Archive of ‘instructional technology’ category

educational technology

The Overselling of Education Technology

By Alfie Kohn     Mar 16, 2016

https://www.edsurge.com/news/2016-03-16-the-overselling-of-education-technology

my response to ed tech is “It depends.”

Some people seem to be drawn to technology for its own sake—because it’s cool.

Other people, particularly politicians, defend technology on the grounds that it will keep our students “competitive in the global economy.”

But the rationale that I find most disturbing—despite, or perhaps because of, the fact that it’s rarely made explicit—is the idea that technology will increase our efficiency…at teaching the same way that children have been taught for a very long time. Perhaps it hasn’t escaped your notice that ed tech is passionately embraced by very traditional schools: Their institutional pulse quickens over whatever is cutting-edge: instruction that’s blended, flipped, digitally personalized.

We can’t answer the question “Is tech useful in schools?” until we’ve grappled with a deeper question: “What kinds of learning should be taking place in those schools?”

Tarting up a lecture with a SmartBoard, loading a textbook on an iPad, looking up facts online, rehearsing skills with an “adaptive learning system,” writing answers to the teacher’s (or workbook’s) questions and uploading them to Google Docs—these are examples of how technology may make the process a bit more efficient or less dreary but does nothing to challenge the outdated pedagogy. To the contrary: These are shiny things that distract us from rethinking our approach to learning and reassure us that we’re already being innovative.

putting grades online (thereby increasing their salience and their damaging effects), using computers to administer tests and score essays, and setting up “embedded” assessment that’s marketed as “competency-based.” (If your instinct is to ask “What sort of competency? Isn’t that just warmed-over behaviorism?”

But as I argued not long ago, we shouldn’t confuse personalized learning with personal learning. The first involves adjusting the difficulty level of prefabricated skills-based exercises based on students’ test scores, and it requires the purchase of software. The second involves working with each student to create projects of intellectual discovery that reflect his or her unique needs and interests, and it requires the presence of a caring teacher who knows each child well.a recent review found that studies of tech-based personalized instruction “show mixed results ranging from modest impacts to no impact” – despite the fact that it’s remarkably expensive.

 an article in Education Week, “a host of national and regional surveys suggest that teachers are far more likely to use tech to make their own jobs easier and to supplement traditional instructional strategies than to put students in control of their own learning.”

OECD reportednegative outcomes when students spent a lot of time using computers, while Stanford University’s Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO) concluded that online charter schools were basically a disaster.

Larry Cuban, Sherry Turkle, Gary Stager, and Will Richardson.

Emily Talmage points out, uncannily aligned with the wish list of the Digital Learning Council, a group consisting largely of conservative advocacy groups and foundations, and corporations with a financial interest in promoting ed tech.

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more on educational technology in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=educational+technology

video length for online courses

From: The EDUCAUSE Blended and Online Learning Constituent Group Listserv <BLEND-ONLINE@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU> on behalf of Robert, Jenay <jrr296@PSU.EDU>
Sent: Wednesday, September 5, 2018 9:58:49 AM

Dear colleagues,

I am collaborating on a project comparing the efficacy of two types of instructional videos. We are looking for literature that describes similar research. For example, a study might compare students who have watched voice-over ppt slides and students who have watched Khan-style videos, examining students’ content knowledge and/or some affective constructs. Alternatively, a study might compare the lengths or speeds of only one type of video.

Given the dearth of literature addressing these variables, I am hoping this community can help us uncover some additional research for our literature review. I am happy to compile and share everything that is shared with me over the coming days.

Jenay Robert, Ph.D. Research Project Manager Teaching and Learning with Technology  The Pennsylvania State University

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Clossen, A. S. (2018). Trope or Trap? Roleplaying Narratives and Length in Instructional Video. Information Technology & Libraries37(1), 27-38.

It is impossible to please everyone all the time—at least that is what survey results suggest. There are several takeaways to this study: Video length matters, especially as a consideration before the video is viewed. Timestamps should be included in video creation, or it is highly likely that the video will not be viewed. The video player is key here, as some video players include video length, while others do not. Videos that exceed four minutes are unlikely to be viewed unless they are required. Voice quality in narration matters. Although preference in type of voice inevitably varies, the actor’s voice is noticed over production value. It is important that the narrator speaks evenly and clearly. For brief how-to videos, there is a small preference for screencast instructional videos over a narrative roleplay scenario. The results of the survey indicate that roleplay videos should be wellproduced, brief, and high quality. However, what constitutes high quality is not very well established.15 Finally, screencast videos should include an example scenario, however brief, to ground the viewer in the task.

Lin, S., Aiken, J. M., Seaton, D. T., Douglas, S. S., Greco, E. F., Thoms, B. D., & Schatz, M. F. (2017). Exploring Physics Students’ Engagement with Online Instructional Videos in an Introductory Mechanics Course. Physical Review Physics Education Research13(2), 020138-1.

Kruse, N. B., & Veblen, K. K. (2012). Music teaching and learning online: Considering YouTube instructional videos. Journal Of Music, Technology & Education5(1), 77-87. doi:10.1386/jmte.5.1.77_1

Buzzetto-More, N. A. (2014). An Examination of Undergraduate Student’s Perceptions and Predilections of the Use of YouTube in the Teaching and Learning Process. Interdisciplinary Journal Of E-Learning & Learning Objects1017-32.

Chekuri, C., & Tiecheng, L. (2007). Extracting content from instructional videos by statistical modelling and classification. Pattern Analysis & Applications10(2), 69-81.

My note; too old as data but interesting as methodology

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more on chunk theory in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=chunk+theory

specifically Adobe’s “findings” : https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims/2018/01/17/microlearning-instructional-design/

ebooks Penn State

E-books provide student savings through Penn State partnership

August 13, 2018

https://news.psu.edu/story/531094/2018/08/13/academics/e-books-provide-student-savings-through-penn-state-partnership

Penn State, through a partnership between Penn State World Campus and the University Libraries, has made available more than 330 e-books for almost 300 courses offered through World Campus starting in the 2017-2018 academic year. The e-books are available to students through Canvas, the University’s learning management system, and are also searchable online in the University Libraries’ catalog.

The e-book licensing partnership between the Libraries and Penn State World Campus

The partnership is mutually beneficial as it helps the Libraries increase its collections strategically while also supporting Penn State’s strategic plan foundation of enabling educational access and affordability and its commitment to help students avoid costs by offering free and low-cost textbooks.”

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more on ebooks in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=ebooks

more on Penn State
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=penn+state

3D Artifacts into a Digital Library

Inclusion of 3D Artifacts into a Digital Library: Exploring Technologies and Best Practice Techniques

The IUPUI University Library Center for Digital Scholarship has been digitizing and providing access to community and cultural heritage collections since 2006. Varying formats include: audio, video, photographs, slides, negatives, and text (bound, loose). The library provides access to these collections using CONTENTdm. As 3D technologies become increasingly popular in libraries and museums, IUPUI University Library is exploring the workflows and processes as they relate to 3D artifacts. This presentation will focus on incorporating 3D technologies into an already established digital library of community and cultural heritage collections.

 

Augmented Reality Apple

Apple is hiring for an Augmented Reality team, possibly focused on Apple Maps

Joshua Fruhlinger

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/apple-hiring-augmented-reality-team-possibly-focused-maps-fruhlinger/

Earlier this week, Apple ($NASDAQ:AAPL) acquired augmented reality (AR) lens and glasses company Akonia Holographics ($AKONIAHOLOGRAPHICS), which spawned plenty of speculation on Apple getting serious about AR.

Augmented reality overlays digital information over the real world and differs from virtual reality (VR), where the whole environment is simulated. Akonia describes its AR product as “thin, transparent smart glass lenses that display vibrant, full-color, wide field-of-view images.”

“Digital maps have become essential tools of our everyday lives, yet despite their ubiquity, they are still in their infancy. From urban mobility to indoor positioning, from LIDAR to Augmented Reality, advances in technology and new kinds of data are powering innovations in all areas of digital mapping. If you love maps and are passionate about what is possible, you will be in great company.”

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more about augmented reality in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=augmented+reality+education

coding ethics unpredictability

Franken-algorithms: the deadly consequences of unpredictable code

by  Thu 30 Aug 2018 

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/aug/29/coding-algorithms-frankenalgos-program-danger

Between the “dumb” fixed algorithms and true AI lies the problematic halfway house we’ve already entered with scarcely a thought and almost no debate, much less agreement as to aims, ethics, safety, best practice. If the algorithms around us are not yet intelligent, meaning able to independently say “that calculation/course of action doesn’t look right: I’ll do it again”, they are nonetheless starting to learn from their environments. And once an algorithm is learning, we no longer know to any degree of certainty what its rules and parameters are. At which point we can’t be certain of how it will interact with other algorithms, the physical world, or us. Where the “dumb” fixed algorithms – complex, opaque and inured to real time monitoring as they can be – are in principle predictable and interrogable, these ones are not. After a time in the wild, we no longer know what they are: they have the potential to become erratic. We might be tempted to call these “frankenalgos” – though Mary Shelley couldn’t have made this up.

