The Technology Culture of the CITC Program at Bartlett High School

I interact relatively rarely with the Bartlett High School staff and students who are not in our program, so I am going to discuss the details of the technology culture of the Cook Inlet Tribal Council, Inc. (CITC) group at Bartlett, which consists of 9 staff members and roughly 180 students.

Limitations: Our greatest challenge stems from the fact that we estimate that only around 25% of our students have computers with internet access at home. This means that a majority of our students are at a relative technology disadvantage. This became very apparent when I did a unit on doing calculations using Excel in the Algebra II class. The unit took much longer than I had planned for, primarily because many of the students did not have the general computer technology competencies that I had assumed when planning. On the other end of the spectrum were students who found the material relatively straightforward; luckily, we were able to use these students as mentors for the others, as otherwise the unit would have used way more class time than planned. This inequality in access and familiarity with technology means that we cannot reasonably ask students to do homework that requires the use of the internet. The problem with this is that there is a limited amount of class time, and there can only be so much of it allotted for doing internet research and typing assignments. The CITC program is also limited by the level of technological competence of our staff; all but one of our teachers (two if you count me) have already retired from a public school district, and so many of them don’t have the same level of familiarity with newer technology as people who grew up in the digital age tend to have. Finally, our entire staff is limited by the fact that the tech staff at Bartlett is made up entirely of one man: Don Bladow. If any of our equipment or software has an issue, it is up to him to fix it. Even problems that we collectively have the knowledge to fix require his help as we do not have the administrator access and privileges that are needed.

Opportunities: The CITC program has several unique opportunities. First of all, we have our own computer lab with 15 Macintosh computers. Of course, all 15 of them are never working properly at the same time, but nevertheless, it is extremely useful in helping to minimize the technology gap that our students face. CITC is also blessed in having some additional equipment, and potentially some small amount of additional funding to purchase more. Thus our staff has a fairly wide range of possibilities that come with slightly more resources; however, without the knowledge, training, and initiative required to integrate more technology into the classroom, these resources may be underutilized. The MEDIAK program is also an amazing opportunity both for our students, and potentially for our staff if we could collaborate on projects.

Narrowing the Technology Gap: I think that it is imperative that we make a concerted effort to help our students overcome their limited access to technology so that they can be competitive in our Digital World. I think the following steps are required to achieve this:

• Tech Training: Our teachers need to improve their tech skills so that they will be able to incorporate more technology into the classroom. CITC and/or ASD should require and fund more training that is relevant to their subject area.
• Collaboration with MEDIAK: There is a wealth of knowledge and resources available through MEDIAK—we at Bartlett need to find a way to bring them to our classrooms so that we can take advantage of this opportunity. We should also be able to do a better job of convincing students to sign up for the program.
• Personal Projects: As I have the freedom to develop lessons and projects to be implemented in any of our classrooms, and am relatively more technologically savvy than most of our staff, I need to make an effort to ensure that students in each of our classrooms are exposed to useful technology and are taught the skills that will be essential for them to stay competitive in modern workplaces.
• The End of Bartlett Monotheism: Bartlett absolutely needs to hire more tech support staff. Don Bladow is extremely knowledgeable and hard-working, but cannot adequately meet the needs of more than 100 people.
  

For a more detailed description of the technology culture of the CITC program and of Bartlett High School in general, please look at my complete anthropological assessment here

Dustin Madden
dustinm@gmail.com
9/23/2008

"Listen to the Natives"

by Marc Prensky

I. Overview

In "Listen to the Natives", Marc Prensky argues that because technology is evolving at such a rapid pace, much of educators' training and knowledge is quickly becoming obsolete. He constantly uses the term "21st century" to emphasize his opinion that students are growing up in a world that is so different from the one that most teachers were raised in that unless educational practices are radically changed, they will become essentially useless.

In order to keep up with technological change, Prensky suggests that teachers incorporate more of the students' opinions and knowledge into the curriculum. He believes that in general students are extremely technologically capable, and so teachers should help guide them in their own pursuits rather than teaching them what the educator thinks is important for them to know. He also recommends that students be given more power in the classroom to make decisions and to participate in discussions about what and/or how they would teach.

