10.29.2015

Teen Troubles with Twitter

Teenagers simply don't get Twitter, and it's a problem. It's a problem for Twitter as a business, but more importantly, it's a problem for society at large.
Teenagers invented a social norm on Twitter called the “follower ratio." They worry about following more people than those who are following them back. It's a sign of status to have more people reading your tweets than tweets you're reading. We see this phenomenon on Instagram and Snapchat too. On Snapchat it's slightly different, it's a fear that a teen sends more snaps than he or she receives.

Because of the social status associated with ratios, teenagers are using Twitter incorrectly and it's stunting their intellectual development. I have written about how teenagers can learn tons of valuable information from Twitter. Twitter is an amazing global network that has an endless flow of information to feed any person’s intellectual passion. But the biggest barrier teenagers face to their ability to learn on Twitter is their reluctance to allow their following ratio to balloon. To do so would deflate their social confidence. As a result, teens only receive updates from their friends and accounts dedicated to reaching teens with quotes, gifs and memes. Twitter becomes an echo chamber of social anxiety and pressure. As a result, they'd much rather converse with multimedia on apps like Snapchat, Instagram, or Vine rather than use Twitter for educational purposes.

The only way for teens to learn on Twitter is for them to enter the global space where they can read, form opinions, curate and share content, and create their original work. If we can't get our teens to add stuff like Vox, Slate, Mashable, the New York Times and FiveThirtyEight to their Twitter feeds, we're robbing them of valuable knowledge that they could gain every time they log in.

In addition to following content, we need to guide our teenagers into academic hashtags, as hashtags can be robust learning spaces. Ironically, most teenagers don't even know how to use a hashtag; I'd estimate one tweet in 100 for teenagers actually goes to a hashtag to backchannel something interesting or meaningful to them (and I'm being generous). Instead, teens use hashtags for a throwaway joke on the back-end of a tweet. That Twitter doesn't sound like much fun. I would leave Twitter for other social media apps too if that's all I saw on it too.

That's where we, as mentors, have to step in. There's information on Twitter. There’s a wealth of fascinating subjects about which one can learn on Twitter. There's a tremendous intellectual world out there that can enhance users’ knowledge, creativity, critical thinking, and technological literacy skills. Twitter is not Snapchat, Instagram, or Vine, which are overwhelmingly filled with silly (and time-consuming) photographs and videos.

Teenagers should use some of their social media time learning, and Twitter should be the vehicle through which they do so. Of course, Twitter, needs young users to love its product. Perhaps if the company and its supports can dispel this silly "ratio" issue with teenagers. It will take effort from both the company and teachers, parents and mentors in communities around the country. If we can help students find the accounts and hashtags that deliver learning, we can help Twitter regain its place in society as a democratic, global learning network that we have loved since its inception in 2006--and that helped usher in important events and conversations like the Arab Spring and the Black Lives Matter movement.

We, as a society, are in a similar place we always are with Teens. Teens get too concerned with their social life and it hinders their intellectual development. We can make a change on social media--a place where teenagers want to spend their time. Let's talk to our teens about Twitter, dispel the notion of a "ratio," tap into the great global network and let the learning begin.

10.27.2015

Teen Troubles with Texting

On October 12th, Roni Rabin penned an article for the New York Times called "Compulsive Texting Takes Toll on Teens" that highlighted a study arguing that many teens appear to be addicted to texting. In a study of 8th and 11th graders, the study found that 12% of girls and 3% of boys are "compulsive texters." The article also cited a Pew poll from 2012 that found "the median number of texts sent by teens is 60 a day, with older girls having a median of 100 text messages a day and boys a median of 50."

As someone who works with teens every day, I've pin-pointed a leading cause of this problem: it's group chats. That's where a bulk of the texting occurs between our teenagers. And it's absolutely affecting their sleep, their homework and their emotional well-being.

The other day I inquired informally with a group of 11th grade girls who admit that within the last week they've been a part of between 5-8 group chats. A group chat contains multiple recipients, and in general, the more people involved, the more messages sent and received. I work at a 1:1 school where students send and receive messages from their computer too--often during class. In one day, I had one girl project her phone screen as part of a presentation. The messages app on her phone contained 269 unread text messages. In the subsequent period I helped a 9th grader for five minutes on an essay, she received a text while I was typing on her computer from a friend. I noticed it was the 13th text she had received since she last checked them.

