Posts Tagged ‘EDAD 646’

The death of the digital native and overselling the ed tech

The death of the digital native: four provocations from Digifest speaker, Dr Donna Lanclos

https://www.jisc.ac.uk/inform-feature/the-death-of-the-digital-native-23-feb-2016

educators need to figure out what they need to do. Are you trying to have a conversation? Are you simply trying to transmit information? Or are you, in fact, trying to have students create something?

Answer those pedagogical questions first and then – and only then – will you be able to connect people to the kinds of technologies that can do that thing.

The ‘digital native’ is a generational metaphor. It’s a linguistic metaphor. It’s a ridiculous metaphor. It’s the notion that there is a particular generation of people who are fundamentally unknowable and incomprehensible.

There are policy implications: if your university philosophy is grounded in assumptions around digital natives, education and technology, you’re presupposing you don’t have to teach the students how to use tech for their education. And, furthermore, it will never be possible to teach that faculty how to use that technology, either on their own behalf or for their students.

A very different paradigm is ‘visitor and resident‘. Instead of talking about these essentialised categories of native and immigrant, we should be talking about modes of behaviour because, in fact, some people do an awful lot of stuff with technology in some parts of their lives and then not so much in other parts.

How much of your university practice is behind closed doors?   This is traditional, of course, gatekeeping our institutions of higher education, keeping the gates in the walled campuses closed. So much of the pedagogy as well as the content of the university is locked away. That has implications not just for potential students but also from a policy perspective – if part of the problem in higher education policy is of non-university people not understanding the work of the university, being open would have really great potential to mitigate that lack of understanding.

 I would like to see our universities modelling themselves more closely on what we should be looking for in society generally: networked, open, transparent, providing the opportunity for people to create things that they wouldn’t create all by themselves.

I understand the rationale for gatekeeping, I just don’t think that there’s as much potential with a gatekept system as there is with an open one.

There are two huge problems with the notion of “student expectations”: firstly, the sense that, with the UK’s new fee model, students’ ideas of what higher education should be now weigh much more heavily in the institutions’ educational planning. Secondly, institutions in part think their role is to make their students “employable” because some politician somewhere has said the university is there to get them jobs.

Students coming into higher education don’t know much about what higher education can be. So if we allow student expectations to set the standard for what we should be doing, we create an amazingly low bar.

The point of any educational system is not to provide citizens with jobs. That’s the role of the economy.

Universities are not vocational

Institutions can approach educational technology in two very different ways. They can have a learning technology division that is basically in charge of acquiring and maintaining educational technology. Or they can provide spaces to develop pedagogy and then think about the role of technology within that pedagogy.

 

badges for teachers

start with the teachers, not with the students

OPINION So You Want to Drive Instruction With Digital Badges? Start With the Teachers

https://www.edsurge.com/news/2015-10-31-so-you-want-to-drive-instruction-with-digital-badges-start-with-the-teachers

Participating teachers advance through a series of inquiry-based professional development modules. Teachers are awarded a digital badge for the successful completion of each 10-hour module. To accomplish this, they must complete the following steps: 1) study module content, 2) participate in a focused discussion with peers working on the same module, 3) create an original inquiry-based global lesson plan that incorporates new learning, 4) implement the original lesson plan in the classroom, 5) provide evidence of classroom implementation and 6) reflect on and revise the lesson created.

The final product of every module is a tested, global lesson plan that articulates learning objectives, activities, assessments, and resources for each stage of inquiry. Upon completion, teachers may publish finalized lessons in a resource library where they can be accessed by other educators. As designed, the HISD badging system will be a four-year, 16-badge approach that equates to 160 hours of professional learning for teachers.

five key features that taken together increase significantly the likelihood that the learning experience for a teacher will lead to results in the classroom for students — which, after all, is the point of professional development:

 

  • Badging requires demonstrating understanding and implementation of a target content or skill. 
  • Badging provides recognition and motivation. 
  • Badging allows for knowledge circulation among teachers. 
  • Badging can be tracked and assessed. 
  • Badging is a scalable enterprise. 

