout High School, and for the rest of their lives. This means that High School teachers have one focus, and one focus only, that is to enable their students to succeed in their examinations, in the same way they have for the past 50 years. Until the examinations change, there little point expecting teachers to change, Especially as the efficacy of their teaching practice is often based, either explicitly or implicitly, on their students’ grades. 

It’s obvious internationally that many if not most schools don’t understand this, or don’t care.  This is why Google Chromebooks and similar budget computers are thriving in comparison with iPads and MacBooks in schools. The former is fine all you want students to experience is WWPP, but if you want them to demonstrate true digital literacy with VITAD and all of the wonderful combinations and permutations between those domains, budget computers can’t and don’t deliver this. 

References

Hughes, Joan E. and Read, Michelle F. (2018) "Student experiences of technology integration in school subjects: A comparison across four middle schools," Middle Grades Review: Vol. 4 : Iss. 1 , Article 6.
Available at: https://scholarworks.uvm.edu/mgreview/vol4/iss1/6

Zheng, B., Warschauer, M., Lin, C. H., & Chang, C. (2016). Learning in One-to-One Laptop Environments A Meta-Analysis and Research Synthesis. Review of Educational Research, 0034654316628645.

Digital Illiteracy & Vitamin D

Vitamin D (VITAD)

Five Essential Domains: VITAD: video, image, text, audio, data - 'Vitamin D' 

Just like all subject domains, tech has its own overarching domains or strands that are an efficient way to organise the essential skill sets needed for true digital literacy.  We should not neglect opportunities to read and write, for example, realistic fiction, or physics or shape and space in Mathematics, I believe the same applies to what could be called the 'digital domains' or modes of digital technologies: text, image, video, audio, and data handling.

Digital Illiteracy... 

An easy easy way to recall these essential areas is with the acronym 'VITAD', 'vitamin digital', now when you're considering whether not you can consider yourself, your students or any 21st century citizen to be truly digitally literate, how do they measure up to VITAD?

1. Can they view, edit, create, compose with video?
2. Can they organise, edit, resize, manipulate, incorporate image?
3. Can they browse/read/search text? Are they proficient at word processing, commenting, curating  texts?
4. Can the manage audio files, organise, edit, create, compose audio using multiple audio tracks/sound effects?
5. Do they know their way around a spreadsheet? Can they organise data efficiently, perform basic calculations, use functions and formulae, analyse, synthesise, and model data? Can they think computationally? 

When, and only when you can confidently answer a confident yes to all the above, then, and only then can you call yourself digitally literate!

To put it another way - we're talking about students becoming holistically literate, that literacy has to incorporate 'multiliteracies' including language, scientific/methodological ways of thinking, mathematical literacy and of course digital literacy. ALL of these can be defined as 'subjects', all of these could also be (and arguably should/could be) taught in an integrated way. Just because we've chosen to integrate a subject, does not mean it should be treated less rigorously - integration should not mean invisibility - at least not for teachers. (I'd argue invisibility would be great from a student's perspective, but so would it be for maths and science et al - they don't see it as a 'subject' it's just another natural (for them) way of thinking and working)

WWPP,  a pragmatic compromise: WP, WWW, PPT & PDFs

WWPP

However... if there is one thing I've learned in my now 8 years as a DLC, and from now over 20 years working with 'edtech' or the integration of digital technologies in the classroom from K-12, it's that there is a fundamental shift, in terms of how these domains are experienced as students move though the school lives. A shift from VITAD to WWPP, what is WWPP? stakes examinations. 

• Word Processing
• Websites/Web Search
• PowerPoint Slideshows (or similar)
• PDFs & Posters 

WWPP describes the fundamental domains that are the norm for most teachers, and represent the actual reality in most secondary school classrooms, especially those that are organised around the premise of preparing students for high stakes examinations. The fact is that, like it or not, what studies repeatedly show as 'effective' use, is use that can be translated into evidence that is represented by a standardised test score, and if that is the only metric we are prepared (or able) to consider, then WWPP is the model that works, for more on the practical ramifications of this in high school classrooms, read my post: PDFs, Pragmatism & WWPP. 

