“I read this morning that the 2018 hurricane season will bring one of the strongest cycles of storms in the last 50 years to the east coast. This caused me to wonder what I should tell my family who live on Hilton Head Island, an island on the coast of South Carolina. Should they be worried about hurricanes this summer, especially if the storm surge is more than six feet?”
So said a middle school teacher to her class on a Tuesday morning. Her query suggests a need for children to understand weather, geography, data and predictions in order to formulate an informed answer. The question about a storm surge is more detailed. What is a storm surge and how significant is a six-foot surge to a coastal island?
But, to what extent are children in Wisconsin concerned with a hypothetical question about hurricanes and storm surges in South Carolina? Students obviously listened intently because the teacher was talking to them; some let their attention slip when she mentioned South Carolina. This was not their problem.
What the teacher said next, however, caused all students to become interested.
“Take out your cell phones. Use your cell phone and only your cell phone to get all of the information you need to answer my question. No laptops, IPads or reference books. Please feel free to share any information you find with another student in class, but only do so using a social media app.
Use your note taking app on your cell phone to record all of the data you collect or share. When you and your network of classmates have enough data to answer my question, attach your data record to a text message and send it to me.
Finally, write a letter to my family on Hilton Head. Summarize the most important data you have collected. Make a prediction about how hurricanes may affect Hilton Head Island this year. Suggest what they need to do to “survive” this year’s hurricane season. And, specifically tell them how a storm surge of more than six feet will affect Hilton Head Island given its elevation and local tides.
Write this letter on your laptop. Edit the letter to make it as informative and data-based as you can, and then e-mail your final draft to me.
Now, let’s talk about your initial ideas of how you will accomplish this assignment.”
What made the children in her class become interested in hurricanes and South Carolina is the requirement that they use their cell phones as their only tool for seeking information, recording the information they find, sharing their data with other children, and submitting a final data set to their teacher. Additionally, they are encouraged to use social media to share data with others.
The conceptualization of this assignment is classic school work. The teacher raises a question and sets a parameter for how children are to resolve the question. The difference that marks this assignment is that, instead of keeping their cell phones in their pockets or backpacks and prohibited from using social media in school, they are required to use these everyday technologies to complete a school assignment.
And, why not? When we prepare all children for success in college and career, that preparation needs to be real world and the real world uses everyday technology. Instead of forbidding cell phone and social media in school, this teacher is instructing children how to use these to achieve important learning objectives.