Innovative Ideas for Using Cell Phones for Setting Objectives and Providing Feedback

Editor's note: This is just one in a series of posts focused on the nine instructional strategies that are most likely to improve student achievement across all content areas from the book Classroom Instruction That Works by Robert Marzano, Debra Pickering, and Jane Pollock.

Setting objectives and providing feedback engage students in a metacognitive system of thinking. In other words, it provides students with knowledge about how they learn which is an effective instructional tool. Here are some ways that setting objectives and providing feedback can be enriched with the use of cell phones.

• Classroom Practice in Goal Setting
  Research and theory on goal setting indicates that instructional goals narrow what students focus on, should not be too specific, and that students should be encouraged to personalize the teacher goals.
  
• Subject: Science
• Cell Phone Tool: Wiffiti
  
• Topic: The Human Body
  
• Lesson Overview: In this lesson students are studying the human body. Following the research-based strategy outlined in Classroom Instruction That Works, the teacher has provided general targets for students in the unit, but then asks students to personalize their goals. The teacher explains her goal is for them to understand how each of the main organs works individually as well as how they work together as a system. Then, each student develops their personal learning goals for which the teacher provides the sentence starters: "I want to know... and "I want to know more about..."
  
  This is an effective instructional strategy that can be enriched with the use of Wiffiti. To do this the teacher asks the students to text their personal learning goals to the Wiffiti bulletin board she has created for the class. This instantly enables the teacher and the class to see the type of personal learning goals students have. The value of this for students is 1) They may learn from their classmates new ideas to incorporate or ideas to modify 2) They may want to partner up with other students who share similar learning goals. The value for the teacher is that she can instantly get a big-picture view of her classes learning goals and also instantly see goals that may need modification.
  
  Near the close of the unit the teacher can set up a second Wiffiti board where students can share what they learned in relation to their learning goals. Students with similar goals should be encouraged to partner to share their answers. Not only is this beneficial in recognizing the learning of the class, but it also serves as a fantastic review of the unit and can provide for a great discussion prior to the end-of-unit assessment.
  
• How technology enriches the lesson:
  
• Posting learning goals to a Wiffiti board provides a great way to not only share learning goals across the class, but also is a great resource to share with parents/guardians at the start of a unit.
• Sharing learning outcomes on a Wiffiti board provides a great way not only to help the students review what they learned as a class in the unit, but also is a terrific resource to share with parents/guardians at the end of a unit so they are filled in on their child's learning.
  
• For a teacher this is nice because there are no papers to collect and she can see all student goals and learning at a glace.
• For a student this is nice because they can easily learn from one another. Learning is no longer contained to each student only.,
  

• Classroom Practice in Providing Feedback
  Research and theory on feedback indicates that feedback should be "corrective" in nature, timely, specific to a criterion, and that students can effectively provide some of their own feedback.
  
  
• Subject: Social Studies / Environmental Science
  
• Topic: Womens' Studies / A local environmental issue
  
• Cell Phone Tool: Voki
  
• Lesson Overview: This lesson combines both women's studies and environmental science using Voki's to engage students. In the lesson the teacher will let students work in pairs, threes, or fours and students in each group will select one figure they've studied as a part of women's history and will determine how she might help to address a local environmental issue i.e. developing school gardens, addressing the recycling issue in a local school or community, reversing pollution in a local river, pond, stream.
  
  Students will receive guidelines as to what they need to include in their answer and a rubric by which to assess their work. As students think about the environmental issue and select the historical figure, they will create a Voki using their cell phones to record the voice. The Voki will be created as though she was doing a one-minute public address and she will refer to her prior record and experience to explain how she will address today's issue. Because Vokis are designed so that others can comment, they provide a perfect tool for feedback. In this lesson student's, guided by the rubric will be asked to use the rubric to provide feedback on their own Voki (self-reflection), as well as feedback to others in their group (peer review). Ultimately the teacher will also provide feedback on each student's Voki. Students will have an opportunity to re-record their Voki based on the feedback they received. All Vokis will be placed on the page of an online space of the teachers choosing i.e. website, blog, wiki, ning. When all students have completed their projects students will have the opportunity to listen to a variety of ideas for addressing this local environmental issue and can be encouraged to comment on additional Vokis. Upon completion of this project the page can be sent to the person in charge of this project with a message stating something along these lines: "This is how students of our class feel women in history might have addressed this issue. We hope you will be able to incorporate some of these ideas into your work." The person who received this email and page from the school should be encouraged to leave comments on student Vokis. The result, a relevant, real, and meaningful learning experience for students.
  
