Adaptation of the Species: iBooks Author in the Classroom

I once overheard a colleague state that textbooks are outdated; that flat images on paper are going the way of the dinosaur—extinct. 

Okay, so admittedly, that educator was me, and perhaps the statement is a bit premature, as many students do not yet own laptops or tablets.  But the revolution is coming! I’ve got my “end of the world as we know it” sign ready to display, and R.E.M singing in my head.

 Our students need interactive textbooks with images and words that can be manipulated, books that encourage them to be active participants in their own education.  Just think what Google has done for homework help.  If you can name a subject, chances are that somewhere on the internet is a website or even a tutor to help. Students can Facebook, Tweet, or Skype with anyone, anywhere. This new generation is permanently connected to media, growing up with their digital devices as additional appendages.  Even preschoolers are now learning on tablets. If there is any doubt, just take a look at the new Disney’s AppMATes  or Mattel’s Apptivity.—these new apps allow partnered toys to be moved about on the face of the iPad while the app interacts with those toys.

So, the question is:  shouldn’t our textbooks allow the same interaction with content? 

With iBooks Author and iPad, educators are able to create their own textbooks for their courses, to make those books interactive by adding pictures, graphs, links to websites and activities; we can add lecture files and videos, even reading checks and quizzes at the end of each section. For the first time, a teacher can step away from what the textbook companies think her students need and explore what she knows her students need.  And perhaps the most impressive feature—iBooks Author and the iBooks app are FREE. 

In August, I had my first experience with iBooks Author.  I co-authored an iBook for a conference-- #Reaching the Tweeps- The Role of Social Media in Education.  As with any new endeavor, I worried about the difficulty of using the iBooks Author software, but it is much like Pages or Microsoft Word.  With just a few clicks, teachers are able to copy, paste, and insert from documents that they’ve already made and load everything into an iBook template. Pictures, videos, and audio clips can also be added with a few swipes of the mouse.  Author software is so intuitive, your inserted passages and objects will be automatically positioned for you.  The end result will be a professional ebook.

Use iBooks Author to publish your own course materials:
1. curate a variety of content—websites, documents, pdfs, pictures, sound clips, or videos

2. share your content with students, parents, and co-workers for free—even publishing with a password requirement

3. embed interactive models for students to turn, twist, spin, and manipulate

4. include links for any websites—e-magazines, e-newspapers, online quizzes, and games

5. content can be made available anywhere for students on-the-go

6. publish quickly and easily, and update your book after it is published

While iBooks Author is a great tool for teachers to create content, it is also an excellent way for students to publish their own work.  For example, one of my classes is currently writing a novel.  Each student is composing one chapter of a fictional story. We will be publishing this work as an iBook when we’ve finished, and to say that my class is excited is an understatement! The quality of work that is being produced is far superior to assignments I’ve received in the past. Why? Because their story will be published—officially “purchasable” by others as an ebook.  It gives their effort meaning; their hard work, reward.

Use iBooks Author for student publications:

1. 1.     Your students can create an iBook of their coursework and publish it as a portfolio or final project.
2. 2.     Your students can collaborate to create study guides for other students.
3. 3.     Your students can publish a literary or arts magazine for your school with no publication costs.
4. 4.     Your students can work together to create their own novel or anthology of original short stories.

As with any new software or device, there are drawbacks. Your students must have iPads to view the books; the iTunes processing time can vary (our #Reaching the Tweeps ebook took less than 24 hours), and your content must be original or royalty free.

For my own courses, it is the juggling of online vidoes, Youtube clips, ancillary reading, newspaper and magazine articles, art, and other media and text that creates confusion in class.  As I work on my iBook for next year – to use as the “textbook” for the course—I begin to realize that my students will be able to locate everything in one place.  The balancing act will be a bit easier. 

Isn’t that what technology is really meant to do: make our lives easier and better organized? I’ve spoken with a lot of people who disdain ebooks and iBooks—vowing that the paper versions will always be their choice. But as a teacher today, I know I need to reach my students where they live.

And many of them have never even stepped foot inside a library.

The “I” in T-E-A-M: Social Media and Collaboration

I’m a cheerleader.  Maybe no longer literally, with the pleated skirt and standing back tuck, but my innate desire to encourage and get people excited is definitely still part of my every day life.  And maybe this is exactly what education needs more of—a sense of teamwork and the desire to cheer each other on. 