Twenty years ago, George Dyson anticipated much of what is happening today in his classic book Darwin Among the Machines. The problem, he tells me, is that we’re building systems that are beyond our intellectual means to control. We believe that if a system is deterministic (acting according to fixed rules, this being the definition of an algorithm) it is predictable – and that what is predictable can be controlled. Both assumptions turn out to be wrong.“It’s proceeding on its own, in little bits and pieces,” he says. “What I was obsessed with 20 years ago that has completely taken over the world today are multicellular, metazoan digital organisms, the same way we see in biology, where you have all these pieces of code running on people’s iPhones, and collectively it acts like one multicellular organism.“There’s this old law called Ashby’s law that says a control system has to be as complex as the system it’s controlling, and we’re running into that at full speed now, with this huge push to build self-driving cars where the software has to have a complete model of everything, and almost by definition we’re not going to understand it. Because any model that we understand is gonna do the thing like run into a fire truck ’cause we forgot to put in the fire truck.”

Walsh believes this makes it more, not less, important that the public learn about programming, because the more alienated we become from it, the more it seems like magic beyond our ability to affect. When shown the definition of “algorithm” given earlier in this piece, he found it incomplete, commenting: “I would suggest the problem is that algorithm now means any large, complex decision making software system and the larger environment in which it is embedded, which makes them even more unpredictable.” A chilling thought indeed. Accordingly, he believes ethics to be the new frontier in tech, foreseeing “a golden age for philosophy” – a view with which Eugene Spafford of Purdue University, a cybersecurity expert, concurs. Where there are choices to be made, that’s where ethics comes in.

our existing system of tort law, which requires proof of intention or negligence, will need to be rethought. A dog is not held legally responsible for biting you; its owner might be, but only if the dog’s action is thought foreseeable.

model-based programming, in which machines do most of the coding work and are able to test as they go.

As we wait for a technological answer to the problem of soaring algorithmic entanglement, there are precautions we can take. Paul Wilmott, a British expert in quantitative analysis and vocal critic of high frequency trading on the stock market, wryly suggests “learning to shoot, make jam and knit

The venerable Association for Computing Machinery has updated its code of ethics along the lines of medicine’s Hippocratic oath, to instruct computing professionals to do no harm and consider the wider impacts of their work.

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more on coding in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=coding

embed AR VR in learning

How AR and VR Can Make Students Laugh and Cry Out Loud—and Embed Them in Their Learning

By Wendy McMahon     Aug 28, 2018

https://www.edsurge.com/news/2018-08-28-how-ar-and-vr-can-make-students-laugh-and-cry-out-loud-and-embed-them-in-their-learning

40 virtual reality headsets with haptic handsets for them to manipulate in the VR/AR space, and I connected them to content from New York Times VR and WITHIN. The content placed students in settings such as on the ground in a refugee crisis or in the midst of the Millions March in New York City.

At the beginning of every class, they would go into this virtual space and engage with the content instead of just reading it. They’d respond to me about what it was like to be immersed in the experience.

The content from the WITHIN app provided one of the more visceral experiences for students.

Extraordinary Stories in Virtual Reality https://www.with.in/?cid=3&csid=CQEpOXQ&pid=0

At the end of the course, for example, students met with a shark tank-type group—investors from the community, business, and industry folks—and pitched them business ideas that would utilize VR to provide a solution to problems that were local, regional, national or even global in scope.

Were you able to measure this success?

The way that I measured it was completion. How many of my students actually got through my class successfully? It was over 85%. My research from the two classes where I used VR and this approach shows students were engaged, and ultimately more successful in my classes.

zSpace  https://info.zspace.com/2018-vived-allied-health-promo

Also:

Intro To Haptic Technology

Haptics provide a critical role in making our devices more interactive.

https://www.iotforall.com/intro-to-haptic-technology-tachammer-haptic-actuator/

1. Eccentric Rotating Mass (ERM)

2. Linear Resonant Actuator (LRA)

Apple Taptic Engine

3. Piezoelectric Actuators

4. Forced Impact (Accelerated Ram)

 

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more on VR in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=virtual+reality

 

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