Literacy Now

In today’s world, the topic of using technology in the classroom can be intimidating. In this monthly column, join one teacher on a quest to discover the best way to meet the needs of her digital-age learners…moving beyond the technology tools to focusing on supporting each student’s learning. 

I love this time of year in the classroom. The students have learned routines, they’ve become more independent learners, and (hopefully) they have begun to take initiative. One idea that hits me this time each year is when the students return after the winter holidays, they want more—more of a challenge, more exposure to new ideas, and more options when publishing.

To be clear, my learners always have at least one publishing project going all the time. Not all of these projects are digital. Some students choose to share their writing through a one-person performance, a puppet show, or a handwritten, bound journal. Their options are only limited by their creativity. However, some students are so overwhelmed with all the options, they need some guidance in selecting the method or tool for amplifying their writing to an audience.

Although I do my best to keep up with a wide variety of new tools, both high-tech and low-tech, I’ve discovered my students’ favorite ones are usually the ones that they discover themselves and share with one another. In the vein of the holiday, I thought I would pay forward some of the digital tools my students are currently using. These are digital tools that they really enjoy using to share their writing with their global audience.

Using Tackk, students can create beautiful digital brochures, posters, or websites. Because of its organization, Tackk is simple for students to organize their writing and include other types of media, such as graphic, photos, video, audio or illustrations. One feature the students particularly enjoy is that everything is automatically saved, relieving students of the fear they are going to lose hours of work.

Students can log in using their Google or Edmodo account (other options like Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter are also available).  Using the intuitive tool bar, students publish their writing embedding the other media that supports their text. Then, with the click of a button, they can publish it on a wide range of social media outlets, embed it into their blog, email it, or print a hardcopy. However, the ease of publishing and sharing is not what appeals to my students most. The element they love is the robust commenting feature. Now their project is not just a static project. It welcomes ongoing dialogue and further learning through the ability of visitors to comment upon their Tackk. By not only having their writing easily read by their peers, but also encouraging an ongoing conversation lends the authenticity that today’s learner craves.

With PowToon for Education, students can turn their writing into animated presentations with cartoon style videos. Students simply drag and drop the elements that they need onto their work surface. With a large collection of background, themes, and props, students can easily bring their writing to life without getting bogged down or side-tracked in the nitty-gritty technology aspect of a tool, which can prove frustrating to many learners. Learners also have the ability to import their own images, if they prefer, including their own photographs or hand-drawn images. Additionally, they are further able to personalize and customize their PowToon by adding their own sound tracks and voice-overs. If a student (or you) gets stuck, this site has a great library of user-friendly, short video tutorials that break down each of the steps in creating a great visual. Once complete, students can share their final project in multiple ways. It can be uploaded to YouTube, shared through many different social media sites, or embedded in a blog, wiki, or website.

Smore is another site enabling a user to publish a digital flyer, newsletter, or website. With Smore, learners can publish their writing and embed a variety of different media from graphics and photos to videos. This tool also has a simple user interface with a drag and drop design. My learners love that it has many options to customize the look of their writing. I love that there aren’t so many “bells and whistles” that students lose focus on the point of this publishing…to amplify their writing for an authentic audience.

Once a student has completed his/her Smore, it can easily be shared through social media outlets or embedded directly into a blog, wiki, or website. Much like Tackk, once a piece is published on Smore, that’s not the end of the project. Smore also has a commenting feature so that students can continue to have a conversation with other members of their learning community. With all of the different tools that we use, I’ve observed that my students tend to lean towards those, which allows them to receive meaningful feedback on their writing from their peers both, local and global.

I hope these tools will provide you and your students something new to add to the publishing toolbox. If you have a favorite tool you would like to share with all of us, please leave a comment or email us at social@/. Wishing you and yours a wonderful holiday season and new year full of fun writing and publishing adventures!

Julie D. Ramsay is a Nationally Board Certified educator and the author of Can We Skip Lunch and Keep Writing?: Collaborating in Class & Online, Grades 3-8. She teaches ELA to sixth graders at Rock Quarry Middle School in Tuscaloosa, AL. She also travels the country to speak, present, and facilitate workshops in applying technology to support authentic learning. Read her blog at juliedramsay.blogspot.com. 

