I want to focus this letter on how we integrate technology into our curriculum. At LREI, we believe it is essential to design an experience that teaches students to communicate and create effectively. Current research suggests that our dependence on technology has caused children to fall behind on focus, empathy, and interpersonal connection, so we devote time with our students to cultivating empathy and active listening and encouraging them to create art in all types of media, from woodworking to painting, dancing to writing poetry. When we do introduce technology, our commitment to fostering a learning environment that builds on these creative and communicative skills is paramount. As students’ brains and skills develop, so does their capacity to engage with new tools and literacies — and so does our responsibility to introduce these tools in healthy ways. We think carefully about mindful introductions: What is the right tool? When is the right time?

 

On Monday morning, at my principal’s Open Forum on technology at LREI, my colleagues and I addressed these questions. Our tech integrators — Celeste (Lower School), Clair (Middle School), and Joy (High School) — and our Lower School psychologist, Judy, focused on the rollout of technology in the Lower School and the carefully crafted Middle and High School experience that follows. As Judy pointed out, research demonstrates that the prefrontal cortex — the region of the brain responsible for decision-making — is still growing in elementary-grade and even middle school students. When we consider the limitless information and countless virtual communities — both helpful and harmful — that technology can expose our children to, it becomes obvious that we must introduce technology in a way that ensures our students continue to make the right decisions. Our curriculum is designed to teach students to be responsible and mindful users of technology. 

For those who were unable to attend our open forum, and for those who did attend but would like a refresher, here is a glimpse into our program:

In the 4s, we talk about computers and telephones and about how they are told what to do using something called a code. We then incorporate coding activities during work time and maker time: children are put together in pairs or small groups and given a simple goal, such as walking from one corner of the classroom to the other. One child then acts as the “programmer” while another acts as a “robot” who must carry out the programmer’s instructions exactly as directed. It is a great way for our earliest learners to problem-solve, think logically, develop spatial relations, communicate one on one, and be introduced to ordinal counting and sequence.

 

Coding in kindergarten happens weekly. Students play various board games in which they “program” a turtle or a mouse to get to a gemstone or a piece of cheese. Only after children are completely comfortable with these hands-on analogues of coding do we then begin to explore different technology: a robot, a programmable car, and, ultimately, an iPad. 

 

Third and fourth graders talk about the ways in which they can engage in a conversation both on and offline and reflect on the impact of their comments. These are some of the questions we encourage them to ask themselves: What was the impact of the comment I just made? Did it lift the conversation, engage others, and create further thought? Or was it pointless and irrelevant? Could my comment be described as distasteful or even offensive? Where does my comment fall on the communication spectrum? After these discussions take place in a community meeting, we take them a step further by examining the comments one might add to a blog or a group chat.

 

Technology is a powerful tool when it comes to providing students with meaningful and timely feedback. After we introduce our fourth graders to their Google Drive accounts, our differentiated writing classes truly come alive. Currently, every child in fourth grade is working on their immigration essay in response to comments their teacher has added directly to their personal Google Doc; our teachers, in turn, can monitor students’ progress in real-time and track the changes they have made. Thanks to the tailored feedback Google Docs offers, our students are far more productive in writing class. 

 

 

Our treatment of technology in the Middle School continues the threads that we carefully lay in the Lower School: an awareness of how we interact with technology, and the ways technology interacts with us. In fifth grade, we use technology as a tool for creative production. Students explore technology through the lenses of coding, digital art, design, and engineering, using different technologies to produce an end-product. Students also consider how technology is used to shape the world they’re living in, from how algorithms are used to make decisions about the information presented to them, to how that data is collected and used to put them in boxes.

Clair partners with Jen, our Middle School librarian, to teach a digital literacy curriculum that runs through all four grades. Students start in fifth grade by learning that not everything you read online is true and go all the way up through eighth grade, where they dig into fake news and deep fakes, and the reasons that both exist.

 

High School students build on the knowledge and skills developed in Lower and Middle School in Life Lab in ninth and tenth grade, in eleventh and twelfth grade electives, and in various other courses across all four years. As our students continue to think about how algorithmic editing on the increasingly personalized Internet affects what they see online, Joy and Karyn, our High School librarian, also encourage them to interrogate how this affects our democracy. Students look at case studies (e.g., how bots and trolls spread misinformation to deepen ideological divisions in America) and discuss policy. They also learn more about privacy and data collection and the ways in which machine learning has built-in racial biases that reinforce systemic racial injustice. These bigger ideas are introduced while students reinforce their visual and media literacy skills, practicing digital design through presentations, online collaboration, and multimedia production. Our goal is for all students to become content creators with a deep understanding of the ever-changing technological landscape. 

 

It was wonderful to see so many of you at the Open Forum. Here are the slides which include links to videos and resources we have found particularly thought provoking. 

 

Sincerely,