Digital Disorganisation & Parenting: Part 2

Digital Organisation Essentials

As explained in Part 1, parents generally struggle to model effective practices when it comes to the organisation of their digital devices, but it's not all doom and gloom. When it comes to the use of digital tools for organisation, many—if not most parents—embraced these with enthusiasm some time ago, and are now generally proficient in their use. What they don't often realise is that they could and should encourage their children to use similar tools, in the same way, and for the same reasons they do. 

Where there can be confusion, is which tools to use; as there are a plethora of them out there. So in this post I will outline the organisational tools we encourage our students to use. While these may not be the same as the tools parents use, they will be very similar, and the ways to use them will be identical. So whether they're using Apple Reminders, or Evernote, or Google Keep is not the focus; it's not about the nouns, it's about the verbs, or to put it another way, it's not what you use, it's how you use it.

As our students progress through the college in Primary and Middle School they are expected to use a paper organiser. At the end of Grade 8, in preparation for High School where they have the freedom to choose whatever system they like, we formally introduce them to digital organisation tools at the start of term 3. What follows summarises our plans for our Middle School students as they prepare to make the leap from paper and pencil, to pixels and dings.

Google tools

As a school that uses Google Apps it makes sense for us to utlise the apps in this suite, as they are just a click away from the GMail inbox and Google Drive that they've been using for many years. The slide deck shared at the top of this post outlines how to set these tools up, but to summarise, we expect students to use:

1. their Google Calendar to manage their timetable, adding other events from their busy lives, such as sporting events, activities, service, and rehearsals et cetera. 
2. the To-Do panel in our online learning platform (Teamie) to keep track of homework deadlines. 
3. Google Keep (or similar) for everything else, ie reminders, lists, and notes. 

Blended organisation

Many parents, and many of our students may prefer a more 'blended' approach—using a paper organiser for some items and areas, and using digital tools for others. If you do decide to use this approach, an important consideration is that you need to make sure that with one or both of these you are transferring events, otherwise you can end up with clashes between events, because one is recorded on paper and not included on the digital calendar, or vice versa. This does mean a certain amount of duplication, which for me was the reason why I eventually abandoned this approach, and switched to digital tools completely.

Why go digital? 

There are many reasons, but a brief summary follows, focused on the 'transformational' power of digital tools, ie what digital organisational tools can do that traditional tools cannot:

• Situated: unlike a paper organiser, digital organisation tools can be anywhere you are with a digital device, synced across all the devices you have connected, and all kept in sync in real time. 
• Access: an idea, an image, a quote, a website, a video, a document, a reminder, a list, all a click or two away, and a copy/paste makes it easy to locate later, or/and to annotate with some simple notes. Best of all, it's searchable, no more flicking through pages desperately skimming for that snippet of information. 
• Multimodal: Now you are not limited to text or to a hastily scribbled scrawl on the back of a proverbial envelope—notes can be a quick picture, or short video, or an audio recording. You can even dictate straight into your notes (just pretend you're on the phone 😉) Best of all are the audio notifications; that 'ding!' is incredibly useful. 
• Mutable: Need to change that date, that time, that place? Update/edit that note? Changed your mind? Need to add clarification? No problem,  and no crossed out entries in your planner. 
• Social: with a few clicks, notes, and calendar events can be shared with one or many. For parents in particular, if you can persuade your child to share their calendar with you, you will find much easier to keep track of what they're doing, and where they are, or where they should be...

Digital Disorganisation & Parenting: Part 1

Messy bedroom via zmeed.info

What does a messy bedroom got to do with digital organisation? And well might you wonder, well, more than you might think. I work with students throughout the college, or maybe a more accurate term might be nag, the digital equivalent of:

‘Tidy your room!’

'How do you find anything in here?’ 

‘Pick up after yourself!’ 

You get the idea. 

If you were to follow me around you'd hear exhortations along similar lines, only in relation to the state of student laptops, particularly the dreaded desktop. 

What does this have to do with parents? 

The problem I regularly encounter is that whereas most of our students can rely on their parents to be effective role models—for example in terms of their expectations about the tidiness of their children's bedrooms—this is rarely the case with the organisation of their parent’s computers. And that’s a problem; as parents you are in a much better position to model effective organisation than your children’s teachers. Ultimately what we’re really talking about here, isn't bedrooms or desktops, it's about mindset, just because the context is digital/virtual doesn’t mean it’s not as important.

