There's 30 of them.  They're brand new.  They're desired by the students in a way that nothing else in school is coveted.

And they just...sit there.  

I'm talking about the brand new iPads my friend's school acquired at the start of this school year.

The administration touted its good fortune to the parents. The acquisition of this technology would bring their school into the 21st century; their students would become connected; they'd be competitive among the surrounding schools.

Which is great--if the iPads could actually walk themselves into the hands of a student and be used in a purposeful manner.  (Maybe that's a 22nd-century concept?) 

But see, no one in the administration thought to provide for professional development that could have assisted teachers in learning best practices for iPads in the classroom.  Or even simply arranged for a day for the teachers to share ideas and plans for the iPads for the school year.

So there the iPads sat in their moveable cart, but not moving much at all.

My friend offered to hold an in-service for the teachers, having taken an iPad integration class last summer.  But the administration summarily rejected his idea on the grounds that "the teachers will figure it out on their own.  We shouldn't have to pay teachers their salary AND pay for training."  

True story.  Somehow, it was worth investing $15,000 in iPads but it wasn't worth investing in teacher training.  

In her article "What's Worth Investing In?  How to Decide What Technology You Need," author Tina Barseghian posits that schools need to stop and think about what they need before they purchase it: "We have to be thinking about what’s the goal of using technology. What do we want to have happen?”

Exactly.  What DO we want to have happen?  Simply having the technology in close proximity to the students doesn't make a school a 21st century one.  Semantically speaking, ALL schools are 21st century schools, right?

Welcoming the iPads into the school didn't make students better learners, nor did it make them more tech-savvy.  

To quote my sons: "Duh."  

Osmosis works only at the cellular level.

Technology for technology's sake doesn't work.  We need to establish goals for our students, for our curriculum, and for our teachers before we make the purchases.  And in most cases, the money could be better spent on helping our teachers to integrate already-existing technology into the curriculum.  I've talked to WAY too many teachers who don't integrate technology simply because it's coming at them faster than they can keep up, and no one seems to be interested in helping them do so.  Which means...maybe there are a lot of us faking it out there?

On his list of the Top 10 Ways to Fake a 21st Century Classroom (which is both hilarious and disturbingly accurate, by the way), Terry Heick puts "Buy iPads" at #6: "If it’s a 21st century learning environment you’re looking for, a classroom full of students pinching and zooming on little glass rectangles will give it to you in spades."  

Pretty accurate observation, Mr. Heick.
​
I've never understood the whole concept of "fake it until you make it." How about we learn before we do?  Isn't that what we tell our students?  Isn't that expected in ANY century of learning?

I've seen a recent (and hopeful) trend in local school districts, and that's the hiring of technology/instructional coaches.  It's a slow-moving trend, but I hope it's on an upward swing.

Because if we don't invest in our teachers, we're certainly not making an investment in our students.  

Or in their 21st century learning.  

And that rings pretty false to me.

image via Flickr

Of all the things I teach with regard to the research process, teaching students how to avoid plagiarism is probably the most challenging.  

As edtech blogger Med Kharbach notes, with the "boom in digital technology, plagiarism  has been elevated to the ranks of serious epidemics. In academia it gets even worse. More students are growing dependent on copy paste culture."

He's right.  Our digital natives, having known only the Internet their whole lives, see absolutely nothing wrong with copying and pasting information from the Internet and into their word-processing document.  Of course, they don't yet understand the consequences of their actions because they don't really take it seriously.  Can "borrowing" someone else's words be considered a crime?  Simply put, yes, I tell my students as I share with them plagiarism's clear definition.  If caught plagiarizing, I explain to the my students that, at best, they'll receive a failing grade for their hard work; at worst, a failing grade for the class, suspension, or even expulsion.  

I save the plagiarism lesson for the end of the unit, right before I take the reins off the kids and let them get started on their research project.  After devoting five-plus lessons to proper research techniques (understanding copyright, fair use, and public domain; citing sources; evaluating websites, and keyword searching), we finally arrive at discerning the subtle differences among summarizing, paraphrasing, and quoting.

