Leading From The Heart

by Tracy Rosen, teaching & consulting since 1996, blogging about it here since 2007. All views are my own and you should take them with a grain of salt, I do.

Category: Tech

  • Why I don’t believe in putting marbles into jars

    Anna Palmer was not happy with my recent review of Marble Jar. She wrote a rebuttal to the review here and it led me to ponder the underlying reason for my dissatisfaction with it.

    In my review I focused on the technical aspects – for an app that advertises itself as being iPad ready it really isn’t though I imagine it works as it should on the iPhone – and touched on its added value as an app, which I felt was small as it doesn’t do anything a real container and marbles can do.

    The more Anna tries to show me workarounds for the technical difficulties via blog comments and the more she tries to point me towards others who gave her positive feedback about Marble Jar on twitter, the more I feel as if I am being told – look, you made a mistake with your review. See, other people like it! The way I see it, it’s ok for me to not like the app and it’s ok for others to like it. A review is based on a variety of things, a big one being opinion.

    Let me give you some background as to how I formed my opinion – the underlying reasons for my dissatisfaction with Marble Jar. Fundamentally, they point towards my essential beliefs to do with teaching and learning: the appropriate use of technology to enhance learning and the fostering of logical consequences rather than reward systems.

    The appropriate use of technology to enhance learning
    What do I mean by that? Some of the answer touches on a recent question I posed around using technology with children. In that post, I described how unsettled I was by my young son’s vacant gaze as he stared at a slide show in a waiting room. I was reminded of that in a comment to my review of Marble Jar, “As we know, for better or worse, kids love the screen.” If the only reason we are using something is due to its technological novelty it will soon lose its glamour. I still do not see how tapping virtual marbles into a jar on a screen can enhance learning about goal setting. As I conclude in my post (and comments) about children and tech, it is essential for me to ensure that technology is used purposefully, mindfully, and not merely for the wow factor. For me, technology is about making connections in ways that we otherwise can not. This app simply doesn’t do that.


    The use of logical consequences and external reward systems
    At the heart of this app is the setting of goals and the actions that are necessary to achieve the goals: essentially a behaviour modification program based on action and reward – an example given on the app’s website is if I brush my teeth x amount of times I will be able to go on a camping trip. This is no different than using real jars of marbles (or stickers on a chart or any other tracking system) in which I don’t believe, either. Why does a child have to perform unrelated activities in order to earn the right to go camping(or whatever their goal is)? And what does marbles (or stickers) have to do with it? The consequence of brushing your teeth is that you’ll have good oral hygiene and has nothing to do with camping. These are not logical consequences and don’t jive with my belief system around that. Motivation theories all point towards the concept that in order for real change to happen motivation needs to be intrinsic – coming from inside. When we try to get people (kids) to do certain actions while holding an unrelated goal as a carrot, we are more often than not either a) disappointed that the child gave up before achieving their goal and/or b) not teaching anything transferable about motivating oneself to achieve anything. Indeed, the child is working for the reward and each subsequent reward often needs to be bigger and better for the child not to get tired of it. Again, no logical connection between the what (brushing the teeth) and the why (going camping), and certainly not the how of it all (putting virtual marbles into a virtual jar).

    Having written all of this I know that there are many people who do believe in the use of external reward systems to get all kinds of things done. For them, this app may very likely be useful. For me, based on my beliefs around learning, it isn’t.

    I’d love to hear what others think about this!

  • Marble Jar: A review of the new goal setting app

    A representative from Marble Jar sent me an email about 2 weeks back asking if I could review their new app for the iPhone and iPad. After a bit of back and forth getting me a promo code for the app and my little holiday to beat the heat with Jack in my parents’ air conditioned home, I am back at home and ready to write the review.

    I’m writing this as I play with the app on my iPad. I don’t have an iPhone so this review will focus on the iPad experience.

    It’s disappointing that the app is optimized for use on the iPhone as opposed to the iPad. As such, it is a phone sized display on a black background, the text input is phone sized as well. I evidently need to cut my nails as I kept hitting the wrong letters while logging in. It also does not change orientation. My preferred iPad orientation is landscape and it is only offered in portrait.