Now I realise that as parents, if you’re around my age (most of my 40s already in the rear view mirror) and many of you are, you have an excuse; you probably didn’t even use a computer with a desktop operating system until you were in your 20s and 30s, and even then you probably had to figure it out for yourself. Hence the reason for this post, allow me to outline the fundamental expectations we have for all of our students who use a laptop, and by extension the fundamental we have in terms of expectations for teachers and parents as well; every time you open up your laptop you're sending a message to whoever you're with, the question is, are you being a good role model, or do you need to 'tidy your room'?

The Fundamental 4

There are lots of aspects to digital organisation, but the four that are most essential, and that also happen to be synergetic, ie all four are codependent, are:

1. Any browser you use should be connected to an associated cloud service, with Chrome that's Google, but all the main browsers provide this service free of charge. Once connected, all the files you depend on should be not be strewn all over your desktop, but should be stored, and organised online (2. & 3.) or/and in a place where they are constantly and instantly backed up to a secure online storage such as Google Drive, Dropbox, Microsoft OneDrive, and iCloud to name but a few. 

4. All of the websites you rely on to function effectively from day to day should be organised along the bookmark bar of your preferred browser, one that is also connected and synchronised to a cloud account, so that those bookmarks, stored in folders, are backed up, and accessible in any other device that you use. 

The Essential Tech Slide Deck: bit.ly/uwctechdeck

Be a role model of digital organisation

Using the slide deck above, this is the exact same deck that teachers, and mentors, and advisors across the college show to our students, you can do more to support your child's efficient organisation than we ever can, so what are you waiting for? Go tidy your room!

All you need to do is commit 10 minutes a day, until you have the fundamental four covered, then once you've recovered from the blissful sense of catharsis, move on to the others...

Now you can rest assured that you no longer need to just nag your kids to pick up after themselves, and tidy up their bedroom, but also that they need to clear out their desktops, tidy up their drive and organise their bookmarks as well!  :)

One more thing...

There are two other areas where you can be an effective role model, I've linked to other posts I've written about those as well below. 

Screen time: Studies indicate that working parents spend an average of > 9 hours looking at screens, everyday. So maybe that allowance of 30 minutes a day for your child needs reconsidering? 

Passwords: From what the students tell me on a regularly basis, their parents are generally notoriously poor role models in this area—see this post for some practical advice—but some basics you should ensure you model for your children are:

1. Keep your passwords secret, your children should not know your passwords! 
2. Note passwords are plural, you should have a different password for every account you use. 

Last but not least, see my follow up to this post Digital Disorganisation & Parenting: Part 2 which provided some guidance in helping your child build effective organisational habits that will benefit them for their rest of their digital lives.  When it comes to the use of digital tools for organisation, many—if not most parents—embraced these with enthusiasm some time ago, and are now generally proficient in their use. What they don't often realise is that they could and should encourage their children to use similar tools, in the same way, and for the same reasons they do. 

Where there can be confusion, is which tools to use; as there are a plethora of them out there. So I outline the organisational tools we encourage our students to use. While these may not be the same as the tools parents use, they will be very similar, and the ways to use them will be identical. So whether they're using Apple Reminders, or Evernote, or Google Keep is not the focus; it's not about the nouns, it's about the verbs, or to put it another way, it's not what you use, it's how you use it.

The 10 Commandments of Word Processing

This has to be one of the most commonly used ICT skills, even be the most tech reluctant, but unfortunately as most of us are self taught, there are quite a few aspects that have been poorly learned, are poorly practised, and are now inevitably poorly taught...

The good news is that once you know what you don't know, it's easy to fix, the chances are, no matter how long you've been word processing, you will find a few surprises in this list:

1. Thou shalt use spell check (but don't rely on spellcheck—homophones much?). 
2. Thou shalt use the built in thesaurus (and use 'Command+F' to check for repetition!).
3. Thou shalt not ignore the grammar/proof reading tool—if it's got a squiggly line under it, check it!
4. Thous shalt not centre text by tapping the spacebar, use the centre align icon on the formatting bar. 
5. Verily the same is true for tabbing, use the tab key to indent, not the spacebar (also useful for adding a new row to the bottom of a table).
6. Thou shalt not do things manually that can be done automatically; like adding page numbers, numbered lists, or creating a table of contents.
7. Thou shalt use the 'paste unformatted' or 'paste as text' option to avoid reformatting all the text you paste in. Every. Time.
8. Thou shalt use the styles menu to structure your document with headings etc (and you can't use some automatic features without this).
9. Thou shalt insert a page break if you want a new page (don't just repeatedly hammer the return key).
10. Thou shalt not hammer keyboard keys— NEVER press a space bar more than once, or a return key more than twice. 