With younger students in 4th and 5th grades, understanding the pitfalls and dangers of plagiarism can be an abstract concept, which is why I use this simple and age-appropriate lesson from Common Sense Media called "Whose is it, Anyway?"

For students in grades 6-8, however, fully and clearly understanding what plagiarism is and how it can--even if you're unknowingly guilty of it--have lasting and deep-reaching consequences, is a necessary skill.  The need to break the kids of the "copy-and-paste" mentality before they get to high school is critical.  So here's how I approach the concept for students in grades 6-8:

Research Chunk #5
Paraphrase, Summarize, or Quote?

Pre-Class (aka "flipping the classroom")

1. Watch this video about paraphrasing & summarizing.
2. Test yourself by Paraphrasing Topic Sentences.  Complete the interactive only once and then email me your score!
3. Practice summarizing by doing these three activities. 

In-Class

1. Summarizing, Paraphrasing, Quoting: What's the Difference?  (see image below)
2. Incredible Shrinking Activities: Paraphrase, summarize, & quote this passage and using the "Incredible Shrinking Notes" idea from Randy Seldomridge's blog.

Post-Class (homework)

1. Review what we learned today by watching "Paraphrasing: What You Need to Know"
2. Practice: Do the Paraphrase Craze interactive.
3. Continue working on your note-taking for your research paper.  For each source used, submit (1) summary, at least (5) paraphrases, and (2) quotations.
4. As you research, remember to cite your work!

This is the lesson plan that has worked for me.  I've tweaked it over the years.  Of course, you may want to tweak it for your own use, so here are some other resources you might want to review for use in your classroom:

• Paraphrase Examples from the Purdue OWL
• Quoting, Paraphrasing, & Summarizing from the Purdue OWL
• Plagiarism tutorial from Simon Frasier University
• Plagiarism quiz from Simon Frasier University
• Plagiarism scavenger hunt for middle school students
• Top sites for teaching students about plagiarism
• Plagiarism video from Common Craft
• Citation video from Easy Bib

If the students still feel the need to plagiarize, the following are some free plagiarism checkers for teachers:

• The Plagiarism Checker
• Plagiarisma

And, finally, students will need to cite their work, as I've discussed in a recent post.  Luckily, in this day and age, they've got a plethora of bibliography generators to do it for them:

• Ottobib
• Citation Machine
• BibMe
• EasyBib

One final note: the image below is something I created on my own, but it's loosely based on an image a colleague forwarded to me about a year ago.  If anyone out there knows the origin of the image, please let me know ASAP so I can give that person credit...I don't want to be guilty of plagiarizing!

image above via BLaugh

If you follow me, you know I've been blogging lately about my research unit for grades 4-8.  

​Because it's such a time-consuming yet very important process, I like to take it slooooowwwly with the kids.  

All too often there's just not enough time to go through the painstaking process of teaching our students the logical, organized, and linear method of properly conducting the research process.  I think we've all assumed at one time or another--and I've been guilty of this myself!-- that our students know enough about Googling things to figure it out for themselves, or we've (sort of) addressed the issues--plagiarism, citing, etc.--as they arose.

I cannot stress enough the need to allow you and your class time to properly follow the necessary steps of the research process.  I myself like to "chunk" the process into manageable steps: understanding copyright, fair use, and public domain; citing sources; evaluating websites; keyword searching; and avoiding plagiarism (to be addressed in a future post).  

Today, I'd like to address keyword searching.  Obviously, with the Common Core State Standards stressing critical-thinking skills, reasoning, and evidence collection skills, it makes sense to teach the research process instead of simply assigning a research project.  Our students are going to be expected, as mandated by the CCSS, to "gather relevant information from multiple print and digital sources; assess the credibility of each source; and quote or paraphrase the data and conclusions of others while avoiding plagiarism and providing basic bibliographic information for sources" (CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.6.8).

Keyword searching, then, is important for gathering "relevant information."  And frankly, it saves a lot of time when done correctly, and that's usually how I sell it to my students--who resent having to do research in the first place, anyway! 

I also like to use the Internet to my advantage: there are others before me who've created some amazing lessons to teach students how to conduct a proper keyword search, so why reinvent the wheel?  


