The Schoenblog

We often talk about how technology can improve our teaching and students’ learning, sharing anecdotes, lessons, and stories. And these stories are powerful. They capture a snapshot of our classrooms, relationships, and transformations in classrooms to share with the world.

Like many of you, I read other education blogs and articles, attend conferences, and present about my work and technology integration. I’ve even built a blog and part of my career around it. I work hard to help my students learn and master 21st century skills and to transform their education with collaboration, creativity, creation, and critical thinking.

But what do our students really think?

These conversations are valuable but they are usually more about the teacher than they are the students. They sometimes focus too much on how we teacher rather than how students learn, process, and grow.

So instead of discussing what I think, I wanted to flip it and ask the students what they think about 21st century #futureready learning. This data complements the stories and anecdotes I write about here and probably represents trends in all of our classrooms, helping us tell a more complete story about the power of purposeful and effective technology use in education.

.@MrSchoenbart rocking it w his Ss at #LHRICTLI #EJL pic.twitter.com/Yjc8ik1kx1

— Christopher J. Nesi (@mrnesi) April 8, 2016

Student Presenters at #LHRICTLI Tech Expo

Last week, I presented on this topic with three of my students at a local conference, the LHRIC Tech Expo in Westchester County, NY. My students volunteered to participate, and they had a lot to say. We decided to organize the presentation by skills. I introduced our work and goals while each student discussed successes, challenges, and models through the lens of communication, collaboration, and feedback. Then, I shared the data summarized below and we had a Q&A session with the audience.

In the next week or two, Zoe, Mike, and Melanie will blog about the experience and share their reflections on our presentation and the process. I’ll share the presentation and our resources, too.

But today, it’s about the data.

@MrSchoenbart and his students presenting at Tech Expo #LHRICTLI #ossiningpride pic.twitter.com/JxhtYzGhBu

— Katie Helly (@Mrs_Helly) April 8, 2016

Surveying 21st Century Learning Experiences

For the presentation, we decided that we wanted to present a larger and more well rounded data set on these issues. Three students can provide a lot of insight but don't necessary represent the masses. The easiest solution was to design a Google Form for my students. We only asked my classes to take the form because the learning experiences we were examining were particular to my class and my students.

Find the form here and an overview of the 51 responses below. It asks a mix of qualitative and quantitative questions, providing so much data on students’ opinions about technology, social media, student-centered learning, and more.

Defining 21st Century Learning

For consistency and clarity, we needed to first define 21st Century learning. We’ve discussed the transformative power of technology through our evaluation of modern schools with Genius Hour, so the concept was familiar to my students. We settled on the following simple definition:

Think of 21st Century Skills as anything that helps you create your own learning, collaborate, and communicate more effectively (with each other and with teachers). This often involves technology and things like Google Apps, Chromebooks, social media, Genius Hour, flipped lessons, and more.

What Students Think

First view the form, then explore the data. Below, find the students’ responses with some slight edits for grammar, clarity, and relevance.












How does technology and the types of learning described above help to improve your learning? What do you like about it?

Excerpted Student Responses:

• Google Apps just makes the work more accessible and convenient
• I like the English calendar because it shows me all the work I have to do for the week so it helps me plan my work accordingly to my schedule.
• It allows others to view it and give constructive feedback to others and to you which is interesting
• Technology helps me communicate with the outside world.
• The ability to share documents over google drive and have friends review them I find to be extremely valuable. This connection has taught me things that I would never have learned or thought about in class.
• I enjoy being able to connect with my friends and classmates 24/7. I also like all the different choices that technology offers, like creating a video or powerpoint instead of just writing something down.
• Gives me a better perspective on things.
• It gives me a way to organize my assignments on the cloud so I can access them at any time on any device.
• I like the work that can be posted online and that is homework instead of taking home packets or worksheets.
• You can virtually learn anywhere. If you miss a day you can get caught up because of the accessibility to the web
• Technology allows me to share out my ideas as well as get feedback from people all over the world.
• Having choices allows students to be more interested in what they're doing.
• It helps because I can access information faster and it helps me with normal everyday skills, especially when collaborating. Having choices forces me to think and be independent.

