Response to Families and Technology

David Elkind, in his article "Societal Change and the Growing Divide between Knowing and Understanding," from the special 200th issue of Exchange states,

"...What technology has done, particularly for young people, is to widen the gap between what they know and what they can understand....

"Today, children fly radio-controlled planes, or sail radio-controlled boats, which they know how to operate but do not really understand how radio controls work....  And this is true not only for children’s toys, but for all facets of children’s worlds, from television to computers, to cell phones, microwaves, and much more.

"There are, I believe several possible negative consequences to this growing divide between what children know and what they understand.  One of these consequences is that it can discourage, if not kill, curiosity.  When it is really impossible to understand how something works, this discourages any sense of wonder at what is happening or any questioning of why it is happening....

"A second related concern is children’s willingness to accept things on faith and without questioning them.  Jean Piaget once wrote that the aim of education was to create children 'who think for themselves and do not accept the first idea that is presented to them.'

"Yet children today have to accept that much of their world, which is in large measure technological, is beyond their understanding. They know how to watch television, use a computer, and play on a computer or talk and text on a cell phone.  Yet they have little, if any, understanding of the technology that makes what they are doing possible.  This is bad enough for those of us who have not grown up with this technology, but it poses a threat of intellectual passivity in those who have."

Familes and Technology

Exchange Every Day Newsletter reports: A recent report from the Sesame Workshop, "Families Matter: Designing Media for a Digital Age, documents how digital technology is changing the rhythm of family life. The report finds that families are in a transition period, one in which parents recognize the importance of technology in their children’s learning and future success, but don’t always grant them access to the newer forms of media transforming their own adult lives. 

The report offers recommendations to bolster the development of media content that can support learning and encourage adult-child interactions:

• Tailor media platforms for children — Many media platforms are designed for adult use.  Media producers should examine how the features of new platforms (e.g., 3-D, touch screens) relate to children’s developing cognitive, social, and physical capabilities.
• Investigate co-viewing for new media — Research shows that children learn more from television programs when they watch with a parent.  Co-participation should be explored for video games, e-books, tablet devices, and other media that will encourage adults to engage with children in activities to further enhance their learning.
• Foster teamwork — Digital media are often faulted for children spending less time socializing face-to-face with peers and family.  Producers should design content that drives participants to interact and play together.
• Design for healthy development — Adults are concerned that digital media are superseding activities including outdoor exercise, imaginative play, and socializing.  Media producers should look to use technology to get children involved in these foundational activities.

Perspectives on Online Learning

photo courtesy Microsoft

Sara Bernard interviewed online teachers, a curriculum provider, the mother of two online students, as well as the students themselves, about what is and isn't working in online education, and offers five surprising insights. Among them, students may, in fact, receive more attention in online schools compared with traditional schools, and many online programs provide a framework for learning that may be suitable for students who are undermotivated or who have special needs.

Microsoft Acquires Skype

Last week it was rumored to be Google and Facebook, but it seems that Microsoft has outbid the competition. Marking the largest acquisition in Microsoft's history, the company announced that it has agreed to acquire Skype for $8.5 billion. Skype runs the giant global videoconferencing and voice communication network that has 170 million subscribers and logged 207 billion minutes of conversations last year, according to the company. The service is free, although the company offers premium services such as establishing multipoint conferences and communications with non-Skype users for a fee.

Microsoft plans to run Skype out of a totally new division headed up by current Skype CEO, Tony Bates. Bates said he anticipates Skype's user base growing from millions to billions of subscribers saying, "We believe that this is a platform and a set of services that can reach everyone on the planet."

What does this mean for education?  Will Skype remain free?  Why did Microsoft want Skype?  Didn’t Skype just open a fantastic educator network? Like Scott Mesch, I worry that Microsoft will lose the understanding and impact of Skype as a free resource for the classroom. Check out TechBuzz's discussion.

eduTecher is a hub for exploring free web resources

eSchoolNews highlighted eduTeacher this week as its Site of the Week.

Created by Adam Bellow, director of educational technology for the College Board Schools, eduTecher.net is a no-cost resource for finding and sharing free web tools with educators and students around the world. The website includes short-and-sweet reviews of free web tools and resources, as well as video clips showing certain tools in action and explaining how teachers can integrate these into the classroom. The site recently has been revamped to allow for more social media interaction. 