Research Chunk #4
Effective Keyword Searching

1. When my colleagues ask me for online resources related to the research process, I always direct them to this incredibly helpful video from the Teaching Channel: "Improving Research Skills with Effective Keywords."  The teacher in the video, Olga Ramos, uses some fun and interesting scaffolding strategies with her students to help them identify and use precise vocabulary to improve Internet searches.  You could certainly adapt these ideas for use in your classroom.  
2. If I'm teaching keyword searching to students in grades 4-5, I like to borrow the ideas found at the Common Sense Media website.  This is a simple introductory lesson that shows strategies to increase the accuracy of keyword searches.  As a cooperative learning activity--or homework--assign this activity from ReadWriteThink.
3. For students in grades 6-8, I use this lesson plan from the New York Times Learning Network, specifically the Warm-Up and Activity.  If time permits, and depending on skill level, I like to accomplish the final activity described, creating a page "for a class guide, in booklet or wiki form, on how to use Internet search engines effectively for research, to be made available to the school community to help other students."  The students enjoy the creativity aspect of it as well the authoritative aspect of it.
4. Of course, it's always beneficial to go right to the source, so I've been exploring the lesson plans found at the Google Search Education site and developed by Google Certified Teachers and the Search Education team.  Lessons are categorized as basic, intermediate, and advanced, so they can be tailored to the abilities of your different classes.  Keep in mind, however, that these lessons are Google-specific, so if you're using Bing or Yahoo!, then this site may not be for you.

For fun and daily practice, I LOVE this site, A Google a Day.  Google provides the question, and you provide the answer, applying your newly-developed keyword search techniques!  You could make this a competition for your students, and they'd love it.  It's pretty addictive!  
If you're interested in having your students complete research modules on their own, then read this.  Finally, they can Google like a boss with this handy cheat sheet.

This is what I do in the classroom.  What have you tried that works?  Please share your ideas and suggestions.  I'm always ready to try something new!

Image via Pixabay

As I mentioned in a previous post, I'm currently teaching my research unit to students in grades 4-8, and past experience has taught me the benefit of "chunking" the research procedure into bite-sized, manageable pieces for my kiddos.  

After we complete our opening lesson on copyright, fair use, and public domain, and since the idea of giving credit where credit is due is still fresh in their minds, we next dovetail into our lesson on citing sources.

While it may seem out of sequence--as most teachers address plagiarism and paraphrasing before anything else--I like to teach citations before we tackle the concept of note-taking.  As I just mentioned, it's a natural extension of the copyright lesson and the idea of resisting the temptation to take what's not yours.  I also think it sets the precedent that citing sources as you find them is crucial.  All too often, students find information, note it, and then move on.  Then, the works cited page becomes an afterthought--something they'll assemble when the research paper is finished.  As we all know from experience (having made that same mistake ourselves when we were young and dumb), this is a baaaaad idea.  Trying to locate research sources after the fact is like trying to herd cats: you'll end up frustrated, angry, and wondering why you even tried in the first place.  

Most of you will agree that source citation is a very abstract and outdated idea to our students, and trying to make it relevant to them goes over like a pregnant pole-vaulter.  (I'm really full of figurative language today.  Sorry.)  More often than not, student demand to know why anyone would care or even want the minutia of the details involved in citation.  However, saying, "Because that's the way it's done" isn't the most clarifying of answers, and that's why you might want to read this extremely helpful post by K-M the Librarian.  She makes the analogy that citations are the addresses where the resources reside, and without them, the reader is left with a set of very unclear directions.  

