Minecraft - Learning in the Modern Age

Each week I have a trip down memory lane as I watch The Goldbergs on ABC. I was a child of the 80's, growing up with Garbage Pail Kids, finding out that "knowing was half the battle" from GI Joe, and learning life was "more than meets the eye" from Bumblebee and Optimus Prime. Childhood included pinball machines, Atari*, Intellivision*, and Colecovision*. Sure we played basketball in the front yard and bicycled to the library. We read books, magazines, and irritated our siblings. We went to the pool and camp during the summer and spent an inordinate amount of time in front of the television in the winter. We grew up, got jobs, and now we have our turn to raise kids.

Frequently, I hear parents complaining about their child playing Minecraft. Not only they are playing Minecraft, they are watching all of these videos about Minecraft. Parents are concerned that it will never end and that its a waste of time. Well, I made the mistake. I watched some of the videos with my 1st grade son and watched him play. No, lets be honest, my wife is traveling with my oldest right now so I had some free time. I earned some father of the year points and was an audience for his interests. I discovered a few things in the process:

Minecraft is teaching my child to read. For a child who began the year with limited decoding and who's teachers have helped him break the code. On Minecraft he is learning to read words like potion, swift, and obsidian. Not only is he learning to read them, he is learning to spell them. He needs to label things from time to time, so he does. My child knows that no one will be coming to help him, so like many great utilitarian learners, he is figuring it out.

Minecraft is intensely social. There is a common language that we adults really don't speak. Whether they are five or fifteen, they know what a creeper is, what spawning is, and what mods are. Furthermore, it is a forum that welcomes all to play if they choose. How often do we hear children say, "Can you join my world?" This is the start of a collaborative conversation that happens both orally and digitally. Children learn to work, share, and play together. They are helping each other. Occasionally, a child plays improperly and destroys things on another child's world. This is like every other childhood challenge that the children need to work through and figure out how to handle. The best part is, because we don't understand Minecraft, they often develop solutions to this without the assistance of adults.

Minecraft is engineering. My oldest child is my digital learner, my younger one is my engineer. He is the Lego child. However, he has discovered Legos are limiting. We only have so many, finding the right piece can be a challenge, and projects can only become so big. Minecraft is his own CAD tool. He builds structures first in Minecraft and then, if he wants, he builds it in Legos. Minecraft is a realm of unlimited virtual Legos. He can build anything, anywhere. It has rules of 3D spatial arrangement. There are limitations that impact each world. Gravity still exists. Furthermore, these are Legos he can build with anywhere and show friends anywhere. These constructions are ones he can give everyone a tour of. Minecraft has tools that he couldn't build easily with Legos. It has switches and tracks. It has lights and torches. It has all sorts of textures. The little man has created roller coasters out of coal cars and tracks. He has built Rube Goldberg like contraptions with switches and tracks. He has also discovered that some resources are limited, that he has to work to discover them and have patience as they develop. Minecraft provides a realm for him to develop and explore.

The children are developing their 21st century learning skills from Minecraft. Those videos, yes the annoying ones that they watch endlessly, are simply walk-throughs that are teaching concepts and skills from the game. They are no different than adults watching HGTV, Food Network, or students learning from Khan Academy. Children are taking key information from video and applying it in an area of interest. This is a flipped classroom that the students want to attend. Furthermore, in a digital world, this is how they are going to gather information. They will be searching the web to find small chunks of data just as they search now to find Minecraft Wikis. They will be watching videos with bursts of procedural knowledge just like they watch the videos of Minecraft now. They will also learn from their colleagues, just as they are having to learn from other children through the game.

Finally, Minecraft allows children to build their own worlds and create their own stories. It has moved beyond block construction, allowing for animals and vegetation. Growing up, many of us wanted to build new cities and new civilizations. Minecraft is providing the beginnings of this for our children.

While the neighbor stills plays basketball outside daily, my children prefer soccer. They like to go to camp and the pool, just like we did. While they don't play pinball, their version of Atari is far more interactive than mine. Minecraft is allowing children to safely build wings in a connected society. It's doing it in a relatively inexpensive way. For some bandwidth, the family computer, and $27 for a family membership ($7 if you are in the android/iOS world), the children enter into a creative space of exploration. It prepares them for a connected society in a way the toys of our generation never did. Whether I was playing with the Obi-Wan Kenobi action figure or Grimlock the transformers Dinobot, the interaction was only a couple of us, often dominated by the limitation of the toy itself. Minecraft connects children into a world of discovery, preparing them for a future of innovation in a global economy.

