‘Team Time’ is a time in each grade in the Primary School when the DLC is available specifically to a team to facilitate collaborative and individualised (Hixon & Buckenmeyer, 2009) teacher-generated opportunities to learn from and with each other (Pickering, 2007). These shorter, smaller and more frequent meetings are the kinds where collaborative work is more effective than larger, infrequent meetings (Cordingley et al, 2005; Devereux, 2009).
Most weeks these are informal affairs, that provide a forum for collaboration; teachers are able to discuss technical and curriculum questions, classroom management issues and assessment practices, as well as how to use available technology, and share tips and short cuts they have learned with/from their students (Ciampa & Gallagher, 2013). One teacher’s efficacy (often a 'Tech Mentor'—a teacher designated as having a particular role in the development of ICT within the grade level or department—but not always) with a particular tool can quickly became ‘viral’ with two or three other teachers eager to learn from a colleague’s expertise, very much imitating the way they observe their own students learn from each other.
The problem in a school as large as ours is finding ways for these powerful practices to expand beyond the bounds of one grade, to impact teaching practice in other grades as well. And so it was the 'ICT Showcase' was born...
Photographs courtesy of Dave Caleb, DLC - East Campus
The annual ICT showcase effectively extended ‘Team Time’ from grade to school level, including subject specialist teachers. All teachers attend and share by ‘mingling’ in small informal groups about the ways they have been integrating digital technologies - opportunities for purposeful talk are plentiful, and focus on specific aspects of technology enhanced learning (TEL) and the specific types of digital tools that they feel have proved effective in realising this. Plans for further development, or repurposing of other team’s uses of ICT are facilitated by the teachers themselves, who are currently using these ICTs, importantly not the DLCs, who act purely as mediators to facilitate learning conversations around what can be possibly be achieved with ICTs, in other grades and contexts.
If you'd like to see a snapshot of some of the examples form the ICT showcase, please view the short 'videoburst' below, we open the event with this, as it gives a good indication of the ways technology is currently being used at that grade level.
An ICT Showcase VideoBurst
A Slam/Dunk Slidedeck
From a Showcase to a Sharecase
Calling it a 'Showcase' carried with it expectations of 'showing off' and bragging, or even impressing, that we found that from teacher feedback, teachers found off putting. If it wasn't AMAZING they were reluctant to share anything, so to emphasis the focus on sharing, as opposed to 'showing off' we renamed it.
From Technology to Pedagogy
This year we evolved this event to the next level, 8 years into our work on facilitating authentic tech integration, we felt we are 'mature' enough as an organisation to shift the focus away from tech as the only focus, and to work as a wider team of coaches (digital, literacy, maths, inquiry) to widen the remit to reflect any practices that teachers value, whether this in terms of their own experiences (professional development and learning) or classroom practice. I'll admit I was a little reticent, now teachers can choose anything, will tech still survive? Will it be overshadowed by other examples?
I guess that's the ultimate test of whether the initiative has really has any effect, to the extent to which it has reached the levels of adaptation, appropriation, and invention described by Larry Cuban (2016), by teachers naturally, authentically, and meaningfully. I think a look through the following slideshow should answer that question (and allay any concerns) very effectively.
References
Ciampa K and Gallagher T L (2013). Professional learning to support elementary teachers’ use of the iPod Touch in the classroom, Professional Development in Education, DOI:10.1080/19415257.2012.749802 Cordingley P, Bell M, Evans D and Firth A (2005). 'The impact of collaborative continuing professional development (CPD) on classroom teaching and learning. Review: How do collaborative and sustained CPD and sustained but not collaborative CPD affect teaching and learning?' Research Evidence in Education Library London: EPPI-Centre, Social Science Research Unit, Institute of Education, University of London. Cuban, L. (2016). Stages of Technology Integration in Classrooms (Part 3). Retrieved May 31, 2019, from https://larrycuban.wordpress.com/2016/09/11/stages-of-technology-integration-in-classrooms-part-3/
Hixon E and Buckenmeyer J (2009). Revisiting technology integration in schools: Implications for professional development. Computers in the Schools, 26(2), 130-146.
My mind was blown at the end of Term 2 during the Primary ICT Showcase. Seeing the range of talent on show within the Primary School was inspiring and something to be celebrated loudly.
