“Googleable”… are we teaching our kids how to become it?

We, as adults, use google all the time to find out anything and everything we want. Need to find some resources fast? Google it. Trying to put a face to a name? Google it (thanks Google image!). Hoping to dig up more information about a prospective teacher? Google them. Trying to solve a friendly argument with a friend? Google it. (Beware on this one… I first learned about wikis back in college, and was fooled by someone who went in and changed wikipedia first…)

So what exactly are we teaching our students about what their ‘Google Profile’ is beginning to look like?

I know in my classroom the approach I’ve taken is the less we put out there, the better our profile is. But a recent blog post on ‘Web-blogged’ started to make me question that approach. As a result of such easily accessable information, it unfortunately is taking a more prominent role in hiring (and firing) in today’s workforce. It’s also becoming common for college admissions to ‘Google’ prospective students, and check out their Internet footprint.

In traditional college and job applications, everyone must submit a resume. Even if yours isn’t as good as you would like, you do your best and submit it anyways. I see, and hear, all the time at my school the reinforcement of doing things now that will build a stronger resume later. So instead of just encouraging students to not create an Internet presence at all (or atleast a traceable one), why don’t we explicitly teach them how to create a positive internet presence.

Encourage students to create electronic portfolios with their best, published work. Interested in photography? Introduce them to Flickr and the world that awaits both in terms of inspiration, but also in terms of authentic audience (a huge community is developing around photos on Flickr, with in depth conversations developing around single photographs). Introduce them to VoiceThread where they can create their own voice-guided slideshows and discussions.

What I’m seeing here are three possible outcomes in 4-8 years when a college admissions counselor googles one our kids:

1) They find some embarrassing pictures and potentially crude conversations/posts on MySpace walls, all convincing them to NOT accept our student.

2) They find nothing, leaving them with just the student’s paper (or online) application, resume and GPA.

3) In addition to the student’s application, resume and GPA, they find several year’s worth of published writing, a blog with their (hopefully) insightful thoughts/comments on a variety of topics, published photography and potentially so much more.

So let’s revisit our mission for one second. 100% of our students will attend the college of their choice. It seems to me, if it is becoming popular for college admissions counselors to ‘Google’ potential students, we need to do what we can to make our kids ‘Googleable’, so they’re using every tool they can to become a successful candidate. However, like everything we do, this must be explicitly taught, and not just hoped for. We can’t just give our kids the tools (the Internet, blogs, social networks) without teaching them how to use them and be successful at it. Without that direct instruction, we are finding that we almost inevitably end up with outcome 1.

So where is it being taught now?

Where is it in OUR curriculum?

“Teachers Walking Out? Students Got it Covered”

Awesome blog entry on one of my favorites (Weblogg-ed) about a school in NH where the teachers are potentially walking out. The actual story, however, is how students are gathering together a whole bunch of Web 2.0 tools to cover the event for their community. But where are they learning how to do this?

If we take a look at different KIPP school curriculums, I’m wondering where we find these skills being taught… I’m not too familiar with other KIPP school curriculums outside my state, but would love to know what their Tech curriculums look like, or even where these skills could be taught outside specific tech classrooms.

In my 8th grade Tech curriculum the closest we come is knowing how to search and evaluate sources online (a valuable skill, no doubt). Where does Web 2.0 fit in? I’d love to hear thoughts or comments on where it fits into your curriculum, or where it COULD fit in.

Where’s Waldo?

As an 8th grade technology teacher at a KIPP school, I’ve recently spent a lot of time investigating how the use of technology in our classrooms can help to engage kids, teach media literacy, and hopefully promote student achievement in individual content areas. So what better way to spread resources and ideas than creating my own blog?! ? After posting on one for my students for a couple months now, I decided it might be time to move into the ‘adult’ world of KIPP teachers, to hopefully engage some more teachers in this exciting challenge of fully utilizing the technology that a lot of us have at our schools.

