Technology Addictions: Are We Contributing?

Recently, there have been several news articles about teens admitting they are addicted to their Smartphones. The idea of a technology addiction is not new, but this raises the question, as we head towards "paperless" classrooms with online testing the norm, or whether or not schools are contributing to this technological trend. The next question to ask is: how dangerous is this addiction?

The report, “Technology Addiction: Concern, Controversy and Finding Balance in the Digital Age,”  was published by Common Sense Media. It has been published on all major news outlets (NY Times, CNN, FoxNews, Washington Post, etc.) as it reveals that over half of all teens admit to being addicted to their phones. Well, to be honest, I think most adults would have to admit they are addicted to their phones too! How often do teachers walk down the hall texting? Sit in a staff meeting and check their email?  There is a HUGE difference between adults and teens, however. Adults, you see, grew up without the technology so they learned how to read nonverbal cues and communication. Teens don't have those skills if they are constantly staring at a tiny screen and communicating with peers through texts.

But technology addiction also has behavior issues, which can lead to discipline issues at school and at home. According to the American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM), an addiction is a chronic brain disorder causing significant behavioral problems and issues in interpersonal relationships. The American Psychological Association (APA) says someone with an addiction can experience withdrawal symptoms when the object of the addiction, including technology, is withheld. These symptoms, according to psychotherapist Dan Entmacher who treats teens for technology addiction, can include intense mood swings, irritation, anger, and depression. What? That's normal for teens, you say? Well, think of the normal teen emotions on steroids. The emotions of a teen going through tech withdrawal are extremely intensified. Difficulty with peer interaction, understanding nonverbal cues, working with others, and social manners are also problems of tech addicted teens. Could technology be to blame for increases in discipline referrals at some schools? This chart shows the different feelings tech-addicted teens admit to having when away from their screens:  Addiction Grid.

When surveyed, the following information was revealed, showing the true problem of tech addiction:

• 40% of iPhone users would stop using a toothbrush before they would stop using their phones
• 83% of iPhone users will only date other iPhone users
• 20% of Smartphone users would rather go shoeless than phoneless
• 63% of Smartphone users would give up chocolate before they would give up their phones

(WOW! Give up brushing your teeth, shoes, or chocolate??? I don't think so! But it seems I am in the minority!) 

Not counting the time in school students are on chromebooks, laptops, iPads, and desktops (or using the Smartboards during lessons), our students are spending an average of 7.5 hours every day plugged in. Actually, the number of hours is larger than that, because that figure does NOT count time spent online doing homework! A lot of that time is also multi-tasking with music and social media and Netflix or YouTube or other media content. During each day, a teen will send more texts than a telegraph operator used to send as well. 

Yet we are starting to "plug them in" 6-7 more hours every day at school. It seems they are online for half of their lives once they start school and have a phone.

Is this a good idea?

Don't get me wrong, I've always been one of the first teachers on the hall to jump on the tech bandwagon and reserve the laptops or other new devices. I love using technology and seeing how it makes research easier for students. But then I read about Silicon Valley and how their schools are technology-free zones...no Smartboards...no Chromebooks...no e-books...no Google Classroom...and I wonder which model is working better. Of course, the demographics are different. Those students live in a very wealthy area and there are fewer than 200 students at the elementary school. (Hard to imagine!) The students also have access to the newest technology available on the market and even before it hits the market due to their parents jobs. Some of our students only have access to technology while at school.

So what to do?

First, let's make sure we are using technology at school for the right reasons. We don't need to use technology for the sake of saying "Hey, look at us! We use technology!" Use devices when they are the BEST, most EFFICIENT, and MOST EFFECTIVE way of reaching your students. Intersperse those technology lessons with some unplugged lessons too. Hands-on lessons are still some of the best ways to reach the majority of our students.

Next, have your students put those phones away. I know our school has a rather strict device policy while my daughter's school allows students to have phones out for class all the time. But do students need to have them out with the music playing 24/7? That's part of the technology addiction. We wouldn't let them eat 24/7. We don't let them go outside and smoke (for the students old enough to have unfortunately picked up that addiction). Let's help them break away from having to be plugged in ALL THE TIME! No Phones! No iPods! (Unless it's necessary for the lesson, i.e. Kahoot, Virtual Reality goggles, etc.)