Of course, if that analogy doesn't work, I always kindly point out to my students that if I can't read their "address" and get to the correct destination, then it will most definitely affect my "rating" of their "mapping" services.  That always seems to drive home the point. :-)

Research Chunk #2
How to Teach Citation of Sources

1. Before you do anything, have students come to class with some understanding of the citation process.  Assign this short video for homework the night before you teach the lesson.
2. In class the next day, provide a brief quiz to show student understanding of the material.
3. Share with  students this SlideShare presentation by K-M the Librarian in which she uses the address analogy to explain the importance of citing sources.  (If you can't access the slideshow from the link above, view it directly from her site.)
4. Show this sample of an MLA Works Cited page and discuss with students, clarifying and taking questions.
5. Teach students how to use EasyBib, an online citation maker.  Walk them through a few examples with different media.
6. If time permits, there's a great hands-on activity to try called Conquer Citation Chaos Kits.  This could be used to have students show a cursory understanding of citations.
7. If you have the facilities and the technology to do so, this lesson plan from EasyBib works great for students in grades 6-8.  I have the teams travel with a laptop in which they've created and saved a Word document to be used as their works cited page.
8. For students in grades 3-5, this lesson plan from Common Sense Media provides a less overwhelming overview of the process of citing.
9. And because I'm a big fan of the game-ification of education, I love to play MLA Master Blaster with the students to round out the lesson.  We do it together so I can check for understanding.
10. For individual practice, students can play MLA Drag and Drop with a partner.
11. They can also practice and learn on their own with Citation Tic Tac Toe.  I encourage students to continue playing until they've learned from their mistakes and mastered the formatting questions.  Click the "Click to Play" button to get started.
12. For homework, assign a website, a book, and a magazine article for students to cite using EasyBib.   Direct them to put this list of sources into proper citation style format for a bibliography/works cited page by using this reference guide or their citation style guides. They should create their own works cited page from the information provided.
13. Citing online images is just as important as citing reference works, too, so a separate mini-lesson should be imparted in that regard, and this again is a natural extension of the first "chunk" of this unit.  If you scroll down to the "Picture Citations" heading on this site, students will get a clear idea of what information they should record.  Show students how to search for fair use images using this helpful, informative guide from Google.  An image interactive from EasyBib will help them cite their web graphics.  To make it easier on my students, I direct them to visit my Symbaloo site with a plethora of links to public domain websites for images, video, and audio.
14. When all is said and done, after the research has been compiled and just before students submit their final work, I have them complete this citation checklist.
15. Remind your students to keep a running works cited document in Word as they research and to immediately copy and paste the bibliographic information from EasyBib as soon as they record a note from a source.

Like anything, this is going to take practice, so be patient with yourself and with your students.  Students have quite a bit of trouble citing their sources (or even remembering to) because they're not familiar with citation style guides, and because they haven't had much practice.  To ease their stress, it's not a bad idea to collect and comment on their works cited rough drafts in the middle of the research process so that they can make the necessary corrections and learn from your feedback.

I'm always open to new ideas when it comes to how to teach citation to students, so if you have any resources that work for you, please share!

Image via LiMSwiki

I was having coffee the other day with a high school math teacher and a "civilian" friend.  Joe and I were lamenting our most recent professional development experiences.  

​You've been there, too: spending hours sitting and watching a PowerPoint presentation but never really getting to do anything.  Nothing really learned, and certainly nothing gained.  Our friend, being in business, couldn't believe that, especially in education, professional development could go so terribly awry.  

And then I showed him this recent viral video about a professional development session for Chicago teachers being, in a word, infantilized by an educational consultant.  He was dumbfounded.  Joe and I weren't.  While we'd never endured something as humiliating as our Chicago counterparts had, we had, mostly, experienced less-than-professional development.  

Professional development needs to be better.  It needs to be more about development.  And it certainly needs to be more professional. Blogger A.J. Juliani, a  K-12 Technology Staff Developer, believes that PD "has to start with a quick win," and a quick win is something that will help teachers accomplish the following:

1. Improve Instruction
2. Save Time
3. Actively Engage Students

As Juliani states, these three items provide a win for teachers and students.  As for the quick part, teachers should be able to accomplish the above during one professional development session.  

He's right.  Something productive should come from a workshop.  

I'm looking forward to an edcamp I'll be attending in May.  As I've discussed in a previous post, edcamps are UNconferences where teachers create the content and collaboration among teachers drives the process.  They're gaining in popularity--mostly because they work.  
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And because they provide a "quick win" at the end of the day.  

And because they put the professionals in charge of their own development.

Edcamps are just one way to remodel professional development.  What is something you've experienced that's worked for you? 

image courtesy of Can't Scare A Teacher