early 2018 is defined by a mix of long-standing trends and newly emerging narratives
Facebook and YouTube dominate this landscape, as notable majorities of U.S. adults use each of these sites. At the same time, younger Americans (especially those ages 18 to 24) stand out for embracing a variety of platforms and using them frequently. Some 78% of 18- to 24-year-olds use Snapchat, and a sizeable majority of these users (71%) visit the platform multiple times per day. Similarly, 71% of Americans in this age group now use Instagram and close to half (45%) are Twitter users
The video-sharing site YouTube – which contains many social elements, even if it is not a traditional social media platform – is now used by nearly three-quarters of U.S. adults and 94% of 18- to 24-year-olds.
a majority of users (59%) say it would not be hard to stop using these sites, including 29% who say it would not be hard at all to give up social media.
Pinterest remains substantially more popular with women (41% of whom say they use the site) than with men (16%).
LinkedIn remains especially popular among college graduates and those in high-income households. Some 50% of Americans with a college degree use LinkedIn, compared with just 9% of those with a high school diploma or less.
The messaging service WhatsApp is popular in Latin America, and this popularity also extends to Latinos in the United States – 49% of Hispanics report that they are WhatsApp users, compared with 14% of whites and 21% of blacks.
Alibaba puts quantum computing in the public cloud, follows Intel and IBM’s lead
Alibaba has just announced an 11 qubit quantum computer as part of its cloud offerings, making it the second-fastest public quantum computing platform in the world.
Over the past 10 years, new learning management systems (LMSs) have sprung on the scene to rival the Blackboards and Moodles of old. On the EdSurge Product Index alone, 56 products self-identify and fall into the LMS category. And with certain established companies like Pearson pulling out of the LMS ranks, where do you start?
As University of Central Florida’s Associate Vice President of Distributed Learning, Tom Cavanagh, wrote in an article for EDUCAUSE, “every institute has a unique set of instructional and infrastructure circumstances to consider when deciding on an LMS,” but at the same time, “all institutions face certain common requirements”—whether a small charter school, a private university or a large public school district.
The LMS Checklist
#1: Is the platform straightforward and user-friendly?
#2: Who do we want to have access to this platform, and can we adjust what they can see?
#3: Can the instructor and student(s) talk to and communicate with each other easily?
“Students and faculty live a significant portion of their daily lives online in social media spaces,” writes University of Central Florida’s Tom Cavanagh in his article on the LMS selection process. “Are your students and faculty interested in these sorts of interplatform connections?”
#5: Does this platform plug in with all of the other platforms we have?
“Given the pace of change and the plethora of options with educational technology, it’s very difficult for any LMS vendor to keep up with stand-alone tools that will always outperform built-in tools,” explains Michael Truong, executive director of innovative teaching and technology at Azusa Pacific University. According to Truong, “no LMS will be able to compete directly with tools like Piazza (discussion forum), Socrative (quizzing), EdPuzzle (video annotation), etc.”
As a result, Truong says, “The best way to ‘prepare’ for future technological changes is to go with an LMS that plays well with external tools.”
(1) the circumstances under which personalized learning can help students and
(2) the best way to evaluate the real educational value for products that are marketed under the personalized learning banner.
The most descriptive label we could come up with for the practices that the two of us have observed in our school visits might be undepersonalized teaching.
The most stereotypical depersonalized teaching experience is the large lecture class, but there are many other situations in which teachers do not connect with individual students and/or meet the students’ specific needs. For example, even a small class might contain students with a wide-enough range of skills, aptitudes, and needs that the teacher cannot possibly serve them all equally well. Or a student may have needs (or aptitudes) that the teacher simply doesn’t get an opportunity to see within the amount of contact time that the class allows. The truth is that students fall through the cracks all the time, even in the best classes taught by the best teachers. Failing a course is the most visible evidence, but more often students drift through the class and earn a passing grade—maybe even a good grade—without getting any lasting educational benefit.
personalized learning as a practice rather than a product
Technology then becomes an enabler for increasing meaningful personal contact. In our observations, we have seen three main technology-enabled strategies for lowering classroom barriers to one-on-one teacher/student (and student/student) interactions:
Moving content broadcast out of the classroom: Even in relatively small classes, a lot of class time can be taken up with content broadcast such as lectures and announcements. Personalized learning strategies often try to move as much broadcast out of class time as possible in order to make room for more conversation. This strategy is sometimes called “flipping” because it is commonly accomplished by having the teacher record the lectures they would normally give in class and assign the lecture videos as homework,
Turning homework time into contact time: In a traditional class, much of the work that the students do is invisible to the teacher. For some aspects, such as homework problems, teachers can observe the results but are often severely limited by time constraints.Personalized learning approaches often allow the teacher to observe the students’ work in digital products, so that there is more opportunity to coach students.
Providing tutoring: Sometimes students get stuck in problem areas that don’t require help from a skilled human instructor. Although software isn’t good at teaching everything, it can be good at teaching some things. Personalized learning approaches can offload the tutoring for those topics to adaptive learning software that gives students interactive feedback while also turning the students’ work into contact time by making it observable to the teacher at a glance through analytics.
