Read this article and watch the attached video and you will know in your bones that it is time to disrupt the current way we handle education in the US, and that technology is going to lead the way.
You will come away excited and ready!
And then you will look at the article's date. July 12th, 2012. Over two years ago. Look at that and it is easy to feel discouraged. "We were ready to change things! We were excited and energized! And nothing happened. Maybe this EdTech revolution isn't really going to happen."
Emerging technologies are fraught with revolutionary promise and often seem to fall short of their potential. The Gartner Hype Cycle was created to help put the hype of new technologies in the context of their actual viability.
Take a look at 2014's Emerging Technologies Report. Gamification, Content Analytics, and Big Data have all been talked about as being a big part of the EdTech revolution. They're all making their way into the (delightfully ominous-sounding) Trough of Disillusionment while concepts like virtual reality and activity streams are making their way up the Slope of Enlightenment.
The take-away is simple: hype builds interest, interest builds potential, and potential builds revolution. That these calls to disrupt education are two years old does not diminish their merit. They simply need consistent standard bearers to shepherd them along.
Welcome to everyone who found me through @eSchoolNews on Twitter. I've been off doing some work for a non-EdTech company for the past two years, but EdTech and Gamification remain near and dear to my heart nonetheless.
It would be folly to keep this blog going without directing you to http://gamification.co. They are a huge voice in the industry, and this article outlining their Four Steps to Gamification applies just as strongly to Education Technology as it does to Enterprise applications.
This is a difficult lesson for schools and districts to learn: the implementation of technology does not magically make education (or edtech, for that matter) happen. Technology is simply a tool. Without a clear purpose, the tool will sit, idle.
The linked article outlines some of the basic questions that schools and districts should answer before pursuing a technology solution. Truncated from the article:
1. What are the ultimate goals for student tech proficiency? In the area of technology, what would a well-educated student from your district know and be able to do with technology by the end of 12th grade?
2. How do the various tech devices and tools used throughout the district lead to the proficiencies described above?
3. What professional development will teachers need to be successful in helping students meet the proficiencies described above?
4. What data should be collected to track the progress of our ed tech initiatives?
The article does not touch upon the cultural changes that may be necessary to take full advantage of technology. A traditional math class with a computer in front of every student will be no more engaging. In fact, technology essentially breaks traditional math classes.
Head over to wolframalpha.com, type in "solve x^2+4x=0" and hit "Enter." The system tells you the solution right there. X can equal -4 or zero. That's not much different than having the answers in the back of a math book. That's why teachers ask students to show their work, to prove that they understand the process.
But, just to the right of the "Results" header is a button that says "Show steps." When you click that button, every step between the original equation and the solution is displayed with detailed descriptions of the action taken.
And just like that, the rules of traditional math class are broken by technology.
Technology is not a solution; it is a tool that requires a re-imagining of how curricula are delivered and how classroom content is treated.
Gamification provides a structure for that re-imagining that is focused on student engagement, encourages experimentation and exploration, and rewards not the completion of busy work but the mastery of the ideas that we are working so hard to instill in our students.
The short answer (even after you exclude the written and free-answer portions) is zero. And not just by a little. From the article:
This means that the odds of acing the SAT by guessing are worse than the odds of every living ex-President and every member of the main cast of Firefly all being independently struck by lightning … on the same day.
The full article, with all of the supporting math, is well worth the read. And, while you're there, don't miss the answer to, "What would happen if you tried to hit a baseball pitched at 90% the speed of light?" Nothing good, let me tell you!
Sometimes I feel the same in the world of education, when we challenge the past practices and why we do things the way we do them. Questioning some of our practices in the education world is long overdue. Homework, as a practice to improve learning, textbooks as the holy grail of information, and the reluctance to use modern technology to protect our students.
I agree. Let's ask more questions. Questions are the seeds of open dialog, and dialog is the only way that we will agree to change for the better.
When Mr. Smith and I gamified a 5th grade math curriculum, my ideas included a flipped classroom model. A flipped classroom necessitates change in now lessons and class time are structured. Syded, of http://syded.wordpress.com/, very clearly elucidates one of these obstacles:
There is a problem. It was relatively simple to adhere to a yearly course when delivering content through a variety of mediums. Students could be fairly sure of the lesson structure and the teacher could follow a comfortable pattern. Lesson ideas could be listed and tweaked so existing documents remained relevant. With the iPad and the ‘flipped‘ classroom concept, things aren’t so easy to construct.
This isn't a bad thing in his mind; teachers and administrators need to adjust their expectations rather than finding a way to add structure to this new delivery method:
The wider implication is that, with content delivery outside the classroom, lessons will be ‘messy’ (with thanks to @jamesmichie). I require the flexibility for lessons to go wrong and not to be too concerned.