II. Prensky's citation-less opinions on:

Students and Technology

1. "Outside school, they [students] are fully engaged by their 21st century digital lives."
2. "Many students are already proficient enough in programs like Flash to submit their assignments in this medium."
3. "Students should be learning 21st century subject matter, such as nanotechnology, bioethics, genetic medicine, and neuroscience."


Collaboration with Students

1. "We need to include our students in everything we do in the classroom, involving them in discussions about curriculum development, teaching methods, school organization, discipline, and assignments."
2. "They [teachers] need to... pay attention to how their students learn, and value and honor what their students know."
3. "Our brightest students, trusted with responsibility, will surprise us all with their contributions."


The Role of Gaming in Education

1. "For example, students could learn algebra far more quickly and effectively if instruction were available in game format."
2. "Can you think of any examples of this problem in your computer games?"
3. "We need to incorporate into our classrooms the same combination of desirable goals, interesting choices, immediate and useful feedback, and opportunities to "level up" that engage kids in their favorite complex computer games."


Does Prensky somehow $$benefit$$ from this article? Why is he writing so much about the benefits of gaming in education?

1. "Marc Prensky is a speaker, writer, consultant, and game designer in education and learning. He is author of Digital Game-Based Learning (McGraw-Hill, 2001) and Don't Bother Me, Mom, I'm Learning (Paragon, 2005).
2. Marc Prensky’s CV: http://www.marcprensky.com/experience/Prensky-Resume.pdf


III. Reflection

In this article, Prensky is essentially making two very strong recommendations for educators: one is that we respect and value students knowledge and opinions and try to incorporate them into our teaching, and the other is that as educators we need to use the technology that students are engaged with in our classroom. While I certainly agree with the first one, I find Prensky’s discussion of the second point to be condescending and lacking nuance.


First of all, Prensky assumes that educators are not capable of keeping up with technology, and that students inherently are, as they were born in the digital age. It seems that Prensky has neglected to discuss a rather large percentage of the population that does not have full access to all of the modern digital devices that he mentions. The technology gap is something that I know is very real—I would estimate that roughly only about 25% of my students have internet access at home, and probably only slightly more than that have a functioning computer at home. So certainly not all of my students “are fully engaged by their 21st century digital lives” outside of school. While I believe that there is some truth in his discussion of the difficulties people who were raised in a pre-technology world may have keeping up with a constant barrage of new software and hardware, he exaggerates this to the point of absurdity. Apparently rather than learning to incorporate new technology, Prensky would have educators throw their hands up in the air and say “It’s not my fault, I’m a digital immigrant!” One of the characteristics that I have seen in the majority of the teachers that I work with is their ability to take the initiative and learn new things for their students benefit; with well-planned training programs, educators are certainly capable of keeping up with the technology curve.


Prensky also completely ignores the possibility that new technology isn’t actually beneficial. While I believe that it is important to prepare students to be able to navigate through a society with a focus on new communication systems, he presents new technology in a tone that implies it is inherently better than what came before. I personally have found that many new technologies made me less productive and lowered my quality of life: cable television kept me from learning about the culture and environment around me as a child, computer games helped keep me in a stage of social ineptitude for an unnecessary amount of time in high school, and using instant messenger programs never resulted in meaningful conversation and sucked my free time into a black hole during my college years. While I share Prensky’s excitement in the possibilities that new developments bring, I think it is important to learn to use them wisely, rather than using them for the sheer novelty of using them.

Finally, I am dubious of Prensky’s qualifications and intentions in making many of the bold statements that he does in this article. Looking at his CV (see web address above), it appears that he taught high school for a total of three years, back in 1968. So it seems his experience with the tech-savvy students of today may be questionable. However, he has a wealth of experience in marketing, product design, business consulting, and… well look at this, he designs educational computer games. Of course, I’m sure his constant reference to the benefit of games and the need to teach students in a way that is as engaging as computer games comes purely from his altruism.

School Train

The first question is: am I grading the teacher, or the students? Either way, I think it will be unfair, as I don't believe in grading without making your expectations clear beforehand. To grade the students, I would have created a rubric before beginning the assignment and discussed it with them. It would include the following:

Use of Technology:

* Was the technology used in a way that promotes the understanding of the concept?
* Was the presentation visually interesting?

Effort:

* Did the student put in time and effort into the project?
* Did they perform to the best of their ability?

Understanding of Concept

* Did the student's work on the video show that they understood the concept?
* Can the student explain the concept to others?