I was stunned; these interactions concern me. I can't imagine having 269 unread texts, that would take a year! I can't imagine having 13 text messages waiting for me on my phone... unless I was in a group-chat with a group of close friends. And that's precisely the problem with our teens.

So how do we deal with a problem that's only increasing in its frequency and its affect on our teenagers? In an age where it's so easy to end up in a group-chat and so hard to get out, and even I struggle to resist the allure of a shiny new text message buzzing my phone? "The study of more than 400 8th graders and 11th graders found that many teenage texters had a lot in common with compulsive gamblers, including losing sleep because of texting, problems cutting back on texting and lying to cover up the amount of time they spent texting."



Schools want to address problems of stress, sleep and attention/retention with school-work. So it's in a schools' best interest to acknowledge this problem and think about how to alleviate the problems associated with high volume texting. Fortunately, most teenagers will admit that texting (and multi-taking in general) hurts their studies. Regardless, there's a learning process that needs to happen.

  • In schools we need to discuss social norms and dispel those that invite compulsory texting. 
  • We can also help equip students with tools that will help them avoid the allure of getting lost in lengthy, timely text-message and message conversations. 
  • Educators need to teach the science behind these issues so our students are aware of how much texting hurts their social-emotional well-being. 
  • There's a certain amount of follow-up required by the classroom teachers, the learning center, and the school counselors to remind students of the negatives associated with extensive texting. We need to be vigilant and willing to discuss and discipline in ways that enhance healthy habits. 
Finally, It's imperative that we extend this teaching and learning to our parents as their support in this endeavor is imperative for its success.

8.02.2015

There's a Hotkey for That: Teaching Efficiency in Computer Use

Let's face it, adults spend a ridiculous amount of time in front of a computer. To prepare students to take on the "real world," it's imperative that we teach them how to work efficiently on their computers.
The quicker students can locate relevant information, share it, or use it (in whatever manner their profession requires), the more effective they will be in their careers. After all, the sooner employees can create something, the more time they have to polish and refine their work in ways that will help it make an impression on its audience. That will help workers build equity, close deals or earn a promotion.

In order to help my students maneuver efficiently and effectively on the computer, I teach my students the art of hotkeys. I teach them the basics like how to copy, paste, print, find, cut and quit. Then, I add more sophisticated maneuvers like how to shuffle through their open apps, open/close a tab in the internet, employ google search operators, cycle through their open tabs, highlight text, and spotlight search.
macworld
I tell the students that every time they don't have to reach for their mouse, they save time. And time is money. Often, they shrug their shoulders and whine about how silly that is--not the statement time is money, they accept that as gospel--they don't care enough about their mouse use to want to learn new hotkeys. So I pitch the importance of hotkeys in two ways.
First, I use math. I have them consider how much time they spend on a computer each day and how much time they spend maneuvering the mouse. Then I show them how much it saves to know how to hotkey (I'll use an example at the front of them room). Afterwards, I have them calculate how much they save in a sitting, a day, a week, a year, a lifetime of computer use! I say, "What would you do with that time? You'll have it, your neighbor who didn't learn these things won't."
Secondly, I use an example. I ask them to remember the last time an adult asked them for help using technology and to remember how frustrating it is to watch them as they slowly open a browser or an app and take forever to ask their question, that--more often than not--they could have answered themselves if they knew how to use Google. Everyone identifies with this example. Then I tell the students that I experience that everyday when I walk behind them as they use their computers in class!

These examples pique students' interest enough to get them to use more hotkeys. The challenge manifests itself in how to get students to keep using hotkeys. I've done this by including them as "extra-credit" questions on my tests. But, the most effective way to get students to improve their hotkey usage is to create peer-pressure amongst those who are getting it, and those who are still reaching for their mouse. I can create that atmosphere in a classroom, but I wish I could do it across an entire grade or an entire school. Imagine how efficient those students would become in completing homework--especially in schools with 1:1 programs where the hotkeys are the same for each student.

In my opinion, this lesson is even more important for teachers than it is for students. In addition to creating a culture for learning hotkeys and efficiency, teachers themselves can limit their screen time and spend more time teaching, mentoring and building relationships with students--and that's the mark of a great teacher.

8.01.2015

Mass Media: Igniting Lifelong Learning

The most important thing my students can take away from my class is a drive to always be learning. I want students to continue to read, analyze, critique, share and create. Today, I had that great moment of satisfaction when I realized I had succeeded in molding lifelong learners.