What are the challenges or problems with technology and the types of learning described above? What don't you like about it?

This question yielded interesting responses, with three common themes: concerns about access/equity, technology glitches, and online distractions. 80% of student responses discussed at least one of these three trends.

Excerpted Student Responses:

• It is very easy to forget about work and it is harder to get face to face feedback from teachers
• Some challenges are if you don't have access to internet at your home it could be difficult to complete assignments.
• Almost everything you do with technology you need wifi or use cellular data. You can't always get wifi or wifi for free. Also cellular data is starting to get more expensive.
• I find technology to be extremely distracting, and deadlines are super easy to miss. I will often go on my computer to do my English homework, only to find myself two hours later having scrolled through Facebook. All of a sudden I'm about to (or do) miss a deadline. 
• I worry about my privacy online, since I know that Google is collecting my personal data. I also think that having less technology in the classroom might encourage face-to-face debate and conversational skills.
• You can get lost in it, it's not like a face to face conversation
• Due to technology's flaws sometimes a simple glitch can result in a late submission of an assignment. Additionally, we are becoming so dependent on technology, but it isn't always available to us; in a way technology is hindering our skill of self- reliance.
• In the case of a flipped lesson I find it harder to understand and I can't ask questions because it was recorded. 
• Some teachers don't know how to use technology in a meaningful way.
• The challenge that I’m not understanding enough of technology

---

Please share your thoughts on Twitter or in the comments below. 

I look forward to sharing our presentation and the students’ reflections soon. After writing this, I realize that I want to spend some time discussing and analyze the results in the future, and would love your thoughts on that, too.

We are nearing the end of our Genius Hour journeys for this year. This week, I will ask students to complete a project check-in form reflecting on their growth and genius as the process turns towards the product.

In the process, students have researched, blogged, prepared elevator pitches, written proposals, and crafted an annotated bibliography. Now, they are in the last stages of structured research, class work, and analysis as they begin to use what they have learned to produce some sort of product to reflect that learning. And I’ll be sure to share those products in a few weeks. I’ll also blog about my students’ reflections and self-evaluations, and hope to have a few of them guest blog for me right here to share their experiences.

This year, I really pushed students to go beyond researching other people’s ideas to creating their own findings through action research. Most students either conducted surveys or interviewed experts, and the process of conducting this research was an interesting learning curve for us all. Below, I share some reflections on the action research process and some of my students surveys. It would be great if you could take a few minutes and respond to a few or share with your students and colleagues!

The Doctoral Influence

As a doctoral student, survey design and questioning is always on my mind. This certainly worked for my students because I was able to help them develop stronger and more objective questions. It also led me to probably hold them to higher standards. I asked all students to make an attempt at action research and required everyone to have their surveys, e-mails, or questions proofed and approved by me.

Some students ended up with projects that just didn’t need other people’s expertise. Others clearly favored one research tool over another. For some, their attempts at experts didn’t pan out and no one responded. I wanted to try to make research more real, living, and authentic for students--and for many, it really worked.

The Action Research

One student interviewed his mom and aunt to learn about a career in accounting. Another is in the process of filming interviews with students about their opinions on heavy metal music.

In one of my favorite examples, Lauren wanted to study classroom design and space. Her goal was to design a better classroom, considering aspects like light, furniture, space, color, etc. I told her that if her work is promising she can have my classroom and redesign it however her research conclusions and analysis show to be effective. Then, I demonstrated the power of social media to find experts to help Lauren. With a few Tweets, Lauren was well connected with teacher-experts on classroom design, and on her way. Find Lauren’s blog and work here.

Emma’s work took action research to another level. To study the hero’s journey and story structure, she created a Google Form and posed questions on popular Google+ Communities. Read her blog, take her poll, to learn more about the ingredients of a hero’s story. She is well on her way to having meaningful data from a range of authentic sources to analyze her audience's interest in heroes.

A screenshot from Emma's blog.

The Surveys

My students worked hard to ask meaningful questions to help them learn about their topics. In our meetings and e-mails designing and revising the forms, I focused on the following understandings:

• Ask questions that you need the answers to, and that previous research doesn’t answer as meaningfully
• Design questions that are as objective as possible
• Since our main data pool is students, surveys must be be short and easy to complete.
• Always consider question types with purpose; when and why should you ask a qualitative question vs. a quantitative one?

