It turns out, I did not include a GIF on my first blog for this class (oops). However, if I had, it would have been this one above which reflects how I (duckling) feel about technology (spider). Re-reading my first blog, I can hardly recognize myself as the author. I wrote, rather defensively in retrospect, that I am an ardent supporter of hard copy, tangible books and their transformative power for children in school libraries. That hasn't changed-I love books and I love introducing them to kids. There is something about story times with a picture book, seated cross legged with the children, turning the pages, maybe a puppet in hand, something that I feel reaches them in a different way than turning on a YouTube video of the author or others reading the story on the screen.
I like to work with felt boards to animate stories. But now I recognize, this is a tool, no different than other types of technologies. Sure it may be low-tech, but it is still just a tool. After these weeks in Library and Information Studies (LIS) 724/Education 776, I understand better that integrating technologies into the classroom and library is simply choosing from tools that can help students learn, and help me teach, better.
And of all places where technology needs to be in a school setting, the library has to be front and center. After all, the teacher librarian's mission is to reach all the students in all the grade levels, and to help improve their literacy however that may be accomplished. This may be through readers' advisory, in which we recommend the perfect book for a reluctant or voracious reader. After our lesson on Trends in Educational Technology, I can now use TeachingBooks.net to guide these students and to help me locate diverse titles. The lesson on Technology for Accessibility opened my eyes to the idea of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and the ways to help students with dyslexia including do's and don't. I am a big fan of Active Learning and found many ideas from the slide show we put together including the Gallery Walk and Human Scavenger Hunt activities.
Probably the technology I was most wary, and least knowledgeable about, was Artificial Intelligence. After this week's module, and taking Khanmigo for a test drive, I not only feel more comfortable with AI, I also am looking forward to exploring AI technologies in the library with my students. I see it as something that can enhance learning and teaching, and not as a threat or an impossibly complex enigma.
I think the one educational technology area where I remain conflicted is putting myself out there, creating a broader and stronger Personal Learning Network, and a sharper and clearer Digital Tattoo. This is something I need to reconcile in today's digital world. I need to discover how to do this while maintaining a degree of privacy that I'm comfortable with.
My professional web presence is flawed, but a huge leap forward from the one I created when I first joined the graduate program. I will turn it in knowing that I want to tinker around with it, refining and making it more attractive and professional, after this class is over.
So what GIF should I use to replace the scared duckling & scary spider GIF above?
GIF source: Giphy
Relaxed. Swimming in technology's deep end. Educational technology tools are my friends (or at the very least, intriguing acquaintances).
Obsolete? This photo above is from the troublingly titled 2022 article "Will robots replace teachers in the near future?" It is of an English language class in South Korea and it speaks to a unease that educators may be experiencing after the 2022 launch of the tool ChatGPT which uses artificial intelligence to generate human-like texts including essays, songs, poems, and stories. In actuality, artificial intelligence (AI) is at work whether we ignore ChatGPT or not. Anytime our fitness app lets us know to fill our ring, our Google Maps tells us which route to take to work, or TikTok takes us only to like-minded posters on our for you page, that's AI doing its thing.
Nonetheless, I have kept my distance from AI, falling neither in the "Techno-futurism" camp nor the "Lock it & Block it" camp as described in this module's YouTube lesson, "How will schools respond to the AI revolution". My children, one an undergrad and one in law school, have reported that there are attempts by their universities to combat AI cheating. My husband, an engineer by training, is an enthusiastic Techno-futurist and even jokingly contributed an AI generated speech to me (to show what AI could do a couple years ago) when I ran for a position on my local library board (I adamantly turned it down--it sounded nothing like me!). But the picture above reflects a whiff of a worry--in my chosen field as a school librarian (often categorized as teacher librarians)--am I on my way to obsolescence even before I begin my career?
Testing Out Khanmigo for Teachers
The article from which I took the picture above answers its own question with a reassuring "no": teachers will not be replaced in the near future because AI is a tool, not a substitute, for teachers. Keeping this in mind, I decided to look at the Khan Academy's education tool for students and teachers, Khanmigo, and see what it could do with real school library scenarios. Sal Khan, the founder of the online, nonprofit tutoring and school empire (which one of my nieces actually attends instead of traditional school) the Khan Academy, has taken ChatGPT and, according to an opinion piece in the Washington Post, created:
The School Library Journal in 2024 says that Khanmigo guides students and adjusts lessons to their skill levels, customizing learning to an individual's needs and making it a tool that students can use everyday. There is clearly enthusiasm for what this tool can do for students, but I am interested in what it can do for teachers.
Khanmigo For Teachers is free, so I set up an account to give it a try. I approached it with 2 broad library lesson areas: the first is how to teach information literacy to middle school students. I've learned at Dominican that librarians need to consider various literacies as part of their responsibilities including individual literacy (reading/writing/math facts), digital, media, and information literacy. Having spent time teaching research methods to college students, I am interested in information literacy and helping students navigate what are legitimate online sources of data and analysis. The second challenge I posed to Khanmigo comes from coaching Battle of the Books. One of the books for middle schoolers this season is The Lost Year: by Katherine Marsh. This book is set during 2020 in New Jersey, where Matthew is stuck at home at the start of the Covid pandemic with his great grandmother who is a survivor of Ukraine's genocide, the Holodomor. It switches between places (NJ, New York, and Kyiv) and times (2020, 1932-1933) and is a moving, mysterious book my students are currently reading.
What I found is that Khanmigo did a great job answering and providing resources for one of my prompts, and a flawed job with the other.
Challenge 1: Information Literacy
First, I prompted Khanmigo to search for "research skills for middle school". This first go around yielded links to videos, lesson plans, and articles that did not fit what I was looking for. So, I refined the search to "how to teach information literacy to middle school students". Here I hit the jackpot with one of the results, "What is AI?":
Video Source: Common Sense Education on YouTube
This video is the first of Khanmigo's 8 lessons ranging from "AI explained" to "How AI is trained" to lessons on "AI Bias" and its impact on students and the world. These were not only videos, but included full lesson plans for example on how AI can be biased:
Image source: Khanmigo
Lesson plans start with the age range (grades 6-12 in this case), go on to highlight vocabulary, the resources you'll need, step by step guides for how to run the lesson, how to generate student involvement, and real world examples. I went from not knowing how a teacher librarian might incorporate teaching middle schoolers about AI to feeling confident that I could run a lesson over a course of several weeks that would give myself, and students, a solid grounding in AI as a tool with benefits and drawbacks.
Challenge 2: The Lost Year
Thoroughly impressed with Khanmigo, I now turned to asking it a more fine-grained set of questions to see if it could help me teach about Marsh's book The Lost Year. While Battle of the Books does require that students recognize and memorize key elements of 20 books including characters, setting, plot and quotations, my co-coach and I always strive to emphasize the larger lessons of the books as well. Marsh's book is a mystery and also historical fiction, so we've been talking about the Holomodor--or death by starvation--that occurred in the Ukraine after Stalin collectivized agriculture and purposefully tried to kill off the peasant farmers in Ukraine in 1932. This time, instead of a general search bar inquiry, I used one of Khanmigo's teacher tools (of which there are many) and asked it to generate a multiple choice quiz about the Holomodor in the Ukraine. The result was almost instantaneous and stunning--a 10 question quiz including answers. I checked Khanmigo's answers and all were correct.
It was when I went further that Khanmigo let me down. I wondered if it could create a quiz specifically about this book, since that is what I do when helping students prepare for the competition. I was excited because these quizzes take awhile to prepare even after I read the books. I was skeptical, however, since The Lost Year is a recent (2023) book and not a classic title.
Shockingly, Khanmigo created this second quiz as quickly as it did the Holomodor quiz. However, my enthusiasm dwindled a bit as I examined the answers. For example, Khanmigo refers throughout the quiz to Matthew's "grandmother" as being his link to Ukraine, however, she is his great grandmother. While this seems insignificant, students would lose points in competition if they did not know this detail. Secondly, Khanmigo claims the book is set primarily in the Ukraine. This is incorrect as it pays pretty equal attention to Kyiv, New York City, and New Jersey. Third, in its question about what does the title refer to, Khanmigo's answer is the year Ukrainians lost their lives to the famine. While not wholly incorrect, this ignores the fact that the title also refers to the year Matthew and others lost while stuck home during lockdown.
The fact that Khanmigo even knows about Marsh's book and has data on it is impressive. These mistakes may seem small, but in a competition all about details and comprehension, they are decisively bad. Moreover, for anyone who does research, accuracy matters and the lack thereof can put an entire research project into question. To its credit, Khanmigo warns the teacher user about the possibility of inaccuracies from the start:
Image Source: Khanmigo
What I learned about AI
In the lesson plans the Khan Academy itself has published about AI, it points out that AI is only as good as the data that it finds online. This is known as the "garbage in, garbage out" idea in social science research methods. In other words, the conclusions you draw about your research are spurious if the data (or method) you are using is false or flawed. In the first example when I asked it to help me create lessons about information literacy, the Khanmigo tool was able to pull from a wide variety of sources, synthesize them, and produce detailed, step by step lessons that I can use for middle schoolers. Is all the information entirely accurate? I would need to comb through it to be sure.
However, in the second challenge I gave Khanmigo, the weaknesses of the tool, and AI in general, are revealed. I am not sure what data Khanmigo drew from to create the book quiz, but it seems like an amalgamation of online reviews and information from the publishers. While largely correct, the mistakes do matter and, were I to have given a Khanmigo-generated lesson or quiz to my students, they would not make it in a competition finals. Moreover, they would miss some of the key themes of the book.
AI is a tool for teachers, not a substitutefor teachers. It is powerful, fun, and can help us do our jobs better. It will make us rethink how and what we teach. Like us, it can make errors. For my part, after doing this dive into one AI education tool, I am looking forward to learning more about what AI can do for me and my students, while remaining the one at the front of the library classroom.
p.s. after Khanmigo failed to produce accurate answers on the book quiz, I tried another popular AI tool, Perplexity, and asked it to also produce a 10 question multiple choice quiz about The Lost Year. Its results were equally mixed--some good questions but at least 2 wrong answers (about character names).
Opinion | Khanmigo by Sal Khan Is an AI I’m Excited for My Kids to Use - The Washington Post, www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/02/22/artificial-intelligence-sal-khan/. Accessed 13 Oct. 2024.
Parrales, Michael. “Would Robots Replace Teachers in the near Future?” Inspire Education Latin America, 5 Dec. 2022, inspire-edu.tech/robot-teachers/.
Wilson, IdaMae Craddock and Kristen. “An AI Toolbox for Librarians.” School Library Journal, www.slj.com/story/an-ai-toolboxlfor-librarians-artificial-intelligence. Accessed 13 Oct. 2024.
YouTube, YouTube, "How Will Schools Respond to the AI Revolution?" John Spencer. www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgygRCdHbmc. Accessed 13 Oct. 2024.
YouTube, YouTube, "What is AI" Common Sense Education. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0KaGBOU4Ys&t=154s. Accessed 13 October 2024.
I am introverted and private. I realize that it doesn't take much to find out about me, or anyone, on the internet. Even with no social media presence beyond a private Instagram account for my dog and a LinkedIn page, I was not surprised to discover the information that is available about me. However, I approached and conducted this assignment with a certain degree of unease. Does my digital tattoo tell you who I am? Can you know me based on what is out there, and should you try? I am still thinking about the answer.
First, the good: wonderful things can come from searching for someone's digital tattoo. My dad for decades was unable to connect with the family he left behind when he immigrated from China. But through an internet search, probably done by one of her grandchildren, my aunt, his last remaining sibling, was able to track down my dad and I was able to take him to Hong Kong for an emotional reunion:
Image Source: author's
With this in mind, I did a dig to uncover my own digital tattoo. I tried out two browsers (Chrome and Safari) and more than seven websites including Nuwber, Google, Radaris, YouTube, Spokeo, My Life, and ClustrMaps. Here is the type of information I found from a selection of them:
Google
A quick google search on both browsers yielded pretty much the same results:
Google search result
Basically, the top result is my LinkedIn page which identifies me as a volunteer at the school library. In addition, the search leads to a webpage I created for a Dominican class that I probably will take down since it is no longer relevant, and also, when you search images, one photo:
Bottom Right: me & family Google images
This image is the only one of me I found on Google. It's one my husband put out there as he sits on the board of Lurie Children's Hospital.
Nuwber
I found quite a bit more information on Nuwber including: age, middle initial, home phone (obsolete), current address, husband's name and some information, name of one child, listings of 26+ relatives. What's interesting is that there are a number of errors in this website and the thumbnail version of my information is inaccurate (marital status/phone number/age). It's possible that a more extensive report would yield more, and more accurate, information but I didn't want to give any more information to the site, nor pay, in order to view it.
Image Source: Nuwber
YouTube
This was a surprise to me and not a bad one. I realize I created some videos which I posted on YouTube for some of my Dominican classes in library science, including examples of a story time for my class on early literacy. I had completely forgotten these were on YouTube. I don't mind that they are there and searchable.
Image Source: YouTube
ClustrMaps
If you know my name, you can easily find my address, and even more easily find out where I live and how to get there. ClustrMaps allows a searcher to find out more about the demographics of my neighborhood, the cost of the home, the details of my home, etc:
Image Source: ClustrMaps
Not surprising. I know it's pretty easy to find this information from a variety of sources.
Thoughts
I looked at several other sites and was able to find more information on previous addresses, previous names, and neighbors. But what I found on MyLife, Spokeo, Radaris and others were long wait times when I asked for more detailed reports, hints that these reports would indeed contain salacious information, and then calls to sign up for a paid account should I want to explore further.
I know that deep dives into a person's digital tattoo are common place and indeed necessary in instances both professional (looking into the history of a job candidate) and personal (searching for red flags in a potential date). I also realize, from this assignment, that my digital tattoo is pretty light and faded. A deeper search can yield papers, presentations, and other professional content, but since I was active several years ago before I took time away to be at home with my kids, these will not be front and center of any search. I appreciate the need to increase my professional online presence. I appreciate the usefulness of having an online presence, and searching for others' digital tattoos. At the same time, I really do value privacy and remain vaguely uncomfortable about being so easily searchable. I think this unease may be helpful when teaching media literacy to young people in a school library setting and advising them that their online activities will be hard to erase.
