Blurts

I expect that if educators are spending time exploring technology for their classrooms this summer, they are likely trying to work through how AI will impact what they have always done and how they might make adjustments to avoid the problems and take advantage of the opportunities of this innovation.

While I agree with this priority, I want to make one other suggestion. Consider how your students might benefit from layering services. Layering is my own term for a collection of services allowing an educator to combine useful online pages and videos with an assortment of prompts added to increase the understanding and retention of information contained in these resources. What I describe as prompts can include several different additions that vary from one service to another. Prompts can include – highlights, annotations (which may include links to media external to the original page or video), questions, discussion prompts and tools, and a few more similar capabilities. I would describe the purpose of the additions as ways to engage learners in generative processing of the original content. Questions make the easiest example. If you believe it important to have learners think of personal connections with the new content they are reading or viewing, ask for examples. Finally, most learning services allow learners to apply at least some of these generative tools themselves. So, in addition to experiencing the annotations provided by their teacher, students can apply many of these tools themselves (e.g., highlighting, annotation, and self-questioning). 

I have an inexpensive Kindle book about this approach (https://www.amazon.com/Designing-Instruction-Using-Layering-Services-ebook/dp/B08F2ZFV17/) and offer some videos explaining a variety of online tools I categorize as ways educators can use to implement layering experiences (https://learningaloud.com/layer/index.html).

Why bother? Here are a couple of ideas I offer as motivation. First, layering provides a way of designing educational experiences that get away from a strictly textbook-based approach. I know this goal is important to many educators. Second, learning from web content is becoming an increasingly important life skill. We all view online YouTubes and web pages for both entertainment and information. Learning to process the information provided at a more critical and deeper level is important. Experience with layering services in the context of a classroom is one way to develop some of these skills.