Yes, school is too easy. The same students who are doing poorly in our K-12 education system think that school isn't challenging enough.
On the surface, that doesn't seem to make sense. If kids aren't doing well in school, why would they want school to be harder?
We are happiest when we are playing at the very edge of our ability. If a game is too easy, people walk away. If a game is too hard, people walk away.
When school is too easy, students disengage. They stop paying attention. They fall behind. And then when they try to catch up later, they're so far behind that the current level of work is too hard. They disengage again.
The difficulty of course work is a key factor in student engagement. Education technology can make it easier for teachers to offer content of varying levels of difficulty, which would help to maintain student engagement in school. We talked about this before when discussing the gamification of 5th grade math. The idea is well-worth repeating.
I have been spending a lot of time as of late thinking about the connections between students, careers, and college. Many of the education technology solutions out there right now take one of two routes:
Tell students that they need to go to college and focus on getting them in to college;
Tell students that they need to pick a career and then work toward that career.
Take, for example, a recent tweet by a random high-schooler, @alisucks.
literally sitting on my computer on naviance searching possible careers to find out what college i should go to
This is, traditionally, how schools, counselors, parents, and ed tech companies approach the question of "what's next." And it doesn't work.
First, no high school student should be expected to pick a career. It isn't possible. High school students do not have enough experience with jobs, or even the world, to begin to intelligently execute that kind of search. Heck, I am 31 years old, have a college degree, a masters degree, and a good amount of work experience under my belt and I still think about what I want to do with my life from time to time.
Second, even if a student could identify the career they wanted to pursue for the rest of their life, is that really the primary criteria they should use when picking colleges?
Third, assuming that the prior two points work out just fine, how does that any of that tie back to a student's high school experience? This work-flow relegates high school to a hurdle that must be overcome, or a box that must be checked, rather than an experience worth having in-and-of-itself.
Let's connect these three pieces by taking a step back and looking at this from a higher level. Start by forgetting careers. Students should figure out what they love doing and focus on that. Careers can wait; students will be happier (and more engaged) if they are learning what they love.
Focus on high-level categories. For example, some students like building. They are Builders. Building plays a part of a wide range of careers and courses of study, from the obvious (sculpting, construction) to the less-so (programming, project management, architecture).
If you ask a high school student if they want to be a project manager you're bound to get a blank stare. They won't know what a project manager is. They will disengage.
If you ask a student if they want to build things, not only will they understand, they will start to think about how they can learn more about that interest. You increase engagement simply by starting with something that a student can understand.
You can use archetypes like "Builder" to help students explore careers and create a "bucket" of careers rather than pick a specific career. Don't make a student choose a specific career; let them create a portfolio of possibilities. Let them refine that portfolio throughout the rest of their lives.
These archetypes and buckets of careers are the key to increasing student engagement and drawing connections between high school, college, and a student's future. With the information contained in this bucket, you can illustrate for students what they need to accomplish in high school and why.
For example, if a student has veterinarian in their career bucket, one of the requirements for high school graduation would be AP Biology. Well, in order to take AP Biology you have to take regular Biology and regular Chemistry. You also need to have a good understanding of math and statistics.
Suddenly math isn't just something that a student has to take; it is a key component of what they have said they want to do. AP Biology is no longer something that a student is taking so they can get into a top-tier university; AP Biology is giving them the foundation to pursue their dreams.
Another student could look at the science and math requirements and quickly realize that it takes more than a love of animals to become a veterinarian. It could help that student realistically evaluate and adjust their expectations. By removing veterinarian from their bucket of careers, that AP Biology requirement would disappear.
Students could experiment, adding and removing careers, tracking requirement changes and honing in on possibilities that are more in line with their interests.
All of this informs their college discussions and decisions. Our student, instead of taking AP Biology to get into a good college, would look for colleges that would allow her to build on her AP Biology experience as she worked toward her ultimate goal. Students would be able to look for colleges that matched the education requirements of the careers in their buckets.
Students would be going through the college search process with goals in mind, rather than going through the process "because college is next."
The bucket of careers means that students are never expected to find their "lifetime" career; they are expected to explore. Exploration and experimentation are key pieces of gamification; we can increase student engagement by rebuilding the "career search" process on these cornerstones.
The bucket of careers also gives students stronger base from which to explore colleges. Their options are not limited; they will be looking for colleges that will help them experiment further. Students will focus on learning about what they love rather than hoping they randomly stumble upon something interesting.
All of this is maintained while increasing the relevance of high school in general, and course selection in particular. By drawing clear connections between a student's bucket of careers and their courses, you help students see that their course work matters. Satisfying work is a key part of why playing games makes people happy. Satisfying work can be a key part of why going to school makes students happy.