Personality tests are controversial. Initially developed to determine whether someone was fit for military combat, they have since been used to determine, among other things,whether someone is a team player and a potential asset to a company. These questionnaires ostensibly tease out correlations between our answers to questions such as "I seek out new contacts when I am in a social setting" with traits appreciated in the the corporate world such as "great team player, good at networking." However, as social science research methods insist, correlation does not equal causation--in other words, just because something occurs and changes together (introverted people tend to prefer to work alone) does not mean that one thing causes each other (our teams are underperforming because we hired too many introverted personality types).
Regardless of their scientific rigor or eventual practical uses, personality tests can give valuable insights into our understandings of how we operate, and organizations' understandings of who is, or should be, working for them. How, then, do they relate to Personal Learning Networks or PLNs? Personal Learning Networks are the connections we make with individuals, organizations, and other resources that support ongoing learning. In our digital age, these connections tend to be fostered through social media sites such as LinkedIn, X, GoodReads, Instagram, Facebook, and the like. They can also include membership in professional organizations, attendance and presentations at conferences, volunteer networks, etc. Developing a PLN is beneficial to educators for many reasons, not least of which because it opens windows into other worlds beyond our own classroom (or library) and connects us to like (or unlike) minded people also striving to create the best learning environments for their students.
Taking personality tests can help us understand how we can best contribute to a personal learning network. According to Let's Grow Leaders, 4 types of people can be valuable to a PLN including an encourager, a challenger, an advocate, and a technical advisor. After taking a series of personality tests, I have a good idea under which of these 4 types I fall. Moreover, personality tests can encourage us to look more deeply inside our own selves and reveal how we flourish or not, and the areas we can work on. This will help in our own attempts to create a rewarding PLN for ourselves, and help us to be a valuable member of a PLN for others.
I am, apparently, an INFP: An Introverted Intuitive Feeling Perceiver.
Image Source: My Personality Test
"INFPs like yourself only make up about 7% of the population.
You are imaginative, warm, idealistic, and compassionate. You are usually open-minded and accepting unless someone is violating one of your values. Ultimately, you want to change the world in whatever way you can. You want to make the world a better place for others."
Hm, this sounds pretty good! I am unique (only 7%!) and also I want to help others. But the picture is not entirely rosy: because I focus most on the touchy-feely, the conceptual and the abstract, I tend to ignore practical details and real world solutions. Moreover, my desire to save the world means I tend to neglect my own needs. And most interestingly: "You always aim to please others and will do anything to avoid conflict."
Ouch.
How accurate or valid are these results?
Pretty uncomfortably accurate in some ways. You only have to look at what I chose and am choosing to study, where I have worked and volunteered, to know this test is onto something. I want to make a difference. In my case this means I want to make peoples' lives better, and cause the least amount of harm and the greatest good in doing so. My focus is on finding ways to improve literacy and better outcomes for more kids. So yes, accurate.
I think the idea that I tend to look big picture, conceptual, and theoretical is pretty accurate. However, I disagree that this makes my efforts less effectual or more impractical. Maybe because my training is in a practical field--city planning--I've strived to go from high ideals to implementable solutions.
Finally, and this will become a recurring theme, I avoid conflict. I like harmony, collaboration, and peace. I not only avoid conflict, I lack the tools to deal with conflict. Why this is the case is a tangent best unexplored but certainly can't be separated from a culture that values saving face and promoting harmony over discord.
"As an INFJ (Advocate), you possess a unique combination of idealism and insight that sets you apart in today’s world. Your rich inner life is characterized by complex emotions, vivid imagination, and a deep well of empathy that allows you to connect with others on a profound level. You have an unwavering commitment to your principles and an intense desire to make a positive impact on the world around you."
how accurate or valid are these results?
I have taken this test before, though not recently, but the label of "advocate" for my personality type is new to me and something I'd like to explore. Introverted is not a surprise, nor is the focus on empathy and the need to make a difference in the world. Another theme that appears to be resonating across tests is the need to avoid conflict:
Image Source: 16 Personalities
This weakness is brought up by the 16 Personalities folks under both personal and professional areas. Is it possible, I wonder, that the desire to avoid conflict and the common trait of being introverted might be related? And what does this mean for developing, and being a part of a PLN?
In this test, my answers were correlated with the type of leader I might be. It concluded that I am more of a democratic, or participatory, type of leader. This is in contrast to the two other types of leaders: authoritarian and delegating or laissez faire leaders.
how accurate or valid are the results?
This feels spot on. When I was a professor, I taught classes in city planning with an emphasis on community participation. Without the active involvement of those who were to benefit or live with a plan, how could it be considered a net positive in a neighborhood? Today, when I run a group I tend to set the rules or parameters but let others be fully involved in its direction, trusting their skill sets. However, the concern raised by the previous two tests raises its head here again: "And, if you dislike disagreement or conflict, you might struggle with how people respond to consultation."
How might an INFP/ INFJ-T/Democratic Leader Function in a PLN?
As Susan Cain argues in her Ted Talk at the beginning of my blogpost and her 2013 book Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can't Stop Talking, being extroverted, highly networked, energized by social interactions and ready for the next verbal jousting is not the only, or even the most successful, way to exist professionally. Clearly, I fall within the category of an introvert professionally and personally. I knew that before taking these tests, and it appears to confirm the tests' accuracy that my answers support this label. Moreover, I not only thrive best in situations where I can work contemplatively and solo, when I do find myself working with others what I avoid is conflict. Is this detrimental to leadership, teamwork, and to being a part of a professional learning network?
Not necessarily. If the four types of people you want in a PLN include encourager and advocate, I fit right in. A high degree of empathy will tip me into the encourager role--I am there to let you know "you got this" and remind you of your strengths. But the role I may fit the best is that of an advocate. According to the 16 Personalities quiz, that's my strength. As a professor, I often took on this role for students whether by writing recommendation letters, helping them understand how to write a scientific research paper, or introducing them to potential scholarships. As a student and a volunteer, I find it is others who have advocated for me including my mentor and fellow grad students. It's an important role in a PLN and one I'm eager to deepen and pursue.
The elephant in the room is conflict. Can someone who avoids conflict function decisively and efficiently in a professional network? I think the answer to that is yes. I think that rather than going against my own traits and trying to 'overcome' who I am, I can take a page from Cain's book and double down on the strengths this trait give me.
A 3 Step Action Plan
If you want to be an advocate, you can not avoid conflict. Sometimes, something that seems straightforward--for example, advocating for more funding for school libraries and for them to be more equitably distributed throughout a school district-is fraught with politically sensitive elements you (I) may not have realized. I am seeking, then, the tools to engage with conflict while honoring my own personality traits. Here are my thoughts on how I can acquire these tools and the timeline to do so:
One: realize conflicts exist and are not necessarily bad
TIMELINE: Research ways that conflict can be good in school classrooms, libraries, and the field of education. Collect articles and book suggestions and seek out videos and blogs on this topic. Fall 2024 to May 2025.
Two: seek ways to collaborate
Is there an approach to a problem that can generate a win-win solution? Is there a way different parties can work together toward the same goal? Sometimes the answer will be no, of course. But I think in the case of education and school libraries in particular, the answer can be yes. For example, all will likely agree that school libraries make a difference in student outcomes. The conflict may come when trying to decide how to increase funding for them in the context of budget cuts, or how to maintain a library in a school with an increasing student population yet tight on space. In these situations, working collaboratively to seek a solution that takes into account various stakeholders' concerns is necessary. That doesn't mean that everyone will get 100% of what they desire; it means that those with like-minded goals (children's education) can find solutions that work toward those goals
TIMELINE: I am currently seeking ways to talk with and potentially collaborate with various stakeholders in the Chicago Public School System to understand which CPS students get access to school libraries, and how we can improve that distribution. September 2024-September 2025, including a conference presentation at the Association of Illinois School Library Educators (AISLE) conference in November 2024.
Three: when real conflict is unavoidable, fight
According to my 16 Personalities quiz, other INFJ (Advocates) include Martin Luther King, Mother Teresa, and Nelson Mandela. I am not sure if any of these great historical figures took personality quizzes, but it is interesting that they were considered introverted, intuitive, and maybe even conflict-avoidant. Yet when faced with a social injustice, clearly they fought and persisted in their work. I do not like conflict, may even be allergic to it. However, I am willing to fight if I see that collaboration and cooperation are not the best approach, if values and goals are mis-aligned. What might that look like in my field of study? It could mean running for a spot on a community's library or school board to prevent those spots going to those who advocate books bans. It could be researching and presenting about the inequitable distribution of school libraries in a community where they are being cut, especially in poorer neighborhoods.
TIMELINE: present day and onward
Final Thoughts
While personality tests are controversial and the science behind them unclear, taking these three tests and connecting the results to building a PLN has been revealing and useful to me. I am intrigued by the idea that my most natural role in a PLN can be as an Advocate. I am interested in learning more about my own, quiet power as an introvert and how I can collect tools for dealing with conflict on my own terms, using my own strengths.
Sources
“A Brief History of Personality Tests.” Harvard Business Review, 14 July 2021, hbr.org/2017/03/a-brief-history-of-personality-tests.
Cain, Susan. Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking. Broadway Books, 2013.
Chen, Angus. “How Accurate Are Personality Tests?” Scientific American, Scientific American, 20 Feb. 2024, www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-accurate-are-personality-tests/.
“Free Personality Test, Type Descriptions, Relationship and Career Advice.” 16Personalities, www.16personalities.com/. Accessed 6 Oct. 2024.
Hurt, Karin. “How to Build a Better Network of Peer Relationships.” Let’s Grow Leaders, 26 Dec. 2023, letsgrowleaders.com/2021/09/06/how-to-build-a-better-network-of-peer-relationships/.
Martinez, Tania Otero. “Investing in School Libraries and Librarians to Improve Literacy Outcomes.” Center for American Progress, 29 July 2024, www.americanprogress.org/article/investing-in-school-libraries-and-librarians-to-improve-literacy-outcomes/.
Ysanne, et al. “Step 1: What Is a PLN?” Courses & PD, teacherchallenge.edublogs.org/pln-define/. Accessed 6 Oct. 2024.
About 13-14% of K-12 students have been diagnosed with some form of dyslexia, a language-based learning disability. According to the International Dyslexia Association, dyslexia refers to a cluster of symptoms which make it difficult to read, write, spell, and pronounce words. The nature and severity of how students experience dyslexia may vary widely. And while diagnostic tools have improved, it is likely that, when you include those who are undiagnosed, far more than 14% of the student population may be dealing with dyslexia.
Universal Design for Learning or UDL provides a good starting place for including dyslexic students in the learning process. Presenting information in different ways such as using visual representations, allowing students to respond to assignments in different ways such as via video or audio, and allowing them to engage in different ways such as through active learning techniques--all of these approaches can be friendly to the dyslexic learner.
I've always found Mac products such as their Desktop, iPad and Macbook Air to be user friendly, and this ethos is carried over in their attempts to accommodate diverse users. Their products include a number of accessibility tools that can help all users, including those with dyslexia (the spirit behind Universal Design for Learning). I have summarized a few of these Mac tools in this infographic:
Image Source: author's
*iMovie can be used in a number of ways to help all users, including those with dyslexia. For example, you can record yourself reading aloud and play the recording back, providing practice in this skill. On this infographic I highlight using iMovie to record answers to things like classroom assignments or emails so as to avoid having to write a response.
*Mac's text-to-speech software can be used to listen to articles on the internet, email attachments, or complex directions. The Alex voice on the Mac is supposed to have more natural intonations and can be slowed down to a rate comfortable for the listener.
*For dyslexic users, the screen display itself, its brightness, color contrasts, etc...can make reading more challenging. Changing these settings (for example, switching to dark mode) can make the reading experience more comfortable.
*You can use iPhoto to store images from the iPhone, digital camera, or screen shots and either create a digital slide show or print them out as flashcards to study.
*For some forms of dyslexia, writing manually is easier than typing. Dyslexic users with an iPad can use Scribble to write their thoughts on the screen and they will be translated into text.
*Finally, the font Open Dyslexic can be more reader-friendly for dyslexic learners.
In many ways, technology opens up more doors to diverse learners, including those with dyslexia, and gives them equitable access to learning opportunities.
“Home.” International Dyslexia Association, dyslexialibrary.org/. Accessed 2 Oct. 2024.
Team, Dystech Editorial. “10 Accessibility Features for Dyslexics on Apple Devices.” Dystech, 31 May 2023, dystech.com.au/learning-difficulties/10-accessibility-features-for-dyslexics-on-apple-devices/.
“Tips for Mac Users.” Dyslexia Help at the University of Michigan, dyslexiahelp.umich.edu/tools/mac-tips. Accessed 2 Oct. 2024.
“Universal Design & Technology: Center for Teaching Innovation.” Universal Design & Technology | Center for Teaching Innovation, teaching.cornell.edu/resource/universal-design-technology. Accessed 2 Oct. 2024.
When considering educational technologies today it's important not to ignore social media. McCrindle's 2023 Gen Z inforgraphic reveals that, when asked what they use daily to learn new skills, the Gen Z (born 1995-2009) respondents cited TikTok, Instagram and YouTube as their most reliable sources
Image Source: McCrindle's GenZ research
Similarly, in Project Tomorrow's Speak Up Report from 2023, What Do K-12 students say about their digital learning experiences today?, 72% of middle schoolers and 73% of of high schoolers cite online videos as their second most used digital learning tool. In anecdotal conversations with the students I see, who are Generation Alpha (born 2010-2020), social media retains a powerful pull on them as well. Clearly, there is a feeling that Generations Z and Alpha are chronically online and using social media to learn new things and understand the world. The question is--is this phenomenon net positive or negative? And for educators--how does this and should this affect our teaching?
The Double Edged Sword
Image Source: Shutterstock
It is perhaps not surprising that, according to Common Sense Media's 2024 report, A Double Edged Sword: How Diverse Communities of Young People Think about the Multifaceted Relationship between Social Media and Mental Health, participating in social media has both benefits and costs for young people's well being. This study is exceptionally valuable because it was co-created with young contributors. They cite the benefits of social media to be emotional support, connection, awareness, community building, and simply decompressing/having fun. The other side of the sword are the negatives including seeing stressful content, hurtful comments about body image, homophobia, and racism, the envy and fear of missing out that social media can inspire, and the difficulty in setting boundaries that can lead to lack of sleep. Preteens and teens say they find it hard to turn away: they use social media platforms almost constantly and some prefer these over in-person interactions.
Another key finding of this report is that social media's dark side can more seriously affect teens of color, those who are part of the LGBTQIA+ community, and those who have experienced depressive symptoms. It's a very mixed bag: many teens from these groups step away and take a 'cleanse' from platforms such as YouTube, Instagram and TikTok, but at the same time they can find in these platforms community and support. It appears that it is too simplistic to conclude that using social media is a net positive or a net negative experience.
Social Media and Being a Teen Today
Is being a teen today harder or easier than in the past, and what role does social media play in this? According to the Pew Research Center, parents and teens say yes at different rates and for different reasons. 69% of parents think it is harder to be a teen today, whereas 44% of students think is is harder. What I found surprising is the perceived reasons why the two groups think it is harder to be a teen. For parents, the number one reason they cite is Technology/Social Media (41%), followed after that by Technology in General (26%). In contrast, teens cite More Pressure/Expectations (31%) as their number one reason why it's harder to be a teen now, with social media following second (25%).
When I began to read this study I thought to myself, as a parent, "Yes, it is harder to be a young person now." But what surprised me were the reasons most cited by parents. My answer was that kids have more pressure surrounding expectations, especially when it relates to academic achievement and college acceptance. This (along with things like gun violence in schools), is what I first think of when I consider what makes it harder to be a teen today. So I was surprised by parents in this study citing social media and technology in general as their first culprits making their children's lives difficult.
I was not surprised to see teens citing more pressure and expectations as their main explanations of why things are harder now than when their parents were teens. What is really interesting is that their second most cited culprit is social media, yet when the question is flipped and they discuss what makes life easier, they say technology actually is a positive force:
Image Source: Pew Research Center
So both the Common Sense Media and Pew Research Center's studies highlight the double edged sword of the chronically online generation. But what does that mean for educators?
Implications for Educators
As an aspiring school librarian, I need to understand my patrons. Studies about Gens Alpha and Z work together with what I'm observing with my own children and with those young people I see at school to paint a more detailed picture. Both sources point to social media as being a tool that has mixed implications. Current and future social media apps are, and likely will continue to be, ubiquitous and pervasive in the lives of most students. To condemn social media without participating in it or understanding its place in teens' lives is to condemn educators, especially in a space like a library, to obsolescence.
For example, keeping a presence on social media (while protecting the privacy of students' and others' images) could increase the outreach potential of a school library. Librarians could post BookTok-style content in which they do rapid fire reviews of new titles or new technologies. We can let parents and students know when we are open before and after school or what programs we are running.
Furthermore, it's important that we seek to understand the mental health challenges facing our students. Media literacy, in which we directly address social media, is one way we can open up conversations about their potential dark side. This blog from the University of San Diego gives some other tips and insights into how educators can be savvy about this double edged sword.
Post Script: a tiny sample
I found the Pew Research study about whether it is harder to be a young person today than in the past so interesting that I asked my spouse and kids and here is some of what they said:
spouse: "I think...it is better to be a young person now than in the past. The world is in many ways kinder and more accepting...if you are in a developing country, there is vastly more opportunity and for a transformationally better standard of living than their parents."
son, age 23: "It is easier to be a young person now. In the past: drafted into wars, Great Depression...now: way better living conditions."
daughter, age 21: "It's hard to compare...I think it's hard to be a young person now. We are bombarded with so much information, stimuli, complicated ideas at a young age that can be overwhelming. With so much access to information, our generation is nihilistic about the world, climate change, the economy...some things have improved like health, equality, and open mindedness. Social dynamics are maybe less brutal...there are more opportunities but there is more competition, young people are more invested in politics but also less optimistic. Much easier to be lgbt. But pressure, social media, access to global information = overwhelming."
Sources
Administrator. (2024, June 4). Social Media in Education: 13 ideas for the classroom. University of San Diego - Professional & Continuing Education. https://pce.sandiego.edu/social-media-in-education/
Faverio, M. (2024, August 27). Why many parents and teens think it’s harder being a teen today. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/feature/why-many-parents-and-teens-think-its-harder-being-a-teen-today/
Fenwick, J., Davis, M. A., Jancer, M., Caramela, S., Cooper, D., Hume, T., Hendy, E., & Thompson, N. (2024, August 9). We’re all chronically online now. VICE. https://www.vice.com/en/article/xgybvk/were-all-chronically-online-now/
The Generations Defined Report. McCrindle. (2024, June 6). https://mccrindle.com.au/resource/report/the-generations-defined-report/
Movie & TV reviews for parents. (n.d.). A double-edged sword: How diverse communities of young people think about the multifaceted relationship between social media and mental health. Common Sense Media. https://www.commonsensemedia.org/research/double-edged-sword-how-diverse-communities-of-young-people-think-about-social-media-and-mental-health
I need to see and do things to remember them; another way of saying I am a visual and kinesthetic learner. You can talk at me all you want, and I may remember your point. However, if you show me a picture, map, or any sort of visual example, I'm right there with you. And if I participate in some kind of physical activity, this further carves a groove into my brain and activates a pretty solid memory. For example: in 5th grade we memorized the U.S. states and their capitals. The teacher lined us up in two groups, she called out a capital, we had to rush to the front and place a pin on the state whose capital it was, competing against the kid doing the same in the other line. I have never forgotten the capitals.