All educators know that our field is an especially isolated one, specifically in the cases of collaboration and sharing best practices. Let’s be honest, most of us are stuck in a classroom for eight hours a day with barely enough time to grab that needed cup of coffee, let alone have a thirty-minute conversation with a colleague about a new project we’ve tried.  And yet, collaboration is the base of the pyramid for education, and sadly, when it comes to T-E-A-M, we are the “I”s.

Buildings, class schedules, and schools disconnect us. Most of us work alone, and our focus is very narrow, usually restricted to our own discipline or even the grade we teach. This limited focus does not benefit our students—we are preparing them to live in an extraordinarily fast-paced, global world; they need to learn how disciplines interconnect and how to communicate effectively with those whose focus is different from their own. We need to model collaboration and communication for our students--we need to work together as a team.

Social media allows us to communicate, to become that team. We watch others implement new ideas, succeed or fail, and we can learn from their mistakes. A touch of a few buttons and we can find a million new ways to use the iPad in the classroom or Twitter in Social Studies.The possibilities for shared curricula are endless.

 What better way for us as educators to share best practices than in an asynchronous environment, a global community of professionals? We are able to make connections while at home, before school, across time zones, and or even during summer vacation.

In the last year, I have learned more from social media websites like Twitter, Edudemic, Edutopia, and EdSocialMedia than I have from any professional development meeting I’ve ever attended. Whether it’s following #edchat and #isedchat on Twitter, cruising EdSocialMedia for new articles, or reading the Edudemic magazine on my iPad, I’ve spent countless hours, outside of my normal school day, connecting with other teachers—and wanting to do it.  Social media is collaboration that works! It’s something that we can cheer about.

The web is filled with places for teachers to share materials.  One of my favorite sites is Teachers Pay Teachers.  Not only can you sell your lesson plans and activities, making a little extra money on the side, but you can also browse thousands of amazing lessons.  Classroom 2.0 is another great social networking site where teachers blog about their subject area and favorite teaching tools.  Whether you are looking for activities for an ELL class or wanting book recommendations for your course, Classroom 2.0 probably has an article about it.  For English teachers, Jim Burke’s Ning community is an excellent place to find articles relating to your discipline.  There are also Teachers Teaching Teachers, TeachAde, The Apple, NextGenTeachers, TeachersLingo, PBS Teachers Connect, and Tapped In, and if you’re reading this article, you’re probably already familiar with the incredible EdSocialMedia.

As social networking continues to flourish, these sites for teachers will only continue to spring up, allowing for traditional professional development to transcend the classroom, and give us what we want so badly for our students, a school without walls. 

 I saw a shirt once that said that “all women are created equal and then some become cheerleaders.” Maybe this holds true for education as well— all teachers are created equal and then a few become cheerleaders.  I propose that we all join the pep squad. Get out your pompons, your megaphone, and your laptop.  Let’s lead other educators into and onto the field. Let’s use social media to promote great teaching ideas, to encourage education reform, and to celebrate each others’ successes. Let’s be those cheerleaders, leading education into the twenty-first century.

Not with a Bang, but a Whimper: The End of Print?

We live in a virtual world, maybe not entirely, but more so than any generation before. 

In fact, as I celebrate the third day of my summer vacation, I find myself staring longingly at my computer, which I am trying (and failing) to ignore.  The lure of all that information is almost too strong; I want to know; I want to interact; I want to connect. 

What happened to me?  I used to spend my summers with a paperback in my hand at the beach, but I seem to have been replaced by a crazy virtual avatar, whose only desire is to consume information and make connections digitally. I even prefer my Nook and iPad devices to actual paperbacks.

It seems that I no longer need to have the tactile experience of turning paper pages; instead, I am perfectly content swiping a screen to advance to the next section.  I never thought in a million years, I’d prefer that…never.  So, as I sat by the pool yesterday reading on a digital device, I asked myself whether this was the year to move to digital books in the classroom?