In today’s world, the topic of using technology in the classroom can be intimidating. In this monthly column, join one teacher on a quest to discover the best way to meet the needs of her digital-age learners…moving beyond the technology tools to focusing on supporting each student’s learning. 

I have a responsibility to educate my students beyond the “now.” But in a world where we are often mandated to prepare students for looming high-stakes tests, how can we provide our students with the opportunity to learn crucial life skills like communication, problem solving, creativity, decision-making, time management, and organization? Is it possible to both guide students into mastering their grade level standards as well as empowering them with the life skills that they will need in the future?

For me the answer came in the form of project-based learning (PBL) more than four years ago where students use life skills to create a project that demonstrates mastery of content areas standards.  Along the way, my students and I have learned a few tips to make PBL manageable within the classroom environment while empowering students to have a voice and choice in how they learn, what they learn within a standard, and how they demonstrate mastery of their standards. Here are the things that we have found yield the greatest degree of success:

Exposure. My students come to me from two different elementary schools. Although they have had experience in doing projects, most of those projects are very teacher-directed with heavy assistance by parents. When I began PBL, my students were not accustomed to having to make choices, solve problems, or direct their own learning. I always hesitate to show an example of how a student could create a project to show mastery of standards because ultimately you get 85 almost identical projects. On the other hand, students also need to “see” their target.

As I contemplated that conflict, I realized I already had a large database of projects from previous students published on our class website, blog, and wiki. All I needed to do was expose my students to all of the possibilities. Instead of pointing them out to the class, I created an online scavenger hunt for my learners to explore digital resources and they spent a lot of time exploring and engaging in the projects of their predecessors. They have seen how one standard can be met in many different ways. They understand creativity and individuality are key components in making the learning theirs.

Gradual release. In our class, PBL means students are working toward demonstrating mastery of the same standard. Same goal. Different paths. When I speak with other educators, I can feel overwhelmed facing the idea of a large variety of projects going simultaneously.

Students can feel overwhelmed because they can no longer compare their learning against a peer’s as they are working on different projects. They can no longer depend upon parents to assist (or complete) their projects for them. In our classroom, as in many other PBL classrooms, a bulk of the work is completed at school. You can’t measure a student’s mastery if they had assistance from parents. You would have no idea where the student’s learning ended and the parent’s began.

To alleviate that pressure, we begin with small projects within one or two class periods. When we practiced using adverbs to paint more powerful images for our audience within our writing, students were tasked to demonstrate a mastery of adverbs. Some students opted to write a paragraph with and without adverbs demonstrating the difference descriptive language makes to a reader. Other students create Instagram videos where they acted out adverbs and asked their global peers to identify the adverbs. The digital dialogue gave those students the opportunity to defend their learning and add to the learning of peers.

These types of projects were not a list of suggestions I gave my students, but ideas they came up with on their own. This gave them the opportunity to look at what a content standard really meant beyond the classroom walls. It gave them insight into how to manage their own work with a clear deadline. They learned how to problem solve, apply knowledge, and articulate their own learning.

Confer, confer, confer. This has been the most important shift I have made when moving to PBL. When students are working on projects for longer durations of time, they need feedback often. No one wants to get derailed for three weeks only to discover his or her mistake. With my students, I aim to meet with each student at least twice a week. They bring their work, ideas, questions, obstacles, and goals for the next couple of days. These sessions keep students focused on the purpose of their project: to prove mastery of content standards. As the teacher, I know where they are and if I need to plan a small group lesson or a reteaching session to provide the support—or challenge—each student needs. With regular conferring, I can do that in a timely manner. If students are struggling with how to demonstrate mastery, I can ask them a series of probing questions to lead them in the right direction.

To manage all of the feedback and discussion, my students now handle all of their brainstorming, research, note taking, planning, and writing drafts in Google Drive. This enables us to have conversations about their writing, making the feedback visible where they can easily refer to it during their project. With Drive, students can also invite peers to provide insights and feedback adding another perspective to the publishing of their final project.

