Summer EdTech Challenge #9: Tech it up with SAMR

Welcome to the Summer EdTech Challenge! Summertime is a wonderful time to be a teacher! It's the perfect time to recharge your batteries, catch up on trends in education, read for pleasure, and learn new things. How about taking the opportunity to learn new tech skills or try out new tools and strategies?

Each Monday this summer I'll post a simple tech challenge, something you can do between dips in the pool and binge watching your favorite TV show. These challenges are practical, easy to implement ideas to help you develop your tech skills and start next year off on the right technology foot!

This series of edtech challenges (and this blog) has been designed to introduce teachers to innovative ways of using technology in their classroom. Classroom technology is ubiquitous, but needs to be integrated properly in order to be effective. The use of technology needs to positively impact student teaching and learning. This is where the SAMR technology integration model can help.

SAMR is a model developed several years ago by Dr. Ruben Puentedura as a way for teachers to examine their use of technology. As the use of technology moves up through the SAMR levels, the technology becomes more integrated and necessary to the learning task. Check out this short video for an explanation of the SAMR model.

Once you understand the changes necessary to move from level to level, you can start examining your own technology practices. As you do so, remember that the goal is not to always strive for Redefinition. Its okay to have learning activities at the Substitution level. Instead, teachers to need to examine the activity and determine if the outcomes would be improved by moving up the SAMR levels. In other words, examine the level of student engagement-who is asking the important questions.  As one you move up the levels, computer technology becomes more important in the classroom but at the same time becomes more invisibly woven into the demands of good teaching and learning.

Check out 8 Examples of Transforming Lessons Through the SAMR Cycle for some specific examples of using the SAMR model to improve some typical classroom learning activities.

The EdTech Challenge this week is to take an existing lesson or project and redesign it so it moves up from the S or A level to the M or (even better) R level. Remember the definition of what makes it Modification or Redefinition.

After you've redesigned the task, come back to this post and describe the original task and how you changed it.

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App Criteria: Choosing a good iPad app

As a Digital Learning Coach I've been working with several schools as they define what they want to do with iPads. Sadly, most of what I find on their iPads is what I consider to be junk, useless, and educationally inappropriate apps. It seems that previous tech folks, and in many cases, teachers, have simply installed the free app of the day or the latest "Top 20 Apps for Education" without really looking at the app and evaluating what it does. This results in the iPad becoming a toy or babysitter in the classroom.

My philosophy on iPads and apps is based on the SAMR model. I find this model to be very useful in helping to define what I want technology to do. Using the iPad to do something that's just as easily done on paper and pencil doesn't seem like a good use of technology. To me, the iPad should be used for learning tasks that could not easily be done without the iPad. This blog post by Jennie Magiera articulates my thoughts on this very well.

When looking specifically at apps, the SAMR model becomes even more important. Using a commonly found app such as Math vs Zombies as an example, you can see how how this plays out. The app is simple enough: users answer basic math problems in order to kill off the attacking zombies. Students have to solve math, so it's educational, right? Students are learning, right?

The answer is no, they are not learning, for many reasons. The app doesn't track progress for multiple students, the problems are not customized for the student's needs, and there are no math skills actually being taught. This app really only hits the lowest levels of Blooms Taxonomy and the Substitution level of the SAMR model. Math facts could just as easily be learned with a basic set of flash cards.

A much better choice would be to let the flash cards to their job and use the iPad to redefine the learning and the teaching. Use creation apps so students can demonstrate what they are learning and reach that higher level of Bloom's Taxonomy.

What to I consider, then, to be a good app? After thinking about this for awhile, here is my criteria for what I consider to be a good educational app:

• can be used in multiple content areas
• can be used in multiple grade levels
• allows the content/project to be transferred off the iPad, either to a website or through a Dropbox type service
• can track the work of multiple students, either by saving multiple projects or through student logins
• engages students at higher levels of Bloom's Taxonomy and the SAMR model

This is just my thoughts on what makes a good app and I've listed in a previous post what I think are awesome apps that fit the above criteria. I'm constantly adding to the list (ThingLink!) as I come across new and exciting tools.

Do you agree or disagree? What do you think makes an app suitable for the classroom?

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Teaching above the line: SAMR

I have been helping teachers integrate technology into their curriculum for the last 12 years, first as an Educational Computing Strategist and now as a Digital Learning Coach. In all those years I have frequently been asked how to integrate technology with this lesson or that theme. Even within the last several weeks I have been asked to come up with a technology rich lesson based on selected standards from the Common Core. Many times it seems we are trying to force technology into a lesson where it is not the best tool. We are trying to use technology for the sake of using technology.

I believe that we need to rethink this approach and use technology when it can significantly change what we are doing. Dr. Ruben Puentedura created the SAMR model to help teachers integrate technology better into teaching and learning. The idea behind using technology is not just do the same old thing, but with a technology twist. The purpose of introducing technology is to enhance or redefine the teaching and learning in ways that are not possible with analog tools.

Image the creation of Dr. Ruben Puentedura, Ph.D. http://www.hippasus.com/rrpweblog/

As an example of applying this model to a typical classroom assignment, picture a teacher giving the assignment for students to write an essay responding to a piece of art, music, or poetry.

At Substitution the students would use a word processor to write the essay instead of paper and pencil. They are simply substituting one tool for another. There is no functional difference and it wouldn't affect the outcome of the assignment one way or another.

With Augmentation the technology allows the students to add hyperlinks, graphics, significantly change the layout, etc. They can do more with the essay than they typically could with paper and pencil.

At the Modification level the technology allows for a significant redesign of the assignment. Rather than just writing a static essay, students can share their writing using a blog so that students can receive feedback from multiple peers in order to make edit cycles richer.

The Redefinition level allows for the creation of new tasks. Instead of writing a response essay, students convey deep analytic thought using visual and text rich creations such as a video production.

This model meshes with my vision of technology in the classroom. I don't believe we should be shoe-horning technology into a lesson just for the sake of using technology. If it doesn't change the way teachers are teaching and the students are learning, then it may not be the best tool for the job.

I realize that teachers need to start using technology somewhere, and maybe that is by using a word processor. But teachers can't stop there and call it technology integration. Teachers need to teach above the line - use technology to teach and learn in ways that otherwise could never happen!

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