The majority of my students have laptops, iPads, iPhones, Kindles, or Nooks, and this past year was the first in which multiple students in each class were using their iPads to read assigned novels.  At first, I resisted; I explained that they needed to be able to write in their books, annotate passages, etc.  Then, while reading Feed by MT Anderson (for those who have experienced this haunting novel, you will find this ironic), I asked a class to find passages that relate to the downfall of education.  I expected this activity to take ten or fifteen minutes, as it had in the past; however, as my paperback students were hurriedly flipping pages and re-reading passages, a student exclaimed, “I’ve found nine references to education.”  I was shocked.  How was it possible for her to find that many reference in less than two minutes?  There was no way it was possible.

Then, it hit me…she was using an iPad.  She’d simply typed the word “education” into the search box on her digital Kindle book, and—voila—instant access to numerous passages on that particular subject. 

This was an enlightening experience for me; it was the first time I realized that reading a digital book might have more advantages.  You can highlight in different colors without carrying around those pesky markers, bookmark specific pages and never lose them, type (legible) notes on any page, and most importantly, search a book for specific words or phrases.  This is a literature teacher’s dream.

But digital reading also has a few drawbacks: requirement of internet service to download books, possibility of a device breaking or running out of battery power, and in the case of one frustrated student, the difficulty for some of the less tech-savvy to learn the ins and outs of the device.

Maybe I should wait on the switch.  It wasn’t that many years ago that I read Fahrenheit 451 and nearly wept over the loss of thousands of important books burned in the fires.  With my students, I discussed the likelihood of this ever happening, and we agreed that there was little to no chance of books ever being rendered useless, and yet here I sit a short eight years later questioning whether to make the move to digital media. Is this just metaphorical book burning?

I look at my bookshelf and I think of how beautiful and fragile my 1840 copy of Ivanhoe is or how worn my copies of the first few Harry Potter novels are or even how filled with notes my copy of Frankenstein is and I ask myself how long it’s been since I last cracked them open.  The answer lies in the dust… a long time.

Maybe what Bradbury was warning us about is happening, but instead of a bonfire filled with paper, we’re just giving up our books, trading them for something that seems the same, but isn’t, not quite. Our books will be gone--not with a bang, but a whimper.

Virtual Reports on Real Books: Goodreads.com and Book Reports in the Digital Age

Most of us remember the first book we fell in love with, the first story to take us on a journey out of our world and into someone else’s. 

I’ve taught English for many years now, and it seems that as the years pass, less of my students are reading outside of their courses.  Almost none of my current juniors and seniors are reading for pleasure.  They might read to learn information or because they have to, but nowadays students turn to films, games, the internet, and television for their escape.

A few years ago, I began assigning a project to my juniors.  The basics: choose an American book, read it with a partner, discuss it, and present it to your classmates, enticing them to want to read it.  Sounds like an old-fashioned book report, right? So it is.  The conundrum for most of my reluctant readers was in book choice. What to read? Who to read?  The easy thing for me to do was to simply tell them about a few books and give them a list of choices.

Last year, I discovered that Goodreads.com was another excellent way for students to explore, discover, and select books that interest them. 

I still remember walking up and down the long musty-smelling rows of books at my school library and basing my choice on cover art. Man, how things have changed.  Now, you only need to hop online to surf new book releases. In fact, many new books have their own preview video!  This is a new age—a digital one.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s still okay to talk to students about books, but like the saying goes- show don’t tell. The greater impact comes in showing them.  Enter, Goodreads.com.  Now, this website isn’t new; in fact, many of you may have been using it for years.  However, I’ve discovered a few interesting facts about the site, and one amazing way to utilize it in the classroom, particularly for English and History.

WHY TEACHERS WANT TO USE GOODREADS IN THE CLASSROOM:

1. Goodreads.com is free!

2.  It has over seven million subscribers; this means that there are millions of book reviews to help students choose the right material.

3.  It allows teachers to model independent reading!

4. Teachers can follow their students and can get emails daily or weekly with updates from their students regarding books rated or marked to-read, read, reading.

5. Teachers can create “groups” and set those groups to public, private, restricted, or even secret.

6. Teachers can begin discussions in their “Group,” to which students can reply.

7. Teachers can use the site as a way for students to evaluate course reading selections.

WHY STUDENTS ARE INTERESTED IN USING GOODREADS:

1. Goodreads is an asynchronous environment where students can discuss or read about literature on their own time, at their own pace, and in any location.