“We’re not only creating a more social environment that’s conducive to sharing tips, ideas, and resources among our users, but also … inviting every user to ‘Become an eduTecher,’” Bellow says. “You can now save favorite links, capture private notes, create your very own educational blog, and connect with like-minded colleagues to form a personal learning network, with whom you can share messages, your lists of favorites, have a live chat, and more. This new approach lets eduTecher users explore, share, and contribute to educational technology in a whole new way.” 

Assessing Project-Based Lessons

Education writer Suzie Boss considers the importance of effective assessments and how they can be used to measure student learning on project-based lessons. A new classroom guide developed by Edutopia, Top Ten Tips for Project-Based Learning Assessment, offers tips and resources for assessing learning at each stage of a project-based lesson, from project planning to a culminating event when students present their conclusions. Susi Boss' Blog/Edutopia.org

Kindle Used to Motivate Young Readers

Dalzell Grade School, a grade school in Illinois is using Kindle e-readers to help encourage students of all levels to get excited about reading. The devices' dictionary feature has allowed students in fifth and sixth grade to better understand Washington Irving's "Rip Van Winkle," and the highlighting feature is being used to help kindergarten students sound out new words. Each device can hold up to 3,500 titles, a feature that educators say helps make up for their school's lack of sufficient library space. News-Tribune (La Salle, Ill.) (3/5)

Student Engagement on the Go

"This is my 3-year old daughter the day the iPad came out," said Patrick McGee as he displayed a movie of a young girl sitting at a kitchen counter, gripping an iPad in both hands. The audience watched as the little girl found, launched, and began to use a Dr. Seuss app; all without intervention or explanation from an adult. "Kids know--intuitively--how these things work; even at 3," he said. "We need to use that."

The key reason to implement mobile computing technologies as the iPad and iPod Touch in the classroom is student engagement, says McGee, the assistant principal of a Florida school. He says the technology can be used to increase productivity or involve students in activities that were uninteresting to them as a pen-and-paper process. McGee's experience includes piloting programs for both the iPad and the iPod touch. "We have used them at the elementary level" to enhance reading, improve comprehension, and measure fluency. At the secondary level, the focus of these devices has been on math, science, and for use as a powerful reference tool. "One of the really great things about the iBooks app is that each book comes with a built in dictionary." That's pretty powerful, he said.

McGee also pointed out the many productivity uses of the devices, listing several apps that he deploys regularly, including iBooks, e-mail, LogMeIn, KeyNote, and Pages; many available for both devices. T.H.E. Journal (3/2)

Learning in a Virtual World--Whyville

Whyville is an educational virtual world created for kids, which launched in 1999. It was one of the first solely for children and pre-teens and remains one of the few whose purpose is purely educational. Players earn "clams"—the currency of Whyville—by engaging in various games and role-playing scenarios. Players do everything from helping to publish the community's newspaper, The Whyville Times to running the power grid for Whyville to even taking out loans to buy big-ticket items such as cars. It is quite literally a self-organized community of kids that has been up and running for more than a decade. 

Whyville has received a number of awards from independent parent groups for its educational value and safety--and is reported to be one of the most popular virtual worlds (Wikipedia)

InterroBang: Example of Game-Based Learning

I was on Facebook this morning poking my sister back and noticed an ad on the side for the game InterroBang. So, I decided to check it out. InterroBang is a game in which students complete real-world missions to win prizes, learn problem solving and connect with others to change the world. Gameplay is open to students in grades 6-12. In order to be eligible for prizes, students must register through their teachers or parents.

Missions are the central way that InterroBang is played. The missions are divided into four categories, or areas of inquiry:

   1. Culture
   2. Creativity
   3. Exploration
   4. Science

Each mission has a point value ranging from 10 points for an easy mission to 40 points for a difficult one. Students can complete missions by themselves or in groups. Every individual in a group receives the points from completing a mission. Students can add collaborators on the Play page from their class and even from their friends.

Student compete to win prizes including Xboxes and Flip cameras. To make InterroBang as fair as possible, the players are divided into 3 leagues: middle school, high school, and high school honors students. Students only compete against players in their League. Before prizes are awarded, the InterroBang team will contact teachers and schools to verify student status.

InterroBang was created and designed by Nuvana, with Founding Partner Microsoft Partners in Learning, with support from Exploratorium, Learn and Serve America, and ePals.

Interrobang Intro from Nuvana on Vimeo.