The class:
This summer, I taught a course called Mass Media in which we critiqued and created the media at a 6-week summer program. We kept a campus Instagram, Twitter and Wordpress. We worked hard to find efficient ways to keep up with the news and find media outlets where students could follow their individual passions. The students thrived. They transformed themselves into avid news consumers: critiquing, analyzing, offering opinions, and questioning the media and the news.

In one project, I asked students to record a podcast for our campus blog with the intention of telling the whole story, in laymen's terms, of something newsworthy that we had been following in our media course. One group chose to record a podcast about the presidential race (wordpress). We sensed an interest in the ASP community and followed up with a "community discussion" at lunch where those community members who were interested arrived to discuss the 2016 race (twitter). They came in large numbers!

The lifelong learning:
Unfortunately, this short program concluded a week ago today, but the learning did not stop. I had set up a GroupMe with my class when we were working on our final video project (lots of moving parts!). That GroupMe has buzzed everyday since, almost always with educational content. On Wednesday, one student posted a quiz that gauged which politician best suits the quiz-taker. When most of us in the group received Bernie Sanders, another student suggested we all travel to Manchester, NH to hear him in a town-hall meeting (it's a New Hampshire summer program). So, not only did my students continue to talk news/politics beyond the program, they organized a get-together at Bernie Sanders's version of our "community discussion." One third of the class attended.



As if attending a political rally wasn't enough, the four students who attended back-channeled it for the rest of us. Below are a few screenshots from their discussion.
One of my students even asked Mr. Sanders a question! Imagine that--a junior in high-school asking Bernie Sanders about his stance on ISIS and Iran-Israel.

The significance:
Obviously, I was overjoyed with my students' academic interest. I felt I had ignited this learning, this civic engagement, and this community where intellectual conversation is the norm, which is the opposite of how teenagers use new media these days.

I had a "If you build it, they will come" moment in which I realized that 16-17 year-old kids really do want to learn. They care about news and politics. And they want to talk to each other about it. They needed a place where they felt comfortable doing just that. And it turned out to be a GroupMe from a class that I thought had already come and gone.

I'll let their messages speak for themselves:

7.23.2015

Teaching Digital Citizenship

I was struck by this cartoon recently:
It renewed my commitment to think critically about social media and teach my students to do the same. It's so important that today's students be aware of their digital portfolios so that they don't miss educational and career opportunities, as this cartoon so perfectly illustrates. If students effectively cultivate a digital portfolio that expresses their interests and experience, they won't fall into the trap in the cartoon. On the contrary, opportunities will find them through this portfolio. And, what more could we hope for as educators?

Every educator agrees that an intelligently crafted digital portfolio will serve a student well in college admission, graduate school and beyond. Yet, we're not teaching the art of a digital portfolio in schools. A properly polished digital footprint can show schools and employers a student's interest, initiative, hard-work, community outreach and scholarly contribution. Nevertheless, schools continue to tell students to complete and print rigid assignments rather than publish something in which the student is interested.

Not only do we not teach this skill, even worse, we often discourage this with strict social media policies that keep the student's digital life out-of-sight and out-of-mind of the administrators where online activities become even more likely to damage students' digital image.

For a chance to teach teenagers the art of a digital citizenship and help them construct digital portfolio, I capitalize on a progressive summer program that lets me choose my own curriculum. In my media course, I evaluate students on their use of social media. They're required to pursue interests through twitter, Digg, subscription emails, podcasts, social news sites. They're constantly refining what hits their screen so that they consume informational content about their passions. And, I don't grade submitted essays or projects, I give students pointers on how to improve the essays and projects before they publish them.

I teach branding, asking the students to evaluate the sources they're reading and investigate the digital portfolio of our guest speakers, their peers, and their role models. Then, I help them create their own brand and find ways to consume, curate and then create in ways that will sculpt a small profile, even if it's just what they save/favorite on Twitter, Diigo, Evernote or Google Drive.

It is my hope that by the end of the summer the students 1) learn the power of the internet; 2) use it to ensure that interesting, informational content hits their screens for consumption; 3) learn the tools necessary to efficiently consume, post, send and curate information to sculpt a digital portfolio.

If they master this, doors will open for them; they'll be lightyears ahead of the character in the Dilbert cartoon--avoiding an internet presence that eliminates them from contention while gaining a digital profile that will attract academic and employment opportunities.

