Primary Bytes from February 2nd, 2015

This week's highlights from the Digital Bytes include a great article about writing in the 21st Century, talking about sexism in Superbowl ads and an iBooks Author Tutorial.

Parenting in the Digital Age

As parents, we all want what is best for our children. Kids are growing up in a digital age that is much different than the one we grew up in. Many parents are coming to grips with how they approach digital technology usage in their home. There are many approaches and every family and situation is unique. Parents have to decide what approach works best for them. There is no "one size fits all" method.

Technology brings many benefits to our lives.

One of the biggest benefits of technology is that it enables us to communicate very easily. Parents can keep in contact with their children via texts, phone or video calls. Many children regularly communicate using Skype with family members far away for free. Gone are the days of short, expensive, long distance calls to relatives. These same children are capturing photos and videos and sharing them with friends and family.

Technology has allowed us to have a window into the classroom that we have never had before. Teachers and students share photos, videos, work samples, voice recordings and many other things easily using technology. Big events like performances are often recorded or even live streamed so people who can't be at the event won't miss it.


Technology helps us with our efficiency and organization.
Not so long ago, trying to find someone else's location could be a very frustrating experience. Now when we are taking our children to something like a birthday party, we use the maps function on our phone to help us locate the address, and even get us there by guiding us every step of the way.

Shared calendars and to-do lists on our devices help to keep our schedules and lives organized. I know I feel less stressed about forgetting something when I have it written down on my phone. And if you haven't used the voice to text feature on your device recently, you should really try it out. I love it and I am excited about how it can help students in the classroom.

A little while ago, I found one of my favourite books online that is out of print and no longer in bookstores and had it delivered to my door. I didn't have to travel all that way to the little bookshop in Michigan - how is that for efficiency?

Technology provides entertainment.
Let's face it, we all use technology as a form of entertainment and that is a good thing. It might be your child building worlds in Minecraft or you playing a game of Scrabble. Never has it been so easy to rent a movie with the touch of a button or download an app that reinforces a concept a student has learned in an entertaining way.

Technology helps us learn.
When you want to find out about something, what is the first thing you and your family does? You Google it. It has become such an ingrained part of our lives that it is easy to take for granted. It wasn't that long ago where knowledge was stored in books and we had to use the card catalogue in the library as a starting point for our search. Memorizing information isn't the skill we value anymore; we value the ability to find and use information. And where do many teenagers look to find out about how to do something? YouTube has become the go to place to learn about something new.

But we aren't going to pretend that with all these benefits, there aren't any drawbacks to the technology. Parents have concerns about technology and their children. Screentime, inappropriate online content, digital distractions and cyber bullying are some of the issues that we sometimes hear when parents share their concerns.

Parents sometimes tell us that their children know more about the technology than they do and this worries them. Of course, this is not a new concern for parents. Every generation has a new technology that pushes against the previous generation. In 1815, educators had to fight to allow students to use paper and pencil instead of a slate. In 1941 at a principal's conference, there was resistance to students using the fountain pen because they would lose the ability to sharpen a pencil. There will always be new technology and, as parents, we can't put our head in the sand and make excuses that we don't know how it works.

The most important thing that you can do is be involved in your child's digital life.
Talk to them about what they are doing on the computer. Sit with them when they play that new game. Play it with them. Have conversations with your child about technology issues and concerns.

It is vital that you keep the lines of communication open.
We need to foster an environment in our homes where, if our children have a concern, they come and talk to us about it. Mistakes will be made. That is life. But we want kids to come to us so we can support them in learning from their mistakes.

One way to keep the lines of communication open is to regularly have conversations about technology related topics or situations with your family. Perhaps it could be a regular dinner time or family time conversation?

The topics for conversation can come from anyone in the family. Or you could choose a topic from some conversation starters we have prepared here.

You may also want to think about what style of parenting you may want to use when it comes to technology in your household. Here are three possible approaches.

1. Control Oriented Approaches - You as parents decide what happens.
You set the boundaries, rules and consequences. This doesn't mean that you can't have conversations with your child about issues. It just means that the child doesn't participate in the decision making process.

2. Conversational Approaches- Parents and children work together to decide what happens. Any boundaries, rules and consequences are discussed and set by both parents and children. You need to come to a consensus with your family about how to approach and respond to situations.

3. Disposition-Based Approaches - Children make the decisions with the coaching support of parents. 
In this approach, students are encouraged to make their own choices. Again, this doesn't mean that parents are not involved. Parents have conversations with their children about any issues and ask questions to provoke thinking and growth.

No matter which strategy you choose, here are some good question prompts when discussing an issue:
"Why do you want to do this?"
"What are your options?"
"What are the consequences of your actions?"
"How will your decision affect others?"
"Is this decision in your best interests in the long run?"

In each of the strategies above, the lines of communication are open between parents and children. The difference is who is the decision maker in the process - parents, parents and children, or children.

A fantastic resource for parents is Common Sense Media.  It is regularly updated and includes many helpful articles, videos and other resources

Below are some resources we have collated around some of the more common concerns for parents, with links to articles which provide different perspectives. There are also links grouped by parenting style, so you can find articles relevant to your parenting approach.

