This fantastic blog post by Andy Losik has been bothering me all week because it made me think deeply about my work with schools, and the real work that is ahead of all of us in edtech!
This report by the company Go Guardian has me really worried about the use of Chromebooks in the classroom but I don’t think this problem is limited to Chromebooks I think IF we could look at data across all student devices I think these trends would continue.
To quote Andy “In short a huge amount of Chromebook use is being spent on educationally questionable video games, low-level assessments, and YouTube with the two highest trending websites for over 5,000,000 learners (after G Suite for Education) being CoolMath Games and Renaissance Learning, the parent company to Accelerated Reader and other assessments.”
I’m right there ranting with you Andy especially when you hit a very sore spot of mine about creativity when you said “Zero sites for creativity are listed in the study. We know fewer kids are getting to create with Keynote, iMovie, and GarageBand due to device choice, but it doesn’t look like they’re getting many chances to use any of the Chrome-based alternatives to these apps either. No Soundtrap. No Canva. No WeVideo. No Pixlr. No Emaze.
Creativity is so important and being able to convey a concept in multimedia is a skill all industries are demanding now. A local school board president was asking me about what’s next in edtech and the discussion led to content creation. He holds a high-up position with a multi-national company that creates automobile interiors and he agreed.”
Again, I agree with Andy and the school board president, we have a ton of work to do in the world of edtech. When our team of 27 co-authors was writing our #NOWclassrooms series of books I had to constantly remind them of the real current reality in schools where technology devices are being used for low-level tasks and often just to keep kids busy.
I know my co-authors did not believe me during the writing and editing process, BUT that is because I picked some of the greatest teachers to join my NOW team. These teachers are not the ones on Cool Math Games or “drilling and killing” using digital worksheets. Instead, their students are creating, building, and sharing their work beyond the walls of the classroom. Check out our #NOWclassrooms Twitter feed to see their student artifacts.
Our series of five books are based on the ISTE standards and a big focus is on the 4C’s of communicating, collaborating, creating, and critical thinking as students use the digital tools to demonstrate their learning and as I like to say “get it out the door”. One thing each of our team did is we did not focus on specific devices, we wrote the lessons for teachers regardless of the devices they have. Use the technology you have for higher level thinking, problem-solving, group work to solve real-world problems.
Andy your rants have inspired me to keep working on the shift to create, build, and share student products with whatever device you have. I know it is possible because my dynamic team wrote five books about what IS possible using technology in the classroom. Help us get the word out there!
#ThanksAndy
Meg Ormiston
Author, Teacher, Mom
@megormi