2.  Students can create anonymous profiles.

3. Students learn to write for a specific audience.

4. It allows users to select books to add to their bookshelf; to choose “read, reading, or to-read” statuses for books; to set goals for the year and to track their progress; to write reviews for any book; to follow favorite authors who are also members on the site; and to even self-publish their own work.

5. Students are able to read about a book before starting it.

Book reports, or as I sneakily call them “novel workshops,” still have value, as does reading for pleasure, and using a social networking site such as Goodreads makes the selection process less painful and the reading more enjoyable!

Prezi: Reinventing the Wheel

It’s a small world.  And thanks to technology, it’s smaller than ever.  Whether it’s connecting between campuses, cross-country, internationally, or simply outside of normal school hours, students are interacting and sharing information at an unparalleled rate. The classroom no longer has walls, and learning no longer only takes place between bells.

Social media is an amazing first step in cultivating the classroom without walls, and Prezi is a fantastic social media tool.

For years, I’ve searched for the perfect presentation program—one that allows me to quickly put together an introduction to a unit for my students, but also something that was, unlike PowerPoint, dynamic.  I wanted a program that would allow me to connect with my students outside of our classroom.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate PowerPoint, I just find it strangely complicated and difficult to make interesting or interactive. For group projects, you are limited to one person working at a time, and often, the file is too big to email. And forget doing a project quickly; it sometimes takes hours to upload pictures, link videos, or create slide transitions.

Like many other educators, I’ve waited for something new to wow me, and finally, this summer, another teacher mentioned Prezi.

I even liked the name…Prezi. It sounds modern, hip, Apple-esque.  And it is all of those things.  I still remember the reaction I had the first time I viewed a prezi; my jaw dropped.  I couldn’t believe how incredibly visual and seamless it was!  In fact, it’s the first presentation software I’ve used that caters to the visual / kinesthetic learner.

Not only does Prezi look amazing, but it is a cloud-based presentation tool!  That means that you never have to email another file to your students; you can simply direct them to the website (if you make your Prezi public); in fact, you will be able to watch the file on any computer or tablet anywhere.  Another perk of cloud-based presentations is that your prezi is saved somewhere other than your computer’s hard drive, clearing up much-needed space and protecting you against accidental deletion.

Perhaps the most valuable feature of Prezi is that it allows students to interact with lessons on their own time, in their own space, while fostering the collaboration that we all like to see.  The “meeting” option allows up to ten people to login and work on the same presentation—even at the same time.

At the private college prep school where I teach, we currently have over a hundred boarding students who live in a dorm off campus.  It is often difficult for these students to work on projects with our day students, and as I like to assign a variety of cooperative learning projects and assignments, I’ve been very frustrated with PowerPoint.

Our school, like many others, faces a new challenge—providing web-based networking tools to our students and instructors.  Prezi is an answer to that challenge.  For example, just last week, my juniors were working on literary criticism projects.  Most of the groups were made up of both day and boarding students, and Prezi made it possible for them to all meet online and build their presentations without even being in the same building!


Key features of the software:
1.     It’s free for educators, as long as you have an email address that includes your school or district name.
2.     It’s free for your students to use (there is a free non-education version available as well).
3.     It looks crisp and modern; it emphasizes the visual.
4.     It uses a zooming tool (which awes your students).
5.     There are no complicated menus, just one wheel of options (I call it the “Wheel of Awesome”).
6.     Every single addition of text, picture, video, or object can be done in less than two or three clicks.  (For the designers out there, you can go five or six clicks to specialize your prezi.)
7.     You can import your old PowerPoint files.
8.     You can change the path (order of “slides”) your prezi takes at any time.
9.     You can make your prezi public and share it with the world or make it private for a select audience.
10. Youtube videos can be inserted by copying and pasting the address.
11.   You never have to leave the prezi to open another window, unlike PowerPoint.
12.  Your students can find your prezi by typing your name into the search bar of the website!

Before you race to type “prezi.com” into your browser, I have a few suggestions
1.     Forget everything you learned using PowerPoint.  (It only confused me when using the software.)
2.     If you want to add text, just click anywhere on the screen.
3.     Mac users zoom in and out using the two-finger scroll method.  Click and drag to move the screen around.  I had a rough first few minutes trying to learn this!
4.     If you want to change, move, manipulate, rotate, or re-size text on the screen, click on it once until the Wheel of Awesome pops up and use the menu on the wheel.