We began the showcase with Demo Slams, the opportunity for ordinary teachers to display their extraordinary tech integration to their peers. Ben Henry, Grade 5, Dover was one of the slam recruits and he showed the crowd his awesome use of QuickTime Player to facilitate giving feedback about a piece of writing.
I’ll let Ben set the scene:
The children had been working on their Historical Fiction stories during Writing Workshop and it was the week before their final edit. For their homework task, each ‘Writing Buddy’ was asked to read their partner’s story and to identify a couple of areas that they were impressed with, along with a suggestion for the final edit. The children had the option of drawing from my marking comments already in the Google Doc, but it was remarkable how accurate the buddies were at making a relevant suggestion that would improve the writing. The children communicated their suggestions for improvements and the elements they were impressed with using QuickTime player in the form of a screen recording. Since the children enjoyed making the screen recordings, and are equally (if not more) concerned with their partner’s comments as they are with mine, I will certainly be using this method in the future.
Here is an example of a student giving feedback to their writing partner.
Sean McHugh (DLC on the Dover Campus) has written about RAT and SAMMS in previous posts on this blog. What Ben demonstrated in his use of video feedback is in the transformative area of RAT; ‘technology as transformation’. Being able to give this level of useful feedback moves both the writer and the student giving feedback forward in their understanding of the concepts. The writer has demonstrated that they are able to listen to the lessons given in class about how to write this particular genre and process them to create a comprehensive piece of writing. The student giving feedback has to understand the genre well in order to give feedback to their partner and move their writing on. By allowing the chance for peer to peer feedback the skills being demonstrated and developed by both parties are immense.
The beauty of using technology to facilitate this process is listed in the SAMMS framework. The fact that Google docs can be accessed from anywhere with an internet connection (Situational), allows for instant reworking of the piece (Mutability) and provides a space where two students and the teacher can collaborate on one document (Social).
It is also a brilliant example of Dylan Wiliam’s Assessment for Learning strategies.
Wiliam breaks down AfL into 5 key strategies
1. Clarifying learning intentions
2. Eliciting evidence
3. Feedback that moves learning forward
4. Students as learning resources for one another
5. Students as owners of their own learning (ownership - metacognition, motivation, interest, attribution, self-assessment)
(Wiliam & Thompson, 2007)
Ben’s use of feedback thoroughly demonstrated the third and fourth points in Wiliam’s list. The students receive feedback from their teacher and also from a peer to improve their writing. Before I saw this being used I would have guessed that the feedback being given from a writing partner would be a little shaky and inaccurate at best. After seeing this in practice the feedback being given is 90% accurate and very well articulated.
To anyone who would like to do less marking and give more feedback using screen casting come and speak to myself or Ben for more details.
Talking with a colleague about some of the common behaviours that we witness in terms of the working habits employed by students throughout the school when they need to work on a screen. Interestingly, completely separate from each other, and working in very different areas, we had similar concerns. I’ve always approached this from the point of view of inefficiency and a general lack of organisation, but she had the clever insight that maybe what we should really be concerned about is their well-being.
With that I set off on a literature review to find out what I could, and sure enough there is a considerable amount of material that has been written in this area, generally organised under the category of ‘clutter”.
Obviously, as is usually the case with these things, clutter is a problem whether it is digital or non-digital. But what I am noticing is that effectively the clutter that is commonplace in students' laptops is a big issue, because while this clutter it is largely effectively invisible to the teachers and parents, but
...the negative impact in terms of stress as noted by the research is the same, regardless or not whether clutter is in a physical work environment or a digital work environment.
I regularly encounter many (if not most) students (and adults!) who have normalised a cluttered digital work environment; their norm is to work in a browser with far too many tabs open, lots of different applications open at the same time, work scattered all over the desktop, with files very poorly organised and therefore very difficult to find whatever they need to work on, especially when they have opened the same file multiple times without being aware of it...
These key areas are encompassed by what I call the 'Fundamental 4" four simple areas to review regularly—ideally once a week. Check you are signed in properly, clear your desktop, close all/most of your tabs (bookmark the ones that are important to return to), and tidy up your drive, move loose files into folders.
Ignoring all of this is easy, and understandable, but as we all know, clutter accumulates without requiring any assistance at all. The longer you leave it, the worse it gets, combining to create a lose-lose scenario: an ineffective work flow, that undermines wellbeing. But don't take my word for it, I've collated the essential arguments below (my emphasis in bold):
Whether it be your closet or office desk, excess things in your surroundings can have a negative impact on your ability to focus and process information. That’s exactly what neuroscientists at Princeton University* found when they looked at people’s task performance in an organized versus disorganized environment. The results of the study showed that physical clutter in your surroundings competes for your attention, resulting in decreased performance and increased stress.