For those unfamiliar with KIPP, I’m going to rely on Wikipedia to help me out, as my descriptions never seem to do it enough justice. (For those of you already familiar, feel free to skip ahead) Hopefully this’ll sum it up for you:

“KIPP, the Knowledge Is Power Program, is a nationwide network of free open-enrollment college-preparatory public schoolsin under-resourced communities throughout the United States. KIPP schools are usually established under state charter schoollaws.The schools operate on the principle that there are no shortcuts:outstanding educators, more time in school, a rigorous college-preparatory curriculum, and a strong culture of achievement and support will help educationally underserved students develop the knowledge, skills, and character needed to succeed in top qualityhigh schools, colleges, and in the competitive world beyond. Over 95% of KIPP students are African American or Latino/Hispanic; over 75% are eligible for the federally-subsidized meal program. Students are accepted regardless of prior academic record, conduct, or socioeconomic background.”

For more check it out here: http://www.kipp.org/

So while KIPP schools are doing a ton of awesome things right now, it appears an area we are struggling in (from my somewhat limited viewpoint) is that of technology integration. While many observations have led me to this conclusion, I’d prefer to keep this blog focused on the ‘what we should be doing’ instead of the ‘what we’re not doing’. Reasons I believe we’re struggling with the implementation of technology in our schools:

1) Time. KIPP classrooms don’t often use textbooks, which means a lot of extra hours spent every week creating materials for the classroom. Combine that with extended school hours (8-5), aggressive curriculums, after school tutoring, Saturday School, sports, earned prizes/trips, and you end up with negative 14 hours a day. So how exactly are we supposed to make time to teach ourselves the 2,000 new tech creations that come out every hour? I can speak for myself as a former first-year KIPP teacher, and I was overwhelmed enough with the basics of learning to teach, that spending the extra hours struggling with technology that was completely foreign to me just didn’t seem feasible. So as a result, it was often pushed to the end of my to-do list. Yet in retrospect, I’m guessing the kids would have been more interested in classroom blogging than the impressive clip art on my classwork…

2) Urgency. We emphasize urgency all the time with our kids in our schools and classrooms, and it makes me realize where I feel the urgency in my own room. There’s urgency when it comes to creating Unit Plans, assessments, lesson plans, grading work and calling parents. However, who’s putting pressure on us to learn the newest technology and incorporate it in our rooms? Right now there simply isn’t the pressure for all teachers to keep themselves updated, and by extension their classrooms, so we see progress remaining pretty stagnant. In many other school districts around the country there is a Tech Facilitator per district, in many cases per school. Their job is to educate themselves on how technology can supplement instruction, and then to train teachers and hold them accountable for implementing these new practices in their room. (I’d love to explore this idea more later by doing more in depth research on more specifically what they’re doing and whether or not it’s working)

3) Resources. So let’s say we did have the time (or made the time). Where can we go for help? So you have a SmartBoard sitting in your school… do you know how to use it? Do you even know how to hook it up? Do you know who to turn to if the answer is no to both of these questions? How many sessions were there at KIPP Summit last year about technology? How many of US even know what Web 2.0 is, let alone what it can do for our classrooms? How many technology teachers are there in the KIPP network? Do we know who they are? Do we know who to talk to even if we HAVE thought about learning more about tech integration?

So unless I can somehow invent a time-creation device, or quickly find millions of dollars to fund Tech Facilitator positions in all our schools, there’s not much I can do about the first two. However, the third is one I know a little something about… I’ve spent the last year and a half finding as many resources as possible, trying things out in my room (failing many times, which allows me to hopefully offer some suggestions for improvement when you try it in your room 🙂 ) and asking a ton of questions of people a whole lot smarter than me.

Moral of the story= technology can’t be taught just in technology classrooms (or ignored completely). If we allow that to happen, then we’re setting 100% of our kids up to fail at the college of their choice. Whether we like it or not, tech literacy is possibly the most important skill they need to survive, and thrive in college, and in life. The good news= it’s not that hard to teach it in every room! Hopefully you can find some of these ideas helpful, and can then pass them along to the other teachers at your school.

PLEASE leave comments, suggestions, questions, etc. so this blog does not remain the voice of just one, not very experienced teacher, but instead grows into many, experienced teachers throughout the KIPP network (and even beyond), all working to use technology successfully in their classrooms.