When it is time for a student to be assessed on their project, the grade is never a surprise because they have been discussing it with me and with their peers for days (or weeks).

Stay focused. Just like each one of our students are unique, so are their projects. It is easy to get wowed by a project with a lot of bells and whistles. Often these projects overshadow projects that appear simple. However, the appearance of the final project is not what this is about. Recently, a teacher asked how to compare a project where a student has created an intricate and professional-looking movie with a student who had drawn a comic strip. The answer is simple. You don’t. That’s not the point. The point is to compare each student to the standard. That’s the target for each student.

For one of our quarter assessments, my students took the six standards that we had been working on and each created a project to prove mastery of those standards. Some students created video games that required an audience to apply their learning to solve the problems. They built this gaming world with challenges, obstacles, and rewards. It took countless hours. And another student created a simple Power Point that had hand drawn illustrations. Although these projects were very different, they each had proven mastery of the six standards. Truth be told, the learner with the simple Power Point actually showed a much higher level of mastery with her project—something that is easy to overlook if we don’t stay focused on what matters most—students owning their learning.

Although PBL seems to be a trend right now, it isn’t anything new. Teachers have been doing this for decades because it empowers students to take ownership and apply their learning in authentic ways. It’s the best of what education can offer our students—the opportunity to master content standards, apply life skills, and learn how to take that content and apply it in authentic ways. It strengthens them as not just as learners, but as individuals who will shape the world of the future.

Julie D. Ramsay is a Nationally Board Certified educator and the author of Can We Skip Lunch and Keep Writing?: Collaborating in Class & Online, Grades 3-8. She teaches ELA to sixth graders at Rock Quarry Middle School in Tuscaloosa, AL. She also travels the country to speak, present, and facilitate workshops in applying technology to support authentic learning. Read her blog at juliedramsay.blogspot.com. 

In today’s world, the topic of using technology in the classroom can be intimidating. In this monthly column, join one teacher on a quest to discover the best way to meet the needs of her digital-age learners…moving beyond the technology tools to focusing on supporting each student’s learning. 

It’s the beginning of a typical day: there’s a hum of learning beginning in the classrooms, students are running errands to various parts of the school building, and announcements break in for current school news.  Then it’s discovered! Someone has gone into the restroom and written on the walls with a pencil. Outrage ensues and a culprit is quickly discovered. This type of behavior simply cannot, will not, be tolerated. From this point on, all pencils are banned from school grounds.

As teachers, we know that this is ludicrous. We understand that kids will be kids. Mistakes happen. We look for these opportunities to harness the power of turning a mistake, or lapse of judgment, into a moment for our students to learn and grow as individuals. Likewise, we know that we cannot deprive other students of other learning opportunities because one student misused their pencil. After all, a pencil is simply a tool; a tool with incredible potential to support not only content-area learning, but also creativity, collaboration, and problem solving.

However, in today’s classrooms around the world, some teachers are doing just that; they are banning a tool that brings a world of learning possibilities far beyond our imagination. That tool is social media. Those two words typically have a polarizing affect upon teachers. They either love it or they avoid it like the plague.  

Many teachers, parents, and administrators are afraid of the potential dangers associated with social media. Are there potential dangers associated with social media? Yes. However, do we ban scissors and physical education classes because there is a potential of danger? No. Within the safety of our classroom walls, we teach students safe practices until those practices become habits. That is also what we need to do with our students and social media.

Safety First

We have been using social media in our classroom for six years. When we started, I only had a vision of making our classroom visible to my students’ family. I wanted for my learners’ parents and relatives to become a part of the learning that was taking place in our classroom. So I approached my administrator and explained my purpose. I also explained I had put several safety measures in place for our students. After hearing all of my plans and knowing that many of our learners’ family members were all over the world, she agreed to allow us to use social media in order to bring home and school closer together as we worked to strengthen the community bond.