Also, assign homework that DOESN'T have to be done online sometimes. Let's unplug them at home once in awhile too. We are trying to mold and develop the whole child while they are growing up, even the ones who are taller than we are.

Finally, ask yourself if you are addicted to technology. The following questions have been developed to self-identify a technology addiction. It is a real addiction, just like an addiction to tobacco, alcohol, gambling, food, etc. 

• Have you ever manipulated or lied to obtain screen time?
• Do you regularly use screens when you wake up or when you go to bed?
• Do you avoid people or places that do not approve of you using screens?
• Has your job or school performance ever suffered from the effects of your screen use?
• Have you ever lied about how much you use technology?
• Do you put the purchase of tech ahead of your other financial responsibilities?
• Have you ever tried to stop or control your using technology?
• Does using tech interfere with your sleeping or eating?
• Does the thought of running out of tech terrify you?
• Do you feel it is impossible for you to live without screens?
• Do you ever question your own sanity?
• Is your screen use making life at home unhappy?
• Have you ever thought you couldn’t fit in or have a good time without tech?
• Have you ever felt defensive, guilty, or ashamed about your using technology?
• Do you think a lot about tech?
• Have you ever used screens because of emotional pain or stress?
• Do you continue to use technology despite negative consequences?
• Do you think you might have a tech problem?

Birch, B. A. "Silicon Valley Execs Sending Kids to Tech-Free Schools." Education News. Education News, n.d. Web. 6              May 2016. <http://www.educationnews.org/>.

  Chait, Jennifer. "Technology and Kids: Startling Statistics Every Parent Should Know About        

          Addiction to iPhones & Screens." Inhabitots. Inhabitat, 21 July 2013. Web. 6 May 2016.   

         <http://www.inhabitots.com/>.

   Entmacher, Dan. "Video Game & Technology Addiction in Teens." Dan Entmacher Psychotherapy.  

          N.p., n.d. Web. 6 May 2106. <http://danentmacherpsychotherapy.com/>.

   Jacobson, Linda. "Mobile Device Addiction Explored in Report; Educators as “Mentors”  

          Highlighted." School Library Journal. School Library Journal, 3 May 2016. Web. 6 May 2016.  

          <www.slj.com>.

   Soltan, Liz. "Technology Addiction." Digital Responsibility: Taking Control of Your Digital Life.  

          Digital Responsibility, n.d. Web. 6 May 2016. <http://www.digitalresponsibility.org/>.

Technology Fun for a Friday

Our district's Digital Learning Team was invited for a visit on Friday. They came during Smart Lunch, an academic period when half of the student body (850 students) eats lunch while the other half goes to a club, tutoring session, social area, or academic area. The library is an academic area where students work on projects and write research papers, read, study individually or in groups, work on homework, and so on. Plus, they do get to socialize while they work.

Well, imagine their surprise on Friday when one hundred students per lunch (we have an A and a B period) walked in ready to work and they saw this:

To add to their confusion, some of the armchairs had been moved and tables taken over for this:

Students could use the green screen.

They could also use virtual reality googles, play with controlling a robotic ball, and feel the beating of a heart through an Ipad.

Another popular station allowed students to mix their own music tracks.

Although only 200 of our students got to play with the technology during this session, and a few of the seniors are a bit jealous they won't get assigned projects with a green screen (or virtual reality goggles if we get the grant we're planning to write for a class set of those!), the day was definitely a success.

Unfortunately, we've already had to break the news to students who didn't make it to the media center that we won't be hosting this every Friday....not only do we have to share our Digital Learning Team with other schools, but there's the slight matter of AP Exams in the media center next Friday...

When Technology Fails (Or At Least Lets You Down)

Repeat after me: Technology is my friend. Technology is my friend. Technology is my....

Yes, it's true, even if it let's you down. Think about it! Have your friends EVER let you down just a little? Maybe? Once in a while? Why should technology be any different just because we depend upon it for every little things these days?

