Executive Function Help: Teaching Kids to Manage Their Digital Files

Back on March 11, which now seems a long time ago, we introduced a series of posts by Beth Guadagni on executive function and how kids can manage their digital lives. Now that students are working from home, keeping their digital materials organized is more important than ever. So we are picking up this series and hope that it helps your students stay on track. As Beth noted during her introductory post on this subject "having a sense of control over their time and materials lowers anxiety". And we can all benefit from a bit less anxiety in our lives.

Teachers’ increasing reliance on cloud storage like Google Drive means no more lost papers – hooray! Your student can now access assignment sheets and submit work online. But working from the cloud can mean misplaced files. Some kids have even more difficulty with digital file storage than they did with papers because they often use the same account throughout their career at a school or in a district. That means that, in theory, if a high school senior was assigned her district email address when she was in, say, fifth grade, she could be searching through seven years’ worth of disorganized digital files. Not pretty.

Here are some tips for helping your student resolve the digital chaos. Remember: It’s almost certainly going to take a while for your student to do all this independently, so provide patient support for as long as she needs.

Establish Order 

A student shouldn’t store work on both a computer’s hard drive and in a digital cloud because it can be hard to remember which of the two places she used last. Ask her to commit to one. Once she’s committed, first thing’s first: Create a system for a student’s existing files and help her put things where they belong.

She should begin by creating one folder for the current school year and one for each previous year from which she has documents saved. If she gives the file the name of each grade (e.g. 8th, 9th, 10th, etc.), she should be sure to arrange them in reverse-chronological order so that her most current grade shows up on top.

Now, within the folder for the current year she should create one folder for each of her classes. If she includes a number to correspond with which period she has each class (e.g. 1. Biology, 2. Spanish, etc.), the folders will be organized in the order of her schedule and not alphabetically.

If you really want to take things to the next level, most file storage systems will allow users to choose colors for each folder. Pick a color for each subject, then give your student colored pens, folders, and binder dividers to correspond with her digital organization system. For example, if she chooses green for biology, the divider for the biology section of her binder could be green, too. She could also use a green pen to put biology assignments into her planner (or choose green for biology work she enters into her electronic calendar). This color-coding process can help her make sense of her schedule and materials at a glance. Better yet, the mental process of selecting the correct color each time she saves information and writes down a due date enforces the categorization of the different parts of her schedule, helping her brain to be as organized as her planner and files.

Now that she’s got her system in place, it’s time to organize her files. This could be a multi-day process if she’s got several years’ worth of documents willy-nilly, and that’s OK. Anything from previous years can get dragged into the appropriate folder for that year; there is usually no need to organize them further. With documents created during the current school year, your student should take the extra step of dragging files into each class’s folder. Show her how to arrange her files by date in reverse, so that the most recent documents are at the top of the list.


Maintain Order
If you’ve gotten this far with your student, you’ve almost certainly encountered an alarming number of documents named “Untitled.” This frustrating situation is a great learning opportunity. Point out to your student that she has open each of these documents to determine what it is before she can put it in the right place. This is a waste of time, and after having to do this over and over she’ll likely become a believer in titling documents. The next step is to make titling a habit. A good practice is to prompt your student to title each new document immediately upon creating it, before she begins working on it. If she uses Google Docs, she can type the title into the body of the document, then click on the field for the name of the doc and the title she entered will auto-populate, so she needs to type it only once.

Each time your student creates a document, slide show, etc., she’ll need to drag it into the correct folder. But for kids with weak EF, streamlining processes is important. If she uses Google Drive she can eliminate this step and still stay organized. Show her how to create the new document from within the correct folder. Next time she needs to type a reading response for a novel, for example, ask her to open the folder for that school year, then for Language Arts. Now, when she clicks “New,” the document will automatically be saved to that folder. (She can, of course, move it later if she accidentally creates it in the wrong place.)

Step One: Complete! Now that your student can find what she needs on her hard drive or in her cloud storage, check back for our next post about how to manage email.

Design Thinking in the Classroom

In a recent blog, we wrote about how the maker culture is invading K-12 classrooms, and how design thinking is transforming traditional learning. We looked at how to get your kids making, creating, and designing. In today's post we are going to dig a little deeper into the “design thinking” buzzword and unpack what the integration of design thinking means for 21st century teachers, students, and schools.

Design thinking is a structured, but creative, approach to generating, rethinking, and tangible problem solving. It involves taking real-world problems and using research, analysis, and brainstorming to come up with solutions (Gerstein, 2013). Students then physically build and test their ideas through experimentation and product refinement.