... Similar to what multitasking does to your brain, physical clutter overloads your senses, making you feel stressed, and impairs your ability to think creatively.
Clutter Isn’t Just Physical
Files on your computer, notifications from your Twitter and Facebook accounts, and anything that goes “ping” in the night competes for your attention. This creates a digital form of clutter that erodes your ability to focus and perform creative tasks. Mark Hurst, author of Bit Literacy, a New York Times best seller on controlling the flow of information in the digital age, put it best when he said:
"Bits are a new material."
When you have to-do items constantly floating around in your head or you hear a ping or vibrate every few minutes from your phone, your brain doesn’t get a chance to fully enter creative flow or process experiences. When your brain has too much on its plate, it splits its power up. The result? You become awful at:
filtering information
switching quickly between tasks
keeping a strong working memory
The overconsumption of digital stuff has the same effect on your brain as physical clutter.
If you work on a computer, having a cluttered desktop every time you turn on your computer can give you a constant uneasy feeling. At the end of each day, remove every file from your desktop.
Clutter, whether physical or digital, is something you’ll always have to deal with but it can be controlled. Finding ways to steer the streams of consumption in your favour will give you a sense of power and a freed mind…
When your environment is cluttered, the chaos restricts your ability to focus. The clutter also limits your brain’s ability to process information. Clutter makes you distracted and unable to process information as well as you do in an uncluttered, organized, and serene environment.
…
Researchers used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and other physiological measurement tools to map the brain’s responses to organized and disorganized stimuli and to monitor task performance. The conclusions were strong — if you want to focus to the best of your ability and process information as effectively as possible, you need to clear the clutter from your home and work environment. This research shows that you will be less irritable, more productive, distracted less often, and able to process information better with an uncluttered and organized home and office.
Overall, subjects were more productive, less irritable and distracted in the clutter-free environment versus the disorganized environment where their stress increased.
The brain has a limited capacity to process information. To filter out extra stimuli and focus on what we are trying to achieve at any given moment, the top-down and bottom-up attention mechanisms compete. By mutually suppressing each other, brain power is exhausted, and ultimately we lose focus.
Humans are bad at multitasking. It’s a hard fact to come to grips with, especially in a society that values professional productivity so highly. We’re encouraged to work on multiple projects at once so that we can get them all done faster, but science has shown us that this actually slows us down — working on a single task is much more efficient than trying to direct our attention in multiple directions.
This is related to why clutter has such a negative effect on our mental capacities. Just seeing a cluttered desk or home adds to the number of things that we have to expend mental resources on to process, both visually and cognitively. This adds to the load placed on your brain. Using more mental power requires more energy, which is why clutter can make you feel more fatigued.
Think about your digital workspace. Decluttering your Windows or Mac desktop, clearing your inbox, and even your declutter browser tabs can make you feel a lot better. It encourages you to back up your old files, and cleans up your workspace. It may even help you find things that you’ve lost — old notes in Evernote or old articles in Pocket that are really useful or more applicable now than when you saved them.
Digital decluttering is a great way to bring new energy to your life.
Digital clutter is a real thing. Keep your digital life organized by using the same principles as you would with physical clutter.
Managing disorderliness is good for health. It reduces your stress, prevents feeling guilty about your cleanliness, and keeps your brain from getting overloaded by unhelpful things.
What should you hope to improve by decluttering in your personal or professional life?
Better focus.
Evidence* suggests that when multiple visual stimuli are competing for your attention, you have a harder time narrowing your focus to only one of them. That means the clutter in your life is making you unfocused. You’ll have a harder time staying on task at work, and you won’t be as “present” in your home life, either. Decluttering brings better focus back to your world.
Academic Note for Boffins
*The study (McMains & Kastner, 2011) referenced by many of these articles is one of the most flagrant examples of academic gibberish I have ever encountered. Here's a taste:
"Multiple stimuli present in the visual field at the same time compete for neural representation by mutually suppressing their evoked activity throughout visual cortex, providing a neural correlate for the limited processing capacity of the visual system."
Huh?
