From: Perry Bratcher [mailto:bratcher@nku.edu]
Sent: Wednesday, November 06, 2013 9:01 AM
To: ‘lita-l@ala.org’
Cc: Michael Providenti; Michael Wells; Millie Mclemore; Perry Bratcher; Stephen Moon
Subject: [lita-l] RE: Classroom iPads
All – Thanks to each of you for your responses to my email regarding classroom use of iPads (see email at the bottom). Listed below are is a summary of the comments I received. I cut/pasted and have reconfigured these comments for this email, so some may be taken out of context. NOTE: My systems staff have adamantly opposed using the Microsoft Surface. We have a campus “tech bar” where student/staff can check out new devices for experimentation. My staff said that the Surface doesn’t work in our particular situation for a variety of reasons and they prefer the iPad tablet option (if we go the tablet route).
Before deciding on implementation of PCs vs. laptops vs. tablet for use in a classroom setting, one needs to consider the motivation for doing so. Space? Portability? Availability of apps? Is there a demand for using personal devices for research, etc? What type of portable device to use (iPad, Microsoft Surface, etc.)
Pros for using iPad/tablets:
- Keep a few in there to provide examples of how to search on mobile devices.
- The amount of apps and types of apps out there. Great education apps exist that do not exist elsewhere online or on other platforms (Android or Windows).
- The iPad is flexible and allows you to regain that floor space you lose with computers and give the user privacy.
- If setup correctly, the devices can be erased when they are returned so any private data is wiped.
- Users can download additional apps, even purchase apps if you allow them.
- They hold a charge much longer then any laptop or ChromeBook on the market.
- Apple sold 94% of its iPads into education – the reason being that it’s a great education and research tool.
- Another advantage that I can see boot up time. The iPad is instantly on and connected to the network. Perhaps this most applicable to last-minute library instruction or ad hoc group research? However, if I had the choice, I would equip a classroom with MacBook Air SSDs
- Understand how they need to be configured and the tools needed to do so. I created a kit for this not long ago for public libraries: http://www.macprofessionals.com/new-library-ipad-checkout-solution/ Thank you Chris Ross, Macprofessionals
- UVA has been using iPads for instruction for about 2 years. They have been very pleased with the results.
- Our electronic classroom is very small, so we purchased 30 iPads over a year ago to allow teaching in our larger meeting room. There are definitely distinct advantages: flexibility, mobility, lack of technical infrastructure needed (wires, ports, etc.), and the myriad possibilities of apps.
Cons for using iPad/tablets:
- Most mobile devices have not become “workhorse” devices as of yet, so much of the students’ research will still need to be done on a computer.
- We haven’t seen any advantage to having them either – but our librarians use them sporadically for instruction.
- Charging, syncing, configuring, Apple ID’s, erasing, cases, restrictions, printing, presenting, etc. For example if you want to present with these, you will need an Apple TV or an adapter. If you want to print you will need AirPrint supported printers or software. If you want to configure and erase you will need a Mac.
- The challenge I have found is trying to use an inherently personal device in the typical one shot classroom environment. There are lots of things you need to consider. How will they access the wireless? What about taking notes? What about apps that require login? And much more.
- Someone on staff is equipped and has the time to manage them.
- We have a pool of 30 loan laptops, recently we have supplemented this with 11 loan iPads. The iPads have generally been very popular but wouldn’t work as a substitute for laptops. As many have mentioned when it comes to getting real work done they are inferior to laptops and people have commented as such.
- As a complement to laptops though they are great – they are more portable and our nursing students love being able to carry them around and quickly access medical apps, take notes, check calculations etc. I definitely see them as being a valuable resource but if it’s an either/or proposition then I would go on the side of laptops.
- My personal opinion is that it’s not a bad idea as a supplement to existing systems, but I’d be wary of replacing more flexible with more limited ones, and am particularly wary of committing to one operating system/vendor (particularly one that tends to charge half-again to twice as much as their competitors with only limited advantages).
- In a classroom setting (e.g. instruction room) I see little advantage of tablets; their sole advantage from I can figure out is their portability. Why force people into a limited device if it is only going to be in one room anyway?
http://www.casel.org/social-and-emotional-learning/core-competencies
- Self-awareness: The ability to accurately recognize one’s emotions and thoughts and their influence on behavior. This includes accurately assessing one’s strengths and limitations and possessing a well-grounded sense of confidence and optimism.
