My daughter starts her student teaching today. I don’t mind telling you that my first day of student teaching was 30+ years ago. The degree to which things have changed, at least in some classrooms, became apparent as I was scanning through some recent classroom teacher blogs, and I ran across a post that represented today’s agenda for an elementary class. One of the assignments read…
Go to The Snowflake Maker When there click on Make Your Own Snowflake. Move the scissors and click to cut the snowflake. Then save your snowflake and email to (teachers e-mail address).
Now my immediate response was, so what’s wrong with kids learning to use real scissors. But I’m sure that there are drawers of scissors in her classroom, and that her students have plenty of experience using them. Today, it is probably as important for students to learn to use scissors controlled by a mouse as it is to operate real ones.
The real kicker was the last statement in the post:
Next week we will work on our avatars in Portrait Illustrator.
Added 1/6/08:
I’ve not added this caveat until now, because this post has generated some useful conversation. But I want to note here that this entry was not intended as an advocacy of any particular applications for technology. It was nothing more than an observation of how much things have changed between the time that I student taught and today, as my daughter has begun her student teaching. A lesson involving virtual scissors and avatars would have simply seemed to weird back when computers, as we know the, hadn’t even been invented yet.
David,
I made you a snowflake. http://snowflakes.lookandfeel.com/viewflake.php?id=16527129
It sounds like your daughter could have a great experience. I wish her the best.
The contrived rationale for digital scissors is ridiculous and runs the risk of edtech descending into indefensible parody.
PERHAPS if a student were programming a Logo turtle to draw a snowflake with the expresssion of geomtric concepts the activity would be valuable.
I would hope your daughter (and all teachers) possess the knowledge and wisdom required to select appropriate technology and offer kids authentic learning activities.
Shouldn’t a particular technology add value to an activity or amplify learning? If so, then there is no need to concoct a tortured justification.
I’m at an aquarium with two four year-old playing with animals and climbing stairs. I’ll leave avatars to you.
Good teachers question the relevance of “snowflakes” or any other topic/activity, regardless of the medium, and don’t give an assignment merely because it’s January or that it was in your grandmother’s curriculum.
Indefensible parody, indeed. I thought that you’d taken a moment to make a humor post and chuckled a few times as I read this. Then it just sort of stopped without a punchline.
Hey! You try driving those scissors. It’s not easy.
I will choose to politely ignore some rather impolite comments here since David is describing my assignment for 3rd grade today. I have them for 30 minutes per week. We do keyboarding for half that time and then something else for half that time. Their classroom teacher reported that these learners really enjoyed the Snowflakes and learned about saving and emailing in conjunction with using the program. They also practiced mouse manipulation and hand-eye coordination. Yes, things have changed. Thank you David for your wonderful Blogmeister and mentioning my class – they will probably not be thrilled, but I am!
And since when has kinesthetic intelligence been a poor lesson? I’ve been enormously frustrated by fellow teachers that can’t manipulate a mouse. Providing activities (That apparently the children enjoyed, God forbid) that provide practice with such skills is extremely useful. Not to mention they are learning; web navigation, human-computer interface, what is similar/different between web sites, what is similar/different between the real world and a simulated world, saving a file (another thing that frustrates me with many adults), and emailing a file (yet another thing). For next week they are learning vocabulary (avatar, portrait, illustrator), abstract representation of self, some illustration tool (there are some well paid illustrators out there). Would making them write a Logo program be more authentic? Can’t get much more authentic than trying to follow some simple directions, create a product, and email it to someone. I never used a mouse, nor emailed any Logo drawing I ever made. Are the snowflakes the do-all that will make us competitive in the global marketplace? Of course not … but it’s more authentic and representative of what the successful students will be doing in the work-world than what you see in most classrooms (That’s the parody). I imagine the students also had a great deal more fun with the snowflakes … but that also seems mostly absent from most classrooms …
I’m curious how questioning the value of an activity or piece of advice is immediately reduced to a lapse in manners?
My question for Mrs. Durff is based on looking at her web site.
Mrs. Durff, you obviously possess a great deal of technical fluency, enthusiasm and knowledge. What steps are you taking to offer students a richer experience than 30 minutes of keyboarding instruction and then “something else” for 30 minutes?
I fully appreciate that teachers have to work within their context to some extent. It is fine to worry about what “I do Monday” as long as it points to “What I hope to do sometime.” (Papert & Harel)
How do keyboarding and virtual snow-flake cutting lead us to the the heady conversations about educational revolution, or at least innovation, found so often in this and other blogs?
Incidentally, any of you required to teach “keyboarding” (a unique school invention), you might wish to share a document created by an esteemed colleague of mine nearly twenty years ago.
http://stager.org/keyboarding.html
While I understand why one can be mildly offended by Mr. Scrooge’s comments as he uses some colorful verbiage that makes the activity sound ridiculous, his criticism is clearly more about Mr. Warlick’s advocating of this lesson. Perhaps Mr. Warlick’s reputation is getting in the way of posting something fun.
Mr. Stager does make an important point regarding fun or frivolous uses of technology and than advocating the benefits of technology in the classroom. We need to be very careful with our arguments for technology in the classroom because education still doesn’t use technology very well. We have seen huge investments of money in technology that have not shown enough return on investment.
I do know first hand through collaborating with Mrs. Durff that she is doing some fine work… A fun activity like making virtual “snowflakes” has its merits within her classroom. Yes, we need to have purpose in our lessons, but don’t overlook creating a positive atmosphere by having fun in class as well. Mr. Stager, didn’t you just post recently about reducing the level of antagonism between students and teachers.
Finally, we need to find out a little bit more about a particular activity or assignment before we go “cutting” it up or getting overzealous in advocating for it. The best lesson learned here is to find out more about something before we dissect its merit in our blogs.