• How technology enriches the lesson:
• Using a Voki provides a ready-to-go mechanism for students to provide reflective feedback from themselves, and to gather review from their peers. What's nice about this is it can be done anytime anywhere the student is ready to call Voki and enter the passcode associated with their Voki or comment.
• Using a Voki provides a one stop option for teachers to listen to all student's ideas, reflections and peer review in one place.
  
• Voki enables interested parties to access the information anytime/anywhere and respond. Inviting relevant stateholders to the site and encouraging them to comment will provide a meaningful experience for students.
• The Voki page provides a strong home-school communication. It provides parents with a peak into what is going on in the classroom as well as what their students and others are doing. Upon completion of the project student's work can be shared and parents can be given guidelines and encouraged to comment.
  

Cell phones provide an effective way to support students in setting objectives and providing feedback. Stay tuned for future posts featuring other research-based strategies to engage students and increase student achievement.

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Help students manage their digital footprint and effectively participate in social media - 140 Character Conference

I am presenting at The 140 Characters Conference in New York City on April 20th. This event is the largest worldwide gathering of people interested in the effects of the real-time Internet on business, education, and “we” the people. Some of the other speakers include Ann Curry, NBC News (@AnnCurry), Chris Lehmann, Principal of the Science Leadership Academy, (@chrislehmann), Donny Deustch (@Donny_Deutsch), Ivanka Trump (@IvankaTrump), and MC Hammer (@MCHammer).

I will be a part of the Twitter and Education panel and joined by @mbteach, and @kjarret, with @parentella moderating. Specifically I'll be discussing:

1) Teaching Kids how to manage their Digital Footprint
2) Why social media curriculum is critical in schools
3) Ideas for parents interested in helping students manage their digital footprint and effectively participate in social media.

In anticipation of the conference I'm writing about each topic. You can read what I wrote about Teaching Kids to Manage their Digital Footprint here and Why social media curriculum is critical in schools here. For this post I am addressing:

Ideas for parents interested in helping students manage their digital footprint and effectively participate in social media.

As children enter their teenage years they begin participating more and more in online environments and parents are often at a loss for guidelines around how to offer their children support and guidance. In many cases parents may ask their teachers for advice on how to help their children engage effectively in online environments. Here are three simple ideas teachers can share with parents interested in helping students manage their digital footprint and effectively participate in social media.

1. Help teens take control of their digital footprint

2. Help teens determine what their digital footprint says about them
   

3. Connect with others with your passions and interests

1) Have a conversation with teens about taking control of their digital footprint
I was recently at a conference where educators were discussing whether or not teenagers should use their real names online. One of the women in attendance felt strongly that in their teenage years students should begin using their real names. She posed the question, "If we don't take ownership of our digital identity who will?" This is a powerful question and brings to light the concept of active and passive digital footprints.

A 2006 Pew Internet report indicates there are two main classifications for digital footprints: passive and active. A passive digital footprint is created when data is collected about an action without any client activation, whereas active digital footprints are created when personal data is released deliberately by a user for the purpose of sharing information about oneself.

The question becomes, this. Do you want to deliberately be aware of and control what you stand for online or do you want that to be left to others? Parents who agree the teenage years are the right time for students to begin identifying what they stand for and who they are can begin helping their children establish a purposeful digital footprint. Teaching students the lesson of responsibility and accountability early on can result in a future payoff of giving them a name they can proudly stand behind. If we teach a student to automatically think about what their online behavior and words say about what they represent and remind them that their words leave a digital footprint, how might this change how they interact?

It can be very powerful for students to begin developing their identity at this stage of their life and extremely impactful if parents guide and support their children in doing this. But who are your children? What is the message they want their digital footprint to convey? How do they know what it is or should be? How could they find out? The answer to that is in the second idea.