- Self-management: The ability to regulate one’s emotions, thoughts, and behaviors effectively in different situations. This includes managing stress, controlling impulses, motivating oneself, and setting and working toward achieving personal and academic goals.
- Social awareness: The ability to take the perspective of and empathize with others from diverse backgrounds and cultures, to understand social and ethical norms for behavior, and to recognize family, school, and community resources and supports.
- Relationship skills: The ability to establish and maintain healthy and rewarding relationships with diverse individuals and groups. This includes communicating clearly, listening actively, cooperating, resisting inappropriate social pressure, negotiating conflict constructively, and seeking and offering help when needed.
- Responsible decision making: The ability to make constructive and respectful choices about personal behavior and social interactions based on consideration of ethical standards, safety concerns, social norms, the realistic evaluation of consequences of various actions, and the well-being of self and others.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/spiegel-interview-with-umberto-eco-we-like-lists-because-we-don-t-want-to-die-a-659577-2.html
SPIEGEL: But you also said that lists can establish order. So, do both order and anarchy apply? That would make the Internet, and the lists that the search engine Google creates, prefect for you.
Eco: Yes, in the case of Google, both things do converge. Google makes a list, but the minute I look at my Google-generated list, it has already changed. These lists can be dangerous — not for old people like me, who have acquired their knowledge in another way, but for young people, for whom Google is a tragedy. Schools ought to teach the high art of how to be discriminating.
SPIEGEL: Are you saying that teachers should instruct students on the difference between good and bad? If so, how should they do that?
Eco: Education should return to the way it was in the workshops of the Renaissance. There, the masters may not necessarily have been able to explain to their students why a painting was good in theoretical terms, but they did so in more practical ways. Look, this is what your finger can look like, and this is what it has to look like. Look, this is a good mixing of colors. The same approach should be used in school when dealing with the Internet. The teacher should say: “Choose any old subject, whether it be German history or the life of ants. Search 25 different Web pages and, by comparing them, try to figure out which one has good information.” If 10 pages describe the same thing, it can be a sign that the information printed there is correct. But it can also be a sign that some sites merely copied the others’ mistakes.
SPIEGEL: You yourself are more likely to work with books, and you have a library of 30,000 volumes. It probably doesn’t work without a list or catalogue.
Eco: I’m afraid that, by now, it might actually be 50,000 books. When my secretary wanted to catalogue them, I asked her not to. My interests change constantly, and so does my library. By the way, if you constantly change your interests, your library will constantly be saying something different about you. Besides, even without a catalogue, I’m forced to remember my books. I have a hallway for literature that’s 70 meters long. I walk through it several times a day, and I feel good when I do. Culture isn’t knowing when Napoleon died. Culture means knowing how I can find out in two minutes. Of course, nowadays I can find this kind of information on the Internet in no time. But, as I said, you never know with the Internet.
Mark Zuckerberg’s Sister Published A Book About A Child Whose Mom Takes Her iPad Away
http://www.businessinsider.com/randi-zuckerbergs-kids-book-dot-2013-11#ixzz2jmchiAAf
social media etiquette
unplug
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/03/books/review/randi-zuckerbergs-dot-complicated-and-dot.html
Contemplative Pedagogy and Dealing with Technology
Dan Barbezat, Amherst College; David Levy, University of Washington
https://docs.google.com/viewer?pid=sites&srcid=cG9kbmV0d29yay5vcmd8d2lraXBvZGlhfGd4OjY4MDVkOTRlNGQyODY0ZjY&docid=9ffbca34d1874ac24b0a339bd01f94cf%7Cbeba8a8cdb041811cbd3136e0fdbd53b&a=bi&pagenumber=45&w=800
The accelerating pace of life is reducing the time for thoughtful reflection and in particular for contemplative scholarship, within the academy. The loss of time to think is occurring at exactly the moment when scholars, educators, and students have gained access to digital tools of great value to scholarship. This interactive session reviews research on technology’s impacts and demonstrates some contemplative practices that can respond to them. Contemplative pedagogy can offset the distractions of our multi-tasking, multi-media culture, and show how the needs of this generation of students can be met through innovative teaching methods that integrate secular practices of contemplation.