    Creating an account is an easy process and once logged in, I am taken to my ‘shelf’ where there are already some jars with example goals, such as ‘calm mom’ and ‘morning routine’ to inspire my own goals. These can be edited or I can add a new jar if I need to.

    marble jar

    At the bottom of the app screen, there are 3 icons – tips, add jar, and settings. Tapping on ‘tips’ brings me to a screen where I can learn how to use the app. I’m not sure if this is because of the iPhone size on iPad or not but when I tap on any of the 3 options: ‘Parenting on Track’, ‘Using Marble Jar’, or ‘Setting up a Jar’, I am only provided with a partial ‘tip’, it ends in mid-sentence and no amount of tapping or scrolling gets me any more info. The ‘Shake to Refresh’ instruction doesn’t seem to work either. I’ve given this iPad shakes ranging from the delicate to the hardy and nothing refreshes.

    I suppose I could go to the website to find out how to use it but I really shouldn’t have to.

    So I start to play around with adding a jar and creating goals and actions. It is pretty easy to figure out, though it took me 2 tries to realize that I could slide a slider to a max of 30 to require more than one marble to fill my marble jar :) Once a jar is filled, there is a little audio celebration.

    And that is pretty much it. All in all – not a great app for the iPad as

    a) it doesn’t seem to work properly (missing parts of tips, no shake to refresh action)
    b) it is really too small for the iPad.

    The overall concept of creating goals with actions to achieve those goals is a nice one. I can see some kids really liking the idea of getting to put a marble into a virtual jar on their parent’s phone as an action is achieved as opposed to having to wait until they got home to a real life marble jar. However it is too easy to put in more than one marble by accident (I did it twice while playing with it just now) and a real, physical jar of marbles (or bag of marbles if one wants to keep it in a purse) that we can touch and see is more motivating. Kids like to touch and hold. It makes the attainment of goals more tangible.

    So all in all, I’m not a huge fan of this app and won’t be using it. But you should play with it for yourself, it may be for you. It will cost you $2.99 in the iTunes app store, link at the top of the page.

  • Guest Post: Web-Based Assistive Technologies are Expanding the World for All Users

    Lindsey Wright writes for the education resource OnlineSchools.org She has written a piece for Leading from the Heart on how web-based assistive technologies can bring us closer to equal access to education.

    Thanks, Lindsey :)

    **please note, the points in this article are based on US law concerning peoples with disabilities.**

    Web-Based Assistive Technologies are Expanding the World for All Users

    Although the law requires it, few educational programs provide truly equal access to resources. This means that individuals with a variety of disabilities are missing out on programs from which they might derive a great deal of benefit. I have found this to be especially true in regard to web-based programs.

    In many ways the Internet has revolutionized the educational process. Nowadays it is possible for students to attend an online school  across town or even on the other side of the planet. This allows all sorts of educational institutions to keep enrolment numbers up and even provides these schools with more revenue. The downside is that few of these web-based distance learning programs offer any kind of reasonable accessibility for learners with disabilities ranging from blindness to mobility issues.

    Although most online classes are offered at a college level, I can make the argument that children who require assistive technology to keep up in elementary and secondary school also tend to get short shrift when it comes to web-based courses that could, with just a few minor adjustments, become the sorts of programs that encourage inclusiveness for all students.

    The reason that many students with disabilities have difficulty using web-based learning resources is that these tools are often not designed with these students in mind. This lack of planning leads to what are better know as gratuitous barriers. These barriers are a feature of programs that serve no particular purpose, yet effectively bar students with disabilities from using them.

    However, if a few small adjustments are made it can become easy for students with various impairments to engage in online learning. For instance, including an equivalent audio program for students with reduced sight capabilities might quickly and easily transform a relatively inaccessible program into a viable alternative. Additionally, designing online courses that feature text sizes that can easily be manipulated can benefit not only those students who are sight-challenged, but students who have issues with motor skills as well. Larger text makes it easier to make certain selections. Sometimes the only barrier to a student being able to use a particular program is as simple, basic, and easy to solve as that.

    Online education can be hugely beneficial to all students, increasing each learner’s knowledge base tenfold. Yet for these programs to benefit the largest number of students accommodations must be built in at the beginning stages of development. I firmly believe that this is one of the best ways to ensure accessibility for all learners smoothly and without a great deal of extra expense. For learners who have severe mobility issues, the Internet can provide an especially valuable window on the world. Not only can learners who cannot otherwise attend school have the opportunity to study but they can also make interpersonal connections with other students around the world who may be dealing with similar issues and can share their experiences and knowledge freely.