As we begin to change our curriculum and delivery to meet our digital-native students’ needs, Prezi will impress where other presentation software falls short!   It will promote differentiation, cooperative learning, lesson sharing, and social networking.  Not only will students and teachers be able to build their own dynamic presentations, which they can share with the Prezi community, but they will also be able to use others’ prezis as teaching and learning tools.

Essential Teaching Protocols for 21st Century Learning

In this blog post for Meritas, I discuss how I incorporate the four essential protocols.  

 I spent a semester of college staring at a William Butler Yeats quote that my professor proudly posted on her bulletin board:  “Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting a fire.”  

Of course, I grasped the basic meaning of the phrase and thought I understood its significance, but it took me years to fully realize exactly why those few words were so important to her.

Never did I imagine how vital they would become to me as well.

In my twelve years of teaching, I’ve come to understand that education is not instructing students what to think; it is about showing them how to think.  It will never be about filling their minds with facts, but about instilling a thirst for knowledge. 

At Meritas, our approach to “the lighting of a fire” is demonstrated through our four essential teaching protocols:

·              Essential Questions

·              New Vocabulary

·              Differentiation

·              High-Order Assessment

It is through use of these protocols that teachers are able to remove the focus on memorization and allow our lessons to come to life.  As a result, our students truly interact with and understand the material.

The following outlines some of the ways I incorporate the Meritas teaching protocols into my classroom:

Essential questions

I begin each unit by writing my essential questions on the board, and as the class progresses through the material, students are expected to continually respond to these questions, which have no yes or no, right or wrong, answers. 

Recently, in a study of non-fiction graphic novels, students were asked to consider how historical events affect the individual and to apply their answers to our reading of Maus and Persepolis.  Another question I posted invited them to reflect on how the medium might change the impact of the story or, as in the case of Maus, the validity.   

It is my hope that my essential questions will encourage students to apply what they are reading/studying to their everyday lives, to other classes, or to our study of literature as a whole.   

One way that I assess each learner’s comprehension of the essential questions is by use of an “exit ticket” at the end of class.  I do this by using Socrative, a free iTunes/android app, which students download onto their smartphones or use on their computers.   The exit ticket asks three questions: 1. How well did you understand today’s material?  2.  What did you learn today?   3. Can you answer the essential question on the board?

The exit ticket requires a couple of minutes to complete, and it discloses how well my learners understood what we covered that day.  Exit tickets are a terrific way to evaluate whether my students are grasping the essential questions, understanding the vocabulary, and benefitting from differentiated instruction.

New vocabulary

While there are many ways to teach vocabulary, I prefer teaching it in context with each lesson.

 One way in which I incorporate the vocabulary of literary devices and rhetorical strategies is by separating students into small groups and having them race to find as many examples as possible in a text. With this form of assessment, students are not cramming to remember vocabulary words, which they will forget the minute the quiz leaves their hands; instead, they are utilizing the words, interacting with them.

Many students struggle with new vocabulary, particularly those who are kinesthetic or visual learners. I often work with these students one-on-one or in small groups.  A simple technique that works wonders is to teach students how to create a visual representation of the word. Teaching students to create their own mnemonic devices helps them to move past the memorizing/knowledge acquisition phase faster and more successfully, so that they can move on to the higher orders of thinking. This is also a helpful differentiation strategy. 

Differentiation

I firmly believe that most teachers differentiate, even when they are unaware of it; I attempt to make it a visible part of my courses because not only does differentiation help with student engagement, it also aids in retention of material.  There are a variety of options for differentiating English, from using a side-by-side translation of a difficult text to requiring rewrites of particularly complicated passages.

A recent example of differentiation in my classroom is a Twitter assignment I created. Each student chose a character from Hamlet, created a twitter account, and then tweeted as that character throughout the play. It is one of the most successful assignments of my career, particularly in terms of student engagement.  All four of my English IV classes, with all levels from standard and ESOL to honors, were able to interact on Twitter, and this forum allowed my students to write at their own level and pace, with more advanced learners employing a variety of rhetorical strategies.  You can read more about this assignment by visiting http://www.edsocialmedia.com/2012/03/to-tweet-or-not-to-tweet/.

