Book Creator, Haiku Deck, Notability, and Paper 53 (Things 15-18)

After exploring iTunes U in the last "thing", I got the experience of being a student this week to learn about some publishing and note-taking apps. I had heard of all of these apps before, but I hadn't taken the time to explore them because I was sure that none could be better or easier than what I already had in place for note-taking (and I wasn't terribly interested in publishing in a non-physical form). However, that attitude was shortsighted because I did discover some really cool things from each of these apps. Also, the tiny step I took into online publishing/digital storytelling this past year with Storyboard That was pretty successful, so I should be looking for new things to build on that! :)

The first app was Book Creator (@BookCreatorApp). After playing around with it and seeing how easy it is to use and how beautiful the final products could be, I actually tried to implement it with my summer class kids. Surprisingly, they weren't really into it and decided to go with the traditional blank books that they have always used (if you need those or other creative paper products - you can even make your own puzzles! - Bare Books is a great company) over the app. So, I haven't used it with students yet, but I did make this book introducing myself to my students for Thing 15.

The next app was Haiku Deck (@HaikuDeck). This one was actually the most frustrating for me because I was trying to work with it at my school, where the filters originally blocked all the images that I was trying to use. It works marginally better there now, but I just had to do it all at home for it to really work. This would be a big stumbling block for using it with students because if the features don't work like they're supposed to, the products won't be as good as they can be, and the kids will be more focused on their frustration with the tool than on showing what they know (as I was!). I liked the way there were stock photos that actually made sense with the words that were on each slide, and each of the different themes were beautiful. I didn't like how I couldn't resize the text myself and how all the slides in the same deck had to be on the same theme (or maybe I can resize it and they can be different themes, but I couldn't figure out how to change those things). It's not so much that Haiku Deck is better than Powerpoint or Keynote, it's just that it's different because the options are more limited and the slides do look more professional in a much shorter amount of time. For Thing 16, I made this Haiku Deck about what I have learned so far in this course.

Thing 17 was an exploration of Notability (@gingerlabs), an app that promised to make me "Fall in love with notetaking." Well, mission accomplished! I mean, I was already pretty into taking notes because that's the only way I remember things, but I was also pretty committed to my pen and paper method. I like being able to draw arrows and symbols easily (without having to remember the keystrokes for them) and color-coding as I go. I also like being able to change my method halfway through by just turning the paper or changing the notebook I use. I've started to take more notes using Google Docs in meetings, but when I'm reading something or preparing for an assignment, I'm still into writing by hand. Nevertheless, Notability won me over. I love that you can include an audio clip, and it is so easy to switch between typing and writing! I don't know when I would use the features that allow me to import a photo or a symbol, but I like that they're there. However, my favorite feature is one that I'm sure it's totally superficial, but I love it anyway: the three top font options at the top of the note! I like to change the fonts of my notes based on the content of them, and this allows me to do it. I also now have a use for the several styluses that I've somehow collected over this school year.  Here's part of my first exploration into the different notes I could take (that's a picture of my fish - enjoy! :) ).

The final "thing" for this week was to learn about the concept of sketchnoting. I'd heard about this before and been really impressed with some of the sketches I saw on Twitter from educational leaders (the #adesketchnote hashtag will take you to some from Apple Distinguished Educators), but I've never wanted to try it because I've never considered myself an artist. After looking through some of the introductory materials for sketchnoting and Paper 53, it became pretty obvious that most people who do this do not consider themselves artists. I still think that writing words is more effective for me, but I enjoyed trying to put my thoughts into images. It made me think more about what was actually important when I didn't have to words to explain what I was drawing. I do know that sketchnoting has words AND pictures, but I was trying to focus on the drawings to fully embrace this new thing...I couldn't help myself from writing a caption, though.

I like the different writing tools available - my favorite was the fancy fountain pen! I definitely need a better stylus to really make sketchnoting happen because I kept running out of room - I need to be able to write smaller.

Here are some examples from sketchnoters who are way better than I am so you can see the vast possibilities:

From Sylvia Duckworth (@sylviaduckworth) - Her tweets and notes made me feel like I was at ISTE too!

From Sylvia Duckworth (@sylviaduckworth)

From Brad Ovenell-Carter (@Braddo)

An important note about sketchnoting is that it doesn't HAVE to be on an app; you can definitely do the same thing with paper and pen/pencil/marker/quill. This is a great post about using sketchnoting (or sketchquoting, as Heather Marshall calls it) in the classroom with no apps necessary. I would LOVE to try this!

I liked the fact that this week was dedicated to apps that I had been wanting to make time to explore. I also liked that being required to make a product for each app forced me to go through the process the students would go through instead of just skimming the features of each one. I would really like to incorporate at least one of these apps into my class for next year; I don't require that the kids take notes any specific sort of way, so sketchnoting might be an interesting thing to introduce to them. They doodle a lot anyway, so it could be a natural progression. A few years ago, I went to a reading conference where the presenter showed us some examples from her students' reading notebooks that looked like versions of sketchnotes, and I've wanted to try it ever since. I'll have to do some more research to make sure I understand it better before I try to present it. I'm not totally sold on Haiku Deck as being much better than other presentation tools, but I do think that Book Creator has a ton of possibilities for improving booktalks or independent reading responses. 

Another thing I liked about these apps is that most of them "talk" to the Google apps, so it's easy to upload them to Keep or Drive. I think it'll be easier to organize them that way instead of having to open the different apps to get to my notes or products. I'm also getting more familiar with iBooks through practicing with these apps. I think Notability has some great possibilities for professional use, especially since you can share the notes easily and do a combination of writing, drawing, audio, and pictures. I could see using this for a department or team meeting to brainstorm. I'm not sure that these apps lend themselves to regular parent communication, but I might try to use a Haiku Deck instead of a Keynote for my Go To School Night presentation. That would be hard to do if I couldn't access the images for presenting at school, but I might try. I usually have too much text on my slides so I don't forget my points, and Haiku Deck does do a nice job of limiting that.

