Technology as the Classroom

     For my blog of choice, I would like to tell everyone about the cognate class I am involved in this semester. Primarily, I was intrigued by this course because of the topic of content. It is a course on the Arab-Israeli Conflict (AIC). As I grew up going to a private Jewish school, I thought I would be extremely well-versed on this topic but I acknowledged that there would be areas in which my knowledge would be lacking. To my surprise, I was lacking an EXTREME amount of knowledge and I was shocked at how little I actually knew. So far, this course has opened my mind to new thoughts and emotions regarding this conflict, because I have been enlightened by new knowledge and points of view. I realized I had previously held very biased beliefs, and I am thrilled to find out that I feel like I am understanding "the whole story."

     I don't think this feeling of relief would come if AIC were a typical class. If I were to sit in a classroom for 3 hours a week being lectured on various historical events, different points of view, and sometimes engaged in debates, I think I would find myself even more deeply embedded in my biased views and feelings. However, this is not a typical class. I do not get lectured for three hours a week. In the beginning, I had to do a lot of reading and research to make sure I was on top of my knowledge. Once I crossed the very beginning of that long bridge of knowledge, which would take the entirety of my life to completely sort out, I entered the world of classroom simulation.

     AIC is a class where graduate students at the University of Michigan partner with high school and middle school classrooms from all over the country (and Canada) to engage in a simulation to deeper the knowledge and understanding of the Arab-Israeli conflict for all students involved. Students are each given the role of a diplomat to "act in" for the remainder of the semester. There are 18 countries per "world" with up to five members acting for one country (3 diplomats and 2 overseeing governmental figures). Graduate students are paired together, and each pair govern a world. The pair of graduate students act as the NSA, Game Mentor, and Ban Ki-Moon for their world of diplomats.

     First, diplomats are required to complete a Strategic Goals Statement (SGS) for their country to be edited with and approved by the NSA, or in this case, me. The SGS will note a countries main goals, countries of importance to goals, and unwanted outcomes for the duration of the game. Once approved, diplomats can begin to interact with diplomats of other countries. In some cases, those diplomats may be their best friend who shares a classroom with them. In other cases, those diplomats may be unknown students who live across the country. These diplomats can communicate by way of private message. Just last week, I found a private message from Fatah to Hamas titled "Happy To Be Bros." ... Obviously, some students are still learning the premise of the simulation. Diplomats are also encouraged to write press releases, which once approved are visible by all other diplomats, and action forms. An action form details what the problem the country would like to act on is, and four actions the country could take to solve that problem (invasion of another country, impeachment of an officer, UN vote, etc.). Once the action form is submitted, the game mentor chooses one of the provided four actions, and makes it happen.

     Nothing is, however, as it seems. A country could call for a vote to the UN and end up with a giant backlash of an UN vote failure and shame smeared across the media. Each week, the game mentor sends out an "in the news" update (which summarizes three press releases published that week) and sometimes a "news flash" update (which lets diplomats know when an action has been taken). These updates are written from a slanted media angle, which examines what a diplomat was thinking when they wrote certain things, and sometimes accuses diplomats of certain ways of thinking that may never have crossed their mind though they are consistent with the press release.

     Needless to say, this is one of the most unique classes, both for the high school/middle school students and myself. As a future teacher, I love knowing that I am having an impact on the learning taking place in classrooms right now! I think this class is a great way for students to get involved with real-world events, while interacting with others and using technology. Students have already become very active within our world, and I can tell that things are just cooking up. I would love to hear responses from other classmates who are involved in AIC or the oddysey simulation course (i think?) to hear about your experiences so far. If you are not in one of these courses, please reply back with your initial thoughts/comments and/or questions and I would love to read them and get back to you.

As always, neither my AIC class nor this blog would be possible without the help of a wonderful faculty member, Jeff Stanzler. So happy to be in two of your classes this term. Thank you for teaching me about technology, teaching, and the world at large! Happy to be bros.

Tech. in My Placement

     Back in the day, I had to walk three miles to school in the snow without any gloves or shoes on - you have nothing to complain about! This was the message I heard when I (often) complained to my parents/grandparents about going to school. Now, I would like to relay this same message to current high schoolers but change the message a little. In my mind it would go something like this:

"Back in my day, the only technology my teachers had were overhead projectors that could only function with laminates!"

     Though 2009 doesn't seem like too long ago, returning to high school twice a week seems like I am returning to an entirely different world than the one I left five years ago. While I know powerpoint existed during these four years, even that was hardly used in my classrooms. I truly only remember teachers using laminates as their form of technology integration, if any. At the point, using a whiteboard was considered technologically advanced, and many of my teachers wrote elaborate notes before school on their boards and kept them on there throughout the day.