2) Help teens determine what their digital footprint says about them today

Of course the most obvious way to uncover your digital footprint is by Googling yourself. When you do so, what comes up? Once you explore that, decide, is that what I want people to see when they Google me? If it is, terrific. You/your teen is doing a great job. If it's not, think about what it is you want to have appear when someone Googles you. What do you stand for? I asked myself this question two years ago when I started my blog. I decided that I wanted to be the number one topic that came up whenever someone searched for "educating innovatively." To make that happen I began considering and implementing Ideas for Making a Purposeful and Professional Digital Footprint. Now, two years later, I dominate the page for that search term. Work with your child to think about what their defining phrase, statement or idea may be.

Here are some innovative and not-so-obvious ideas for parents exploring the digital footprint of teens who use Twitter or Facebook. Parents and their teens can start exploring their digital footprint with what I call "Recap Apps." Recap apps let you take a look at who you are online in a variety of ways using your words, photos, and updates over a period of time you specify (i.e. the last month, three months, six months, or year). The apps are free and it only takes minute or so to generate each one.

A parent and teen can do this together and discuss what the word clouds, status clouds, or photos say about them. Parents should ask their teen how they feel about this digital footprint. Here are some ideas for questions they may discuss.

• What do they like?
  
• Is there anything they are proud of?
  
• Is there anything they are embarrassed about?
  
• What might they want to change?
  
• What might they do to more effectively represent how they want to be viewed by others?
  

You can find out more more about how to use recap apps in these posts.

• Facebook Recap Apps That Inspire Fun and Personalized Learning in the New Year
• Whachu Talking 'Bout? Find Out with Facebook Status Clouds

3) Connect with others with whom you share passions and interests

Once you help your teen to discover what their digital footprint says about them and they decide they want to take control of it, they'll need to do some thinking about what it is they really stand for. They'll want to explore their interests. In fact, some, like Sir Ken Robinson, would say that perhaps the most important job of a parent or teacher is to support children in discovering these talents, interests, and passions. The internet provides opportunities to do this and connect with others ways never before available.

Watch your child when s/he uses the internet. As Sir Ken suggests, "Kids give you messages." Our job is to watch, guide and listen. He shares that you may be surprised what it is your child loves. "When Olympian Bart Conner's mother noticed he walked on his hands as well as his feet, she noticed, "Hey, he's a gymnast!" "Some are drawn to drawing, some are making music all the time, some love moving around. You have to see and hear the message your child is sharing and encourage it because when you find your talent your whole life changes." Finding your talent gives students, "purpose, meaning and fulfillment" and what more could a student hope for from their parents and teachers.

While it is certainly important to be aware of how your child's passions, interests, and talents may manifest themselves in the real world, the online world is also important connecting individuals to people and places, never before possible. Remember too that anytime your child engages online they are creating a piece of their digital footprint. Whether it is a tweet they send out on Twitter, a status update they write on Facebook, a comment they leave on a blog, or a conversation they engage in on a discussion board, these all contribute to who your child is online. As a parent you can serve a crucial role in your teen's life, by helping him/her engage responsibly and effectively with others who share your child's passions and interests. Not only will this help him/her on the road to developing an active digital footprint, but you are also helping your son or daughter develop an important life skill.

To illustrate this point I am sharing the story of a student that attends The Island School about which I wrote You Can Get a Dalton Education at a NYC Public School. This is a school that lives and dies by the belief that the most important part of their work is to help students find and develop their passions, interests, and talents. I had the pleasure of visiting the school and speaking with students and teachers. Every student who attends this elementary/middle school is told that this is a place they will be exposed to, find and develop their passions and talents. Some shared that when they started school they were nervous because they didn't think they had any talent or passion. By the end of their first year at the school every student knows they've got talent, interests, and passions.

There were so many wonderful students at this inner city public school on the lower east side of Manhattan, but one that particularly stood out was a young man who just loves buses. Yes, buses. The things that take people around New York City. With the help of his parents and teachers this student began a physical and virtual exploration and development of his passion. First any time he road a bus, he studied it. Is this really the most effective layout of seats? Could the onramp for those with disabilities be designed better? What about the fuel emissions? Could there be a way that buses ran cleaner? He also visited the MTA and museum and spoke to experts there and, of course he spoke with bus drivers, but some of his strongest connections were those he made online.