Goldbergs - Toys of the 80s

*Atari, Intellivision, and Colecovision games can still be played today if you hit the links from a computer and have Java installed.

The Hall of Very Good

So I heard a teacher talking to another teacher the other day. They were discussing changes in the district and their practice. One teacher said, "I don't get it. Why should we do all of this guided instruction? I've worked with kids for years. They are growing, I see it every year. The ISAT's come back and we achieve well. Now we have the NWEA MAP data and they are growing faster than average. Why should we do all of this?" I continued to walk and ponder these thoughts. What are we asking of our teachers? Why are we asking it? What is the right thing?

The other day I was listening to a podcast of one of my favorite sports radio shows. Barry Rozner was describing Hall of Fame second baseman, and now manager of the Philadelphia Phillies, Ryne Sandberg. He described Sandberg as the guy who got up every morning and took 180 ground balls each day for practice. Sixty to the right, sixty to the left, and sixty to the center. He wondered aloud if Sandberg's drive and work ethic would translate in the modern Philadelphia Phillies club house. Would that work ethic, drive to be the very best resonate with 35 year-old three-time all star and individual noted to slack off at times Jimmy Rollins.

Jimmy Rollins is a talent individual. He has had a nice 13 year career. He was on a World Series championship in 2008. He was National League MVP in 2007 and also won the Silver Slugger award that year. He has been successful. As he reaches the sunset of a good career, is he a Hall of Famer? Does he belong with the elite 237 players that have been selected to join this noted club out of the over 10,000 players that have played the game at the Major League level? Or is he a next group, the Hall of Very Good. Talented individuals who made a difference but didn't do quite enough to be in the select Hall of Fame. Is he more of the likes of Fred McGriff, Lou Whittaker, Ray Durham, and Alan Trammel? Good, but not quite elite. Furthermore, if Jimmy Rollins had the work ethic of Ryne Sandberg, would he have been able to propel his career into that elite stratosphere.

This teacher is not a slacker. This person has come to work for years and done exactly what was expected. However, when we ask for different things, the questions arise, "Why? What difference would this make? For all this work is it worth it? Aren't we good enough already?" Here is the difference between an individual that is working for the Hall of Fame and an individual that is working for the Hall of Very Good. Hall of Famers work each day to be the very best at their craft. Hall of Famers recognize that there is an unlimited capacity within each of their students. They don't see ceilings but opportunities. They are driven each day to help each of their children thrive. They look to adjust their work in order to maximize the outcomes for themselves, their teams, and their students.

The Hall of Very Good compared to the Hall of Fame is why we change. In suburban education, many schools, many teachers, many students are doing very well. Can we do more? Can we achieve higher? Can we help our students grow faster? Can we open more doors for each child? Do we have an obligation to accomplish this? When you compare school districts in the suburbs on international tests, we score equivalently with the top nations of the world. Lower rates of poverty than urban and rural help us guarantee this success. Our children, in general, come in at a higher readiness level. We know we will be relatively successful, the question remains, "Can we accomplish more?"

NBA Hall of Famer, Michael Jordan, was know for his relentless practice habits. His willingness to push himself and his teammates harder daily in practice and throughout the grind of the NBA regular season. He his widely recognized for being the greatest player of all time. Throughout his career, he changed moving from the above the rim player in that in 1991 flipped hands as he flew to the rim against the Lakers to the 1998 champion who had an unstoppable crossover and jump shot.

These are the differences. If it is worth it, we make the changes. We drive and we adjust as kids change, content changes, assessments change, times change, and teaching techniques change. Each of us makes the choice if we will be members of the Hall of Very Good and the Hall of Fame. Each of us decides if we will be the one who helps to reach the highest peaks. Yes, our achievements to date are very good. The question is, "Do we want our students to be great?" If so, we need to be relentless in our pursuit of greatness.

Be Like Mike

When Do We Learn?

Reunions are funny things. Opportunities to reunite. Rekindle old friendships. Share stories of times gone by. Frequently these homecomings give us the chance to walk the streets of our home town and even the halls of the schools of our childhood. Reunions flood us with memories, times gone by, experiences, odd incidents triggered by a corner of a wall or a poster on a bulletin board. There's the "oh yeah" moment, when we realize that's why I know this. As an instructional leader in the community where I grew up, I have these flashbacks all of the time. Daily I pass spots in my old schools and memories flood back. With this comes the realization, learning didn't simply start when Mrs. Stewart wrote the date on the chalkboard. It didn't end when Mr. Wild sent us tumbling out of class. Learning was always happening.