        I am currently a teaching intern at Salem High School which is one of three high schools in the Plymouth-Canton Educational Park. With a student population of 6,000+, the Park is striving to become a leader in technological innovation in the classroom. In all of the classrooms I have been in, the teachers have utilized multiple forms of technology throughout their lesson. Teachers still use powerpoint, but some also use prezi, quizlet, conjugaimos, or polleverywhere. Both of my mentor teachers assign repetitions on quizlet or conjugaimos for homework to help students learn their new vocabulary/grammatical structures. Classes are often taken to the computer lab (There are 4 in Salem in alone) in order to work during class-time. If the computer lab is not available, or teachers want to stay in their classroom, it is possible for teachers to rent the iPad cart, and gain a full class set of iPads throughout the day. If something happens to go technologically wrong, have no fear, for a tech expert is available in each school throughout the park. 

     Perhaps more interesting than individual teachers efforts to include technology into the curriculum is the district effort to do so. Currently, teachers have a mix of different TVs, projectors, and smartboards. Coming within the next few years, every teacher will have a large, flatscreen, interactive TV in their room. This functions like a smartboard, but is portable. Teachers were shown some of the main features of this new TV during professional development in August. Additionally, the distract got a grant to fund a google chromebook for every student at the park. By the end of this year, all freshman will have a chromebook, and incoming grades will get them for the next three years until everyone in the school has one available to them. The district is doing this in an effort to give each student equal access to technology, and to have a one-to-one initiative in each classroom.

     While I think this is a fantastic idea to work towards, there are many implications of these new technology devices and not all of them are positive. Beginning with the TV... Many teachers at the park received smartboards about five years ago. They were installed in the rooms and teachers were told they would be trained on them soon. Five years later, the "soon" never came. Many teachers figured out how to use their smartboards with advice from friends, colleagues, and google, but many are still unsure. Of those who have figured out how to use the smartboard, they admit that there are features they do not know how to use and if they did, they would use them within the class. This is part of the problem I forsee happening with the TVs. The "training" teachers received at professional development lasted about 15 minutes, and teachers were not able to play with it themselves, only see a demo. I feel that these TVs could be so great within the classroom, but will not be very beneficial if teachers are unsure how to use them. Also, their sheer size is a bit intimidating. As of right now, there are about 35 students crammed into every class with hardly any wiggle room. A portable large device like this will need somewhere to live in the classroom and I'm unsure where that will be. 

     Moving on to the chromebooks. I feel that giving every student a notebook with internet access is a great way to increase the equity within schools. Additionally, I feel that it is necessary in this school district. World language classes only have one set of textbooks per classroom teacher. This means that no student has a copy at their home. If there is homework or reading in the textbook, or even if a student wants to review what they have learned, they need to log-on to the online textbook. For a student without a computer, this is not possible. This issue will be resolved with chromebooks, and assigning bookwork for homework will be more accessible for world language teachers. However, and there is always a however, these chromebooks only work with internet access. The entire computer is a web browser and without internet the thing is basically obsolete. A student can't even type a paper in microsoft word type document without internet on the computer. For the student whose family can't afford a computer, my bet is they can not afford internet either. Yes, that student could go to a library or coffee shop that has free wifi, but is that really the message we want to send to students? Is it safe for students to be at places like McDonalds late into the evening to accomplish their homework? Some of these students may be freshman who would have to walk home afterwards. While I think that these computers will really help under-priviledged students, I see the downfalls of this system as well. 

     Lastly, since the district knows that their entire student/teacher population will soon have google chromebooks, which utilize wireless internet, the district has not upgraded the bandwidth on its "normal" (non-wifi) internet. Teachers who want to utilize their smartboards to project internet sites like polleverywhere or youtube must use the school computer which uses "normal" internet because of the cable connector. At this point, the non-wifi internet speed is so slow it is almost non-functional. Since it will be nearly four years until all students have chromebooks, and all teachers have portable TV/smartboards in their rooms, this problem will continue to get worse and worse. While I see that the future may hold a bright light and hope for new possibilities, I wonder how much damage that will do in the present.

     I feel lucky to teach in a district that is dedicated to technological advancement, I just wonder how much thought was put into these new tools aside from "YAY! COOL! NEW TOOLS!" This thought exists when I look at many districts, and I worry about the danger of the appeal of new tools vs. the reality of how they will actually function.