I have read the article, it wasn't easy, and it took a lot of determination—but I can confirm that it largely supports the claims made above. In fact I would argue it goes further than they do, in that it finds that stimuli in the environment (bottom-up) compete with whatever we are trying to focus on (top-down), but what is more of concern is that they find the environmental stimuli ‘win’ as these are subconsciously prioritised by our brain, regardless of whatever the work is that we are trying to “spotlight“.
From a bucket of water to a bicycle, any tool can be used maliciously or marvellously, the same is true for screen time as it is for eating potatoes, they are both potentially very good for you, but not if that's all you do.
One big difference being that we don't see articles circulated from time to time on the web fretting about potatoes, framed in the frantic, panicked tones of a 21st Century crisis, which we do about screen time, articles like this*.
In the face of opinions like that, some would ask how on earth we can justify all the iPads we provide for our young learners in the Infant school, 2:1 in K1, and an iPad for every child in K2, Grade 1 to Grade 3, and a laptop for every child in Grades 4 and 5. The problem is these articles that expect us to 'ban' our students from screen use, generally make the mistake of burying alternative perspectives, and are usually founded on a dubious judgement back in the 20th Century (1999), by the American Academy of Pediatrics that discouraged television viewing for children younger than 2, citing research on brain development that showed this age group’s critical need for “direct interactions with parents and other significant care givers.” They have since (2015) updated their report, acknowledging that things have changed significantly since their original judgement, however they still unfortunately, and impractically uniformly discourage passive media use, on any type of screen, for young children.
What I'd like to do here is just to provide some balance to the argument, sure the AAP have their opinion, but there are plenty of other respected, and I would argue more reasonable and more practical perspectives regarding screen time out there, below I share just a handful. If you know of any others, please feel free to post them in the comments below.
Lumping all screens into one category is not helpful. "Screen time is a really enticing measure because it's simple – it's usually described as the number of hours a day using screen-based technology. But it's completely meaningless," says Pete Etchells at Bath Spa University, UK, who studies the effects of video games on behaviour. "It doesn't say anything about what you're using that time for."
The challenge for parents and teachers, Robb says, “is to select the videos, games, and devices that have a real, positive developmental impact—and use them in ways that promote growth.”
Children benefit from the right sort of screen time.
What is becoming clear is that it's not the technologies themselves we should be worried about, but how they are used and how people interact with them. The advantages seen in the school environment can be translated into the home – if you choose your children's digital distraction wisely.
A lot of it is common sense. Don't unthinkingly hand over your device. There are educational apps whose benefits are backed up by research.
Five hours sitting in front of the TV is not the same as 5 hours of some TV, a couple of hours playing on Dance Dance Revolution or some other kind of active game, followed by a Skype session with a grandparent.
This [The advice from the AAP] hard and fast two-hour policy, beaten into parents’ brains by their pediatricians, troubles me and many others partly because it was last updated in 2011 before the astounding boom of tablets, smartphones and touch screens among both kids and adults. The policy warnings had focused very reasonably on TV and its clear long-term harms to healthy development in kids under two—especially harmful when passively watching non-interactive, non-educational TV. But such traditional passive TV watching, while still the dominant form of media consumption for most children, is rapidly becoming meaningless for many. Clearly, an interactive video game that parents and toddlers are playing together or watching family vacation videos on a smartphone can have huge value compared to zombie-like staring at an episode of Spongebob—these kinds of shows are shown in studies to harm a young child’s executive functioning, a prefrontal brain skill set including memory, attention, and setting goals.
Not all screens are equal, and guidelines need to be updated to reflect these differences. The policy also doesn’t reflect the reality on the ground: a recent survey of parents by Common Sense Media shows that toddlers under two are spending almost one hour a day using screen media anyway.
I still generally agree with most of the AAP’s family media plan advice, especially no TV ever in bedrooms and no screens at certain times of the day, including during meals, and screen time limits depending on age. With children under two, I definitely believe that screen time should never be spent alone: kids always benefit more from any activity when parents are playing along.
The 2011 [AAP] report mentioned “smart cell phone” and “new screen” technologies, but did not address interactive apps. Nor did it broach the possibility that has likely occurred to those 90 percent of American parents, queasy though they might be: that some good might come from those little swiping fingers.
Technological competence and sophistication have not, for parents, translated into comfort and ease. They have merely created yet another sphere that parents feel they have to navigate in exactly the right way. On the one hand, parents want their children to swim expertly in the digital stream that they will have to navigate all their lives; on the other hand, they fear that too much digital media, too early, will sink them.