Design thinking is supposed to be a messy, dynamic, and collaborative problem solving approach to real world problems. So, as students walk through each stage of the design process, it is important they remain flexible and return to previous steps if need be. Progression through the design process is not intended to be linear; it is fluid and creative in nature. However, a brief description of what occurs in the classroom during each step of the process is as follows:

1. Discovery
Students will discover a challenge or problem, and work to develop a clear understanding of the problem. They should research the problem and gather as much information as they can.

Example: College student is a very active marathon runner who loves to move around. She finds it very difficult to stay still in her chair but is expected to sit through a 75 minute math class without standing up.

2. Interpretation
Students will work to clearly articulate the problem they want to solve and why it is important to solve it. During this process students may need to go back and redefine the problem several times to further narrow the scope of their project.

Example: The student enjoys movement and needs to be able to move quietly, from a seated position, without distracting others in the classroom.

3. Ideation
Students will begin to brainstorm and come up with solutions for the problem.

Examples:

• The student could tap her feet under her desk (no, because that would distract others)

• The student could roll a wooden dowel under her feet (no, because the floor is hardwood and it would make a loud noise)

• The student could tie bouncy elastics to the bottom of her chair to press her feet on during the lesson.

4. Experimentation
Students will select what they think to be the best solution and begin to build a porotype of their solution. They will then test their ideas.

Example: Find a chair and test out different widths and types of elastics. Determine if there is any noise made or if other students are distracted by the noise made. Make sure that the elastics don’t break and are easily added and removed before and after class.

5. Evolution
Students will begin to evolve their ideas and refine what needs to be reworked. This may call for students to return back to the discovery, interpretation, or ideation steps of the design process.

Design thinking is an exciting concept, but it can be daunting to figure out how to integrate these ideals into your classroom routines. Thankfully, there are several resources out there to support interested educators who wanted inspire their kids to think, create, and experiment. Design Thinking for Educators is a great resource for educators who want to learn more.

Their website houses a plethora of videos that discuss the intricacies and rationale behind design thinking, while modeling real world examples of how the ideas are played out in a classroom. Design Thinking for Educators also has a downloadable toolkit to get you started in your design journey. Alternatively, Stanford’s School of Education has a wiki that outlines some great design thinking projects and challenges that innovative educators could attempt with their students.

Design thinking is a fascinating novel way to think about and engage students in the learning process. It gives the students autonomy over their learning, and teaches them how to find answers to their own problems through experimentation and research. Happy designing!

References;
Gerstein, J. (2013, March 11). "Hacking the classroom: Beyond Design Thinking." Retrieved from http://usergeneratededucation.wordpress.com/2013/03/11/hacking-the-classroom-beyond-design-thinking/.

Maker Culture in Schools

Maker culture is an off-shoot of traditional "do it yourself" (DIY) and craft culture. Adweek describes the maker movement as “…the umbrella term for independent inventors, designers and tinkerers. A convergence of computer hackers and traditional artisans…” Unlike the DIY movement, Maker culture is centered on tech; it involves computer programming, robotics, 3D printing, and digital and graphic design. The movement is so developed that it has its own magazine, Make, and hosts Maker Faires all over the world. Now, maker culture is pervading schools and your blogger is very excited about this creative shift in the education space.

Maker learning provides students with a hand-on, highly interactive way to explore the world around them as they engage with STEM concepts. Through a maker environment the learning a student does becomes intensely personal, project-based, and internally motivating. Maker culture is cross-curricular by nature and blurs the dichotomy between arts and sciences as students creatively design and construct novel technological products. Maker activities engage students in design thinking, a concept that is so powerful it is being integrated into curriculum at select schools. These schools are not alone. The Next Generation Science Standards advocates for computer science, engineering, and tinkering to be a part of every American child's education.

Maker projects can be as simple as using recycled materials to create a new toy. The materials used can be as basic as old cardboard to as advanced as 3D printers. Teachers could also have students explore stop motion animation by creating their own film to share. Or have students use MIT’s Scratch, a free computer programming tool, to create stories, games, or animations. Another way to infuse maker culture into a classroom is have students sew with conductive thread. This will allow them to make wearable electronic apparel or digital stuffed animals. Maker culture doesn’t have to be complex, it simply has to inspire students to invent, design, and create new products.

For teachers looking to bring maker culture into their own classrooms, an excellent resource is the book Invent to Learn: Making, Tinkering, and Engineering in the Classroom. The authors advocate that no matter your classroom budget there is a way to integrate maker principles into your students’ learning. They provide tips and ideas for students and teachers to learn together by interacting with a variety of high and low tech tools and materials. Edutopia also has a storehouse of Maker Education related articles that teachers can use to empower them to carry out maker projects in their classrooms. Maker Ed is another maker culture innovator where teachers can peruse their resource lists or get connected to maker events going on near them. It may feel daunting to take on such a large task in your classroom, but there are a lot of excellent resources out there to help support you in joining the maker movement. 

Happy Making!

Tips for a Manageable Email Inbox

Peeking into a student's backpack or dorm room used to be a good indicator of his organizational skills. But these days a student's email inbox may be more revealing than the way he manages his paper load. Information and documents are increasingly distributed to students via email instead of on paper, and many students aren't able to stay on top of their electronic clutter. We considered tips from organizational coach K.J. McCorry, founder of an environmentally-focused organizational consulting business called Eco-Officiency, and did some of our own brainstorming as well, to come up with this advice for students (and, just maybe, parents, too):

• Reduce: An easy way to combat inbox overflow is to get fewer emails, which can be accomplished in a few ways. First, set up a "dummy" email account and use it for all online purchases and other occasions when you must share your email address with an unimportant third party. This way, if your email address is shared, only your dummy account's inbox will fill up. Second, unsubscribe from solicitations. They may be hard to see, but "unsubscribe" links should be at the bottom of all marketing emails. Don't believe the myth that opening sales emails will cause you to receive more of them; get yourself off all of those lists. 

• Set-up for success: Nearly all email platforms allow users to create folders. We suggest that students create one folder for each class (chemistry, English, etc.), one for their personal communications, and one for each extra-curricular activity (band, soccer, etc.) in which they are involved. It may sound unattainable, but hear us out: the goal should be to have zero emails in one's inbox because they've all be placed in the right folders.

• Order of Operations: McCorry recommends checking email about five times a day; a lot more or less than that negatively impacts productivity. Each time a student signs on, McCorry suggests that they first delete all spam and irrelevant messages. Second, they should answer all emails that require only a quick response. Follow the three R's here: Read, Respond, Remove. By skimming quickie emails, jotting a short response ("We're meeting on the second floor of the library. Don't forget to bring notecards!") and dragging these messages to the right folder, inboxes will seem less intimidating in no time.

• Just Do It (Now): McCorry's steps should leave only a few emails that require careful reading and/or a thoughtful response in a student's inbox. This is great news because it means the important stuff won't get lost in a queue of other messages. McCorry suggests taking care of those time-consuming responses ASAP to avoid creating a backlog in one's inbox. Remember, waiting to respond means having to reread the email later before typing a reply, which is a big waste of time. Instead, students should bite the bullet and respond immediately while the email's contents are still fresh.

There's no single way to manage email, but we hope these tips will help. They certainly work for us!

photo credit: EUNOIA via FlickrCC

More Coding for Kids

In a recent blog post we wrote about Codeacademy, an excellent, free website resource for learning a variety of programming languages (e.g. HTML, Ruby, Javascript etc.). Today, we look at other coding resources for students, parents, and educators.

With the emergence of new digital technologies, new skills are being bred that have become pivotal for success in school and the workplace. Digital literacy is becoming more than a buzz word and new 21st century learning skills are beginning to be taught in our classrooms in order to prepare our students for the careers they will enter when they graduate. Now, beyond learning Microsoft Word, PowerPoint and how to do an effective Google search, students are learning how to build their own websites, animate, and code. It is pretty exciting to say the least. Google does an excellent job of laying out why coding is becoming such a big deal on their Made with Code website.

Over the past few months I have noticed an increase in parents coming in with questions about coding and computer science learning for their children. Coding is quickly becoming a very valuable and employable skill. So much so that, according to research from the Department of Computer and Information Sciences at State University of New York at Fredonia, computer science is among the highest paid undergraduate college degree and programming jobs are growing at two times the national average. There are now a variety of tools and resources for children as young as five to engage with and start building their digital skills. Some of my top picks are as follow:

• Hopscotch is a simple programming iPad or iPhone app for students ages 8 and above. Hopscotch is an award winning program that students can use to make their own animations, apps, digital stories and games. Price: Free
• Hopscotch School Edition is similar to the Hopscotch app, with the addition of teacher-centric features which improve the seamless integration of Hopscotch as a learning medium. Furthermore, there are no in-app purchases in this version, as all the characters and features are unlocked and available for use. Price: $9.99
• Tynker offers self-paced, online courses to teach children to code. There are versions for both home and school, which infuse step-by-step instructions with mini games, videos and puzzles to teach children the basics of programming. Price: approx. $50 per course or $399 for an entire classroom
• Google’s Made with Code not only showcases disruptive technologies that are being made with code, but also offers free projects students can do to get a taste for programming. They also offer community building resources and events that your child can take part in if they develop a real interest in computer science and stem. Price: Free

• Code.org is another exceptional resource which offers tips for both learning and teaching computer science. They recently held an event where President Obama tried their hour long program to learn coding, to demonstrate that anyone can learn computer science. They offer courses, tutorials and up to date statistics on the growth happening in the computer science industry. Price: Free for introductory courses and tutorials

Finally, Girls who CODE is an organization dedicated to inspiring young women to enter the STEM fields - Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math. They offers summer intensives, clubs in your neighborhood and mentorship programs.

One product that isn’t available yet (but I am very excited about) is a new book called Hello Ruby, which is a beautifully crafted picture book aimed to teach kids ages 5 through 8 about computers, technology and programming. It will be an excellent way to prime your children for any of the aforementioned programming activities. The book will then be extended online as an app which will surely whet your child’s appetite for computer science. It is set to be released sometime in October 2015.

Learn to Code With Codecademy

What's the most useful language to learn? There's a reasonable argument to be made for Mandarin, but we think the answer might be Javascript. Or HTML. Programming skills are increasingly important to know in the digital age, and jobs that didn't have tech components in the past are increasingly asking for candidates who understand basic programming.

Luckily, Codecademy can give young people an edge. Codecademy is a free web-based program that teaches users Javascript, Ruby, Python, CSS, and other languages. Its also available as an app for iOS devices. In addition to learning coding languages, users can learn to build an interactive website, a Rails application, and more.

Codecademy's founders Ryan Bubinski and Zach Sims believe people learn best by doing. So Codecademy's students discover concepts by actually building things, all the while getting feedback from their peers. Learners can join the millions of other Codecademy users in study groups, question-and-answer forums, and more. While those with a background in coding may find Codecademy a bit basic, neophytes are sure to find the site both eye-opening and enjoyable.

01000011 01101111 01100100 01100101 01100011 01100001 01100100 01100101 01101101 01111001 00100000 01010010 01101111 01100011 01101011 01110011!

(Translation: Codecademy rocks!)

Monitoring Screen Time

Most parents agree that kids need some degree of monitoring when it comes to technology. Whether it’s time limits on games, supervision when using social networking sites, or established bans on some sites until kids are old enough, protective measures are important to keep kids safe. But many parents struggle to find the time to hover over kids as they hover over screens. Luckily, there’s a techy solution for this techy problem: enter parental control software.

Daniel X. O'Neil

There are a multitude of options available when it comes to this sort of software, and parents must first decide what’s right for their families. Do they want to block certain sites from kids altogether? Limit the amount of time spent on sites? Monitor where their kids spend time? Here are some of the best options out there:

Kids Watch Time Management 6.5: This highly reviewed software allows parents to establish time limits for certain types of sites and block others altogether. The software is highly customizable and will send an email detailing the activity of each registered account user (i.e. your kids) daily, weekly, or monthly, prompting busy parents to remember to glance over their kids’ computer records. For more information, check out this review.

iDetective: Download iDetective to keep tabs on youngsters’ use of tablets (Mac or PC) to get detailed reports and summaries on the way a remote computer is being used. iDetective can even allow a parent to send messages to the device from another computer. Imagine the look on your child’s face when “I thought we agreed no Minecraft after 8:00…” pops up in the middle of his game!

StayFocused: This Google Chrome plug-in restricts time for specific websites or certain types of websites. Once a user has used up all the time allotted, the plug-in will block the site for the rest of the day. StayFocused goes beyond the basics to give clever options, like blocking all subdomains (i.e. all social media) or specific in-page content (i.e. all videos).

And remember, there are no-tech solutions that can help kids manage their screen habits, too.

• Some parents choose to keep a record of their children’s email and social media passwords so as to monitor their accounts. Expert advice is split on this policy: some advocate it, while others view it as an unforgivable violation of a child’s privacy, so be sure you know where you stand before taking action.
• Establish areas of the house in which technology is not welcome (like the dining room, perhaps) to make room for real (what’s-it-called?) conversation. Another tack: forbid technology in all but certain rooms in your home. Remember that you have to abide by your own laws, however, so don’t make changes you’re not prepared to live with!
• We’ve saved the best for last: Talk to kids about their online interactions. It could get uncomfortable, but they might learn something valuable. Discuss the choices made by their friends on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. Raise questions like, “What do you think she’s trying to communicate by posting a picture like that?”, “What reaction do you think he’s hoping that post will get?”, or “How do you think this status message could backfire?” For an interesting take on opaque social networking, check out one mom’s policy on keeping her teenage boys, and their friends, in check.