6.10.2015

GenZ and Privacy

Apple
Recently, the technology coordinator and I tried to teach a group of 25 seniors about privacy settings. These are our "Peer Leaders" who were learning this to pass the information along to their freshmen advisees. The school is concerned with predatory accounts friending, following and otherwise infiltrating our students' social networks for unethical, immoral reasons. Though these students are 18 years old, and supposedly "digital natives", it's safe to say they had NO idea how to control their privacy settings and NO idea how much of their data was being mined.

Perhaps Danah Boyd put it best when she wrote that today's media is "public by default, private when necessary." It's in these applications'/websites' best interest to keep profiles open to foster connections and thus mine more data in order to create future revenue. Therefor, it's imperative that we force our students think critically and carefully about which permissions they give to which applications and websites... and why.

Problem:
The peer leaders in this classroom laughed uncomfortably when they uncovered the sheer volume of apps to which they had given access to their location--not to mention the amount of apps to which they had given access to their photographs.

They admitted that they often accepted "friends" whom they had never met in person. Many of them have over 1,000 friends on Facebook, and had never gone back through to remove friends--not to mention remove old posts. And that's just one of their social networks where they've over-connected and over-shared. And, this all permanent, a fact that millennials often forget (including snapchat--just check their terms of service).

Solution:
To address this deficiency, we talked about how to revoke access to applications and websites that were mining their data. We even encouraged them to limit their friend lists and interactions on social networks. Then, we empowered them with a few tools to fight back--ways to track links and ways to pull a predator's IP address if they felt threatened.

Though I felt good about this lesson, I felt far more depressed about how oblivious students were to the inner-workings of social networks and applications.

Unfortunately, we often only teach these lessons after students have already made a mistake or struggled through an online interaction. And, in what capacity are schools going to teach these lessons? We had to hold our seniors out of a meeting period in order to find the time to teach this. I can't think of anything more important to teach the supposed "digital natives."

Fortunately for me, I teach a summer class called Mass Media where this is part of my curriculum. And, I see the same problems with those millennials. The way I've taught this in the past and will again in the future is by teaching data mining. Putting a face on which businesses are mining their data and how they're using this data often spooks them. I hope that my students will tighten up their privacy settings, think twice about posting something publicly, and reject application permissions and  "friend" requests. If this lesson really hits, the students will go back through all their old posts and permissions and start cleaning up their digital resumes. After all, we're only moving towards more online interactions and, paper resumes will be outdated by the time these teens apply for jobs.

2.26.2015

Harnessing the Popularity of Instagram in History Class

Last week, I asked students to take to Instagram to demonstrate their understanding of the Great Depression. When they arrived in class on the due date, students opened their homework and walked around the room to look at their classmates’ assignments. They scrutinized each other’s Great Depression Instagram Projects wondering the significance of a number, date, account name or hashtag. I told my students that they’d vote for the most creative project to earn the coveted title “best-in-class” and a spot on the bulletin board in the back of the classroom.

This project transcended multiple disciplines forcing students to creatively answer the prompt applying a variety of knowledge and skills. They learned a new piece of technology, they studied the Great Depression, and they had to tell a story with a platform they use daily.

With a photoshop Instagram template I received from the founder of histograms.com, students could manipulate all aspects of an Instagram post. I taught them photoshop so they could build this project. Then, I asked them to tell a story. They were asked to envision themselves in the 1930s and detail their own troubles, or to make up their own character or scene that proved they understood the challenges facing people during the Great Depression. Students could use an original image (like the one below), they could take one offline, or they could create their own meme!
My students proved their understanding of the Depression by including the date, a location, a career that a character held, the troubles he/she faced, and the social and political events that we covered in class. Students referenced: The Dust Bowl, The Grapes of Wrath, Hoover and Rugged Individualism, FDR and the New Deal, the Bonus Army, Hoovervilles, bread lines, you name it.
While students manipulated photoshop displaying their knowledge of the history, they also exercised their creativity in making their post tell a story. Each project had to have a protagonist, conflict and resolution, or lack thereof (often lackthereof given the unit).
Finally, but most importantly, I built creativity into the rubric for the project. Essentially, I told my students that the ability to think creatively will be helpful throughout their lives.

