How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love SAMR.

Ruben R. Puentedura is the “edu-bloger” behind the SAMR model cited by Tom Ward in class a few weeks ago. SAMR stands for the “levels of technology integration,” going from “'substitution” to “augmentation,” which he classifies at the “enhancement” level, and on to “modification” and finally, “redefinition.” In these last two levels “transformation” is happening. Puentedura talks about using the SAMR model for teaching Macbeth. Here's the pdf for it. If you, dear reader, have looked at this blog at all, you can imagine what my reaction is going to be. But I'm really going to try to be fair and not take any cheap shots. At least not any REALLY cheap shots. No really, read to the end (read Puentedura, too) and then let me know if I have haven't been fair.

Here's what he says about the first level, substitution.

And at this level, a teacher could say well, I'm going to use NoteShare and I'm going to drag and drop different links from the web of which correspond to things like the original text of Macbeth. I could also drag in critical commentary. I could also drag in some books about the Shakespearian stage and finally I could look at YouTube and find some of the classic performances of Macbeth on film and drag those links in. Now this is at the substitution level. What I have here is the equivalent of what we use to do by putting together a library list or a reading list, using paper and using the library. It's very nice that all of these resources are available for free on the net and it's great and very convenient for this list to be available to students with all the links already built in. But it's clear that it is a direct substitution for the traditional form. In other words, at this point, we are using the technology just to substitute for what we would have done before with the library and with a type written list.

OK, this is alright I guess. There's nothing so bad about this. I don't much like the idea of reading anything very long or serious on a screen (which is pretty much everything beyond tweets and FB, especially Shakespeare). Ah, you will say, but it IS Shakespeare's SHORTEST PLAY. That it is, dear reader, that it is... And I especially don't want to encourage this practice in teens. No, wait, it's fine, teens will read Macbeth on their phones... I'm OK with that. Really.

But I'm not even close to embracing SAMR, because all this has been only SUBSTITUTION. Come with me as we move,

[T]o the augmentation level, there's only one very small change that's needed. And that is to add to the list of these resources some materials that do not fall within the scope of what would be in a traditional library. But instead make use of the unique possibilities that the Internet offers as a social environment. So here for instance I've included a link to the Flicker Shakespeare group. So students can see how the people visualize Shakespeare in photos. And these aren't by the way, just photos of straight performances; they're photos that represent different people's artistic approach to Shakespeare.

A link to the Flicker Shakespeare group? We would seem to be valorizing that visual over the verbal. And I don't like that. Shakespeare was all about the verbal. He didn't have any scenery! Go back and read one of his plays or check out a performance. There are SO MANY WORDS! They just TALK AND TALK AND TALK!

Then Puentedura talks about blogs: “blogs allow for more interaction by the students so they can enter into a dialogue with Shakespearian play directors, Shakespearian scholars.” OK, I'm OK with that too. Then we're on to MODIFICATION. In a complex play like Macbeth, he says,  

Meaning is encoded in words and sequences of words. And we now have via sites such as IBM MiniEyes, access to tools that allows us to visualization just that, just those sequences of words, the frequency of word occurrence. So for instance, here are the 100 most frequent words that appear in Macbeth . And if you look at this list closely, you'll find that the word 'blood', which is frequently mentioned in critical analyses are being essential to the meaning of Macbeth , is indeed one of the words that appears frequently. But also note that the word 'time' appears much more frequently as does the word 'fear'. Now this is very interesting because when we look at different stagings of the play, some have chosen to prioritize blood as the running motif, some have chosen to prioritize fear as the running motif. So this is a tool that significantly modifies what the students can do with the material, how they can understand what's going on in Macbeth.

This I think, is one of those “digital humanities” things: use a computer to count words and phrases in a way a human never could in a text and use that to get an insight on the text. Counting words. Really? So we get one of those cool word visualizations with some words bigger (the important ones) and some words smaller... I don't like this because it sounds like a crappy shortcut to reading, pondering, and allowing for inspiration to happen. Who's to say, maybe the most important word in the play occurs only once? One time, fifty times, it's up to YOU, dear reader, not the computer, to decide what to make of a word, a notion, a theme, a feeling...You get these insights when you unplug, not when you let a computer tell you what is important. Turns out, Mindlessness Can Be Just as Productive as Mindfulness). So this approach MIGHT work if you read the play carefully, mull over it, let it speak to you, come up with an idea about it, and then use IBM MiniEyes to support your intuition. Not the other way around.

“We're not talking about getting rid of the traditional analysis,” Puentedura writes. I appreciate this. This one line is the most important sentence I've ever read about SAMR. Yes. IF the ELA teacher remembers what is important and integrates technology to support real, hard-core reading, writing, and thinking.

I'll let you check out what he says for the REDEFINITION level. Here's the link again

(page 5). Quickly, though, because this post is already too long. The Second Life Macbeth Flyover movie has me shaking my head. Watch it and tell me if you think this looks like serious engagement with the play and its ideas. I might show this, as a reward, if students had worked hard and there was measurable learning. But as a student final project? Let's just say for an English class the grade would not be very high. For a computer animation class, on the other hand...

Upstage, however, could be a serious tool, if scaffolded, if used correctly... Yes, I can see it being an important component, even a crucial component of a unit. Using something like this, doing it right, scaffolding for it, making sure it was aligned with a full apparatus of objectives, would be a risky step for a teacher to try. But big rewards come from big risks. Maybe that's how I need to think about SAMR.