Holt Think: Ed, Creativity, Tech, Administration

Reading Apps for Kids Are a ‘Digital Wild West’ with Few Guideposts

Reading Apps for Kids Are a ‘Digital Wild West’ with Few Guideposts

Digital apps designed to teach young children to read are an increasingly large share of the market, but parents and educators have little to no information about whether and how they work, according to a report released today by the Campaign for Grade-Level Reading.

The report, Pioneering Literacy in the Digital Wild West, shows that most of the skills targeted by children’s reading apps are very basic and do not address higher-level competencies that young children need to become strong readers.

At the same time, several nascent but promising initiatives in early childhood programs have taken different approaches to technology, harnessing its power to assist teachers and parents in helping children learn to read, according to the report, written by experts in early literacy and technology at the New America Foundation and the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop.

“Parents are a child’s first and most important teachers, and technology will never change that,” says Ralph Smith, the managing director of the Campaign for Grade-Level Reading. “But technology can help us connect with parents of young children, and it can help families promote early literacy skills. Many parents, though, need guidance in choosing the right technology and knowing how to use it.”

The Campaign is a collaborative effort among foundations, nonprofit partners, states and communities to increase the number of low-income children who read proficiently by the end of third grade. Currently, only a third of U.S. fourth graders and barely one in six low-income children hit that mark, contributing to wider achievement gaps and higher dropout rates.

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Digital Ritalin

In response to Will Richardson’s recent post about ADHD, These Pills are your Grades I repost a work I did several year ago on my old Byte Speed Blog site. It is called “Digital Ritalin.” —TBH

I have given enough instructional technology trainings over the years that it is not uncommon for me to hear teachers tell me, after they try what they learn, something like this: “My students got really excited about using this technology” or “My student that usually doesn’t work very hard really worked on these projects,” or “My students became really focused when they were making a project like this using technology.”

Of course, there are hundreds of studies that show when students use technology to create content achievement increases, and even a few studies that show kids wished there was more technology in the classroom than what is currently is available.

I was at a large educational technology conference and attended a presentation on how students are using Apple’s iMovie for elementary science classes. (iMovie is an easy-to-use movie editing program.) I was interested because the presenters were from a district that was similar demographically to mine. During the presentation, which was quite good by the way, one of the presenters said something that really go me wondering if technology has a greater impact on learning than we think:

The presenter said, “I even have one kid that is ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. From the Kid’s Health Website: “Kids with ADHD act without thinking, are hyperactive, and have trouble focusing. They may understand what’s expected of them but have trouble following through because they can’t sit still, pay attention, or attend to details. Of course, all kids (especially younger ones) act this way at times, particularly when they’re anxious or excited. But the difference with ADHD is that symptoms are present over a longer period of time and occur in different settings. They impair a child’s ability to function socially, academically, and at home.”).He has a really hard time paying attention in class, even with his meds. When we do these videos however, he is really focused and stays on task the whole time. He really likes doing these, and it is like a relief for him when we do movies.”

So, there you have it: Technology as Digital Ritalin.

What do we give Ritalin, or any associated drug for ADHD for? We give it to kids to calm them down, help them focus, curb their need to fidget, talk out of turn and the other associated host of symptoms that can disrupt a class. While I personally would never use Ritalin (a stimulant) on my kids, there are a whole lot of folks who do. I am not a physician, nor am I psychologist. However, perhaps we should try another type of therapy for these kids: Digital Ritalin.

Suppose that instead of pumping our children with drugs, we pump them full of technology? If technology can get kids focused, then perhaps we need to be prescribing digital Ritalin instead of actual Ritalin. Take two iMovies and call me in the morning.

I make the supposition here that technology can have the same effect as any of the drugs we give kids that may or may not have long-term effects on their emotional and physical growth. Technology does not stunt growth; technology can focus students (ever watch ADHD kids play a video game?); and technology can teach. Perhaps technology is not as long lasting as the once-every-24-hours pill, but while the kids are in school, it may just do the trick. I was talking to a friend of mine, who has a child that had been diagnosed with ADHD. While we were talking at his house for well over an hour, his son never once looked up from his X-Box. I pointed that out to my friend, and he told me his son would regularly play for 3 hours at a time on his video games. Attention deficit? Not for video games. Not for that kid.

Most non-medical treatments for ADHD are behavior modification-type ones: employ routine, create an organized structure, vary assignments, etc. Creating movies employs routines, varies assignments, and provides organized structures. Technologies such as iMovie where children are the creators of content have all of those built therapies built into the product. Technology is Ritalin without the follow-up visits.

The presenter also said that his Special Education students with higher abilities also took to the iMovie assignments much easier and quicker than they did to “traditional” classroom assignments. Perhaps it was the novelty of it all, but perhaps there is something to it that goes beyond simply jumping out of the teaching “box.” The New Jersey Institute of Technology announced last year that they were beginning a five-year study on the effect of using video games as therapy for cerebral palsy patients. It isn’t much of a logical leap to wonder if technology like creating movies can also be used as therapy in a similar matter. Students become more focused, students learn exactly the same things we always wanted them to, but we are also teaching them new skills and perhaps, rearranging some neural pathways in the process.

So can we use Technology as a “Digital Ritalin?” I think that, at least from the completely and unscientific feedback that I have gotten through doing educational technologies training for more than 20 years that it is worth a look. Besides, what have we lost if my theory is completely wrong? We haven’t lost anything. Maybe we get the next Spielberg out of it.

George Lucas, the creator of Star Wars, was one of those kids who was bored with school and would have been diagnosed ADHD. He started the George Lucas Educational Foundation (www.edutopia.org), now one of the world’s leading advocate groups for integrating technology into the classroom, specifically to help students that have trouble learning through “traditional methods.” He understands the power of technology. He understands that genius can be hidden almost anywhere and doesn’t necessarily come from lectures and textbooks.

And consider this if you have just pooh-poohed that idea out of hand:

How many of you have been on the computer, doing something, and realized that you had just spent a whole lot more time than you thought you did? Focused were you? Engaged? Absorbed? Now, how many of you, with your hands still I the air, start to fidget after sitting in a meeting for more than 10 minutes? Are you any different than a kid? No. If technology can absorb you that way, it can absorb your kids as well.

Dr. Tim prescribes Digital Ritalin for all of you. Call me in the morning. 

Cool Trick for Keeping Informed about Your State’s Education News

Want to find out what is happening all over your state in regards to education? Don’t know where where to start? Here is a simple trick I have been using for a while that let’s me know exactly what is going in Texas. (Trust me, it works everywhere!) Use Google Alerts to do the hard work for you.!

Go to Google Alerts http://www.google.com/alerts

Enter a search query: You can use multiple words. In my case, I use “Texas” and “education”

Enter how often you want the query to run. I put “Once a Day”

Enter how many results you want to show up. I put “Only the Best results”

Enter your email address.

Then, starting tomorrow, you will start getting all of the news about education in your state. 

You can also set up multiple alerts, such as “Science” “Texas” “Education” which gives you a more specific results. 

Go ahead, stop waiting and hoping for the local fish wrap to deliver the education news. One thing I really like is that not only does Google tell me about the large city dailies like the Austin American Statesman, it also scrapes the blogs as well, so I can see what is happening in the state blogs.

Be proactive and have the news  you care about delivered to you every day.

Why Should I Share When No One Else is Sharing?

This past week, I keynoted at an event where I pushed the audience to “Share Everything.” I mean really, professionally, what is it that any educator has that is so secret it shouldn’t be shared?

Who has lesson plans that are so incredible that only one person should be allowed to use them? What coach has such amazing coaching strategies that others should not be allowed to learn from them? What marching band formation is so wonderful that no one else should be allowed to even glimpse at it’s wonderfulness?  I simply cannot imagine. Enlighten me…

Even if you are a coach with this years latest and greatest plays, why not share LAST year’s plays? Marching band dudes and dudettes, we have seen your formations last year..share them this year. Some newbie band director could use them!

When you really think about it, not too many of us share. Thus, that is why at the keynote,  I asked everyone to share their knowledge. I think, in the words of Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach, that we literally have a moral obligation to embrace the technology and to share:

 When we are little kids, what do we learn almost immediately?

That we should share. 

Share our crayons.

Share our drawing paper.

Share your baby swimming pool.

Share your toys.

Let Billy ride your bike for goodness sake. 

Somewhere along the way, we start to pull more into ourselves, and as we get older, that lesson we learned in preschool goes away.  

Sure, we share some things in our lives..but there always is that little nagging idea in our heads about whether I get anything back:

Why should I share when no one else is sharing?

What is in it for me?

When I first started writing my blog, all those years ago, I really didnt think about what would happen. I simply decided to use the blog as an example to my employees of what blogging could be. 

Now, almost 8 years later, thousands of entries written or re-blogged, and three or four different reiterations of my site, (Byte Speed, Intended Consequences 1.0 and 2.0, and now Holtthink), I think that it no longer is even an issue of what I am sharing. I don’t post for others so much as I post to get the ideas out of my little brain and onto a semi permanent location where I can refer back to them.

I don’t do it for the good of the many, I do it for the good of the me.

So really, by sharing with everyone, I am doing myself the most selfish of acts: I am creating a repository of ides and thoughts and resources for my own use later on.

And if someone else comes along and like what I am saving, good for them.

And that is why I share when no one else is sharing.