All of the above are true regardless of the tool you use for word processing, from MS Word, to Pages, to Google Docs. The last of these is arguably the most practical in our context, so here's some specific pointers:

Google Doc formatting like a boss... 

Use the templates to get a head start, these also function is great 'mentor texts' for students to see how formatting using Styles looks and works. Instead of creating a Doc within Google Drive, click on the Google Grid and select Docs—Voilah!



Inside any Google Doc, the Styles menu allows you to format your document with a couple of clicks,  you can even customise this menu so the Styles use the fonts and formatting you prefer, these will be available in any Google Doc you create or edit.



Once you've formatted your document using Styles, you can add a Table of Contents with a couple of clicks, just go to Insert > Table of Contents. All the formatting, and page numbering all done for you, you can even choose a more screen friendly version that makes all the headers hyperlinked.

Can you show me?

Google have an online guide that will step you through all of the above, and this article has a similar guide to the skills I've outlined above, but specifically tailored to Microsoft Office, and with lots of nice pictures! The key takeaway is that these skills are conventions that apply regardless of the platform, device or application you use, from MS Word, to Pages to Google Docs, they all utilise and provide these features.

Last but not least, here are some video tutorials I made a few years ago, this is in the older version of Pages, but as is often the case with tech, not much has really changed, these fundamentals of word processing are pretty much unchanged in over two decades!

Growing up in a Distracted World - parent workshop slides

Following on from a popular parent workshop earlier this week we are sharing the slides and associated resources for you to explore at your own pace.

The use of digital technologies at UWCSEA is foregrounded in our research on learning, but against this backdrop we see the widespread use of smartphones and devices in nearly all parts of society as being part of growing up as a teenager. The following slides provide some background context and research and then highlight the importance of self-regulation and executive functioning skills for teenagers grappling with digital technologies for the first time.

Slides towards the end of the presentation highlight a range of digital tools which may support students in tracking usage and potentially blocking distractions. The most important ones are listed separately below.

• Focus App for self control - this is available to all students but they need to use the school code to enrol for the paid version of the app. We introduce this app via all Middle School Life Skills classes. 
• Rescue Time for reflection - this piece of software that tracks time spent both on applications and websites on students laptop. Each week students can an email which breaks down use and points to their 'productivity'
• Moment App for tracking smartphone use - a clever, simple and free app which tracks how many times you pick up your phone and time spent on your phone and individual apps. 
• Guide to Qustodio for Parental Controls - this is seen as a last resort or where you might like to filter and track usage of the laptop. Can also be used for smart phones.

Please also see the following links for posts we have written in the past on related topics

• Why Learning and Multitasking Don’t Mix - Andrew McCarthy
• Dealing with Digital Distractions in the classroom - staff workshop and resources
• Dealing with Distraction - Sean McHugh

The digital photocopier - Google Doc copy and assignments in Teamie

This blog post outlines a powerful tool for both sharing copies of Google Docs with students but also collecting them so you can easily provide feedback and track progress. This is a time saver for both students and teachers and avoids the need to students to copy links and submit files.

Within the Online Learning Platform (Teamie) you can make an assignment which will automatically create a copy of a template Google Doc for each student to work on. The assignment will hold the Google Docs in one place so you can scan through students ahead of your final deadlines.

Creating the assignment

Firstly navigate to materials and then press the + button to add an assignment. You will need to give a brief description of the assignment and then use the Google Drive picker as shown below to add a Google Document.

You can add Google Docs, Google Slides or Google Sheets as files to be copied for students.

What do students see?

Once they navigate to the assignment they can select 'take now' There is then a small lag whilst the document is copied and then permissions shared. Once copied students can either work on the file in Teamie or via their Google Drive. 

Once the deadline is reached the students will need to submit for your to allocate marks or use a rubrics. Student can also submit one of more documents using the regular option to link to upload a file. 

Navigating and tracking progress

Once students have clicked to begin the assignment you can view the drafts from the assignment submissions page as outlines below. You can sort by status and then click as shown to see overviews of individual students work and leave comments.