Documenting Learning: writing the course yearbook with iBooks Author

Learning for our students often occurs at a break-neck pace. Teachers are under pressure to finish the syllabus, students scramble to meet deadlines while balancing their other commitments. It can feel overwhelming at times and what gets lost is that sense of accomplishment, being able to look back on, remember, and take stock in one's learning.
In Digital Perspectives, I had my students compile their evidence and reflections on learning as we came to the end of this half-year course. Each student authored a chapter in iBooks Author and included their product along with reflections on their process and learning. The result is a yearbook of sorts where each student's work and learning is compiled into an attractive, easy to navigate, multi-media-rich package.

Process

I created a sample chapter in iBooks Author that included the layout, sample text, and media placeholders giving them a scaffold to work within. 

Students added their reflections, images, video, an instant-alpha photo of themselves on the cover and recorded a course highlight audio file to give interactivity to the book. 

The entire book was completed in about an hour by my students. Students were able to draw upon reflections they'd already done and entries in their learning journals, though they hadn't yet done a formal reflection for the last project or the course as a whole. 

If we'd had more time to dedicate to the process, I'd include interactive images and pop-overs which would be great ways to refer to specific choices made and processes used in creating their products. 

Each student transferred their completed book chapter to me over AirDrop, I chose to "save and open," then copied their chapter, closed their book, and pasted it into the developing class yearbook. Each new chapter goes in at the end and is automatically organized in the table of contents. Chapters can be shifted around by dragging the thumbnails. It's that easy. 

At the end, I exported the book to iBooks format and shared it back with the students so they can have a record of our collective experience in the class. 

Our course yearbook allows us to take a breath, look back on, and feel a sense of accomplishment for all we've learned.

Using iMovie and a whiteboard to create RSA Animate-style videos to demonstrate understanding

For some time now the Royal Society for the encouragement of the Arts (RSA) have been posting RSA Animate videos. These videos are done in a definitive style showing a human creating some elaborate art "live" on a whiteboard that illustrates a talk. Here's one of my favorites:

Demonstrating Understanding through Story

RSA-Animate style videos are a good way for students to show their understanding of a topic. They require the students to think about the topic and place it in a context and then communicate this as a narrative. Developing the story is a challenge for students and really exposes their level of understanding. You can't fake a good story. It's worth spending a good amount of time in the planning process as students may need quite a lot of time and support to develop a good story that represents their understanding of the topic. 

Additionally, by thinking of how to visually communicate their story, students develop symbolic representations of the information. This can aid in their own retention and recall of the information and help build strong neuronal connections to the content. 

The Process

Assignment brief

Students need to be given the outline of what's expected in the assignment. Show them an example of the style and break down elements that they can identify i.e. story, visuals, pacing. Be explicit about the elements you expect to be included in their video. A recent example from GCSE Coordinated Science spelled out that students were to explain the concept of electrostatics and explain an application of it. Giving parameters on length is also important, in the Co-Sci case it was maximum of two minutes.

Research and planning

Next, students research and plan that story. This could take the form of an outline that details the arc of their story including a hook, middle and ending. Once they know what they want to say, they will develop a sketch that symbolically represents their story. Before they begin, it's a good idea to check-in with students to see that they've got both their story and sketch solid. 

Visual story recording

The basic set-up is to have a surface to draw on with a fixed-position camera set-up to capture the entire surface the size of the finished sketch. There are a couple different options for recording the visual story. 

• drawing on an A3 paper or mini whiteboard using a phone or iPad shooting downward
• drawing on chart paper or a whiteboard using a phone, iPad or laptop camera shooting forward

The important things to keep in mind are:

1. make sure the camera captures the entire sketch
2. make sure the camera is stationary (don't hand hold it)
3. don't block your drawing with your body
4. pay attention to lighting to avoid shadows

Since you'll be recording the audio story later, it's not important to pay attention to the room noise, you'll be muting the clip anyway during the editing process.

Editing and voice-over

The most efficient process for editing involves starting with the visual story and splitting it into segments. Next, crop each segment to draw the focus to that part of the story and adjust the speed so that a slider appears on the clip. You'll fine tune the speed of each clip to match the voice over later. Then record the voice over for each segment. 

*Instructions for iMovie version 10.0.x update to this version before going ahead.

1. Create a new event and import the recording of your sketching into this event
2. Create a new movie project in this event and name it appropriately
3. From the events window, select the entire clip and drag it into the editing window. 
4. Use the adjustment tools to mute the entire clip.
5. Use your mouse to skim over the clip and press "cmd B" when you'd like to split the clip. Delete segments you don't want. You'll want to split the clip into segments that show a particular idea or concept. 
6. Use the adjustment tools to crop the video. Choose "crop to fill" and then move and size the frame so that it focuses in of the relevant part of the frame for each segment.
7. Use the speed adjustment and select "fast" to speed up the action in the clip. You don't have to worry about the exact speed right now because you'll adjust the slider later on to match the length of the voice-over. 
8. Record your narrative by doing a voice over. Press the "V" key to see the voice over tools. Press the mic icon to begin recording narration over the segments.
9. As you finish each segment of narration, go back and adjust the speed of the clip(s) for that segment so that the drawing matches and augments the story. 
10. Share the finished video.

Screencast of the editing process...

and my finished example: