How to Be Good with Tech - Part 5

I've been writing this series for a few weeks now and I'm winding it down with three short posts, this being the first. If you want to review what I've written so far...

My previous article (Part 4) was the most practical, suggesting the tip "Move ahead fearlessly". In it, I even went so far to assign a 30 minute activity that anyone could start with.

Prior to that, in Part 1 and Part 3 I addressed some common myths that hold people back. In Part 2 I pointed out that successful people think "big picture" when they use technology, not step by step.

This time, I have this advice:

Tip #6:  Move ahead regularly.

Of course, this goes along with what I wrote in Part 4. To get good with tech tools you have to start practicing and keep practicing. 

When I work with people who struggle with technology, I see time after time that they simply have not developed enough experience with tools in general. When the slightest problem crops up, they have no prior knowledge to rely on. Every tool and every task is new.

In other words, what you start with isn't even that important. As long as you can make some progress with it, you'll begin to form the confidence, conceptual frameworks and problem solving skills that can be applied to other tools you'll need.

Many hesitant learners tell me they are waiting for a trainer to provide direction or an employer to provide time, but my point here is you need to make the time yourself.

I want to share some results of a survey I sent out to educators through Twitter and Edmodo. I was hoping to get data to share with teachers at the start of the school year. I realized that it applied here too. In the end, I had 63 responses. Obviously it's not the definitive study in these matters, but I think it offers some weight to what I'm saying here.

First, I asked respondents to rank themselves on a scale from one (reluctant) to five (innovative) when it comes to tech use in their job in education. A choice of three represented "average in their district". Here were the results:

Then I asked about the quality of professional development or training that they receive on the new tools they use. From "exceptional" down to "we don't receive any", here were the results:

Note that over half the respondents either are not trained or they consider the training to be inadequate. But almost all of them are above average when it comes to tech use?

Well, finally I asked them to choose which of these options that best represents how they learn the new tools:

• From professional development that is provided to them.
• From professional development plus time spent on their own.
• From colleagues and time spent on their own.
• From time spent on their own.

As you might have guessed based on my tip above, the vast majority (over 70%) of these people are not relying on training to use new tools in their work. They're moving ahead with some help from others and time on their own. Here are the results.

Take the informal survey for what it's worth. It at least shows training is not a prerequisite for moving ahead with technology.

Instead of getting formal training, my recommendation is to plan time regularly to just explore a tech tool. Maybe it will be 30 - 60 minutes on a Saturday morning. Maybe you'll make time every night for a month.

Whatever you decide, just like exercise or learning to play an instrument, regular practice will quickly pay off with noticeable results.

Up next, one tip that gives me an edge when I have to work with digital tools.

Forget career planning - Do something big now

Update 5/22/2013: Here's a motivational song and lyric video for the classroom I created based on the idea in this blog post. It comes after a year of putting these thoughts into practice.

I was very excited this week to talk to our middle school Digital Media class. I don't regularly teach in that classroom, but I am considered to be a teacher in my district.  That means I end up as sort of a guest speaker in various classrooms K - 12 and I especially love it when I get to address this particular group.

I tell them why I think Digital Media is the best class we offer.

This year as I prepared my talk I realized how insane it is to talk to these kids, ages 11-14 about the career they'll have someday. When I taught high school math I would always talk about the world of work as a motivation for learning, but I’m done with that approach.  It wasn’t terribly effective five years ago when I taught math and it feels even less so now, especially as I see more apathy in grades 4 - 8.

Now I try to motivate them with what gets me excited.  I am pumped (honestly, I lost sleep over this) when I can tell them about the powerful tools that allow them to connect like never before so they can realize their dreams.

Never in the history of the world have we had tools that made it so easy to start on those dreams right away. It makes no sense to me to try to motivate students with the promise of a good job in 8 to 10 years when a tidal wave of fascinating entertainment will hit them seconds after we let them turn their phones back on.

So I gave my talk and I saw that glimmer of hope in some of their eyes. I told them about the books, movies, songs, games and other great gifts that I know are in their minds waiting to get free to the world. I believe it completely and I look forward to encouraging them more as I continue to work with their teacher.

I summed all this (and more) up this way in my presentation:

It has never been easier to start something big RIGHT NOW.  

And it has never been easier to just play.  

Choose wisely.

On the way to work that morning I saw the sunrise (we haven’t seen a lot of the sun recently here in Michigan) and I grabbed a picture.  I combined the two here:

But after the talk I got thinking, what exactly can they start?  Our culture bombards our kids with so much to do that some don't know how to begin anything original.  I made a list of goals they can start on not in weeks, months or years, but right now. I will use and develop the list as I continue working with learners of all ages.

First, the basic rules:

• Start a blog.
• Copy nothing.  You must make all elements from scratch.
• If you succeed in a goal, blog about it and include pictures. 
• If you fail, blog about it and include pictures. 

Some goals you can starting working toward right now:

• Make something digital that your parents will be so proud of they’ll share it on Facebook.
• Make a video and get X views in week on YouTube video.  Keep increasing X each time.
• Whatever your teacher assigns, ask if you can do a different project.  If the teacher says no, do it anyway (along with the real assignment!).  Show the teacher your work.
• Make a digital lesson for a younger sibling or family member.  Pick a topic he or she will study in the future so they will already know it when they get to it.
• What type of entertainment do you usually turn to in your freetime?  Instead of sucking up someone else’s idea, start making your own. 
• Make a gift for someone's birthday or a holiday on CafePress or some other site where you can create and order products. 
• Pick your favorite charity or cause. Make something online and sell it.  Donate whatever you make to your charity or cause.  

I'm confident that seriously working toward any of these goals will help our students acquire at least as many career skills as our other efforts have.

What are some other great goals students can start on right away?

Goals for Summer - Professional Development Meme 2012

I came across a great idea from a blog post last week and it inspired me to get focused on some goals.  The original plan started here, but I found it on Dr. Z's blog and will link to that one.  

Here's the plan, copied from that website:

Guidelines:
NOTE: You do NOT have to wait to be tagged to participate in this meme.

1. Pick 1-3 professional development goals and commit to achieving them this summer.
2. For the purposes of this activity the end of summer will be Labor Day (09/03/2012).
3. Post the above directions and these guidelines along with your 1-3 goals on your blog or preferred social media platform (Facebook, Google+, Posterous, etc.).
4. Link back/trackback to http://tinyurl.com/pdmeme
5. Use the following tag/ keyword/ category on your post: pdmeme2012.
6. Twitter about your progress using the #pdmeme2012 hashtag.
7. Tag 5 or more educators to participate in the meme.
8. Achieve your goals and “develop professionally.”
9. Commit to sharing your results on your blog during early or mid-September.

I'm going to deviate slightly and not tag anyone.  Since one of my goals is to encourage other teachers to stretch, I will target some specific teachers.  I just won't do that publicly.  

My Goals 

• Create at least one game using Stencyl and make it available on my blog - I tried this last year for a graduate course, but wasn't successful.  
• Continue to develop my blog as a source of innovative thoughts and resources for creativity and problem solving - Starting the blog was a successful part of my graduate course last summer.  I hope I can bring it to the next level in the upcoming month.
• Inspire all teachers in my district to try something new related to technology integration, creativity or problem solving in the first three weeks of school