We began with Twitter. First of all, I would be the only one with the login information and my personal phone was the only device connected to that account. I would control everything going out of our Twitter account and filter anything coming into our classroom. We would only follow other classes of students, children’s/young adult authors, or educational resources.

Furthermore, we would spend the first week of school engaging in serious conversations about cyber-safety and netiquette. These conversations were not meant to scare students, but were intended to help open their eyes to all of the benefits of social media as well as the potential dangers. We used the Net Cetera resources from OnguardOnline.gov to guide the dialogue. What surprised me the first year we had this conversation is how many students were already using social networking sites with little to no supervision or guidance. Because we had these conversations, my students understood their online choices and actually made themselves safer when they were away from the filters and safety precautions at school.

Following our in-class discussion, students took the Net Cetera books (also available in Spanish) home to their parents. The students put on the teacher hat and led conversations with their parents about online safety. Parents contacted me in awe of their students’ ability to articulate the importance of making wiser choices when online.

Our foray into social media quickly grew as students began to realize and crave an authentic reason to share their learning, discuss their books, publish their writing, and create challenges for their global peers. They would share their successes and ask for help in overcoming obstacles. Since we had laid a strong foundation in understanding the place for this tool in supporting our learning and communicating with others, my students began connecting with experts who could answer their questions, writing mentors who could guide their writing development, and role models who provided inspiration in pursuing their dreams.

Speak Up

I knew for this to have long-term, successful ramifications, I needed parental support. My learners’ parents needed to understand that social media was more than celebrities sharing their mundane life choices; it was a tool that could connect students to a world of learning opportunities not available through other mediums (See Giving Every Student a Voice with Twitter).

All parents in our district signed a release form allowing photos of their students to be posted online. We would never post a photo with a child’s name.  However, I wanted for the parents to see the amazing potential social media afforded their students.

At our “Meet the Teacher” night before school began, I began sharing all of our plans and the role Twitter (later we added blogging , Skype, and Instagram) would play in our learning. I explained the safety precautions in place and how the students would be learning lifelong skills within the safety of our classroom.   In the six years we have used social media, I have only had one parent who didn’t want his child’s photo posted and after two months of watching our Twitter feed, he changed his mind. I attribute this to the fact that the parents became a part of the conversation. They were well-informed. Social media was never presented as an “extra,” but as tool to support their students’ learning and growth. It provided a relevance and authenticity to their learning while inviting parents to join us in learning adventures.

Going Beyond

When embarking on anything new, education is the key. Change is scary. The unknown evokes fear in many. As the teacher, we must be educated and able to articulate and support our practice. Our choices must be purposeful and support relevant and meaningful learning for all of our students.

It’s important to take time to communicate our ideas while validating and addressing the concerns of administrators and parents. After all, we are the ones leading the learning of all of our students. We need to be the ones advocating for what is best for them in today’s digital age.

It’s time for us to stop banning “pencils,” and open our students up to a whole new world of learning. The answer is not in banning practices or tools that can build our learners far beyond our classroom. There is a world that is overflowing with opportunities for them to grow and connect with their global peers all within the safety of our classrooms. It is our responsibility to pave the way where students can harness the power of different tools to support them on their path of lifelong learning.

Julie D. Ramsay is a Nationally Board Certified educator and the author of Can We Skip Lunch and Keep Writing?: Collaborating in Class & Online, Grades 3-8. She teaches ELA to sixth graders at Rock Quarry Middle School in Tuscaloosa, AL. She also travels the country to speak, present, and facilitate workshops in applying technology to support authentic learning. Read her blog at juliedramsay.blogspot.com. 

In today’s world, the topic of using technology in the classroom can be intimidating. In this monthly column, join one teacher on a quest to discover the best way to meet the needs of her digital-age learners…moving beyond the technology tools to focusing on supporting each student’s learning. 