Blackboard Offers Free Hosted Online Course System

Fully Hosted Online Course System for Instructors

By Blackboard Inc.

Blackboard Inc. announced the launch of CourseSites by Blackboard, a free, fully hosted and supported online course system featuring the Company’s latest teaching and learning technologies. The offering gives individual K-12 and higher education instructors an innovative, high quality cloud-based option to host online courses or add a Web-based component to traditional ones. The simple, easy to use system gives educators greater choice and flexibility for online courses in a system with cutting edge features that encourage experimentation. CourseSites is designed to support instructors who may not have access to a learning management system at their institution or school, or who may have access to an older platform system from Blackboard or a competing course management provider. There is no license fee, no hosting fee and no additional setup required for instructors to get started.

Integrating Technology in the Elementary Classroom

An assignment in my Educational Technology course has students search YouTube to find a video that demonstrates or highlights how technology can be used in the classroom. They are to embed the video in their blog as I have done here. Once they have embedded the video, they are to explain why they chose it and summarize what they learned from it that they could use in developing their unit plan. They should also discuss possible obstacles they might face using YouTube in their classroom.

The following video demonstrates how one third grade teacher integrates technology in her classroom using learning centers. A learning center is a self-contained section of the classroom in which students engage in independent and self-directed learning activities. They can also be used for small-group activities. Learning centers allow students to focus on a particular area of study. Centers area great way to integrate technology as well as parent volunteers.

TeacherVision provides additional information on learning and literacy centers.

Why teachers should embrace Wikipedia

Teachers should stop banning students from using Wikipedia for class work and instead use the site as a tool to teach students how to effectively use Internet resources, according to education-technology blogger Christopher Dawson. Dawson argues that students -- and adults -- already are using Wikipedia, so teachers should show students how to verify what they learn there. Dawson also writes that Wikipedia can be used as a source for class assignments, just as traditional encyclopedias. ZDNet/ZDNet Education blog

Technology and Early Childhood Education

I was asked earlier in the semester by one of my Educational Technology students how learning about technology applied to toddlers and really young children. I provide a picture of me nephew--age 3--as case in point. Truitt has been exposed to the computer and the Internet essentially from birth. It is a part of is daily life.

As technology becomes easier to use, educational software online educational programs will proliferate. Therefore, it is the responsibility of early childhood educators and parents as well to critically examine the impact of technology on children and be prepared to use technology to benefit children. Research has shown that used appropriately, technology can enhance children's cognitive and social abilities. As educators, we must be prepared to integrate technology into our teaching practices, providing equitable access by all children. We must be aware of research-based practices that will support children's learning. For example, research has shown that when working on a computer, young children prefer working with one or two partners over working alone. They seek help from each other and seem to prefer seeking help from their peers over seeking help from the teacher. They engage in different forms and levels of communication and interaction when using the computer as opposed to traditional activities such as blocks and puzzles. They display greater cooperation and turn-taking at the computer. Beyond the primary grades, the computer extends the classroom environment beyond the four walls of the school. Children have the opportunity to collaborate with children in other classrooms, cities, states, and even countries. They may even have a chance to converse with a favorite author.

The National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) is currently revising its position statement on Technology and Young Children--Ages 3 through 8; however, here is the link to the current statement.

Notes from an Accidential Teacher

It was by chance that educator Carol Ann Tomlinson first entered the classroom, but this fortunate accident blossomed into a career that has spanned several decades. In a recent Educational Leadership article, Tomlinson reflects on her professional experience and shares the five principles and components of effective teaching that became the pillars of her career. Read the full article.

Teaching Philosophy 2011

This week I ask my EDU 271 students to develop their philosophy of teaching. Therefore, I decided to post my philosophy as well. In looking back over the documents that I have developed over the years, I realize that my philosophy has been an ever-changing document--incorporating new ideas and experiences as I create new understandings of how we learn and my role in that process.

First of all, I am a facilitator, a coach, a guide, a co-learner.  I embrace teaching as an opportunity to inspire and empower. In my view, teaching is not about instructing or imparting information to students as if their minds were waiting to be filled with my knowledge. Rather, teaching is igniting transformative learning; empowering students to take responsibility for their learning, inspiring courage to grow intellectually, cultivating curiosity, providing opportunities for developing relationships, clarifying values, uplifting the spirit and igniting action.  Ideally, I want students to feel personally changed by their participation in a course. Transformative learning is most likely to occur when students become personally engaged with the material and perceive the subject matter to be directly relevant to their own lives. Learning, then, is experiential. 