High-order assessment

Most assignments given in my classes require some form of analysis, synthesis, evaluation, or creativity.  One of my favorite methods for assessing student comprehension of a text is by assigning a reaction paper. These writing assignments are primarily based on higher order reasoning, but must include textual evidence to support any idea that the student introduces.  I find that requiring quotes from the original text forces each learner to once again interact with the book or essay.   

Another of my favorite activities involves student-teaching components, where I ask my students to take turns presenting sections of an assigned novel.  At the end of their short presentation, they must lead their class in a discussion of two higher order reasoning questions (which they can find on the flip chart in my room).  By the end of the first semester, the students have many of the questions from the chart memorized! 

In conclusion, Meritas’s four essential protocols are not foreign concepts to most teachers. Perhaps we’ve not used the same vocabulary to describe these procedures in the past, but by giving us a “common language” for learning, Meritas is fostering an environment that will truly benefit each student.

It’s a party—BYOD!

Every class should be a party.  Right?

Well, I know a handful of teachers from my past who wouldn’t say yes to that question and quite a few students who would shout “yes” from the rooftops if given a chance.

We educators are standing at a crossroads. Many of us are excited to join this media party, but there is also the worry that fun and innovation could outweigh educational value. And though we may recognize how these resources can make learning accessible and fun, it’s not surprising that many of us hang back, wondering if our students will really benefit from joining the fiesta.   

A few weeks ago, I overheard a fellow teacher discussing social media use in the classroom, “They [the students] already do all that stuff at home, why do they need it in the classroom too?”  I wanted to shout: “That’s the point!”  It’s time to meet our students on their own turf; I mean, hey, we’re basically inviting our non-digital-native selves to our media-crazed students’ party.

So, on behalf of our students, I officially invite you to the shindig—just be sure to BYOD!  

Bring Your Own Device!

As Mark Schindler wrote in his blog “Conversation Fodder for the Fashionably Late”  (http://www.edsocialmedia.com/2012/03/conversation-fodder-for-the-fashionably-late/), “I want to reach out to all the readers who feel like they are arriving late to the social media party. Don’t worry – you’re not alone. And you’ve arrived at the perfect time!”  Mr. Schindler is right; this is the ideal moment to start experimenting with the new apps, social media sites, and teacher tools that are popping up everywhere. 

Admittedly, my classes are difficult, but most of my students would also admit that they are fun.  Why? Because a BYOD atmosphere encourages students to learn through interaction with technology. I promote the use of laptops, tablets, and smartphones, and students access everything from online discussions and quizzes to homework announcements and dropboxes online.  Over the last few years, I’ve come to accept that students who’ve grown up with computers in their pockets aren’t going to be excited about a boring flat piece of paper.

Resistance is futile: today’s students are plugged in for most of their waking lives (and the generation that follows them will likely be even more addicted and distracted). As I mentioned in a past article, education is still about finding that balance between tradition and innovation, a pedagogy that entertains as well as informs, because entertainment fosters learning.   Finding a way to use technology to our students’ advantage is an important task for the twenty-first century educator.

Here are two great sites that my students and I are enjoying at the moment:

SOCRATIVE—interactive online quizzes and activities that you create!

One of my favorite new sites/apps is Socrative. Students can use a device or a computer to access it, and the app is designed for easy group-up or pass-n-play.  Teachers can create quizzes (multiple choice, short answer, or true false) with a few clicks of the mouse.  It works great for formative assessments, but I often use it for review games and peer-evaluations of presentations.

Socrative also has an amazing “exit ticket,” a three question closing activity which takes only a few minutes to complete.  The ticket asks students three things: 1. How well did you understand today’s material?  2.  What did you learn today?   3. Solve the problem on the board. I love that the last request is the teacher’s choice.  It allows us to craft a question based on our lesson for that day. 

The most incredible aspect of the Socrative app is that you can watch your students advance through the “quiz” with a live feed of the results, including their correct responses, and when a quiz finishes, the site will emails you an Excel report detailing your students’ answers. 

 TODAYSMEET—a backchannel for live discussions

This is a recent find, and I love the way this site specifically allows for discussions, comments, and questions during a set period of time, anywhere between two hours and a year. TodaysMeet.com is a backchannel, a live discussion board that takes less than a minute to set up and has none of those pesky time-consuming sign-up requests.  As the instructor, you can go to the website, type in the name of the “meeting” (such as english101dantediscussion), which the site turns into a board (todaysmeet.com/english101dantediscussion).  Let your students know the URL, and they can immediately begin chatting/commenting. 

