Celebrating Digital Learning Together

Students in Mrs. Portland’s class in Pottsville Area High School, recently celebrated Digital Learning day by joining in a classroom discussion with students hundreds of miles away at Mt. Olive High School in NJ.  Digital Learning Day, organized the Alliance for Excellent Education, is a “nationwide celebration of innovative teaching and learning through digital media and technology that engages students and provides them with a rich, personalized educational experience.”  On Digital Learning Day thousands of teachers and nearly two million students joined in encouraging digital learning by trying something new and showcasing their success.

Classroom Discussions in the Cloud
Students used the SCAN tool, designed by TregoED to promote critical thinking on complex issues, to examine the issue of cell phones in schools from four different perspectives.  As they played the roles of teachers, administrators, students and parents they brought out the issues, benefits and drawbacks, of using cell phones in school and collaborated on ideas to develop a working policy or plan to resolve those issues.  As students used screen names and avatars, they could not differentiate their classmates from their peers at the other high school.   Unlike a regular classroom discussion where some students may overshadow others, online discussions include all participants in the discussion.  The SCAN tool walks students through a problem solving process in an engaging Facebook-like platform.  

Many issues were brought out during the discussion including the use of smart phones for research and emergencies, as well as the distractions that they could cause in the classroom. Students made many suggestions that would allow for their use, and take care of the problems they might cause. 

Putting 21st Century Skills into Practice
This inter-school collaboration was a great example of using digital learning to strengthen the learning experience.  As all students were thoughtfully engaged in the discussion of the potential impact and pitfalls of the beloved cell phone in the classroom, they were also practicing using the 21^st Century Skills of communication, problem solving, collaboration and good digital citizenship. 

Try something new! Share your success!

Digital Learning Day is right around the corner.  February 1st is the day to celebrate the power of using technology to increase student learning.  At digitallearning.org, their goal is to celebrate innovative teachers and instructional technologies.  I am willing to bet if you are reading this, you are an innovative teacher and have lots of instructional technology tricks up your sleeves.  The object is to get everyone, no matter their comfort level, to try something new and celebrate their success!  They have more than 780,000 students participating.  Sign up and be counted!   Do you have a piece of technology or web tool that you learned about and just haven't gotten around to trying it?  Celebrate digital learning day by getting around to it.

Want an easy way to celebrate?

Why not celebrate National Digital Learning day by having your students do a SCAN session with a class from another school?

Here’s all you have to do:

1.  Email me at swozniak@tregoed.org with your class grade level, number of students participating and approximate time the class meets (classes do not have to be synchronous but it would be fun.).

2.   I will email you a name and password (so you can print out a worksheet and monitor the session), some helpful tips and the URL for your class to use to work on the Cell Phone Controversy scenario (It’s free!).

3.  Assign roles and have your students work through the session on February 1^st.

4.  Send the TregoED template press release to showcase your success!

This could be the start of something big!