Thus I have a lot of empathy for the book club students who face me in the library classroom, some groups sleepy after lunch, some hungry right before, no one really wanting a lecture. Starting in September they come once or twice a week, gearing up for a Chicago Public School-wide Battle of the Books competition in the spring. They do most of their work outside of our meetings--each person must read at least 5 of 20 books. How, then, to help them remember characters, plot, setting, vocabulary words, and other details? How to go beyond memorizing and glean deeper lessons and meanings from the books?
Enter: active learning. I never knew it was called that, I only knew I wanted to step outside the box and use our 45 minutes per meeting in a fun, energizing way that would also help them get ready for competition. According to the article "What is Active Learning? Benefits & How to Apply It", active learning "involves students in doing things and thinking about the things they are doing." Kids go from listening to and observing the teacher to actively engaging with the material. Besides this being a more energizing way to teach, how does it benefit students? According to Nicole Zumpano's 2020 Prezi, students will both remember more and be able to analyze better if they participate actively in lessons:
Image Source: Zumpano Prezi 2020
This is pretty compelling. As the pyramid shows, students are likely to remember 70% of what they say and write and a whopping 90% of what they do! Moreover, by saying, writing, or doing students cross into those higher order ways of thinking--into analysis and critical thinking.
I practice active learning with my book club students primarily through games. One game I use is a version of Pictionary. In our version, we divide into teams of two, grouped around the white board at the front. One student either draws a card with concepts, plot points, setting, or characters from the books we are reading or they come up with their own ideas from the books. Each team takes turns sending a teammate up to draw the concept (which only he or she has seen) and the team which presses the buzzer first (they love buzzers), gets to guess what the person is drawing. It's fun, loud, and memorable! To make it even more tactile, I forgo the white board and have the kids create characters and items from the books out of play dough; something the middle school students especially like (enjoying the nostalgia).
Another game we play is "Guess Who?". I take the actual board game, complete with 2 sets of flip-up characters and cards, and customize it, creating character images to suit the books we are reading. The teams guess which character card the other team has drawn through a series of filtering questions. The flip board looks like this:
Image Source: author's
In the front slot is the character card the red team has drawn: in this case, Raymond from the book How to Stay Invisible by Maggie C. Rudd (2023). The blue team will ask questions like, "Is the character human?" or "Does the character identify as non-binary?" and flip down those characters who do not fit the answers the red team gives until they've narrowed it down close enough to make a good guess. Here are some of my varsity (8th grade) students playing this game last winter:
Image Source: author's
In addition to Pictionary and Guess Who, we play online games such as Kahoot and Jeopardy, also great for review. While online games are popular, I really like to get the students moving and participating in hands-on, active games like the two above and also a version of "Pass the Chalk" as described in Iowa State University's (ISU) 226 Active Learning Techniques. When we play it, rather than a piece of chalk we use a stuffed animal or a beach ball. Students throw it to each other and have to answer a question about the books when they get the ball or toy. I call it Popcorn or Hot Potato, and, like Pictionary, it can be loud, crazy and, I hope, memorable.
I cannot wait to try some of the techniques suggested by ISU and the other sources we explored this week including role playing simulations, experiential learning, and beach ball bingo. Getting students up and out of their seats, playing games with a purpose, and just being loud and having fun--these are my goals as a coach this year, with the added benefit of learning thrown in for good measure.
Resources
226 active learning techniques | celt. (n.d.-a). https://www.celt.iastate.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/CELT226activelearningtechniques.pdf
4 types of learners in Education. Teaching Channel. (2023, August 10). https://blog.advancementcourses.com/articles/4-types-of-learners-in-education/
How can you incorporate active learning into your classroom? (n.d.-b). https://crlt.umich.edu/sites/default/files/resource_files/02_Active%20Learning%20Continuum.pdf
Rudd, M. (2024). How to stay invisible. Square Fish/Farrar Straus Giroux.
To learn, students need to do something. Cult of Pedagogy. (2022, March 17). https://www.cultofpedagogy.com/do-something/
What is active learning: Benefits and how to apply it. SC Training. (2024, June 26). https://training.safetyculture.com/blog/benefits-of-active-learning/