Topics: Faculty Professional Development, Teaching & Learning
Walking the Labyrinth: Contemplative Instructional Techniques to Enhance Learner Engagement
Carol Henderson and Janice Monroe, Ithaca College
Bringing ancient traditional meditative skills into the contemporary classroom, con-templative learning techniques serve as an effective counterbalance to the speedi-ness and distractions of today’s fast-paced technology-based cultural environment. Applicable to both faculty development programs and to faculty working directlywith students, contemplative methods create a richer, more engaging learningenvironment by allowing participants to quiet their minds and focus deeply on the material at hand. This interactive session provides instruction and practice in con-templative techniques, offers examples of their use, and supports the integration of these techniques into any discipline or subject area.
Topics: Faculty Professional Development, Teaching & Learning
Contemplative Computing and Our Future of Education
Alex Soojung-Kim Pang, Stanford University
A generation of educators have spent their professional lives hearing that technol-
ogy is changing the world, transforming the way we think, and that higher educa-
tion must evolve or become obsolete. In case you didn’t get the message in the
1960s and 1970s, with cassette tapes, television and mainframe computers, it was
repeated in the 1980s when personal computers appeared; repeated again in the
1990s, with CD-ROMs (remember those) and the World Wide Web; repeated again
in the early 2000s with blogs and wikis; and recently, repeated once again in the
wake of social media, YouTube and the real-time Web.
This language of technological revolution and institutional reaction is backward. It
gives too much credit and agency to technology, and makes today’s changes seem
unprecedented and inevitable. Neither is actually true. Contemplative computing—
the effort to design technologies and interactions that aren’t perpetually demanding
and distracting, but help users be more mindful and focused—provides a language
for talking differently about the place of technology in teaching, learning, and edu-
cation. We think of today’s technologies as uniquely appealing to our reptilian, dopa-
mine- and stimulation-craving brains. In reality, distraction is an ancient problem,
and the rise of contemplative practices and institutions (most notably monasteries
and universities) is a response to that problem. Abandoning our traditional role as
stewards of contemplative life is as dangerous for the societies we serve as it is
short-sighted and counterproductive. Contemplative computing argues that even
today, people have choices about how to interact with technologies, how to use
them, and how to make the parts of our extended minds; and that part of our job
as educators is to show students how to exercise that agency.
Is it appropriate for schools to require that parents buy expensive electronics as school supplies? #edtech #edchat http://ow.ly/qtZUy
Around 100 students wait for the library to open before the start of classes each day so that they can get on a computer, he said, and Framingham High is purchasing 400 inexpensive Chromebook laptop computers this year to help give kids more access to technology.
Some school districts have “bring-your-own-device” programs, which encourage students to bring tablets, laptops, or smartphones to school. In those programs, students are typically allowed to work on whatever device they happen to have.
http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/5-creative-ways-to-drive-more-traffic-to-your-blog-posts/
5 Creative Ways to Drive More Traffic to Your Blog Posts
Promote Your Article Across a “Wider” Variety of Platforms
Here are some examples of smaller networks:
- Quora.com—A question/answer-based website founded by two former Facebook employees. What makes Quora unique is that all content is created, edited and organized by its user community. The user base tends to be more business- and academic-oriented.
- Tumblr—A microblogging site that recently made headlines when Yahoo! acquired it. Its user base tends to be younger and more “hip,” making it the perfect platform to share edgier, niche-based content.
- Empire Avenue—Part social network, part social media marketing tool, Empire Avenue uses gamification to enable users to broadcast content across all of the other social networks. The primary members of EAv are small businesses, social media professionals and blogger
Grab Viewer Interest With Different Types of Media
promote your posts with images, audio and video.
#1: Use Dubbler to Give a Short Audio Introduction
#2: Create a 6-Second Preview of Your Post with Vine
#3: Create a SlideShare Overview of Your Post
#4: Pin Your Post to a Pinterest Group Board
#5: Instagram an Image From Your Post
Some 13-Year-Olds Tell Us Why They Think Facebook Stinks
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/why-tweens-and-teens-think-facebook-stinks-2013-11#ixzz2jcxYYSSr
now that he has a phone, he would rather check out other cooler options, like Snapchat, Vine, and Instagram.
words are less important than images and videos
“I wouldn’t de-activate,” Aidan said. “It’s still a way to connect, I just won’t check it often.”