I also constantly framed design through my lens as a student: it’s difficult to get it right. The students’ work isn’t all perfect, but it’s thoughtful, purposeful, and interesting.

Please consider taking a closer look at some of the blogs and surveys below. For more on our Genius Hour work, visit geniushour.aschoenbart.com.

Developing Genius

The examples above are just some of the great ideas being explored by my students. They are also some of the ones that had surveys and action research ready to share. Through Genius Hour, I hope to not only push my students to develop important skills and passions, but to make research more authentic and meaningful.

I’m excited about their progress, about the variety of interesting topics, and about the results they are developing. I hope you will take some surveys, read some blogs, and help my students become geniuses.

How have you used action research in schools or with students? What advice do you have for teaching students to create, use, and analyze surveys or data? Please share in the comments or on Twitter.

One of the most important goals from the #GAFE Impact Report was to determine how teachers were using Google Apps for Education in their classrooms and what they needed to use it more regularly and effectively. The more we understand about teachers’ use, perceptions, and needs, the better they can be addressed to increase teacher comfort and impact and affect student learning.

Most teacher and students saw the positive impact of GAFE on student learning, engagement, and the quality of work, but most teachers’ needs were not met. They needed more access, time, and training to really be able to incorporate technology meaningfully in their classrooms. I had hoped for the data from this study to support what I already knew to be true: we were making great steps forward but not doing enough to support professional learning and development in technology.

In this post, I will share an overview of what the teachers shared about their use and needs. While the data probably isn’t surprising, it is important as it validates what many of us already know: we need recursive, timely, and hands-on professional learning for regular and effective technology implementation in our classrooms.

This post is part 4 in my series #GAFE Impact Report, sharing data and analysis about student and teacher perceptions of the impact of Google Apps for Education. The results come from a 2014 survey I designed, implemented, and analyzed in my school. Be sure to check out Part 1: Overview & Infographic, Part 2: Comparing Surveys & Data, and Part 3: Summary of Findings & Analysis. Though limited to my school, I believe these results to be informative and representative of many schools in the early stages of GAFE integration. Please share your thoughts and feedback on these posts, the survey, or the findings in the comments or on Twitter.

GAFE Use & Impact

65% of teachers agree that GAFE has a positive impact on student learning and 35% agree that it positively impact teacher instruction. Interestingly, the disagree statistics were small (9% and 16%, respectively) and the undecided much higher. This made perfect sense as many teachers did not have regular access to technology to training to use it, so they were still undecided about the impact.

However, only 35% of teachers felt prepared to use GAFE effectively in the classroom and 40% of teachers say the have been able to use GAFE more than sometimes this school year. While the impact and positive perceptions are there, we needed to do more to increase training and access.

When asked which GAFE tools they were using, teachers most often responded with Drive, Communities, Classroom, and Sites.

What Teachers Need

Teacher need more access to technology and more training to use it effectively:




In written responses, almost every teacher wrote about the need for more training. According the survey results, teachers want training in the following areas:

• How to use GAFE with individual training for the different apps
• How to teach students to use GAFE and Chromebooks
• How to implement GAFE in the classroom for best practices
• How to implement GAFE for specific subject area classes or student populations
• Concrete modeling and examples of best practices 

Most commonly, teachers requested small group trainings over a long period of time during contractual hours rather than opt-in trainings outside of the school day.

One Year Later

It’s been over a year since the #GAFE Impact Report and a lot has changed since then. More and more teachers have access to technology and we’ve offered multiple cohorts of opt-in training along with differentiated sessions during professional development days as much as possible.

Next time I write about this survey and analysis, I’d like to address how it’s changed my views on professional learning and the ways we’ve evolved since. One day soon, I’d like to update the survey and try it again to see how the data supports the shifts I’ve seen in my school. As a technology coach, I have the privilege of visiting classrooms and experiencing this change but having the data to support it is always valuable.