Furthermore, the student should be the focus—not the teacher.  While the process of reading examples and completing exercises in textbooks and from handouts is valuable, the real learning comes through the student’s own efforts at solving problems.  Learning is also a social endeavor; therefore, I facilitate learning through group work and student-led discussions; problem-solving through student inquiries and debate; writing through peer review; and computer literacy through research and discussions board participation. 

Generally, I believe the role of a teacher is to be a facilitator. We should work to be flexible, adapting our approaches according to the needs of the learners, the subject matter, and the setting. Teaching is a process of encouraging students to make connections between their experiences and the subject matter. We must work to create bridges between the classroom and the world because learning has not actually occurred until the student makes a connection between prior knowledge and new knowledge—understands a reason for remembering the data. As teachers, we should enable our students to become responsible for their own learning. We should vary our teaching styles and should expect students to participate in a mixture of lecture, discussion, and collaborative activities.

I believe that teachers and students must be part of the constantly changing technological landscape. I believe that we should not only teach with technology but about technology as well, providing students with the skills to critically evaluate how they use and access technology. To do so, technology must be carefully integrated and should complement the course goals, objectives, and content matter. Online interactions and Web 2.0 tools allow our students not only to interact more with the instructor and with one another, but also to become active participants in a community larger than the classroom itself.  Technology allows us to create more authentic learning environments and assessments.

It is crucial that teachers recognize the power inherent in their role and are self-reflective about their actions. In my teaching, I work to be mindful of my position as a role model of the kind of learning I strive to promote among students. Transformative learning is a reciprocally educative endeavor—informative and uplifting for teachers and students alike. It is about “opening hearts and minds...” and changing lives for all those involved in the process.

Online Education Grows by almost a Million Students

Eighth Annual Sloan Survey of Online Education Shows Economy Still Driving Growth  

 

The 2010 Sloan Survey of Online Learning reveals that enrollment rose by almost one million students from a year earlier. The survey of more than 2,500 colleges and universities nationwide finds approximately 5.6 million students were enrolled in at least one online course in fall 2009, the most recent term for which figures are available.

10 of the Best Apps for Education

A list of 10 notable educational apps available for the iPad, iPhone and iPod has been assembled by eSchool News. Recommended apps include the free app Molecules, which allows students to view and manipulate 3-D molecule models. Another free app allows students and teachers access to Blackboard from Apple devices, while the $5.99 Essay Grader helps teachers speed up their essay grading process. The free Today in History app lists historical events that took place that day, and Math Ref Free offers 600 formulas, figures and math tips. eSchool News

Essays on Teaching Excellence available online, free of charge

As per the Professional and Organizational Development Network Core Committee's approval, all of POD's Essays on Teaching Excellence are now available online, free of charge, including Volume 21, the newest collection. These essays are available to all; POD membership is not required. The essays present innovative viewpoints on college and university instruction. Written in concise and non-technical language, and supported by research, the essays seek to assist instructors in reflecting upon and refining their practice of teaching to achieve the results they seek - students learning to the best of their abilities.

The eight titles and authors of Volume 21 are listed below. Look for Volume 22 in late spring.

Essays on Teaching Excellence | VOLUME 21

Facilitating Group Discussions: Understanding Group Development and Dynamics 
Kathy Takayama, Brown University

Transparent Alignment and Integrated Course Design 
David W. Concepción, Ball State University

Multiple-Choice Questions You Wouldn’t Put on a Test: Promoting Deep Learning Using Clickers 
Derek Bruff, Vanderbilt University

Engaging Students, Assessing Learning—Just a Click Away 
Linda C. Hodges, Loyola University Maryland

Research-Based Strategies to Promote Academic Integrity 
Michele DiPietro, Kennesaw State University

Using Undergraduate Students as Teaching Assistants 
Joseph “Mick” La Lopa, Purdue University

The Value of the Narrative Teaching Observation 
Niki Young, Western Oregon University

Deep/Surface Approaches To Learning In Higher Education: A Research Update

Cell phones are becoming more accepted as classroom tools

More Chicago-area schools are allowing cell phones in school, and some are using them in the classroom. One high-school teacher had his students researching political candidates in government class using only their cell phones, with students working in groups to include those who did not have a phone. "It's one of those things -- if you can't beat them, join them," one principal said. Chicago Tribune (10/11)