We are not a 1:1 school when it comes to technology devices (with almost 1800 students this year and a projected enrollment of over 2000 for next year, our budget won't stretch that far!), but we have a lot of Chromebooks. I mean A LOT of Chromebooks. (Thirteen carts of 30-36 Chromebooks for checkout, plus our CTE department has their own carts.)

These carts are reserved, usually well in advance, for research, online projects, and....testing! Yes, our state has a lot of online testing for every subject throughout the year.

None of this is a problem until the server crashes (rarely) or the Internet connection is cut by construction workers (very rarely, but it happened twice at my last school in the same school year) or.....there is a district-wide issue with Google for all Chromebooks. Just Chromebooks. On a day when the entire Science Department is testing! (Our departments have assigned test days to prevent students from having 4 tests on the same day.)

Now what to do? If the library is available, one class can come use all of my desktops if the issue is reserved to the wireless devices. However, that only takes care of one class...when over 20 would need to use the computers! (But if it's already reserved, like today, it's not an option!)

So....when using technology, here are my suggestions:

1. Back-up plan #1: have a copy of the test you can display on the Smart board (if all technology is not down) and students can mark their answers on their own paper. This prevents you from needing to run last-minute copies. Your entire lesson plans aren't changed with this option although you will have to be hyper-vigilant for wandering eyes with some students.

2. Extra review day: immediately reserve devices for tomorrow (and the next day) in case everything is working by then. Spend the day with an extra intensive review session. Students will benefit from this. A few students who studied really diligently last night might be upset, but I doubt many students would complain if the test was postponed one day. Unfortunately, this will involve some tweaking of the next few days of lessons, but educators have to be flexible anyway!

3. Have a class set of paper tests locked away for every test. You don't have to rush to make copies, your  plans don't change, and students write answers on their own paper. Don't forget to have modification copies for IEP/504/ELL students. This is probably your best option for preserving your lesson plans in case all technology has failed you. If you use plastic sleeve protectors, you know students won't write on them and the sleeve protectors are reusable.

The great thing is that technology rarely does fail in such a grand gesture as it did at our school today. For the most part, it does make teaching easier in many ways compared to how it was when I started in education in the early 1990s. So don't curse it when it crashes, but always have a back-up plan "just in case" and you'll be fine.

(And, of course, always hope tech services figures things out very, very quickly.)

Cooperation or Collaboration? What's the Difference?

(This blog is based on a discussion at a Lunch and Learn Conference hosted by NC DPI on April 12, 2016 for Media Coordinators and Instructional Technology Facilitators.)

When you have students work with partners or teams, are you having them work on cooperative projects or collaborative learning? Are you aware of the difference between the directions of the two types of tasks?

Often we, as educators, talk about collaborative groups and cooperative grouping as if they are interchangeable. However, in truth, the two concepts have completely different project directions, task management, and outcomes. To explain the differences, I'm going to put forth a class project scenario in an imaginary, yet ideal, educational setting. We'll call this school "Paradise High."

First, let me describe our hypothetical class: this class is 100% successful, highly motivated, with great parental support. It is evenly balanced ethnically, racially, socioeconomically, and by gender. Students read for pleasure and return their library books on time each week to check out more. (Stop laughing. I can create my own idea of the perfect high school, can't I?)

Now, you have divided the class into absolutely perfect heterogeneous groups for a project. Each group has four students, two boys and two girls. (One gifted student, two average students, and one student who is ELL or has an IEP. ) They are all racially/ethnically balanced as well. (WOW, you say? This can only happen at Paradise High! Yep. Nothing ever happens exactly evenly in the real world, but just work with me here. It's a blog post.)

