Author Archives: Genevieve Johnson

Genevieve’s Project Proposal Update

Reviewing available datasets for public schools shows different ways I could approach working with data regarding student achievement.  For instance, not only does the data provide a full range of performance grades, for students who are doing just great to those who are failing miserably, it also provides proficiency scores in math and English.  I initially thought I would put emphasis on charter schools to find those offering progressive methodologies, but the truth is progressive schools could also be located within the standard public school system so that I could miss important information looking solely within charter schools.

If I am to work with this data successfully, I have to define an exact question as dealing with all of the variables offered in various reports could make this project quite unwieldy.  That means whether I want to know if technology is being used in inner city schools, or if I want to look at how to create engaged active learners, the data can lead viewers to consider these topics.  My job is to approach the data pragmatically.

I am revising my project to determine how different types of funding can effect student learning using datasets from schools in two districts, that receive various types of funding including from donations to schools that are established as non-profit organizations, to those who are designated Title I or non-Title I schools.  Approaching the project this way could reveal how parents who are actively engaged with their schools have a say in their children’s school experience as opposed to those where parents are not involved.

I am hopeful this work will prompt discussions around why some schools are failing students, what must happen to cause positive changes at failing schools and lead to conversations around school privatization, parental involvement, pedagogy and methodology.

Genevieve’s Project Proposals

Proposal #1:  Comparing Standard, Charter and Progressive Schools

One quarter of the public schools in NYC are failing and educational opportunities that are found in progressive schools are not offered at these schools.  These schools do not situate students for social or collaborative learning and children essentially are not experiencing making or building as part of their course curriculum so that they are unlikely to be interested in careers in technical fields such as robotics or stem technologies.  Also, children who are underperformers or who have behavioral issues are sometimes pushed through school or may become dropouts.

The NYC Dept. of Education’s website has an interactive map that allows parents to locate schools within their zone, but the map does not identify charter, charter-progressive or progressive schools.  Although information is available on the site for how to apply to charter schools, the site does not make plain that charter schools can be strictly traditional or whether they have elements of progressive methodologies.

I am very interested in creating a website that compares information for students from preschool through high school using data visualizations, geospatial mapping, a blog-space and forum to provide useful information to parents to help them make well informed decisions around where and how their children will receive their educations.  Parents will be able to compare various types of methodologies as well as assess school performance and funding.  Parents will also be able to determine what schools have assimilated progressive learning into their curriculum, as well as each school’s mission statement or rules of governance.

Personas: Anthony and Carol are parents to two sons.  Mason, who is 10 years old likes science.  8 years old Justin is a math guru.  Both parents would like their sons to attend schools that will enhance their interests but neither parent understands how charter schools might be different from standard schools.  They are also unaware of how progressive methodologies could positively affect their children’s educational experiences.  Both parents are afraid to send their children to the neighborhood school.

Christian and Jon are concerned there is an academic disadvantage for children who do not achieve higher education and they want their child to have many experiences in his formative years.  Their child will attend pre-school in one year and these parents are very committed to finding a good environment that will allow their child to play and explore.  In terms of methodologies and curriculum, both Christian and Jon believe they would be able to make a more informed choice if they knew how public schools offering standard, charter and progressive educations compare to each other, but they do not know how to access that information.

Use Case Scenario: Parents will be able to explore datasets through data visualizations, discover methodologies and pedagogical practices through the blog and will be able to gather additional information through participation in the websites forum by discussing topics of importance with other concerned and knowledgeable individuals.  A geospatial map will be created so that parents will be able to see the location of all schools which will be differentiated by methodology.

I would propose that a link to the website be available on the CUNY Academic Commons, and that the site would be popularized through social media.  The site would also be easily searchable through taglines that will be used in blogpost to increase the sites visibility and through search engine optimization.

Full Version: Parents will be able to interact with different datasets using data visualizations and geospatial maps to access information to help guide their decisions including:

  • Where different schools are located locally and nationally;
  • Whether the schools are standard, charter, charter-progressive or progressive;
  • Student grades;
  • Types and amounts of funding received including for Title 1, non-Title 1 and private schools;
  • Links to rules of governing and mission statements for each school;
  • Links to digital tools that have been integrated into classwork; and
  • Information around whether blended learning is implemented.
  • Teachers will be invited to write blogpost to share their methodologies and pedagogical practices on the blog-space.