Thank you S. I was having some fun, some tongue in cheek. I suppose I have a fairly dry sense of humor, which often causes people to thing I’m being serious, when I’m trying to be funny — and sometimes they think I’m being funny, when I’m trying to be serious.
Dry wit is very hard in a blog, as Tabor points out.
But you really hit the nail on the head when you said, “Perhaps Mr. Warlick’s reputation is getting in the way of posting something fun.”
Sometimes I feel a little hemmed in by what readers expect from my blog. Because I enjoy some notoriety, I guess people expect everything in this blog to be important and authoritative. That’s just not the way that I think about it. It’s a conversation.
I do support Durffs activity. I don’t believe that it is the best thing to be doing with computers in the classroom, but it’s a good thing.
I don’t know Gary Stager well, but I do know that he is a passionate advocate of teaching and learning techniques that reflect today’s world — and Gary expects the best.
Enough of putting words in other people’s mouths. I guess I just need to start labeling my blogs as serious or fun.
The issue here isn’t serious vs. fun – and I don’t think anyone is suggesting that an activity must be dry or boring in order to be valuable.
The issue is worthwhile vs. frivolous. The argument that clicking and cutting snowflakes carries with it real academic or professional value that outweighs the opportunity cost of the time spent simply isn’t compelling.
As this post has evolved, the issue doesn’t seem to be “serious/fun” or “worthwhile/frivolous” anymore…
I’m concerned that more teachers might withdraw from these conversations when they are reminded of the not-so-constructive critics, who have so much to say. It’s really a shame.
The issue may have become “building bridges vs. creating divisiveness”
I have nothing against fun. I’m a big fan of play and took my students outside nearly every day to play.
It just seems incongruous to argue that fun is the educatioal objective while simultaneously complaining about being forced to being constrained by external curricular objectives and limited access.
We really leave ourselves vulnerable to the punitive “get tough” critics of public education when affective issues (fun, self-esteem, creativity, team building) are oversold as the objective of an activity. It is certainly true that a student will gain greater understanding and develop more sophisticated skills when the activity is social, relevant, pleasant, collaborative, or creative, but those seem like very weak arguments for the red-meat accountability crowd shaping school policy.
I’d like to ask lajones the following question…
How many people are not using computers in their classrooms or not participating in onlne discussions because leading edtech advocates cannot resist advocating any activity using the web, regardless of its merit?
Plays, films, music, politicians, literature and art are all subject to criticism. Should teachers or their lesson plans be immune?
Do you provide feedback to your students? Colleagues?
It’s a very distorted vision of community that excludes dissent or prohibits reflective practice.
I’m definitely not “qualified” to answer such a loaded question.
My point was that it’s a shame that interpersonal skills are not always improved with the use of technology.
Feedback is useless if it is given in such a was a to offend or attack. It won’t have a positive outcome in the long run.
I want to point out that I don’t have any problem with fun, frivolity, or just goofing off occasionally. But there’s no absolutely no reason to pretend that some activities are of greater importance than they really are.
Dr. Stager-
I wanted to respond to your comment “It’s a very distorted vision of community that excludes dissent or prohibits reflective practice.”
I agree that conversation that extends someone’s thinking or pushes someone to think beyond their comfort level is always beneficial but for some reason I see some very smart people forgetting some very basic rules of netiquette here. I don’t think that anyone is questioning your ability to question but it might be a good idea to take a step back and think not about what you are saying but how you are saying it.
Wow… I was busy and didn’t get back to this comment fest. Isn’t it amazing how a discussion on the worthwhile nature of an academic activity can change to a discussion on netiquette. The very nature of online written discussion has caused this diversion in the discussion.
Re: Written Discussion – I think the most important aspect of following a discussion like this online is to remember that conversations online lack tone/body language and it is very difficult to assess intent beyond words. With this in mind, the first thing you need to do is know a little bit about a person you are commenting about (I don’t mean personally as I have never met anyone in this discussion). I follow the main characters of this discussion and I am confident that they are all good people with very good intentions regarding education. With that thought in mind, I am very comfortable with taking the meaning of the comments as open discussion about an interesting disagreement.
A perfect example is the use of Mr. Scrooge for Mr. Stager regarding him having difficulty with an activity related to the holiday season. Such a statement said verbally would more than likely be extremely light hearted if you knew me, heard me laughing as I typed it, and saw my mannerisms while I chuckled.
Re: Merits of “Snowflake” Discussion. Since I know Mrs. Durff is an excellent teacher from working with her, I can be very certain that this activity fit her classroom needs and was very appropriate for her classroom climate. We judge others work too quickly when we simply look from the outside without understanding the context of the activity. This discussion reminds me of how many times you hear people get upset when they say something that is taken out of context. Matt is correct that you do need to judge a classroom activity based upon its “opportunity cost”. The disagreement I have is that we don’t know what that cost was for this activity in her particular classroom. The opportunity cost doesn’t always include higher level thinking skills for elementary students. Opportunity costs also must take into consideration classroom climate, relationship with your students, etc.
Thanks for the discussion everyone… Finally… Mr. Warlick… Did you ever imagine this discussion when you originally posted? Blogging and commenting is amazing stuff …
Seventeen comments thus far and all over a few words – good grief! The snowflake activity has led to the classroom teacher requesting a list of websites to put on the favorites menus of two classroom computers. She has not used the computers yet and that she is now willing to do so makes it all worthwhile.
Just for clarification, I have these kids for 30 minutes total, so 15 minutes on keyboarding and 30 minutes on an activity.
Technology integration is just beginning to take off at my school. Who did you bring into the echo chamber today?