This tool, which is accessed through the internet—no app yet, though it works well on smartphone browsers—can be used in a variety of ways.   For example, the instructor can have students ask questions or comment during lectures, presentations, or films; it’s an instant way to discuss what’s going on in the classroom, without interrupting. (One warning about TodaysMeet—the posts cannot be deleted before the end time; thus, if students write inappropriate comments, you will be unable to censor them.)

 If we aren’t banning paper and pen—because students can use them to write notes to each other or doodle—then shouldn’t we at least consider allowing our students to BYOD? 

There are many benefits to allowing devices in the classroom; perhaps the best part is that these forms of interaction give shyer students and those who take more time to process their answers a level playing field. In the old days, auditory learners and quick thinkers dominated classes. But now, there’s more than one way to raise your hand.

The Tortoise and the Hare—Social Media Can Differentiate the Course

The amazing thing about social media in the classroom is that it engages all learners. That’s right, I used the word-that-shall-not-be-said—“all!”

From students who excel at class discussion to the shy turtle who never sticks his head out of his shell, sites like Twitter, Goodreads, and Facebook have the ability to grab every student’s attention and give the tortoises a chance to speak out.

Having shy students in class isn’t uncommon, and it is easy to lose them in the marathon. Our turtles are sometimes easily stressed, afraid to put themselves out there, and often resistant to group activities, preferring to stay in the warm cozy safety of their shell instead. What social media is capable of doing is minimizing the stress of being vocal in a class full of peers and giving these shy kids a voice, something that lies at the very heart of differentiation.

True differentiation, tailoring our teaching to meet the needs of the individual, happens when educators utilize social media. Differentiating the learning environment, the content, the process, or the products by making use of some of the free media sites available can help instructors reach every learner. And because our classes are designed with the traditional model of teacher as architect of the track and students as runners, differentiation is the key to keeping each member of the class on pace and striding towards the finish line. Perhaps the trick is for those of us setting the route to make it a fair race or to consider encouraging the students to help with design of the course. Social media can be instrumental in doing this.

The following three free user-friendly social media websites can help to differentiate with your tortoises and hares. I’ve included a few ideas to start your track design!

TWITTER

What to assign?

1. Posit a question relating to the material from that day—English: What did you think about Dante’s journey into the second circle? What might his meeting with Francesca symbolize? History: If you were fighting in the Battle of Hastings and could text message, what would you report back home to your family and friends? Science: In the experiment today, how did the results of your lab differ from a classmate’s? Math: How can the equation we learned today be used in a real-world setting?

2. Have students tweet as a favorite author, scientist, historical figure, mathematician, or character from a book. (See my “To Tweet or Not to Tweet” article for my personal experience with this assignment.)

3. Ask students to tweet a current event that applies to your field of study. For example: This week, find one event in the world where advances in technology are being questioned or scientists are being called irresponsible.

4. Math: Have students tweet (or Facebook status update) and then follow the exponential growth of that tweet as it is passed from friend to friend. They can chart the growth over an allotted time period.

In giving Twitter a try, I learned that tweeting removed inhibitions while providing additional time for my students—specifically, my shyer students—to design their responses to our discussions. Both my cheeky little rabbits and my quieter tortoises took more time planning what to write, the end result being better posts and better grades. I would also like to mention that as with any social media site, especially those that are public, caution and etiquette are keys to a successful experience

FACEBOOK

What to assign?

1. English or History: Ask students to create pages for characters from a book you are reading in class and to have conversations, post pictures or videos, and follow the events of the book (via the timeline). I use this with my Hunger Games unit, and my students adore writing as Katniss, Peeta, and Gale! Social studies or history teachers could also assign novels as a complement to their textbooks and require the same.

2. History or Science: Ask students to create pages for scientists or famous historical figures and have conversations, post pictures or videos, or even debate via the timeline. Try having science students create a page for a late scientist and have that figure respond to what is happening in his or her field today. (English teachers could have students select different authors and imagine conversations between them—this would be great to teach tone, diction, and style.)

3. Drama: Have students create a page for the character that they are playing in a production. The characters can interact, and students will have a better understanding of the role that they are playing. Again, tone, diction, and style can be part of the assignment guidelines.