Now you, dear reader, have access to it all: the Summary Report, Comparative Data, Infographic, Student Survey, and Teacher Survey. I hope it helps you improve professional learning to impact students through technology.

As always, please leave your comments below or reach out on Twitter. I would love to hear what you think about this study, your own ideas about GAFE’s impact, or ways to improve the study for next time.

This post is part 2 in my series #GAFE Impact Report, sharing data and analysis about student and teacher perceptions of the impact of Google Apps for Education. The results come from a 2014 survey I designed, implemented, and analyzed in my school. Be sure to check out Part 1: Overview & Infographic. Though limited to my school, I believe these results to be informative and representative of many schools in the early stages of GAFE integration. Please share your thoughts and feedback on these posts, the survey, or the findings in the comments or on Twitter.

Once the inspiration for this study hit, I knew what I needed to do. Ideas, questions, and complications circled through my mind for a few days. I listed my ideas, tried to put them in order, and to figure out what I was really looking for. Who did I want to survey? How? Where? Why? What was I going to do with the data? I had some answers to these questions and more ideas than I knew what to do with. Little did I know it at the time, but a lot of this process was what led me to my current doctoral studies. With the #GAFE Impact Report, I learned a lot of survey design, methodology, and data analysis, which helped focus my interests back towards further studies.

Luckily, I had some friends at work to bounce ideas off of and quickly made some decisions. I would create Google forms for all teachers and students. Students were easy; I could ask my English teacher colleagues to assign the survey, either in class or for homework. I decided to collect usernames in my domain so I could ensure unique responses from each students and let teachers know when their students had all completed it--although their responses remained private. For the teachers, I e-mailed a different Google form with a plea for their help. I explained my goals and purpose and asked that they complete the form over a two-week window. I then followed up in person with some departments, and after a lot of leg work had overall success. Although my administration okayed my work, it was important that I ask for honest feedback and data as a colleague and not as a forced or mandated survey from a supervisor.

The surveys took a while to design and finalize, and I’m pretty happy with the questions I asked, even now. By Thanksgiving or so, I was ready to roll out my baby.

Survey Design

Thankfully, my friend and mentor Tina has her PhD. She had the knowledge, experience, and insight into survey design, methodology, and motivating busy teachers to respond, which I sorely lacked. I didn’t need a doctoral-level project here, but I wanted to make sure that my study was fair, purposeful, and meaningful. She helped me decide on a mixed-methods approach, including both quantitative and quantitative questions.

The quantitative questions provided the hard data and were required. The qualitative ones asked for supporting responses, and some were optional. I wanted to make the survey easy for responders, with the hopes that this would give me more in depth responses. And it mostly worked. There were some topics, like the value of electronic feedback, that were important to me, but ultimately proved to be too much. I wanted to survey to be clear and focused, so I tried to connect everything back to the impact of Google Apps on Teaching and Learning.

Students

The students survey asked about when, how, and why they used GAFE, and about its impact on teaching, learning, engagement, etc. It took most students about 20 minutes to complete.

Find the student survey here.

Teachers

The teacher survey asked almost all of the same questions for the teacher's perspective but had an extra layer. All students at OHS had used Google to some degree, so all of their responses were valuable. But for teachers who had never really used GAFE in their teaching, some of the questions were designed to fail--or at least collect vague or incomplete data. I can’t expect a clear understanding of the impact of GAFE if a teacher hasn’t used it in his or her teaching.

Instead, I used the page branching feature in Google Forms to differentiate the questions. The first page is the same for all teachers and ends with the question: How often have you been able to use GAFE in your classroom this year? Teachers who answered always, often, or sometimes continued with an evaluation of its impact. Those who replied rarely or never followed with questions about why they hadn’t used it and what they would need to use it more.

Find the teacher survey here.

What impact does #GAFE have on teaching and learning?

Last year, this was the question on my mind. I had just left GAFE Summit NY, one of my first conferences, and was awed at how much everyone was talking about the positive impact of Google Apps for Education (GAFE), Chromebooks, and technology. I attended great sessions, watched my Director of Technology discuss our district’s Chromebook rollout and professional development models, and I even presented about how GAFE has changed my teaching and my students’ learning. But I left wondering about the real impact, which at the time meant numbers for me.