Because students had to present these projects to their fellow classmates, they felt social pressure to avoid taking the easy route--for instance, pasting Dorothea Lange’s Migrant Mother into the template with a hashtag about the dust bowl. Instead, students compared and contrasted images, they produced multiple images, they took original photos, and they added onto the template in creative ways to include more information or more images.

When students finished perusing their classmates work, they voted on the best one. This exercise reinforced my push for students to be creative, try something new, build, share and critique. The three winners are going up on the back wall to inspire others when I get to introduce the next class project.

1.26.2015

I Teach History Visually

Inherently, teaching history requires a certain amount of information delivery; but every students has his or her own preferred method to receive, recall and interact with that information. Some of my students can pick it all up just by reading the textbook closely (though textbook reading is their least favorite activity); others can listen to a lecture, jot a few notes and later recall it come test time; others still, benefit more when they see visuals attached to a lecture or presentation. In trying to provide the best instruction to all of the above types of learners, I’ve recently reached out to the visual learners in my classroom and it has boosted engagement and retention.


Lenin vs. Stalin in politics and economics

Most teachers jot a few notes on the whiteboard under each topic they want students to learn. Understanding that sites like wikipedia and quizlet easily cover and compile notes on these topics, I’ve moved in a new direction. I reduce the amount of words I write on the whiteboard and instead draw pictures (no matter what I’m teaching). The hope is that these lessons will reach my visual learners for retention and better recollection on unit examinations.

I find that the communal drawing fascinates students who enjoy critiquing and advising my masterpieces


an original cartoon of Andrew Johnson's impeachment
The first great result I discovered in trying visual lessons was unexpected. Because I wasn’t writing the words they needed to know, students had to put these concepts in their own words independently for their notes. Fortunately, I work in a 1:1 classroom so during my drawing, students googled words that they needed to define or events that they needed to understand. Precisely because I wasn’t feeding them the words/notes they needed to have, students began looking up the things I wanted them to learn in the way they look up information outside of class--through Google. This increased their level of engagement with the material. Students used their familiar search engines differently, they took notes differently, and they interacted differently with this unique lesson.

These lessons certainly helped students focus better. They stayed on task on their computer screens. Some googled the information, others wrote what I was saying down, and others pushed their computers out of the way and started drawing their own copy of my image in notebooks. One savvy student drew her own version on a computer application. I posted it, and a photo that I took of the whiteboard, to the class Moodle page hoping it would jog students’ memories before the test. It did.
one student used skitch to record my lesson
Finally, this lesson also forced students to think creatively. From an image, they had to figure out the background information, the major players, and how my own opinion about the history played into my drawing. Simultaneously, students loved questioning why I made the decisions I did. Now that I’ve run this lesson a number of times, I can turn over the teaching to my students. I can now ask them to create a visual to teach their classmates about an historical event, person, or primary source. This assignment requires students to think outside the box, take a risk (especially in sharing their "art"), and take ownership of the teaching and learning.

1.22.2015

Holiday Newsletters: Facilitating Learning through Winter Break

On December 19th, my students departed for a two-week vacation, and I was terrified to think they wouldn’t be reading and learning while away from school. The lure of Instagram, Snapchat, and Vine draws students away from the New York Times, The WSJ, NPR, and any other vehicles for learning that a teacher might endorse. This past break, in order to keep them reading and informed while away from school, I sent my students three “holiday newsletters.” These newsletters contained news and opinion pieces on current events in different media formats.

One of my hesitations in crafting these newsletters is that I’m not a professional editor; but, through my own social media I’ve curated quite a list of feeds that keep me up-to-date with the news. I’ve tried to teach students this skill so they can be their own editors, but alas, most teenagers aren’t interested. So instead, through my newsletters, I made it as easy as possible for my students to keep up with current events, hoping to catch a handful of them bored over their lengthy break.
It worked wonders. I didn’t reach nearly every student, but I did reach some. And that’s what matters. A handful of my students took time out of their vacation to see what’s going on outside their bubble. They had a chance to be informed citizens, to choose something that interested them and keep learning

When my students returned from break, we held intellectual discussions that helped them keep up with news from over the break. In some classes these discussions encouraged more of them to go back and read the newsletters; I even had a student who went back to a previous newsletter to hear a 2005 Kenyon graduation talk by David Foster Wallace. She emailed me a week later:


Hopefully, the “holiday newsletters” encouraged the students to consume and to share more academic content.