Engaging Today's Digital Learners - Where Do We Begin?

Ashley had just returned from a skating practice preparing for tomorrow’s skating competition, when I met her. So of course, we talked about skating, school, the latest movies, and other things ten year old girls talk about, including technology. As an educator, I was interested to hear about how she used technology at school, but she was more interested in talking about technology in her world outside of school – and I’m so glad she did.

I wasn’t surprised that Ashley likes digital photography, and that Ashley has her own blog, or that she spends time in a social network called WebKinz. But what I was surprised at was that she spends time in WebKinz with her grandpa. Ashley bought and mailed her grandpa a Webkinz and then helped him learn to navigate the world of Webkinz so they can play together. They can go over to each other's Webkinz houses and check out the new room decorations. Webkinz also has game rooms where they can meet to play online games. They can even send gifts and notes to each other through Webkinz post. Now that they have Webkinz in common, when they have a chance to visit, they talk about the latest Webkinz games or items they have purchased. They usually spend time together at the computer doing Webkinz. Her grandfather wasn't very tech savy and this gave him a way to share in Ashley's world.


We all know that technology can help grandparents and grandchildren who live hundreds of miles apart stay connected. I’m fortunate enough to have face to face playtime with my grandson in my basement filled with toys he loves. But for many, technology is the way kids and their grandparents stay connected. My grandson could answer a Skype call from great grandma when he was two. My mom learned to use Facebook so she could stay connected with her teenage grandchildren spread across the country. But it wasn’t until I met Ashley that I thought about playtime with grandpa happening on line. For those old enough to have a Facebook account, there are lots of ways to replicate the checkers game with gramps we remember from our childhood. But who would have thought about inviting gramps to your online playground?

Ashley’s brilliant solution of using technology to solve a challenge in her life, sent me off thinking about how often we look for ways to use technology in our classrooms that is limited by our awareness of the technologies available along with limited understanding of how today’s learners are truly different than those of previous years. How many of us try to find technologies that FIT into our way of teaching, instead of increasing our understanding of new ways kids who have grown up digital learn and interact with their world. What is our responsibility as educators to understand our new audience and learn new methods to reach this audience? I remember the first time a young lady with Asperger's Syndrome joined my class; her special educator provided me with materials about teaching kids with Asperger's Syndrome and I took my professional responsibility very seriously to increase my understanding of what learning was like for her. Infinite Thinking blogger, Julie Duffield, enlightened me about how technology can help us understand learners with autism. Most recently I rearranged the computer lab and installed new software to make it more accessible for a blind student in one of our fifth grade classes. His teachers and I are learning many new techniques (including new technologies) to make learning accessible for him.

But where do educators begin to increase their awareness of new learners, and of new technologies available to engage and reach those learners? Where do we begin to blend our content knowledge, our understanding of good teaching, with increased awareness of new technologies and new types of learners? Where do we find the time admist a teaching day jammed pack teaching children and fulfilling professional duties? I know very few teachers who don’t want to better understand today’s students or new ways to make learning relevant to them. Can we take this challenge to our students? Ashley found a very creative way , that very few adults would have thought of, to connect with her grandpa – I bet she was lots of ideas about how teachers can make learning relevant for her. Have we asked her for help in solving this challenge?

(P.S. I’d like to do a follow up post with ideas from readers about ways we can work on this challenge)

NCTI Technology Innovators Conference

Recently Lucy Gray and I were invited to the 2007 NCTI Technology Innovators Conference. The focus of this conference is building solutions to make technology and information more accessible, especially for young people with disabilities. Check out this slideshow of the conference highlights!

An important part of this conference is connecting researchers, innovators, entrepreneurs and policy makers. It was inspiring to hear from innovators and social entrepreneurs like Jim Fruchterman from the nonprofit technology company, Benetech. Recently, Benetech was selected by the Office of Special Education Programs at the U.S. Department of Education to provide access for every student with a print disability in the United States via Bookshare.org. Lucy spoke on a panel with Jim and Chuck Hitchcock from CAST on NIMAS legislation, an significant law that guides the production and electronic distribution of digital versions of textbooks and other instructional materials so they can be more easily converted into accessible formats. Lucy's main question was: Why can't services like Bookshare be made available to allow all students access to digital textbooks?

In his recent ITM post Steve Hargadon encouraged the use of open source to create exciting collaborations and provide solutions. So, at the NCTI conference, it was exciting to meet developers who shared open source assistive technology initiatives that offer free tools. This included Steve Jacobs from the IDEAL Group. Steve shared about his colleague Charles Chen (a Google technologist) who developed Fire Vox.

Fire Vox is an open source, freely available talking browser extension for the Firefox web browser, essentially a screen reader designed especially for Firefox. In addition to the basic features, such as providing navigation assistance that are expected of screen readers, Fire Vox provides support for MathML and CSS speech module properties. Imagine how students would benefit to have dense text read aloud to them! Steve Jacobs and his colleagues (including Chen) have also repackaged Fire Vox so that it (and other open source applications) can run off of a standard, portable flash drive equipped with a fully-accessible talking menu. I spoke with Steve, and if you want to learn more about portable open source assistive technology, take a look at his NCTI presentation and/or contact him directly. (Talking about making applications accessible - check out the features of the new Google Toolbar (5) which supports applets used by assistive technologies like screen readers etc. and enables keyboard navigation and access. )

An underlying theme of the conference this year was ensuring that the “participatory culture” of social networking also includes young people with disabilities. For example, there was a session titled “Second Life for Students With Special Needs.” Topics during this session included how 3D environments such as Second Life can be made accessible for people with other disabilities such as low vision. Everett Harper, director of community initiatives at Linden Lab, also mentioned Brigadoon Island, an area in Second Life devoted to people with Asperger's syndrome (for more info on Second Life, check out a February 2007 ITM blog post, where I highlighted Amanda Baggs, an adult with autism who participates in Second Life.)

Conference face to face sharing was done via various theme events. One such event was the Innovations Marketplace which allowed innovators to share ideas with venture capitalists and grant makers gave presentations. At the Techology Expo an opportunity was provided for key leaders in assistive and learning technology to showcase their work. This year's Peer Awards for the Brightest Idea was given to SMART Brain Technology. Smart Brain Home System uses technology to improve the behaviors of individuals with autism, language disorders and attention deficits. The equipment is being tested through an NCTI grant with adolescents with ADD. The large picture posted here shows Domenic Greco of "Smart Brain Home System", with Julie Duffield of WestEd at the Technology Expo. Julie is pictured about to wear a visor with sensors attached to a Sony PlayStation. This device tracked her brain activity and gave neurofeedback on her attention levels while playing a racing game.

To keep important discussions like this going after the conference, the folks at NCTI have issued a brief titled “Using the Power of Social Media to Promote Assistive and Learning Technologies ” and invite all of us to give our input to this document. These issues and people at this conference provided much food for thought about diversity, access and innovation. View the NCTI conference sessions materials to learn more.

Also if you want to find out more information or resources related to this event please feel free to contact - Julie &/or Lucy.