I'm still not a fan of iTunes U for learning myself, but maybe that's because I'm already using the wiki and Google Classroom and I don't like to have so many platforms going at once. I do like how the iTunes U course is organized with the assignments that you can check off and each app having its own section, but I don't like that you have to do everything on the iPad. I much prefer working on my laptop!   

Thoughts about Web 2.0 (Thing 2)

I mentioned it in my last post and I will reiterate now: I don't like the idea of thinking that the ultimate goal of schools is only preparing students for a competitive global workforce. Obviously, our students are going to enter the workforce in some way or another. And even more obviously, that workforce will be competitive and probably more global than we can even conceptualize at this point. However, if we really want them to become lifelong learners and learn for the sake of learning, not to get ahead of their competition for jobs, then we need to reframe the message. Otherwise, like generations of students before them, they are learning skills that only apply in a specialized context, and that seems to be the opposite of what we need to teach them now.

Another thing that bothered me about Web 2.0 (again, I mentioned this in my last post) was it seemed like the assumption was unless we are using brand new technology every minute of the day, we are doing something wrong. Especially in the "A Vision of Students Today" video, it appeared that the statistics about teachers who never used digital storytelling (for example) were meant to illustrate that those teachers were doing something wrong. I do realize that this video is from 2007 (many of these materials were several years old) and that it is at least partially because of my pre-existing feelings that I felt scolded. I actually have used digital storytelling in the forms of "This I Believe" podcasts and Garageband for both personal and literary argumentative pieces (and Storyboard That this year for the first time - loved it!), but I don't believe it was only the technology that made those experiences memorable for the students. It helped them literally bring their own voices and visuals to their stories, and that is absolutely important. However, using statistics about which teachers do and do not use specific pieces of technology (especially nine years ago, when the technology was pretty clunky) to presumably show that they are "behind the times" overshadows, at least in my mind, the very salient message of that video. We need to be responsive and reflective educators, and technology is ONE way to do that. It is not the only way.   

I feel like I need to acknowledge that I AM aware that this is an educational technology course and as such, we'll be exposed to a lot of different technology options that we could use in our classroom. They will probably also be presented in a positive light; after all, why would we be taught about problematic or inapplicable tools? I DO want to learn about different ways that technology can help my students learn or bring them closer to topics they care about. I just also want to make sure that we remember that technology is not the saving grace of the educational system: it is a tool. Students, teachers, and their relationships will always be the most important thing to the learning process.

I liked reading "A Day in the Life of Web 2.0" very much. It showed that even 10 years ago, people were tinkering with the possibilities of what online collaboration and communication could do for teachers and students. It also included examples of face-to-face collaboration that was supplemented by the online collaboration, such as the cross-curricular teaching involved in the Monday report blogs and the research the librarian did for the new math teacher. The freedom to use technology as the students and teachers saw fit made me wonder if our students would be that responsible with their tools. I have had to manage kids playing games on their iPads during reading time in my own classroom; I'm not sure that they would use texting or iMessaging solely for school projects the way these students did. It also makes me think that if they were more engaged, they wouldn't be misusing their iPads, but how can we change reading to be more engaging? They already have the ability and permission to read however they want (a paper book, on their iPads or Kindles, with an audiobook, etc.) but since that's a skill they need to keep practicing, there's not much we can do to change it. However you do it, reading is reading, and they need to be able to do it. 

They also need to be able to spell correctly or at least recognize when a word is misspelled so they can look it up; autocorrect and spellcheck have stunted those skills for our kids. They don't have to have the perseverance to double-check on a word anymore. And for as great as online discussions are - and I love them! - they have revealed another weakness in our students' communication: they don't seem to be able to recognize what is an appropriate tone for the school audience anymore. Schoology messaging and emailing seem to be places where they think they can use text speak, even with their teachers, and I will never be okay with this. I always teach tone and audience characteristics in a literary and argumentative context, but I have started to have to teach it in a classroom communication context as well. Incorporating technology into the classroom that they also use outside of the classroom creates flow and consistency, effectively breaking down the erroneous assumption that learning only takes place in the classroom from teacher to student. However, it also blurs the lines between talking to your friends and talking to your teacher, and I think those lines need to remain bold. I don't talk to my students' parents or my boss the same way I talk to my friends; this is a lifelong skill students will need.

I have used Schoology much more this year and have loved the perks of being able to only take home my laptop and have my quizzes and essays right there at my fingertips. I have also loved the online discussions; I get to hear more from the students who are quiet in class, and my students can respond to peers that they don't necessarily communicate with in class. I am also a huge proponent of students being creators, not just consumers, of content: that is the best way to learn something. It is much more active, and learning should be an active process. I read a study a while ago about how students who created content were more confident and ended up being more successful as adults than those who simply consumed it - I'll find it! Unfortunately, these consumers v. creators tended to fall along socioeconomic lines, so part of the article was about how to get technology in the hands of underprivileged students. We don't have that problem in our district, but we do have kids who are overwhelmed by the amount of content they are exposed to, and I worry about them managing their learning with all of these new tools. That's one more thing we need to teach them in this 21st century world, and it is an important one for beyond school. Too often, even adults just skim articles online and don't check sources: we didn't have to do that when we used encyclopedias! Of course, there is more information out there now, and much of it is great - but just like we had to learn things our parents didn't, our students now need to learn to catalogue and evaluate information at a much higher rate than we ever did. It is a daunting, but potentially exciting, task for everyone.