For many of us, our school break is becoming a flurry of putting classrooms back together, creating exciting new activities for our fresh new learners, and the subtle creeping in of those back-to-school dreams (or is that just me?). Personally, the first day of school is one of my very favorite days of the year. Everything is fresh and new. The door is open to new opportunities and adventures. Students and teachers alike are excited by all the possibilities. But, as I watch all the tweets, posts, and pins, I can’t help but wonder if some of us are slapping a fresh coat of paint on an old rickety practice. Are we making things look really good and exciting on the surface without taking the time to reflect on our practice and how we can make changes to positively impact the learning of each and every student, each and every day?

There are two major areas in the world of the classroom where a strong foundation paves the way to a smooth and productive year: communication and getting to know our students.  I thought I would take this opportunity to share with you some of the strategies, practices, and tools I will be using in the upcoming school year in order to kick off the school year right.

Staying Connected

As teachers, we know that a big piece of our students’ success is building a strong bond between school and home. Practices, procedures, and expectations change each year for a student. And although students adjust quickly in school, often their parents may be confused and frustrated by all the “new” coming home each day.

We need to be prepared to deliver important information in a timely manner. At the beginning of our teaching career, we may have communicated with a weekly newsletter that we printed off and sent home. And although that may have been the most effective way of communicating with parents, times have changed. We need to think about the methods our parents and students use to receive their information now. Information gathering is quick, concise, and usually in the palms of their hands. We need to deliver updates in the digital places where parents already spend time.

In addition to our regular postings on our class blog (which my learners quickly begin maintaining), our class is active on Twitter and Instagram. We have set up a class account @RamsaysClass to let our audience know that everything being published is coming from students. Students post on classroom devices where we are logged into the accounts or they use their own accounts (with parent approval) and post to our hashtag (#RQMS6). Although my learners use both tools to share their learning and connect with their global peers, it also serves as a window into our daily learning activities. Family members cannot only see our active learning environment, but it also gives them the opportunity to join in all of the learning fun. Over the years, these tools have proven to be highly effective in keeping family members, near and far, engaged in our learning community.

In addition to social media, a major source of communication in today’s digital world is texting. There are several texting tools and apps you can use, but my preference is Remind (formerly Remind101). With Remind, you can set up different groups for free; if you teach multiple classes, you can set up a student and parent group for each class. When you send messages, you can send to multiple groups at the same time. You don’t have all the parents’ and students’ numbers and they do not have yours. You give parents and students a class code and they can receive your updates via push notifications, text messages, or email. You can even schedule updates in advance and attach files like photos, documents, PDFs, and presentations. Staying in touch couldn’t be simpler.

Getting to Know You

Life in the classroom is never dull. With so many different learners with unique needs, sometimes it can feel like we are balancing a plethora of spinning plates. How do you determine what a student knows on each and every skill and standard? How do you learn each student’s interests so you can peak his/her curiosity? The sheer amount of formal and informal data a teacher collects each day can quickly become overwhelming, especially at the beginning of the year when you are getting to know your students.

One practice I have found very useful is creating a survey in Google Drive. In a quick and easy form, I can get to know my learners’ likes, dislikes, goals, fears, challenges, hobbies, favorite books, and preference in learning styles. Setting up a Google account is simple. You can use an email address you already own, even if it is not a Gmail address. Once you are in your Google account, simply click on “create” and “form.” Type in your questions, publish, and you are ready to go. I have my students complete this the first couple of days of school. In addition to adding the link to our class website and blog, I turn the link into a QR Code so students can simply scan the code and go directly to the survey. All of that information is stored in your Google Drive as a spreadsheet, making it easily accessible.

Another way to gather data on students is through a free tool called Kahoot. Kahoot allows the user to create quizzes, games and surveys for an audience which interacts in a gaming format using any Internet capable device. In real-time, learners answer questions and teachers get an overview of the level of content mastery to drive their subsequent instruction all within the context of a game. Furthermore, learners have the opportunity to create their own Kahoot to challenge their peers’ understanding and mastery. Kahoot joins my toolbox as an engaging way to pre-assess students at the beginning of new content standards.