This student began reading blogs about buses. Yes there are many. He began commenting on these blogs. He started interacting with others on MTA discussion boards. He could read newspaper and magazine articles and comment on those with authors and experts on the topic. He knew how to find the latest news about buses by using search terms on Twitter, and he could follow those with relevant Tweets. And, he could Tweet too! Before you knew it, this student had begun developing not only a strong personal learning network, but he was also laying the groundwork for a purposeful digital footprint. An interesting thing about this is that expertise has no age barriers and this students thoughts, comments, and ideas sat right beside others in the field and he was quickly establishing himself as an expert on the topic, even though he was only in middle school. This student had big ideas, big plans, and a respectable digital footprint. His principal shared that from her school he went on to Automotive High School and she expected he would soon move on to an engineering college to pursue his passion of bus design and engineering.

Parents who can work with their children and teachers to discover, uncover, and develop their students passions and interests using both traditional and digital tools, will provide students with some of life's most valuable and memorable lessons.

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I very much look forward to discussing this on the Twitter and Education panel and I hope to see other innovative educators at the conference as well. If you are thinking about attending #140conf NYC you can register to reserve a ticket at a cost of $140 for the two day event or $80 for one day. You can register here to guarantee youself access to the event. The format at the #140conf events is unique. Individual talks are 5 and 10 minutes, keynotes are 15 and 20 minutes and panel discussions are no more than 20 minutes. During the course of the two days more than 140 people will share the stage at the 92nd Street Y in about 70 sessions. To get a feel of the energy you may experience click here to review the videos from the 2009 #140conf NYC. The take aways from this event will provide the attending delegates knowledge, perspectives and insights to the next wave of effects twitter and the real-time internet will have on business and education in 2010 and beyond.

You have read this article #140conf / 140 Character Conference / digital footprint / social networking / twitter with the title . You can bookmark this page URL http://benncam.blogspot.com/2010/04/help-students-manage-their-digital.html. Thanks!

Innovative Ideas for Using Cell Phones for Homework and Practice

Editor's note: This is part four in series of posts focused on the nine instructional strategies that are most likely to improve student achievement across all content areas from the book Classroom Instruction That Works by Robert Marzano, Debra Pickering, and Jane Pollock.

Homework and practice are instructional techniques that give students the opportunity to deepen their understanding and skills relative to content that has already been presented to them. Research cited in Classroom Instruction that Works, indicates some interesting findings including that the purpose of homework should be identified and articulated and if homework is assigned, it should be commented on. Of interest to parents is that there is research showing minimal or even negative effects of their involvement in homework. Further studies suggest findings about parental involvement could be a result of the type of involvement and that there are indeed conditions under which parental involvement enhances homework (Epstein, 2001; Epstein & Becker, 1982; Van Voorhis, 2003). They recommended interactive homework in which 1) Parents receive clear guidelines spelling out their role, 2) Teachers do not expect parents to act as experts regarding content or to attempt to teach the content, and 3) Parents ask questions that help students clarify and summarize what they have learned. Good and Brophy (2003) recommend that homework that for parent-child relations purposes assignments calling for students to show or explain their work to get their reactions are useful (Epstein, 2001; Epstein, Simon, & Salinas, 1997) and that it is effective to have students interview their parents to develop information about parental experiences or opinions relating to topics studied in social studies (Alleman & Brophy, 1998). Assignments like these result in students and their parents or other family members becoming more engaged in conversations that relate to the academic curriculum and thus extend the students' learning. Furthermore, because these are likely to be genuine conversations rather than more formally structured teaching/learning tasks, both parents and children are likely to experience them as enjoyable rather than threatening. (p. 395).

Here are some specific ways that homework and practice can be enriched with the use of cell phones.

• Classroom Practice in Assigning Homework
  Research on homework indicates that it is useful if parents help students ensure they are on track and on task with doing their work. Additionally, assignments that clearly articulate the purpose and outcome of homework result in greater student achievement.
  
