E-books - A teaching tool, not Empire fighting teddy bears

I'm a bit late on this topic - things have been crazy with school and work. Sorry for the delay (He says to nobody in particular). This post is about the e-book topic in tech class.

Mr. Jon Smith’s story about the use of e-books in a special education setting is objectively amazing. The question is, what caused that difference? It doesn’t take long watching the video we saw in class to know that Mr. Smith is a very engaging presenter. His passion to have students succeed academically seemed obvious. In this program, we’ve been taught several times that one of the best predictor of student achievement is whether they connect with a teacher. We can probably can point to this as a major cause of the success, but the question remains “What caused the turnaround?”

I ask this because I’m guessing Mr. Smith was as devoted to his students before the e-book use as after. Did this new method change how the student’s connected with Mr. Smith or, maybe how they connected with academics in general. I’m guessing it’s the later.

Mr. Smith talks a bit about how “normal” writing assignments are for an audience of at most 1 – the teacher. His addition of a larger audience is the vital situational change that led to the student behavioral change, in my opinion.  Mr. Smith’s account reminded me of Mr. Holman’s presentation during the topic on Digital Citizenship. The technology of e-books isn’t a magic bullet for change, it’s just a facilitator. The student engagement with the material results from their engagement with the world (and people) around them, the e-book platform just makes it practical and immediate.

I still worry about things like adequate curation and source verification when student work is made so public, but proper teacher involvement can abate these issues. For example, the part where the kids discussed strategies they used to solve math problems is great. You never know which way of describing a similar process will resonate with a kid, so some kids might benefit from the different presentation. Significantly, being exposed to a different method won’t have negative consequences – others won’t be exposed to incorrect information. That is a concern I have for student produced or curated texts – are the facts correct and are subjects that are theories clearly stated as theories, not fact.

I’m coming around to have a different view on what “appropriate” use of SM can be – that’s probably the objective of this course.  I’m going to look for ways for students to publicly show their subject mastery, not just demonstrate it to me. Whether that be e-books or some other platform, making work public can stimulate real learning.