Datasets for public and charter schools are available online, and I will need to contact institutional researchers of progressive schools to request comparable data for this research project.

All of the tools that will be used to build this project except Excel and WordPress are free and open source.  The forum space will be created using phpBB, and I will create data visualizations using Gephi and Excel, and a geospatial maps using ArcGIS.

The only concerns that I have are that the Gephi file will need to be embedded into WordPress and the phpBB and ArcGIS files will require a plugin.

Timeline: Excel is the only tool which I am already using.  There will be a learning curve for each of the other tools.  I will need to spend the most time learning Gephi and ArcGIS and I plan to spend the summer digging deeper into both programs.  There are resources available online to help through that process.

I believe I can complete this project within one semester.  It should only take a month to compile all datasets including those from progressive schools.  I estimate it will take two months to create the geospatial map and data visualizations.  Once a domain name is purchased, I will setup WordPress, and upload phpBB immediately to make sure it is installed correctly.

Short Version: The bare bones minimally viable version of this project will utilize information from traditional and charter schools in one NYC urban area and if a progressive school is not located within that same area, I will compare information from the nearest NYC progressive school to produce a Gephi data visualization.

The stripped down version would show the school’s locations, amounts and types of funding received, links to rules of governance or mission statements and resources if any used for blended learning.  The blog-space will also be created in this version, and I will also upload the forum page.

Short Version Timeline: This short version can be completed within the next two months.

Proposal #Two:  A Space for Student Collaboration

Children who attend failing schools can experience frustration with their school work.  It may be that these students need to engage their work socially rather than traditionally which may help to develop interests in assignments.  Additionally, if they were sharing the same learning experience digitally with their peers, they might look forward to successfully completing assignments.

Personas: Tyler is 13 years old and has not learned how to focus on task.  Tyler would rather doodle and talk in class and sees his teachers as an authority figure which he would rather strike out against.

Sophia who is fifteen years old tries to get her work done but often feels dejected because she really doesn’t understand what she is reading.  Sophia complains bitterly that she tries but her teacher just wants to punish her by giving her more work to do.

Use Case Scenario: I would propose creating a mobile app that can be downloaded onto tablets or phones.  Having posed a question around a reading, students would begin working to find solutions to problems by compiling a list of keywords they have created, and would upload pictures onto one line of a grid as a visual reference to the keyword.  A writing space would be available next to the picture so that students could answer 5W/1H questions relating to the keyword.

After the student has worked through all of the keywords and themes, they will be able to place all of the pictures that were used in the workspace side by side to create a completed visual storyline of the reading.  Having experienced the app, students should be better situated to complete writing assignments about the topic.

A backchannel would also be available for other students to discuss events that are similar to the posed question.  Participants in the backchannel could be challenged to add similar events to the event on the main page, and to explain those similarities.

When the work on the main page is completed and challenge questions in the backchannel have been answered, students in the back channel will be able to join the student on the main page to compare similarities between all topics.  This could help create interest in literature and historical events.

Students would be able to use the app while commuting since it would be available on tablets and phones.

Full Version: I would use Ruby on Rails to develop a grid with space to include sections for keywords, comments and photos.  The open source tools I would use include:

  • Padlet which would sit within the grid and its wall can be populated with photos (via pasting the url of the photo into a template). Although Padlet does offer backchannel technology, I want to keep the backchannel conversation separate from the action that is happening on the Padlet wall.  This would allow the student in the main section to work alone within the environment to clarify their ideas around the topic.
  • TodaysMeet (also an open source tool) would be used to create a private backchannel space where a group conversation can develop.
  • Factlink uses an invisible layer approach to allow users to see the contents of a webpage and write directly on the invisible layer. Factlink can be customized if a website requires it.

Ruby on Rails will support each of these tools.  Padlet, TodaysMeet and Factlink should all have a very small learning curve.

Timeline: It should take 2 -3 months to learn Ruby on Rails.  None of the other tools present a learning curve.

Short Version: There is only one area that would be changed on the short version, and that would be to not use “TodaysMeet” since both it and Padlet offer backchannel discussion capability.  Otherwise, the short version of the app is identical to the longer version.