Often in schools we errantly believe that our curriculum objectives and identified learning targets are the source of students' knowledge gains. The lessons that we directly engage the students in are the ones that result in student learning gains. While for specific skills this might be true, the reality is significantly different. In Krashen's theory of language acquisition, he identifies that language is acquired through exposure and experience. He notes in this natural approach that there are certain conditions that must be met for learning to occur. He talks of the affective filter, situations in which we feel less stress, more comfort, and safety, are ones in which the learning mechanism can maximize its potential.

The question becomes is this natural approach limited to language acquisition or is it applicable to most learning contexts. The answer to this is simply, yes! We know from the work of David Golman, that emotional intelligence can have as much of an impact as innate skill when interacting with the environment. This means that our feelings of self-worth and internal motivation impact when we are available to effectively undertake challenges and develop skills. Often the times when we feel safest are ones in which we can learn the most. When one pieces the work of Krashen and Golman together, it becomes evident that learning can be occurring in 3 contexts: Learning through engagement within our environment, Learning through interaction, and Learning through direct instruction. Furthermore, the learning mechanism probably does not turn on at 8:25 in the morning and turn off at 2:55 in the afternoon, but rather continues throughout are days. Put into context, we always have the opportunity to learn, we simply will learn more when it is something we value and we feel safe while we will learn less when it is not valued as much or we feel uncomfortable.

Understanding learning as a continuous process has dramatic affects on how we approach Value-Added Measures in teacher evaluation and the Achievement Gap. Simply put, direct instruction is not the only variable in either of these components and may not even be the driving variable either. Learning as a continuos process requires us to look at and influence the entirety of a students environment. Increasing reading opportunities in the home, providing exposure to technology, developing opportunities to create new experiences beyond the schools matter as much as the experiences within the school walls. As we realize this, parent education and strong community partnerships become vital if we want to raise our children as successful learners because the children's knowledge and skill gains are as impacted by these outside experiences as they are from those within school. 

In our school district, it has been a busy winter. Each month, there have been additional learning opportunities for students. Musical performances, a science fair, the Student Involved with Technology Conference, and the "Reading Games" have been school-led but parent involved learning opportunities. These seem like extras, but in reality are as core to the learning opportunity as the algebra quiz we studied for on Friday. The power of these experiences may be more valuable than those learned in algebra as the children who participated choose this challenge on their own and such were more available to the learning experience inside.

I think back to my early learning experiences. As a young pre-teen preparing for his Bar Mitzvah. I think of when learned to read decode Hebrew on Wednesday nights at Etz Chaim and when I learned to speak and read Hebrew at OSRUI summer camp. Learning occurs all the time. We learn the most when we feel safest. Environment impacts all that we do.

Keeping the Faith - Bar Mitzvah Training

Lost in Our Work

March has come and while the snow hasn't yet completely melted through the Chicago area, it is the season of standardized testing for the State. A principal called the other day and shared a story of one of his students who's parent wished to have the child opt out of the standardized test. This was a high achieving student who does well on many things. It was a caring child whom he described as knowingly choosing to pause and suspend our Northwest Evaluation Association (NWEA) Measurement of Annual Progress (MAP) test three or four times during the testing sessions, doing a little bit each day so the child could be fully aware of the assessment experience and perform at top capacity. It was a child who sets goals and wants to do well. The parent's simple reasons for wanting to opt out was why should the child go through the artificial stress and anxiety of the test for the State when we have accurate data, we won't be receiving the data from this test in a meaningful time to impact learning, and the test would only show a minimal estimate of the child's knowledge because it would not allow the child to perform in an optimal situation. Great questions and great reasoning for which many educators would have no reasonable answers.

The interesting turn of the story is that neither the child nor the parent is against the concept of standardized testing. In fact, they find data and accountability meaningful and want to use it to impact their goals and learning. Simply, the family wants the opportunity to invest powerfully in the assessment situation and be able use that information to move forward. This is a child willing to spend 3 or 4 days taking a reading assessment in small chunks in order to provide an accurate assessment of their learning.