April 2010, when the iPad was released. iPhones had already been tempting young children, but the screens were a little small for pudgy toddler hands to navigate with ease and accuracy. Plus, parents tended to be more possessive of their phones, hiding them in pockets or purses. The iPad was big and bright, and a case could be made that it belonged to the family. Researchers who study children’s media immediately recognized it as a game changer.
The 2017 "The State of the World’s Children 2017: Children in a Digital World" report is a comprehensive look from UNICEF at the different ways digital technology is affecting children, identifying dangers as well as opportunities.
Too many news articles share evidence from studies that are methodologically weak or exaggerate or misrepresent the evidence provided.
For most children, underlying issues – such as depression or problems at home – have a greater impact on health and happiness than screen time.
Without consensus on screen time, it is important for parents, policymakers, researchers and the media not to jump to conclusions about what is healthy or unhealthy digital use. Considering the full context of a child's life – together with an emphasis on content and experiences rather than screen time – may prove more useful for understanding the effects of digital connectivity on children's well-being.
Rather than restricting children’s digital media use, more attentive and supportive mediation by parents and educators holds the most promise for enabling children to draw maximum benefit and minimum risk from connectivity. More attention should be given to the content and activities of children’s digital experiences – what they are doing online and why – rather than strictly to how much time they spend in front of screens.
Considering the full context of a child’s life – together with an emphasis on content and experiences rather than screen time – may prove more useful for understanding the effects of digital connectivity on children’s well-being.
In a world where “screen time” is becoming simply “time,” our policies must evolve or become obsolete. The public needs to know that the Academy’s advice is science-driven, not based merely on the precautionary principle.
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. Family participation with media facilitates social interactions and learning.
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.
The evidence base for a direct ‘toxic’ effect of screen time is contested, and the evidence of harm is often overstated. The majority of the literature that does exist looks only at television screen time.
Evidence is weak for a threshold to guide children and parents to the appropriate level of screen time, and we are unable to recommend a cut-off for children's screen time overall.
Many of the apparent connections between screen time and adverse effects may be mediated by lost opportunities for positive activities (socialising, exercise, sleep) that are displaced by screen time.
There is a little evidence that any specific intervention can be applied across the population to reduce screen time. We have developed four key questions for families to use as a guide to examine their screen time:
Is screen time in your household controlled?
Does screen use interfere with what your family want to do?
Does screen use interfere with sleep?
Are you able to control snacking during screen time?
If a family can ask themselves (or be asked by others) these questions, and are satisfied with the answers, then they can be reassured that they are likely to be doing as well as they can with this tricky issue.
Touch screens change everything...
Previously, young children had to be shown by their parents how to use a mouse or a remote, and the connection between what they were doing with their hand and what was happening on the screen took some time to grasp. But with the iPad, the connection is obvious, even to toddlers. Touch technology follows the same logic as shaking a rattle or knocking down a pile of blocks: the child swipes, and something immediately happens. A “rattle on steroids,” is what Buckleitner calls it. “All of a sudden a finger could move a bus or smush an insect or turn into a big wet gloopy paintbrush.” To a toddler, this is less magic than intuition. At a very young age, children become capable of what the psychologist Jerome Bruner called “enactive representation”; they classify objects in the world not by using words or symbols but by making gestures—say, holding an imaginary cup to their lips to signify that they want a drink. Their hands are a natural extension of their thoughts.
* If you're going to read that article, make sure you read these two responses to it as well:
Critical literacy will help readers navigate through broad claims that appear to be scientific in nature, but actually misrepresent facts and findings. Outlets such as The Huffington Post can provide important, accessible, and digestible information to parents as they try to navigate this complex world.
The research cited in the Rowan piece and the many other 'clickbait' articles like it is so unsupportive of her claims, it seems possible that the real motive behind these articles is to test the reader gullibility. If readers dig a little deeper, they'll find the truth.
The research focuses mainly on passive television consumption and video games that are either simple or for mature audiences. Much of it also is focused, not on pre-teens, but rather on teens and adults. The research shows a dearth of findings around the type of technology use in which the overwhelming majority of children engage.
Discerning educators and parents: Take a look at the research. Decide for yourself. I've collated over 60 articles here (and counting) which I update regularly, happy reading!
Alternatively the 'Their Own Devices' podcast has a very balanced take on this topic, there's bound to be an episode or two in there that will be of interest.
