Category: Ed Tech

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The Wrong Question

Over the years, one of the common questions I have regularly heard being asked by schools that are in the process of moving from one technology platform to another is about the choice of substitute apps.

I’ve heard it when I’ve been in schools that made the switch from Microsoft to Google – “But the teaching program says we have to use PowerPoint! I can’t use Slides!” or “But I can’t use Docs, all my stuff is in Word!”

I’ve heard it when people switched from one type of phone operating system to another – “I used to use iMessage on my iPhone, but there’s no iMessage on Android! Now what?!”

I recently heard someone ask what Chromebook apps they could use to replace the apps they used to use with their iPads – “I need to know what apps to use on the Chromebook to teach robotics!”

Asking what apps should be used on a new platform to replace the things that you used to do on the old platform seems like a valid question. Certainly if a school is moving from iPads to Chromebooks, or Google to Microsoft, or Windows to Mac, or whatever other combination you want to think about, then yes, at some point there probably needs to be some consideration given to which tools will be used to produce the things that need to be produced.

Asking “I used to use X, and now I need to use Y, so what are the equivalent apps?” is probably a question that needs some kind of answer at some point.

However, I think this is the wrong question to start with. I think there is a bigger, more important question that needs to be asked first.

Rather than “I used to use iMovie and now I need to find a replacement for iMovie”, the better question is “How can my students tell stories?”  In other words, if you only ever think in terms of the tool, you will be stuck on the idea that you need an exact replacement for the tool you currently know.  Shifting your thinking to frame the question in terms of the outcome you want students to achieve changes the conversation.

Thinking in terms of wanting students to be able to explain a concept, persuade an audience, communicate an idea, or compare and contrast two options is based on the VERBS found in your curriculum documents and is the stuff we need to teach. Your curriculum does NOT say your students need to know how to use iMotion or picCollage or Photoshop or Outlook or <insert name of any tech tool here>. These tools are simply the nouns we can use to teach the verbs. 

Those tools – the nouns – are transient however. They are not set in stone. They change over time as better options and newer versions some along, and sometimes they even go away completely, as evidenced by the long list of apps that once existed but no longer do.

But the verbs… the verbs are timeless. We will still be teaching students how to explain, persuade, communicate, compare, etc, long after some tech company decides to stop producing that app you used to think you couldn’t live without.

As teachers we need to stop focusing on the nouns (the tools) and focus more on the verbs.  When you do that, the actual tools become far less important.   In my opinion, the mark of a good technology user (and a great teacher) is being able to easily switch to new nouns while never losing sight of the verbs.

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How’s your Form?

Sometimes you don’t know what you don’t know, and just seeing some examples of what’s possible is a big help.  To help you see the possibilities of Google Forms, here are two different examples that I hope you’ll find useful.

Did you know that there are actually 11 different types of questions you can ask with a Google Form?  It’s not all just about Multiple Choice!

Understanding Different Question Types in Google Forms
This first one is a Form that has examples of every type of question that you can create with a Google Form, as well as some additional variations. As you can see, there are LOTS of ways you can ask questions in Forms, and the real skill is making sure you are selecting the most appropriate question type for the type of information you want to collect. 

Quiz Questions Galore
Of the 11 different question types, 7 of them can be set to automatically check the responses, making them ideal for creating self marking quizzes.  This second example is a Form that shows as many variations of self marking quizzes as I could think of.  As you’ll see, there are quite a few different possibilities!

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Teaching Practical Subjects with Videoconferencing

In my current role I often get an opportunity to see some interesting ideas and technologies before they become more widely known. I’ll occasionally learn about startups and tech tools while they are still in their early stages of development. It’s fun to see clever people building clever tools that solve interesting problems.

One such tool I saw recently was Classnika. With a deceptively simple premise around the idea of videoconferencing, Classnika provides an interesting solution for teachers of practical subjects like, music, art, cooking, or any other performance based activity.

For context, videoconferencing is something we all got pretty comfortable with over the past 12 months. Many schools quickly adopted the use of video calling tools like Google Meet, Zoom or MS Teams to continue teaching students at a distance. And while videoconferencing may not be a permanent substitute for face to face teaching there’s no doubt that video calls have been incredibly useful to get schools through a very difficult time. In fact, I suspect there will be many schools who retain their use of videoconferencing technology even when we all return to normal operations, whether that be for streaming school assemblies to a wider audience, holding remote parent teacher interviews, or supporting remote students who are unable to attend school for whatever reason.

While videocalls are useful for some things, they are not so great for others. If you were remotely trying to teach someone to solve a math problem, or to sing, or to speak another language, you could probably do that pretty easily over a traditional video call. When it’s just one person talking face to face with another person, or group of people, video calls can work pretty well. But for applications where you need to see more than just a person’s face, traditional video calls are much less useful.

For example, let’s say you’re a student trying to learn the piano, and for whatever reason, you are taking lessons remotely. Using a traditional videocall you might set up a computer on top of the piano, with the webcam facing you, so you can see your remote teacher and your remote teacher can see you. But what if the teacher wants to see your hands as you play, which they almost certainly would. Well, you could redirect your webcam at your hands on the keyboard, but now they can’t see your face and all the nuances that come from reading a students expression for understanding, etc. Or what if they wanted a additional view of your hands, such as from the side or the top? This is a real limitation of traditional video calling tools.

This is the problem that Classnika attempts to solve. The app has a teacher and a student mode. The student mode allows for multiple camera inputs from any internet connected device. So using the piano example, a student might set up the computer’s webcam on top of the piano as mentioned, but they could also use another phone or tablet to provide a second video feed looking at the keyboard from above, which could be easily done by placing the device in a simple clamp or tripod. Similarly, a third device’s camera could be set up on the side of the keyboard to provide another angle on the player’s hands. In fact, you can add as many cameras as you want as long as you have a device for each one, which can be any old phone or tablet. You could also bring in other remote cameras into the session, such as a parent or second tutor, or even uplod and add documents into the feed such as sheet music or notes.

The remote instructor uses the teacher mode on the app to switch between the various views – the student’s face, the overhead view, the side view, the sheet music, etc, and can maximise a specific view simply by tapping from the thumbnails. It seems like such a simple ideas, but the fact that you are able to bring together multiple video feeds of the same activity and easily switch between them, makes it super useful for remotely teaching activities that require the focus to be on more than one aspect of the performance.

I was given a live demo from two of the app’s developers, and it was very impressive. Even for an early stage demo, the tech worked very smoothly, and the UI seemed obvious and intuituve to use. Lessons can be scheduled in advance, so the student just needs to click the link at the appointed time to start the lesson. Ramtin, one of the app’s developers took me through the piano teaching example I’ve described by using his young son at the family piano as an authentic demonstration, and I can definitely see the benefits of multiple video feeds for remote teaching this kind of activity. I’m sure there are lots of other uses too.

If you want to check it out the Classnika app is available for both Android and iOS.