KWL graphic organizers have stood the test of time because they provide the learner and teacher with much valuable information before, during, and after a unit of study. Students typically have experience using them at least for the K (what they Know) and W (what they Want to know). However, often the copy they use has been lost or mangled before they ever get to the L (what they have Learned) or all of the sticky notes on the chart paper have long since fallen off the wall and walked out on the bottom of someone’s shoe. ReadWriteThink has created an online tool to bring the practicality of using a KWL back into your classrooms. Students can open the tool and add their own content; including curating any links they may discover or projects they created. Then they can save the file and return to make additions throughout their learning journey. It can be saved as a PDF and submitted to you as evidence of their learning. The KWL creator appeals to my learners because they can see their growth all within one working document.

Socrative is a powerful (and free) tool I harness to get to know my students. Using Socrative, teachers can create quizzes and exit tickets to pre-assess and formatively assess throughout a unit of study. Students can use any Internet-capable device to complete quizzes using a classroom code, which stays the same for the entire year. These quizzes can take the form of multiple choice, true-false, or open-ended questions. The teacher can view the progress in real-time and then a spreadsheet of results is available instantaneously at the conclusion of the quiz to drive further instruction. We use Socrative frequently as a warm-up at the beginning of a class or an exit ticket at the conclusion of a class. My learners eagerly anticipate the immediate feedback they receive on their progress towards their academic goals.

Making Plans

So as the time begins to escalate towards the beginning of the school year, let’s take some time to truly ponder our practice. Let’s think beyond the cute classroom décor and bulletin boards. What worked well? What could be improved upon? How can we grow to better serve the students who we will have for such a short amount of time?

Now is the time we have to prepare for a successful year. We can lay the groundwork for building a strong support system for our learners through our communication. As teachers, we have the ability to invite parents and family members into our learning environment. It’s time we remembered that although we may have a student for a year, the parents have been with them for their entire lives. We need to capitalize on that expertise for the benefit of each child’s learning.

We can spend the next few weeks strengthening our ability to get to know each one of our learners as individuals so we can not only peak their curiosity and creativity, but also help them become the person they want to be. We need to discover where they are on the learning continuum and guide them to where they need to be. Each student is unique; it’s our responsibility to adjust, change, and grow into the educator each one of our students need.

Best wishes on a successful start of a new school year!

Julie D. Ramsay is a Nationally Board Certified educator and the author of  Can We Skip Lunch and Keep Writing?: Collaborating in Class & Online, Grades 3-8 (Stenhouse, 2011). She teaches ELA to sixth graders at Rock Quarry Middle School in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. She also travels the country to speak, present, and facilitate workshops in applying technology to support authentic learning. Read her blog at juliedramsay.blogspot.com. 

In today’s world, the topic of using technology in the classroom can be intimidating. In this monthly column, join one teacher on a quest to discover the best way to meet the needs of her digital-age learners…moving beyond the technology tools to focusing on supporting each student’s learning. 

photo credit: JD Hancock via photopin via photopin cc

Warning: I’m about to let you in on how deep my geekdom really runs.

Recently, I was in a somewhat heated debate on the validity of the first three episodes of the Star Wars saga; I’m talking about Episodes 1–3, which were released from 1999–2005. My stance was the original three movies (released starting in 1977) were of much higher quality than the newer episodes. In the original episodes, the writing was of higher quality with the storyline and characters being more multifaceted; the plot was rich and full of literary qualities; and the acting was better (hello, Harrison Ford!). Personally, I also love the fact it was a fairy tale told about the distant past but appeared to be further into our future.

One point that kept coming up for debate was about the level of technology and special effects. More specifically, what wasn’t available when the original three installments were filmed, but which were spectacular in the more recent episodes. I can see how technological advances did add a “wow” factor to the newer films that modern audiences may see as lacking from the original three (I disagree, but that’s a topic of a different discussion). However, does all of that “wow” equate to a higher quality movie? Does it make up for the depth that was lacking from the story? I don’t think so.

As I pondered the educational lessons learned from this dialogue (yes, another one of my passions), I realized that in today’s digital world, it is very easy for us to get sucked in by the “wow” factor of new tech tools we can bring into our classrooms. We see things claiming to make our educator lives easier and make learning more fun for learners. However, just because we can bring that technology into our classrooms, does it necessarily mean that it will do a better job at supporting student learning? Are we willing to buy into the premise that bigger, faster, or easier is always better for our students? 