 

Integrating Autism and Asperger’s Syndrome Into The Workplace

Wikipedia’s article on “High-Functioning Autism and Asperger’s Editor’s” was very insightful in terms of describing who these people are.

The article describes how these individuals are different and explained some of these differences at length.  It is good to know that these individuals are employed in the “real world”, have rights within workplaces, and have a sense of autonomy.

The article indicated that all of Wikipedia’s employees (neurotypical, autistic and Aspergers), are expected to be creative in their problem solving.  This concept of finding different ways to approach and solve problems are often applied to the ways we use technology.  It seems to me that because these high-functioning individuals “like to fix things” and are good with “data storage, processing, indexing and have rapid access” (memory) they could be innovatively inclined.

Now that many more individuals are born into the autism/Asperger categories, and information around their conditions is widely available on line, is it possible that greater understanding can help pave the way to help these individuals become contributors in all areas of society?  I wonder if this is the case how technology might be utilized, given their unique abilities, and how they might be trained to utilize their skill sets.

In the article “The 36 People Who Run Wikipedia” Stephen Lurie notes how the impossible is quite possible – success can happen when lots, and lots of people come together to make or build something, and in this case every single human being can share in the sum of all knowledge”!  Given their interactions at Wikipedia, and their way of “knowing stuff”, it is apparent that these individuals likely enjoy their work as much as others do, gain a sense of pride and I imagine are quite satisfied with their contributions.  In fact, the article calls for a certain “gentleness” when some fact they know may not be quite right.

I wonder if any of the Wiki Stewards are on the autism spectrum.

Wikipedia’s article indicates that autistic individuals are called out around behavioral issues, so given that skill set, it seems there are less reasons for autism/Asperger people to not be engaged within other communities.

A Space for Developing Historical Interests and Comprehension

As many of you already know, I am very interested in working on the subject of passive to active learning.  I overheard a young lady voice frustration around not understanding a class reading and bemoaning the idea of having to produce a lengthy writing around it.  I have since spent time reflecting on how to produce a tool that would visually aid students  to understand what they have read and potentially increase their desire to know more about historical events and human strife.

This exercise requires students to have read assignments before attempting to complete the exercise.  They should leave the exercise space prepared to begin writing around themes in the reading.

Utilizing a web app, students would be able to pose a question around a reading, construct keywords, and then recreate visually what they perceive is going on within a passage by placing  contemporary images in a grid that represents the action within the text.  Students would have the ability to rearrange the images in the grid.

For example, if the reading was about the French Revolution, students could focus their responses around other themes besides the main theme and use the keywords to help form contextual questions to help them populate the grid.  The option to add more rows to the grid would be available if students wanted to work in a larger space.

For instance, to answer the question why did the peasants revolt, students would be able to visually answer that question with the use of contemporary images to describe conditions around human hunger, greed, female suffrage or any of the other factors that figured in the politics of the day.  Having created the visual grid, students should be positioned to write with a better understanding of the various themes within the text.

A backchannel could also be made available that would allow other students to comment on the question posed in the main space.  Their discussions could be around other historical events that are similar to the topic in the main space.  This comparison is meant to help develop interest in and understanding of other historical events, either past or present.

Teachers could introduce this tool to students at the beginning of the semester, so that students gain familiarity before using the tool in their personal spaces.

Thinking Beyond The Digital Divide

Commuter Students Using Technology was an extensive project that surveyed what types of computer equipment students used to access the internet, and how and where the equipment was being used.  The survey also discussed availability and obstacles to access students might have in using equipment, and sought to understand the scholarly habits of students.

Information Computer Technology is the central theme that surrounds the 5W/1H of the survey which was years in the making and although ICT is embedded in and throughout our lives, the survey revealed how students might experience pressure in utilizing ICT for their work if they have access for a short time only or not at all.  The survey also discussed ways in which the CUNY system attempts to solve the problem through access in labs, libraries and classrooms, but is this enough?  Some teachers would tell students if they did not have access at home then come to school to get their work done – fair enough.

The survey also discussed student preference for using Google Books over academic databases for library research, relying on whatever information they can find without confirming accuracy of facts.  Some students honestly revealed they were more comfortable using Google Books, felt frustrated using CUNY’s website and did not know how to cite correctly.  Should workshops be made available during the freshman year to ensure accuracy of research work and citations so that students produce quality work throughout their years as students?  Given the likelihood of enjoying quality immersive experiences through ICT, students should raise the bar in their own work and privilege the use of authors rather than settling for whatever writings they can find online.  As we know searching for supportive information that helps build a writing is part of what creates a sense of pride in having completed a work beyond the student’s satisfaction.  This is an easy fix.