Who in their right mind thought that this video would help get women interested in the sciences? As the description states, "This is kind of like putting a croissant next to a circuit board in an attempt to get more French people into electrical engineering."
When people look to flashy lights and stereotypes instead of to proven methods of engagement like gamification I can't help but...
Let's guide students to live more interesting lives
My favorite fiction author is Neal Stephenson. And while I have enjoyed almost every book he has ever written, one stands out as my hands-down favorite: The Diamond Age, or A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer.
It is science fiction in the vein of a Dickensian novel, following the life of a street urchin, Nell, who is taken under the wing of various members of the upper crust of society. Nell is also one of three girls, all of different backgrounds and upbringings, who is given a book, the titular Young Lady's Illustrated Primer. This book, built with nanotechnology, is an interactive and adaptive learning system: the platonic ideal of an individual learning plan and comprehensive curriculum.
The Primer, even in an age of advanced technology, is cutting-edge. More importantly, it was commissioned with a specific goal in mind: intellectually steer its reader toward living a more interesting life.
A more interesting life.
It is too late for him to change his children, so he is determined that his granddaughter not receive the same safe, standard education that he provided his children. The Primer is his solution.
We see examples of this grandfather's concerns and goal everywhere we look today. Look to the innovators. Look to those who have been wildly successful, who have seen the future and dedicated themselves to bring that future to the present. They have not lived normal lives. They have faced hardships. They have taken non-traditional paths. They have done things that no one else has done.
We believe that college is the key to any successful career, but we are surrounded by compelling counter-examples. Steve Jobs dropped out of college. Bill Gates dropped out of college. Mark Zuckerberg dropped out of college.
This isn't a modern phenomenon. Henry Ford was the son of an Irish immigrant who left the family farm to become an apprentice machinist, guiding his own education before being picked up by Westinghouse for his unique skill set. Thomas Edison was kicked out of school for being "addled" and, for a time, sold candy and newspapers to railway passengers to scrape by.
Needless to say, all five of these individuals went on to leave quite a mark on the world. Stephenson's book argues that they were able to leave their marks and so totally alter the world in which they lived because of, rather than in spite of, leading interesting and non-traditional lives.
An interesting life can be the difference between good and great.
The Primer is a fully gamified education tool. The story it tells is based in the lore of traditional fables, using well known archetypes (the trickster, the quest, the hero, the wicked step mother) to tell a sweeping tale starring the reader herself. Through her adventures the reader learns everything from the basics (socially: strangers are dangerous; physically: essential survival skills like fire building and map reading) to complex ideas like economic market forces, computer programming, diplomacy, and teamwork.
The Primer exposes the reader to classic literature and integrates their lessons and analysis into her personal journey. There is no math class or science class. There is no physics or chemistry. There is the organic exploration of the natural world in which the reader lives, driven by goals and obstacles presented along her journey.
The Primer is the ultimate individual learning plan (ILP) coupled with an adaptive, comprehensive curriculum. It can be both teacher and parent/mentor, dedicated wholly to the well-being and education of its reader. It adapts to its reader's abilities, delivering remedial content when necessary, presenting tailored challenges that push the reader to their edge of their ability.
It guides its reader to live a more interesting life, supplementing traditional education with something that is missing from classroom education: adventure.
The technology to build the Primer is that of science fiction. But there is nothing fundamentally insurmountable in the idea. Neil DeGrasse Tyson, famed proponent of space, education, and the sciences, is fond of pointing out that, so long as an idea does not violate the laws of science as we currently understand them, all that stands between it and its realization is hard work and inspiration.
Gamification can help guide students to live more interesting lives. Given the opportunity, I would work to make the Primer a reality.
This is a great, quick article about adapting game show ideas for the classroom. I remember fondly the class periods dedicated to playing Jeopardy! instead of sitting through traditional lectures.
Who Dares Wins is perhaps even better, as it is a team game that entices a stronger sense of direct competition, helping students play at the edge of their abilities while building a social connection with their team. Very cool.
I've discussed and even advocated some of the ideas behind a flipped classroom in previous posts. Granted, this article is clearly pushing the MentorMob U product, but it still touches on some of the key concerns while highlighting useful resources, included Khan Academy and TED-Ed.
This article presents some interesting studies showing a decline in academic rigor in higher education. It goes on to discuss that students plans for the future and amount of education they need are often misaligned.
One eloquent quote:
Although growing proportions of high school graduates are entering higher education, many are not prepared for college-level work and many others have no clear plan for the future. Most American high schools have come to embrace a “college for all” mentality, encouraging students to proceed to higher education regardless of their academic performance.
Gamification in EdTech @afvincent - Tumblr Blog | Tumgag