The project divides the tasks into four positions, and each position has specific areas of responsibility for research, writing, and presentation. Students will be graded on their individual work and the group will receive a grade on how well they put it all together. They will work on the project in class. Group One is Juan, Rebecca, Matthew, and Leah. They will do the following:
Juan: Research the history of chocolate, write a few paragraphs on it with citations, and share his findings through a group powerpoint
Rebecca: Identify the role chocolate played in Spanish colonialism, write a few paragraphs on it with citations, and share her findings through the group powerpoint.
Matthew: Learn of the effect of chocolate on Spanish cuisine, create at least 3 authentic dishes and write about the experiences of cooking those recipes, cite the sources, and share the information and pictures in the group powerpoint.
Leah: Learn about modern chocolate plantations and child laborers, write an opinion piece explaining whether or not chocolate should be imported into the US with citations for support for the information, and share the facts and opinion through the group powerpoint.

Cooperation or Collaboration?

If you said collaboration, I am afraid that you are incorrect. These students are actually working individually on a group outcome, the powerpoint; however, each student's part is done individually without input from the other members of the group. If one member's task is not complete or is shoddy, the entire project will not fall apart. They are cooperating on the group grade.

To truly have students collaborate, the students need to communicate with each other, share ideas, and actually work as a team to complete each part of the project. This is not the days of the "team leader," "parts manager," "writer," and other task labels handed out randomly or strategically by the teacher and called "collaboration." Now, students must truly work together or the project falls apart.

So now, the project changes:
Juan and Rebecca discover how the Spanish explorers "discovered" chocolate, and the students want to "bring it over" to the "Continent" by recreating the experience. Leah and Matthew learn how chocolate is grown on two types of plantations (with and without child labor) and exported to Spain to be used in the creation of Spanish cuisine. Together the group decides to produce a play on chocolate that does a "fast-forward" approach from the "discovery" to today, and they want to convince the class to make the decision to only use fair market chocolate when cooking spectacular recipes or snacking. This, my fellow educators is what makes a project collaboration!

Improving Research-Based Writing at the Secondary Level

We all know students should "know" how to write a research paper by the time they are in high school. In the ideal world, students would start writing sentences in first grade, connecting sentences into small paragraphs in second grade, learn about transitions in third grade, and then begin writing simple introductions and conclusions in fourth and fifth grade. Why, then they would just work on elaborating and developing higher forms of writing in middle school so high school teachers could help them hone those skills in preparation for college!

If only it were so easy.

Naturally high-stakes testing in the elementary and middle school classrooms have taken writing research-based papers out of the curriculum. During the 8-1/2 years I spent at an elementary school media center, the majority of research-based writing in all grades was done through media classes. Because students came on a 7, 8, or 10 day rotation (depending upon which school year you look at) even those had to be considered carefully since a student who was absent during one class might not come to a library class for an entire month.  As I worked with teachers on collaboration projects, they wanted students to do posters and simple projects because they were shorter and easier to grade in a period of time already stuffed with mClass, iReady, Dibbels, EOGs, and so many other required paperwork-heavy things. I understood their frustration at being unable to dedicate the time necessary to a great project, and my schedule with their students was fixed with no "wiggle-room." (We did a large project connecting science with a research paper in fifth grade, but it had to be stretched out over months which made it less enjoyable than anyone wanted it to be. The Museum in the Schools project worked with the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences and culminated in the students becoming experts at the museum for a day.)

Middle school teachers have a lot of the same demands on their time.

This means when students get to high school, many of them have NEVER written an introductory paragraph nor a conclusion. They don't know how to transition between paragraphs in a paper. Some have never had to cite sources properly. A source card? An outline? What are those?

Is there any way to help students become better writers in the secondary classroom?

One possibility is to create a writer's workshop within the classroom. By setting up stations where students work on specific skills (taking notes for research, avoiding plagiarism, outlining, introductions, conclusions, transitions, using direct or indirect quotes, etc.), you can help students work on the skills they are lacking. Take a few days to have students rotate through the stations. Students must complete all the stations within those days. Have students self-assess or you assess their work at the end of each day.

Yes, I know. This will take some time on your part to set up the first year, but won't it be worth it if the final papers are much better?

Now, have students work in the stations where they need the most improvement. A student struggling with how to get started writing can stay at the introduction station and practice there. One who you know has had the habit of just copying and pasting can practice taking notes to avoid plagiarism. Another can organize notes into an outline. These are not skills that come naturally to any student. By setting up your class into these stations for a brief period of time, students build the skills for writing.