So, what creates the digital divide?  We think of children who were born during the rapid advance in ICT as digital natives.  This study shows the shortfall that is inherent in the term especially when these digital natives do not fully utilize ICT as tools for academic growth but rather as tools for pleasure, just barely scratching the surface around what can be accomplished with ICT, rather than using these tools as assets and resources for knowledge.  Although the study indicated that students used ICT to study while commuting, is this the blended experience educators are hoping their students have?  Are students using available tools to collaborate around their work, to further research to increase their knowledge base, to gain interest in the work of others, or to use other available resources offered by the City to increase or enhance their curiosity around some subject?  Educators could ensure that students experience a fully blended experience by developing specific requirements around the use of ICT and digital tools outside the classroom.

It would be an interesting survey if teachers were to reveal the ways in which they incorporate ICT into their curriculums or for administrators to share ideas around how to increase the levels of success throughout their schools through the use of ICT.  What expectations would educators have if they taught children that more can happen beyond the scope of Microsoft’s products?  As Hsieh points out, being able to work with digital tools (as well as to think outside the box) is part of what students need to enjoy fuller “life chances”.  The student in the study who used “Bit Torrent” was thinking outside the box.  I actually said to myself “bravo” this student is figuring out how to get what he needs in the way that is most comfortable for him.  Imagine if that was a typical experience amongst Digital Natives (I am not advocating illegal activity just making the point that we need to get beyond typical usage) – now we are on the path to raising the bar as students, and with the guidance of teachers, finding new ways to experience immersive educations.  That should be part of the challenge for educators and administrators – teach students how to use digital tools to solve problems, to create, to think outside the box.

All of this requires a sea change if we are to address the digital divide.  We know that Wi-Fi will be integrated into schools within the next two years.  As the survey indicated, more students are currently using tablets, and for those who do not have their own equipment, I think it is a good idea to implement loan programs.  But what about administrators and teachers?  How ICT and digital tools are utilized will determine if we can raise the bar in education, if we can use these tools to help students become creators, makers, builders, problem solvers.  Teachers and administrators, are you up for teaching students how to realize the breadth of material available to support imaginative challenges?  Then let’s use digital tools to make education fun.  Let’s put certain rules in place though and then let’s recreate expectations – freshman year, teach the basics through workshops where students must present a working knowledge around how to research.  Sophomore year take a dive into immersive academia and don’t come back up until seniors have earned their diplomas.

We can do it.

Project Proposal: Building a path from passive to active learning

I want to build a website to address the issue of passive learning and to provide a framework in which parents can explore new options for their children, by identifying failing schools and comparing them to schools who have a proven track record of success in educating children through engaging students through a combination of progressive and traditional learning. By highlighting the successes of these schools (i.e, showing student collaboration on projects, increased subject interest through research, making and building, and exploring how technology encourages blended learning through digital practices) parents can gage new educational options and understand children can be educated within combined progressive and traditional methodologies.

The website will allow visitors to view maps of both failing and successful schools, and will also provide different data visualizations around success rates and curriculum, trajectories for successful careers as well as consequences for failure.

A space would be provided to invite writers to contribute articles around the many ways technology could be used in the classroom. This space would be specific to technology, as a way to glean the possibilities for in-depth training in the area.

The website will also provide space for discussion around curriculums and ongoing projects at different schools.

About: Genevieve Johnson

I am a student in the MALS Program in the Digital Humanities track. I am very interested in using art and data to impart information and create visual stories to address critical issues, with outcomes that are beneficial to individuals and society as a whole. Some of these areas include education, autism, the prison industrial complex, income disparity, homelessness, civic awareness, police brutality, and the list goes on. The development of a visual toolbox is necessary to engage viewers and provide opportunities to increase community and social development.

My Bachelors program included the study of visual arts and film, so although I have not concentrated on these areas (medical reasons), I am well aware of the ability to create given the wide array of tools I have used in the past, and I am looking forward to making and building using these and fact based tools.