Assessing the Teacher

I think a teacher would benefit from feedback that promotes self-reflection on the project more than they would benefit from a rubric. So here is a list of things I thought worked well, and things that the teacher may want to ponder:

Apparent Successes:

* Students seemed to be enjoying themselves
* It is likely that the students will remember the material much better
* Learning to work on a project from start to finish is a real-world skill

Questions for the teacher to think about:

* How much time did this project take? Was the learning experience valuable enough to justify the amount of material that will be left out of the curriculum to make time for this project?
* Were all the students able to participate? Or were most sitting around while a few worked diligently?
* Did the students really understand the concept of metaphor? Or were the majority of them just excited about making funny faces at the camera?

Fox Becomes a Better Person

Again, I would have created a rubric and discussed this with the students before beginning the assignment. The rubric would have looked something like this:

Quality of Story:

* Was the story interesting and engaging?
* Was the story imbued with traditional values?

Quality of Illustrations

* Did the illustrations help us understand the story?
* Were the illustrations visually appealing?

Presentation

* Was the story told in a way that kept us interested?
* Were hand gestures and body movement used?

Effort

* Did the student put in time and effort into the project?
* Did they perform to the best of their ability?

For each category, each student would be assessed as to whether they were emerging, developing, proficient, or advanced by a set of criteria. Hannah would be advanced for the first three categories, and probably for the fourth as well, though I don't know what her ability level is.

EPIC 2015: "The Democratization of Information" or "Short Attention Span Theatre"

I believe that the developments portrayed in EPIC 2015 would only further some of the trends that are happening in the classroom now. As information becomes democratized, assessing whether information is reliable will become an even more valuable skill. As podcasts and other easily accessible, relevant, and entertaining electronic materials become more widespread, students will become even more addicted to constant entertainment. As the importance of such electronic materials increases, the gap between students who have reliable internet and technology resources at home and those who don't (a large percentage of my students) will grow even larger.

The Dilemma of Reliable Information

Wikipedia is an excellent example of one of the highly contentious sources of information in schools right now. It is widely used by students, and almost universally hated by teachers. The most common approach I have seen teachers use is to simply ban Wikipedia, which I believe is completely ineffective. Much of what is available on Wikipedia is accurate information, and students need to be taught how to discern between good and bad sources. I teach students to use Wikipedia as a starting point, and follow the references and links until they reach primary sources of information. As we approach an EPIC 2015 type of world, it will become more important for students to learn these skills.

Entertainment Junkies

More and more students are able to get exactly what they want, when they want it through electronic media, sometimes resulting in a lack of interest in other things. I believe teachers need to harness this excitement about these types of media (YouTube, podcasts, Wikipedia, etc.) by creating projects that use them. This will also make them less taboo in the classroom, which often decreases the amount of interest in them.

SabrinaJourney

Actually, I was recently considering using digital storytelling in a way similar to Sabrina in my classroom. As an assistant teacher for CITC, occasionally I am asked to substitute teach, and so for the first two weeks of this school year I taught English 9 and 10. We were working on a community poster project, in which students wrote about the people that were important to them in the various communities that they are a part of (school, village, family, friends, sports teams, etc.) and created a poster to display this. My girlfriend's mother was taking a digital storytelling class at the same time, and recommended it for my class. Unfortunately, we were already a little too far into the project to switch gears at that point. I think that it may be a good idea for next year; however, I'm a bit worried about the technology gap amongst our students. Many of my students did not have pictures available for their posters, either digital or hard copies, and many could not type up their writing at home. In a poster project, students could easily get around these obstacles, but I think in a computer based project such as Sabrina's many students would be at a pretty strong disadvantage.

Curriculum Development

Here is a great example of a need for a locally or district based curriculum. This is a picture taken in the 1950's of a woman teaching Inupiaq children about animals. The chalkboard says:

Animals

See the animals' house.
The animals' house is a barn.
The animals like the barn.

For students who have probably never seen a barn, and live in a culture that has a very different view of animals than the Western European one, this lesson must have been utterly incomprehensible. Assuming that the teacher continues by discussing animals that would live in a barn, this unit will continue to be irrelevant. We can only guess at why she is teaching about animals in this way, but I would wager that she is using printed materials made for another culture. A locally designed curriculum with relevant materials would help to solve this problem.