    More students with motor disabilities are gaining access to specialized keyboards. Many of these keyboards feature larger keys or place them in a variety of configurations to make them eminently usable for a wide range of users. I have also discovered that some users benefit from the use of an onscreen keyboard that they manipulate through the use of a pointer or joystick. Furthermore, other students with sight impairments are being supplied with screen readers that can send internet content to a word synthesizer or a display of Braille. Even students with mild learning disabilities are discovering word completion software and other tools that can help them use the Internet as a powerful learning tool.

    Each of these new technologies breaks down barriers and makes the world accessible through the portal of the Internet. Although some may require extra expense, I have discovered that many of these innovations are already built in to the keyboards most people own or can be downloaded at little or no cost. For instance, users who have relatively new keyboards can turn on certain functionalities like sticky keys, filter keys, and mouse keys that make it easier for users with disabilities to use a regular keyboard. This may not be a reasonable accommodation for all users, but it can certainly benefit a large portion of the population.

    Technologies meant to improve internet access for people with disabilities are developing rapidly and I believe they will continue to do so for many years to come. As the Internet continues to expand its breadth and depth, so too will the accommodations for users with disabilities continue to expand and grow more sophisticated. I believe very firmly that users with all sorts of different capabilities can utilize web-based programs to increase their knowledge and make connections with other learners around the world. It is, I think, the next step to creating a barrier-free planet, where everyone is free to roam wherever their imaginations allow.

  • Looking Back: An Essential Question for EdTech

    As part of my Looking Back series, this post remains as relevant for me and my teaching today as it was when it was written on July 4, 2008. Click on the title below for a link to the original post and comments.

    —

    An Essential Question for EdTech

    Integration

    Integration by me: I realized this painting was ‘done’ when I had integrated colours from the daffodil’s cup into the petals.

    Recently I wrote a post on digital literacy within the wider context of literacy and, in writing, touched on what I realize is central to my own teaching:

    an essential question for educators today is how do we integrate literacies in our students? and in ourselves?

    It is not enough – it really, really isn’t – to advocate for technology in the classroom because it looks good and because others say it is important. A reflective school leader – administrator, teacher, support staff, consultant – will start digging deeper for essential questions around student learning in relation to the use of technology, as well as apply those questions to their own learning.

    I use technology in my teaching because literacy is the central focus for me at all times. “Literacy is about being able to make sense of the world we live in” (Dennis Harter, in comment to my post) and my deepest desire as a teacher is that I help students to begin to achieve this, that I give them the tools with which they can make sense of their/our world.

    I use a mashup of communication tools in my teaching, from word processing, to podcasting, to text readers, to visual editors, to blogging, to wikis, to debate, to improv, to (perhaps the most important) simple conversation. I do this because each of these tools can help different students make sense of the vast amount of information that is available to them in different ways. This is essential because each of my students need the opportunity to discover the tools that work best for them and I recognize that these are not necessarily the tools that work best for me.

    If I did not use technology in my teaching I would be going against all that I stand for as a teacher.

    That being said, if I return to my essential question from above, I need to stress that using tech to improve literacy is only part of the picture, part of the system. Literacy is a complex system made up of many and diverse components.

    I am moving more toward thinking about how my job is really to assist students in integrating their literate selves. In doing so, I need to recognize and honour the role(s) played by different technologies in their learning and in my own. That is essential for me.

    (this post was inspired by this one)

  • The philosophical bubble of technology in education

    Living in a Bubble – Viviendo en una Burbujaa, 2006
    Living in a Bubble – Viviendo en una Burbujaa, 2006

    I recently wrote a small blog post on BlogHer about using technology in the classroom. Of the 3 comments it received, 2 of them were from concerned parents. They were concerned with how students are encouraged to type on a computer rather than work on their writing skills.

    These comments mirror those made by some parents of my students in the past. For them, using technology in the classroom means using a computer as a word processor to eliminate messy work.

    Think about that for a bit.

    As educators we debate about whether or not using technology in our classrooms is a must on a philosophical level while some of our parents (and indeed teachers, too, but that is another matter) see it as an add-on to the curriculum. An add-on that could easily be done away with at times.

    To be clear, I do not think that to teach without ‘technology’ (I still cringe when I type that word. It means way too many things!) is necessarily a bad thing. Using technology (ugh) is one way of developing collaborative, thoughtful students with critical thinking skills. They are other ways (Yes! I said it!) but when we do use technology in our classrooms, how are we communicating with our students’ parents about why and how we use it to enhance learning in our students?

    I wrote a post about it for BlogHer as a way of bridging the gap between the philosophical bubble we have created as educators and those outside of it:

    What exactly do we mean by using technology in education?