This idea of investment spurs a question, how often do we allow our children and ourselves to operate in situations that allow us to become so invested that we are lost in our work. At Sunday School, we have begun our study of Modern Israel. The children pick a city in Israel, develop a tour guide for their city, and create a visual representation for their city. This learning experience, designed by my wife, allows children to develop knowledge and interest in a place that we hope they may want to visit later in life. In creating the visual representation for the city, children have the option to create a float (a shoebox upside down with pictures & 3d artifacts on top), a poster presentation, a slide presentation (Keynote, Powerpoint, Prezi, etc.) or build their city in Minecraft. The work frequently starts slowly, with 10 and 11 year olds learning to scour the Internet for meaningful information about a location. However, after a couple of sessions, the work speeds up, the children find many of the key data points and start to create the visual product. When they start the product, children frequently become lost in the work. They search out images of their cities, agonizing over the right pictures, deciding what they should and should not choose. Those who opt for Minecraft start to share their worlds and help each other build structures and buildings representing vast layouts. The work moves from the Sunday School classroom to the car ride home, the halls of the house, and in our house, our eldest child who also is in our class this year has dragged his younger brother into helping him build Tel Aviv. Simply the children become so invested in their work that it leaves the confines of the classroom and engages the child to explore more.

Yesterday at our instructional coach's meeting, one of our coach's shared a story of a second grade learning lab. The children, who were participating in a three-week trial of 1-1 devices using iPad minis, were learning about the nutritional value of a variety of different common foods. Typically each year the children would be asked to go home, look through their refrigerator and write down about the foods they have inside and their nutritional value. This year, using the devices, students went home and created a wide-variety of products demonstrating the food they had and explaining why it was nutritious. What had once been a five-minute scramble and get it done homework assignment had become elaborate videos with parents and children advertising different household foods. The children and families developed an excitement for the learning and the work and turned a simple assignment into one in which they could become lost in the work.

In each lesson, we have the opportunity to decide the level of meaning and interest that we will allow our students to have. We can choose whether the activity is simply to transfer content knowledge or to have the children seek out and discover information on their own. As classroom leaders we have the choice to decide who owns the learning experience and what diversity of products we will accept. Finally, we can choose if children have the space and opportunity to own the learning or if the parameters of the experience will be teacher-centered. Like the two different standardized testing situations, in each lesson we decide who owns the experience and whether the product outcome will be a minimal estimate of a child's capacity or one which expands their world.

Back to the Future - Time Machine

If 1:1 is Preparing Students for the Future, Is It the Right Future?

Wayne Gretsky once said, “A good hockey player plays where the puck is. A great hockey player plays where the puck is going to be.”  Technology as a tool for productivity is not a new idea. We can see images of buildings filled with computers from the seventies and eighties: Unix terminals connected to mainframes with their human interfaces entering data to be processed, Windows' machines with accountants computing in excel, young men and women hacking into government files. Even Ferris Bueller reminded us in 1986, "I asked for a car, I got a computer. How is that for being born under a bad sign?" This idea that children benefit from using technology to learn is simply not new. The new piece of the "digital age" is that technology has become relatively affordable for schools and highly mobile. 

The central problem for 1:1 initiatives is that for many, 1:1 is putting technology in students hands in order for them to be productive workers and learners. If we put a screen and a keyboard before them, they will be able to type out higher quality essays, research key information, make great presentations, access the knowledge of the known world, and make significant calculations in spreadsheets. This concept of individual computing is a product of the office work of the 1950s and 60's, became actualized in the 70's and 80's for the workforce, reached households in the 1980's and 90's with the home computer and is finally became affordable enough for schools during the last 5-10 years. It's taken us 60 years in education to develop the efficiency skills for the 1950's office space.

The reality is our world is changing. In fact, Benedict Evans points out that the laptop as an interface is rapidly decreasing as the world becomes a mobile. While the amount of reading and writing done by individuals is rapidly increasing, the quantity of long form pieces is quickly diminishing. As we transform into a global mobile society, we are valuing instant access to knowledge, simple, concise communication, and multi-media input. This world is not one in which simply being able to use Office productivity suites will prepare our children for the future. We need "to skate to where the puck will be" as we prepare our students. 

Our current sixth graders will enter college in a world of mobile computing, connected communications, and wearable technology. Their view of the world as seen through the images they gather, the comments they make through social media, and the communication they share will be foundations for their success. Already we are seeing advertising dollars shift from traditional media to mobile communication. We are seeing engineering products centralized not on the home but being accessible throughout an individuals lives. As we think 1:1, we can't think simply about giving children a productivity tool, but need to think about giving them the tools to be successful in the mobile digital world. That is where they will be living. Whether your ecosystem is iOS, Android, or Tizen, it doesn't matter. What matters is that students have the mobile tools to create beyond long form writing and spreadsheets, these students must have the capacity to gather images, video, audio, and writing and cultivate these into concise products to be shared with a variety of audiences. Their world will not be limited to the traditional office but one accessible from all reaches of our planet. 

Bueller Games (Needs Flash)