In the business world, an analogous initiative might be called “business process redesign.” Emphasis is on process. The primary question being asked is, “What is the most effective way to accomplish the goal?” The redesigned process may well need software, but it is the process itself that matters. In personalized learning, the process we are redesigning is that of teaching individual students what they need to learn from a class as effectively as possible (though we can easily imagine applying the same kind of exercise to improving advising, course registration, or any other important function).
Self-Regulated Learning
Students in the course spend part of their class time in a computer lab, working at their own pace through an adaptive learning math program. Students who already know much of the content can move through it quickly, giving them more time to master the concepts that they have yet to learn. Students who have more to learn can take their time and get tutoring and reinforcement from the software. Teachers, now freed from the task of lecturing, roam the room and give individual attention to those students who need it. They can also see how students are doing, individually and as a class, through the software’s analytics. But the course has another critical component that takes place outside the computer lab, separate from the technology. Every week, the teachers meet with the students to discuss learning goals and strategies. Students review the goals they set the previous week, discuss their progress toward those goals, evaluate whether the strategies they used helped them, and develop new goals for the next week.
Constructivism.
Student-centered learning theory and practice are based on the constructivist learning theory that emphasizes the learner’s critical role in constructing meaning from new information and prior experience.
The “context”in this definition encompasses m-learnng that is formalself-directed, and spontaneous learning, as well as learning that is context aware and context neutral.
therefore, m-learning can occur inside or outside the classroom, participating in a formal lesson on a mobile device; it can be self-directed, as a person determines his or her own approach to satisfy a learning goal; or spontaneous learning, as a person can use the devices to look up something that has just prompted an interest (Crompton, 2013, p. 83). (Gaming article Tallinn)Constructivist Learnings in the 1980s – Following Piage’s (1929), Brunner’s (1996) and Jonassen’s (1999) educational philosophies, constructivists proffer that knowledge acquisition develops through interactions with the environment. (p. 85). The computer was no longer a conduit for the presentation of information: it was a tool for the active manipulation of that information” (Naismith, Lonsdale, Vavoula, & Sharples, 2004, p. 12)Constructionist Learning in the 1980s – Constructionism differed from constructivism as Papert (1980) posited an additional component to constructivism: students learned best when they were actively involved in constructing social objects. The tutee position. Teaching the computer to perform tasks.Problem-Based learning in the 1990s – In the PBL, students often worked in small groups of five or six to pool knowledge and resources to solve problems. Launched the sociocultural revolution, focusing on learning in out of school contexts and the acquisition of knowledge through social interaction
Socio-Constructivist Learning in the 1990s. SCL believe that social and individual processes are independent in the co-construction of knowledge (Sullivan-Palinscar, 1998; Vygotsky, 1978).
96-97). Keegan (2002) believed that e-learning was distance learning, which has been converted to e-learning through the use of technologies such as the WWW. Which electronic media and tools constituted e-learning: e.g., did it matter if the learning took place through a networked technology, or was it simply learning with an electronic device?
Discussion
Share with us practical examples of applying constructivist approach in your class
Would one hour workshop on turning existing class assignments into constructivist-based class assignments be of interest for you?
1. Technology that Increases Access Hits the Slow Lane
Innovations in videoconferencing and lecture capture technologies have allowed universities to provide flexible learning experiences to students no matter their location. However, if internet service providers are allowed to create “fast lanes” and “slow lanes” of access, experts worry these learning experiences will be in jeopardy. “slow lanes” of internet access could make it difficult for students to access cloud software or applications without hitting data caps.
2. Inhibit Ability to Research and Access Materials
a 40-page commentary to the FCC explaining how a repeal would hurt universities, eCampus News reports.
“Institutions of higher education and libraries depend upon an open internet to carry out their educational and civic missions, and to serve their communities,” reads the commentary.
“almost everything” relies on the internet in higher education. Students use it for research, to take courses and turn in assignments while faculty use it for research and to create lesson plans. Roberts says his library needs it to archive and preserve materials. Slower internet could inhibit research and access to library resources.
3. Increased Costs Without Increased Educational Experiences
high cost of attending a university might see a bump without net neutrality. slower internet access would actually degrade the quality of education offered for a higher cost.
. Link VR content to course outcomes. If you want to VR to succeed in your college classroom, you have to look at how 360-degree audio and video adds value. The forensic-science department, for example, is trying to get a close approximation of a crime scene so that students can acclimate to the job environment and take a real-world approach to investigations. Adding VR without adding value will not be effective. 2. Do a proof-of-concept app first. The history reenactment app was a great starting point, as it was a simple-to-film, single-location shoot that didn’t require much editing. You want to start simple to get an early win. They learned valuable lessons during that shoot, such as best camera placement to minimize distractions.
3. Get buy-in at the highest levels. Marketing students in the capstone project are presenting the final apps to the President, Provost, and other administration officials. Once you get buy-in at an administrative level, it’s easier to secure funding for more equipment and more promotion of your work to other departments.
