KQED Do Now

Back in August I visited some of my former colleagues as they were preparing for the start of a new school year. I was asked if I had ever used Twitter in my classroom, and if I had any tips for getting started.

I had to admit at the time that I knew very little about Twitter. I had never created a Twitter account, and while I guessed that it might be a great tool for connecting to other educators, I hadn’t ever invested any time in learning the tool.

At the time, I didn’t see how Twitter could be used in the classroom, but I told my friend that I’d look into it for her and would let her know what I discovered. After a little research I became intrigued, and two months later, I am astonished at the number of ways Twitter can be integrated into instruction.

The simplicity of Twitter means that it is easy to use and monitor, meaning that it can be a great formative assessment tool. It’s great for communication between teacher, students, and parents. In fact I can imagine so many ways I would use Twitter today.

I saw a tweet on my own Twitter feed that introduced the Do Now activities from KQED Education in San Francisco. Do Now is an innovative project that combines civic engagement and digital citizenship.

http://blogs.kqed.org/education/about-do-now/ 

I was inspired by a video on the KQED website of Dr. Michael Wesch, speaking at a TEDX conference in Kansas City. He said that in order to raise up citizens who will tackle and solve the world’s problems, our students must move from being knowledgeable and become knowledge-able. To help them become meaning makers we must engage them with real-world problems, in ways that involve all our students working together using all the relevant tools at their disposal. One way of providing this type of real world experience for our learners is through the Do Now activities.

What exactly is Do Now? Do Now provides activities that allow students to interact with real-world issues using tools like Twitter. Through the Do Now activities, students are given opportunities to find their voice as they connect their classroom learning to real-world problems.

http://blogs.kqed.org/education/2014/10/17/where-do-you-belong/

Do Now works very simply. Every Tuesday and Friday a new activity is posted on the Do Now website. For each activity there is a brief introduction of the topic, a media resource, and a question for the students to respond to by using Twitter.  The activities can be completed without teacher assistance, and be used to stimulate further discussion or to introduce new ideas and topics for further exploration. 

Teachers are enthusiastic about have using Do Now. To illustrate this, KQED created a video at that showed the impact of Do Now on the students at Burton High School in San Francisco. Students enjoyed using their cell phones in class, and found they were more engaged and less bored by their learning. Students felt that they learned a lot from the activities, and, to quote one student, “we were focusing on important stuff instead of the stuff we see in our everyday classes”. Students also experienced how their voices could reach beyond their own community and connect with the world at large. You can watch the video on the KQED website at  http://blogs.kqed.org/education/about-do-now/. 

So, what should you do if you want to adopt Do Now in your classroom? First visit the KQED Do Now website. Every Friday the activities focus on civics, government, and politics. Every Tuesday they rotate between science and the arts.  The activities take about eight minutes to complete and they archived and can be done at any time.

Of course, when I first learned about Do Now, I realized that teachers could create their own Do Now activities to meet the specific needs of their students and content areas. A teacher could select a topic, write a brief introduction, locate a resource, like a video, audio recording, or photograph for the students to view, and create a question for the students to respond to, using a hashtag on Twitter to collect the responses. Teachers could even collaborate with colleagues to create cross-discipline activities that engage students in authentic, problem-based learning. This is why I am so excited about the potential of the Do Now activities.

In 2007, Dr Wesch created a video called A Vision of Students Today that identified the most important characteristics of students in today’s technology and media rich environment. What it highlighted was how irrelevant students found what and how they were learning. The Do Now activities help address this disconnection by connecting students with real world issues and teaching them to engage with the world while practicing digital citizenship. More importantly, it offers students the opportunity to find their voices to change the future. I encourage you to examine Do Now for yourself.

Information about the Do Now can be found on the KQED website at http://blogs.kqed.org/education/about-do-now/. 

Dr. Wesch’s video is also available on the KQED website at  http://blogs.kqed.org/education/2014/07/03/what-is-the-value-of-social-media-on-your-professional-learning/.