GOODREADS

Many may not be as familiar with this website as with other social media sites. A quick description: Goodreads provides a place where users can catalogue the books that they have read, are reading, or would like to read. Users can write reviews for books, create bookshelves for different genres (or classes or groups), and share their favorite works with the online community. This is a great resource for modeling and promoting independent reading.

What to assign?

1. Ask students to read a certain number of books per quarter or semester, and require them to write a review for each book and post it to the website. This is an excellent way to teach voice and audience (we know that they get tired of writing just to us)! The teacher can receive weekly or daily emails regarding what their students are reading or reviewing.

2. Have students create a bookshelf of books that are relevant to their study in your class and to read reviews to help decide reliability and usefulness to the topic.

3. Create a group and ask students to review each book you’ve listed on the group’s bookshelf; you can also start online discussions on the group’s page!

Now, that I’ve introduced the three sites that I love, I’ll share the two main questions most teachers ask:

1. How do I start?

It’s easy! Go to the website you’ve chosen, make an account. Next, ask your students to make accounts and to follow or friend you. Follow or befriend them. And Go! I would also suggest a rule about not “friending” others outside of the class and making all pages private—this will help control access and privacy; however, in the case of Goodreads, communicating with others outside the class may actually be of greater benefit to your students.

2. How do I evaluate this type of assignment?

Create a rubric which evaluates frequency; quality of their posts, tweets, or reviews; adherence to the assignment guidelines; effort; and creativity. You may also want to consider retweets, friend requests, or other ways that the students interact.

Ultimately, educators have the difficult, if not impossible task, of employing a variety of styles and methods that reach their students, and using a social media extends the classroom discussions and activities outside the walls of the school, providing both the tortoises and hares with a learning environment that inspires creativity and higher order thinking. With our increasingly technologically savvy students, it is getting more and more difficult to keep up with the online trends. But if we can, then our growing children who spend the majority of time online will benefit from it!

Special Thanks to: Jennifer Howard and Randie Johnson, my math/science and English gurus

Photo Credit: Jason Salerno

Should Students Need a Driver's Permit to Cruise Social Media?

Let’s imagine. Your daughter is finally sixteen and you bought her a car for her birthday. As you watch her close the door and fasten her seatbelt, you say those two little words… “Go on.” Now, you and I both know that you didn’t give her any lessons or hire her an instructor. In fact, you forgot to have her take the driving

test.

Is this responsible of you as a parent?

Of course it’s not. It’s ludicrous. But the funny thing is that this is what we are doing with our children and our students. We are giving them the most amazing vehicle—technology, but we are forgetting the importance of safety education and teaching them how to both “drive” these devices and navigate this information highway.

Let’s face it—cruising the web, especially social media, is sometimes as dangerous as driving a car, but prohibiting the use of social media doesn’t stop it; it only makes it more dangerous because it becomes secret. As educators, we must begin to instruct our students in proper driving technique and etiquette.

Speaking of etiquette, those of us in education need to review safe practices as well. Taking the car analogy a step further, most teachers would never find themselves alone in the car with one of their students; in today’s lawsuit-happy world, we should avoid any situation where our word is up against that of a child in our care. And just as we would not get into a car alone with a one of our students, we must not enter into a social relationship online—no private chats, private Facebook messages, or personal non-school related emails. There are ways to interact, yet we must use them carefully and publically. We must be wary and we must be wise. But we also—MUST.

Today, with budget cuts, the internet is one of our greatest resources, especially with textbooks, podcasts, and youtube videos all for free. There’s Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, and so many networking sites that are just waiting to find a place in education. The world is at our fingertips, in our smart phones, tablets, and laptops, and most of us are finding that simple words on blank pages no longer cut it. We are trying to drive our beat-up VW Bus in a stock car race. We aren’t going to win.

The good news is that the racetrack hasn’t changed; education is still about engagement, pure and simple. Students who are interested learn; students who are bored don’t. There is a place for social media in our classrooms, just as there is a place for iPads and smart phones.

The key for us as educators is to balance innovation with safety.

We shouldn’t have to ask who’s driving the VW bus? None of us should be—we need to meet our digital-native students where they learn best. But we also should not have to wonder if the person driving the stock car has a license either—let’s teach our students to drive safely.