After they have practiced in the stations, come on down to the library for some research! I'll be more than happy to help your students, too!

For some great tips on creating a writer's workshop in a secondary classroom, see Shelby Scoffield's blog post on Edutopia, the inspiration for this week's Hungry Bookshelf!

Lord of the Flies, Library Edition

So how best to make classic literature come to life in the library? Thanks to Ms. Vicie Records (here is the shout-out I promised!), here is an idea....

Forget the traditional sign-up for technology...

Forget reserving a chromebook cart....

Who needs to reserve the library for research in advance...

Make it first-come, first grab!

Can you imagine the chaos? Teachers would line up at the door (or bribe someone with a master key to let them in earlier and earlier). Fist fights would erupt over who touched the cart first.  Students would be sent to claim the computer stations. Chairs would be overturned.

It would become survival of the fittest as the teachers struggled to maneuver uncooperative carts through the doors (and hallways).

YIKES! It's the stuff of nightmares (or of a new reality TV show....hmmmmm).

However, it does bring about thoughts of ways to bring old books to life for students. Although many of us love classic literature, the books we grew up with or learned to love as adults, for students the traditional high school books aren't always as exciting or eye-catching as the new titles that seem to be instant blockbuster movies.

We need to look at these books with fresh eyes ourselves. How do you take, for instance, a book by one of the esteemed Bronte sisters and make it relevant to today's teenagers? Or help students relate to Jane Austen, Shakespeare, Faulkner, Steinbeck, and Hemingway when there isn't a dystopian society fighting against a teen protagonist intent on saving or destroying the world with explosions and death on every other page?

Too often, when returning the classic books (with the exception of Night by Eli Weisel, Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, and Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck) students chat in the line about how they only read Sparknotes online rather than even opening the book. This is depressing for several reasons and showing a need for change.

Here are some possible solutions:

1. When choosing classic literature, give students a choice of several books with similar themes. Put them in reading groups based on the books and have them form a book club where they discuss openly the passages they should have read. This gives accountability to all members of the group as well as some ownership to the book they have chosen. 
2. If you still want to read one book with the entire class, give book talks (maybe even make some book trailers) and generate interest prior to starting the novel. Have students vote after watching several book trailers. The more ownership, the more likelihood students will open the book. 
3. Finally, find a modern book OR MOVIE that connects with the classic book. Promote both. When students see the relevance or the connection, they are may buy into the classic literature and hopefully read it.

When all else fails, bring the novel to life through scenarios in your classroom...unless it's The Lord of the Flies....

Ancestry Classroom

Did you know that when on a computer at school, students and faculty have free access to Ancestry.com? That's right! Completely free access!

That means this can be a great free resource for students for a variety of projects. Now, how could you incorporate this into your classroom?

1. SCIENCE or HEALTH SCIENCE: Use the death data of ancestors. By having students bring in grandparents' data, they can then find information on great-grandparents and their siblings, cousins, etc. Through that generation, they can try to track the information on how their ancestors died. Based on the ages of high school students, this can place their ancestors at points in history during various health crises like the Polio epidemic or the 1918 Flu Pandemic. Another source of information that will also help with this is http://health.utah.gov/genomics/familyhistory/toolkit.html

2. HISTORICAL ANALYSIS: When studying a particular period of history, have students research to learn where their ancestors lived, and what information they can find about those ancestors. Concentrate on female relatives during studies of the women's suffrage movement, or male relatives of draft age during World War I units. Ancestry.com does have links to military records and draft cards although a lot of military data was lost in a fire in the 1970s at the National Archives.

3. ORAL HISTORY: Through research on the site, students could have a basis for developing and asking questions to create a family oral history. They can then develop a family narrative using a variety of websites like ourstory.com or a voicethread.

4. GEOGRAPHY and MATH: Study the movement of people by tracing the movement of ancestors of the entire class over time using census data. This can then lead to statistical analysis of the data.

Even if teachers and students just use the access to the site for genealogical research, it's great to know we have access to ancestry.com at school. Although we've actually had the access county-wide for awhile, it seems that not all schools got the word when it happened so let's get the word out now!