• Subject: Any subject
  
• Topic: Any topic
• Cell Phone Tool: Swaggle
  
• Lesson Overview: Parents and teachers can partner to ensure that students are doing homework more effectively using a group texting service such as Swaggle. Teachers can group text their students and parents daily or weekly with assignments including due date, assignment purpose, parental role and questions for students and clarifying and summarizing questions for parents to discuss with students. Parents can then set a daily alarm to alert them to check in with their child using a text. If the parent knows the purpose of the assignment and due date, if time allows, they can support the teacher in being an additional person to comment on the homework as well. This also serves the purpose of providing recognition for the students in doing their work.
  
• How technology enriches the lesson:
  
• Using a group texting feature like Swaggle enables a teacher to write one message and instantly connect with students or parents.
  
• A group text, not only helps to strengthen the home/school connection, but unlike a note in the backpack, the message won't get lost. It is also a great way in general to keep parents in the loop, in the know, and to keep lines of communication open.
  
• Having a parent set a daily reminder time to check in with their child provides students with a consistent check in to help ensure they are on track. Additionally, if the parent is still at work, doing this is less disruptive then making an actual call, but still holds the student accountable.

• Classroom Practice in Practicing Skills - Charting Accuracy and Speed
  Research shows that skills should be learned to the level that students can perform them quickly and accurately and to facilitate skill development, students should be encouraged to keep track of their speed and accuracy.
  
• Subject: Math
  
• Topic: Multiplication tables
• Cell Phone Tool: Poll Everywhere - Polling question
  
• Lesson Overview: A fun way to use cell phones to chart the speed an accuracy of a class of students is to use Poll Everywhere. A school that promotes the use of personally owned technology might encourage a grade-wide competition of student speed and accuracy in multiplication tables. The way this would work is that at the beginning of the unit each teacher would encourage students to respond to a Poll Everywhere question about the speed and accuracy of completing their multiplication tables. Students would be asked to text in their speed and accuracy using a Poll Everywhere polling question. The caveat being that their parent/guardian would need to sign off on the students response. This serves the added benefit of the home/school connection and keeping families in the loop on their child's progress. At predetermined intervals classes would chart their speed and accuracy which could be shared on a school web page with privacy predetermined (i.e. just for school members, students, and families, or open to the public). The class that had the biggest overall gain (by percentage) could win an award such as a certificate, free time, pizza party or something of their choosing.
  
• How technology enriches the lesson:
  
• The use of Poll Everywhere to chart speed and accuracy of a class provides a quick, simple, easy, and visible (to selected audiences) way to instantly see progress.
  
• Using Poll Everywhere to chart speed and accuracy provides motivation for a class as a whole to improve on their work. If they don't try hard to achieve, they'll let down their class. If they do try hard, they help their class.
  
• The use of Poll Everywhere has the additional benefit of providing recognition for a classes hard work and growth over time.
  

Cell phones can provide great assistance with homework. Simply encouraging students to use their phones in conjunction with their homework will act as a motivator. Many of the age old frustrations with homework like getting stuck, not having any help (text the teacher, friend, expert-perhaps on ChaCha), forgetting to do it (put in your own reminder or get one from a parent or teacher), or not being home long enough to do it (do it anywhere you have your phone) are all remedied through the use of cell phone technologies. Students, parents, and educators all get frustrated when students get "stuck" on a problem in their homework and do not complete the assignment. With text messaging, help is few thumb strokes away. Setting up peer tutoring through text messaging is a great way to support all levels of students. Even teacher teams can divide up certain days and times and be available to answer homework questions through text messaging without a lot of extra time or effort. Some innovative educators even set up panels of experts in the community to be available to students during certain projects or for certain assignments. Partnering with local colleges or libraries can also provide additional text help available for students.

Cell phones provide an effective way to support students in doing their homework and tracking the speed and accuracy of the skills they are practicing. Stay tuned for future posts featuring other research-based strategies to engage students and increase student achievement.

You have read this article Cell phones in Education with the title . You can bookmark this page URL http://benncam.blogspot.com/2010/04/innovative-ideas-for-using-cell-phones_7.html. Thanks!