The Plan

The Survey

What My Students Think

• "i thought it was a cool experiment but if we were able to mover around more i think it would be a more fun and engaging experience"
• "I liked the google expeditions because I liked seeing places in depth that I've never been before. I didn't really like it because I almost threw up the period after."
• "I enjoyed using google expeditions because of the fact that the teacher is able to teach about a location and the students are able to be looking at what the teacher is teaching like if one was there in real life. Also if the teacher wants to show you something specific in the expedition he/she can pick a spot and on everyone's expedition it will show an arrow to where the teacher wanted to show you. What i didn't like was the fact that it made you nauseous after using it. It makes you want to not look at the expedition as much."
• "I liked it because we went to different places without having to pay or leave, i didn't like how it hurt my nose and eyes, it also gave me a headache."
• "I disliked google expeditions due to the fact that you're pretty much just looking at a fancy photo, you aren't getting the actual experience of a field trip. It would just be easier for a teacher to give a power point with images from the location and give the class questions."

• "We talk about so many different places within classes that you would think we would never be able to see or visit, but expeditions gives students a chance to actually see places a little more realistically than in pictures."
• "It really encompassed a new learning experience that I would like to use as it gave real life experiences in a classroom setting, allowing it to stay put in our memory."
• "It allows me to see visually what my teacher is lecturing on which is really helpful in remembering certain details. It's easier to remember what my teacher says if I can link it to images in my mind. It's much better than looking at a single square picture, instead I feel like I'm having an experience in the expedition."
• "Google Expeditions was a good companion to a lesson because it engaged the class (though part of this was likely just the novelty of it, and a class would not be so excited about a Google Expedition lesson if such lessons were commonplace), but it could not function as a lesson in itself. Google Expeditions would be a good enhancement to learning if it were integrated into lessons in which a concept that is difficult to picture in one's mind is being explained, or in which the teacher wants to greater the students' understanding of a specific location or scene."

• "Google Expeditions enhances learning because it allows students to travel to the place they are learning about without ever leaving the classroom. Being able to see a place in a 3-D sense replaces the need for 2-D pictures that a student would normally see on a power point slide."
• "My experience with Google Expeditions was great. I liked that you are able to look at different places and learn about the places. It is a good learning experience. Something that i disliked is that after a while it starts to hurt your eyes and after a long time it starts to give you a headache."
• "It was a nice idea, but could be improved. The device itself was uncomfortable, especially the lens; it would make me a little disorientated after use for a few minutes. The lens also make the image blurrier than the phone image, which just ruins the experience. A third and final complaint which is not as big of an issue as the others is having to hold it. It would nice if there was a strap or something that would make it hands-free."

• "I think it just took time away from actual learning I don't think it accomplished much, besides making a group of 20 kids nauseous. Also you don't learn much because kids are too busy fooling around looking at the image instead of listening to the teacher."
• "I just wish it was more in place so I would not feel nauseous and dizzy."
• "It would be great if the dizzy/nausea factor could be removed."
• "Google Expeditions would be improved if it had more options for student class participation, such as allowing students to input responses or add the arrows that the teacher used during the sample lesson from their own goggles/devices."
• "What prevented the complete immersion was looking at the tops and bottoms of the photosphere." "They're either empty, distorted or had a sort of watermark."
• "Google Cardboard could be using in conjunction with YouTube to view the 360 videos."

• "If I could create my own Expedition, I would make one of Hogwarts (from Harry Potter), and I think it could also have a great application in other fantasy scenes. However, I also think it would be great to make Expeditions of cell and atomic models (for science classes) or scenes/societies in certain times in history (for history classes) for a more integrated understanding."
• "If i could create my own, I would travel everywhere. From the past to the present day. Everywhere in the world. Though number one would be Tokyo, Japan."
• "If i could i would go to the capitol of Brazil because of the nice beaches that are there the hotels and many more good looking places. I feel like it would be cool to go there and learn something more interactive. It espallcy is cool to be able to do a 360 degree turn it makes it even more real like if you were there."
• "If I can create my own Expedition, i would create one of new york city during Christmas and new years"

The Full Data