To be honest, I have found myself swayed by all of the bells and whistles only to discover my practice already provided the best support and level of challenge my students needed before our new, sometimes very expensive, toy arrived. So I thought I would take a few minutes and share with you my thought process when weighing “the wow” versus “the substance” a tool can provide.

What do my students need? Sometimes we go to professional learning events sponsored by major vendors and become enticed by all that their product claims to offer to our students. All of a sudden we find ourselves wanting a product in an area where we do not have any needs or gaps in learning. As with so many of the decisions we make as educators, we always, without fail, need to lead with the learning. I discovered that if I identify practices, strategies, and needs of my students regularly and I keep my focus on those, I am much less likely to get sold any snake oil.

For instance, we all know the power of small groups and one-on-one conferring with our students. The struggle I had was in how to document and collect that data in order to effectively develop my instruction for each student in a timely manner. I had tried many practices. Yet, I felt like I was using an inordinate amount of time away from the actual instruction. I knew I needed a better way, not just for me, but also for my students. So, everything I read, every vendor I visited, every educator with whom I conversed, I searched to fill that need. I adjusted my lens and kept focus until I found my answer in an app called Confer. Yes, you need to be open to new ideas, but student-need should always remain our focus.

What will it provide that I don’t already have? As educators, it is crucial we model lifelong learning for our students. Each student, each year, is unique. That means we must continue to search for tools to put into our teaching toolbox. When you see a tool with a lot of pizzazz, you need to take time to evaluate whether it promotes strong pedagogy. Mentally strip down the bells and whistles to see what it is truly offering to you and your students. Will it not only support student learning, but also do it more effectively than what you are already doing?

Several years ago, I encouraged my administrator to go with me to a technology conference with the sole mission of showing her the power of an interactive whiteboard. I saw it as a way to have students engaging with and creating content. In my mind it provided students, especially those with special needs, the opportunity to actively participate and engage in learning unlike anything we had done in the past.

However, what happened was the district bought one from different company, one which did not offer the same capabilities for student engagement. Every class in the district was given this extremely expensive piece of equipment which ended up being used as a whiteboard without the engagement originally intended. We already had whiteboards; this electronic version had no impact on student learning (whereas the other model, with its more student engagement-friendly features, may have). As the ones in direct contact with students, it is our job to peel back the glitzy façade and analyze how a new technology could fill a need for student learning.

What does it offer other than fun? I often hear teachers say how much students will love a new tech tool. They claim it will motivate students to want to learn. I have heard educators extol the features of a tool without once mentioning student learning. This is a danger I call “Christmas Morning Syndrome.” On Christmas morning, kids get up thrilled and excited by their new toys. They spend countless hours playing with them. They are having fun. But where are those toys in July? They are often broken, discarded, and generally left forgotten. See, although a tool may be fun, and research supports the role of fun within the learning process, fun without substance is short-term, not long-lasting. Just like those toys on Christmas morning, if we throw new tools at our learners expecting them to do our job of creating self-motivated learners, we are on a slippery slope.

We are the educators. We are the content specialists and educational strategists. It is our responsibility to make the best choices for our students. We need to tap into their interests and learning styles to provide instruction that meets their unique needs. We need to differentiate, assess, challenge, inspire, and guide them to meeting their goals.

None of these steps can be replaced by a tech tool. A tool’s role is to support aspects of learning and educating. If it can’t do that, we need to spend our time and resources elsewhere.

Until next time, may the force of making the best choices for your students be with you.

Julie D. Ramsay is a Nationally Board Certified educator and the author of “CAN WE SKIP LUNCH AND KEEP WRITING?”: COLLABORATING IN CLASS & ONLINE, GRADES 3-8 (Stenhouse, 2011). She teaches ELA to sixth graders at Rock Quarry Middle School in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. She also travels the country to speak, present, and facilitate workshops in applying technology to support authentic learning. Read her blog at juliedramsay.blogspot.com.