 

Bloom Digital Taxonomy

Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy Cheat Sheet for Teachers

http://www.educatorstechnology.com/2016/02/blooms-digital-taxonomy-cheat-sheet-for-teachers.html

Resources for Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy
iPad Apps Android Apps Web Tools
Creating
Evaluating
Analyzing
Applying
Understanding
Remembering

Follow the discussion on the LinkedIn ISTE discussion group:

https://www.linkedin.com/groups/2811/2811-6107212405878566913

Similar visual representation in this IMS blog entry:

Bloom’s Wheel With Technology

open educational resources

A Librarian’s Guide to OER in the Maker Space

http://www.slj.com/2015/10/technology/a-librarians-guide-to-oer-in-the-maker-space

OER are teaching, learning, and research resources that reside in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual property license that permits sharing, accessing, repurposing—including for commercial purposes—and collaborating with others. They include educational materials, such as lesson plans, games, textbooks, tests, audio, and video. In addition to being free, these no-cost teaching and learning materials are available online for anyone to use, modify or share with others.This use, reuse, and remixing of instructional materials is a powerful way to gain and share knowledge. Because OER are customizable and flexible, they can be used very effectively to support students to achieve their learning goals.

OER Commons is a digital library where educators can find resources to develop, support and amplify their maker space practices. The site is searchable by subject, grade level or standard. Users can also filter results to include topics, such as activities and labs, games, videos, lesson plans, and interactive tools.

Related blog entry:
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims/2016/02/22/libraries-and-learning/

libraries and learning

How Libraries Fit in the Future of Learning

http://www.edtechmagazine.com/k12/article/2016/01/how-libraries-fit-future-learning

Amy Brown, M.Ed. is a K-12 education strategist for CDW·G. January 20, 2016

According to the New Media Consortium’s Horizon Report: 2015 K-12 Edition, schools all over the nation have begun promoting content creation over content consumption.

When evaluating equipment, administrators need to consider how it will work with the space.

More about school media places and the future for information media in academia:

https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims/?s=library&submit=Search

related IMS blog entry: https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims/2016/02/24/open-educational-resources/

teachers don’t use technology

11 Reasons why teachers don’t use technology

Lack of training

Training teachers to keep up technological change needs to be constant and if possible self directed so teachers can get the training they need to achieve the goals they want to achieve.

Wrong kind of training – Technical rather than pedagogical

Training needs to be delivered by pedagogical experts who can give teachers hands on experience of using technology to learn.

Wrong kind of training – Not relevant to teaching context

Training examples need to be applied to the materials and content that teachers actually need and have to teach as part of their syllabus.

Wrong trainer

Training needs to be balanced with a critical eye so that teachers also understand the pitfalls, problems and limitations that accompany the use of technology.

Wrong tech

Schools need to be wary edtech hardware vendors. The lifetime of most edtech hardware tends to be pretty short and like mobile phones, the new model can make previous models look tired and old fashioned very quickly.

Lack of syllabus integration

Technology can’t be an add on or extra work. It has to be integrated into and help them with the material they have to cover in the classroom with their students.

Lack of consultation

Teachers need to be part of the selection and procurement process to ensure that they are getting the technology they want and need.

Lack of support at the chalkface

Tech support needs to be delivered in a way that serves and supports the teachers rather than the other way around. Teachers do need to be trained in how to articulate and describe teach problems with accuracy.

Lack of infrastructure

Before investing in classroom hardware schools need to make sure they have sufficient connectivity infrastructure to support the modes of use that teachers will apply with it.

Unrealistic expectations

Technology needs to be applied with an understanding of how it can enable a transformation in students’ pedagogical experience and teachers’ pedagogical practices.

Unnecessary

In many cases teachers see the technology as a hindrance or unnecessary to achieving their aims and in some cases this may be correct.

EDAD 646 tech instruction

EDAD 646 tech instruction with Dr. Roger Worner

Based on the documents attached above, and the discussion and work already surrounding these documents, please consider the following flowchart:

study >>> systems theory >>> cybermetrics >>>

SWOT >>> strategic planning >>> task force >>> architect >>>

CM >>> public adviser >>> public polling >>> referendum

During the exercises surrounding the documents above, you have been introduced to various speakers / practitioners, who presented real-life cases regarding:

  1. business
  2. transportation  https://www.edulog.com/, http://www.tylertech.com/solutions-products/school-solutions/transportation, http://www.busboss.com/
  3. food service (http://www.foodservicedirector.com/research/big-picture/articles/impact-technology-foodservice)
  4. building grounds (http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED499142.pdf)
  5. HR (http://login.libproxy.stcloudstate.edu/login?qurl=http%3a%2f%2fsearch.ebscohost.com%2flogin.aspx%3fdirect%3dtrue%26db%3dkeh%26AN%3d89941160%26site%3dehost-live%26scope%3dsite)
  6. others

– the first goal of this technology instruction is to figure out the current state of technology in K12 settings.
assignment:
* split in groups * using each group member’s information and experience about technology in general and technology in school settings, use the flow chart above and identify any known technology, which can improve the process of each step in the flow chart.
* reconvene and compare results among groups. Find similarities and discrepancies and agree on a pool of applicable technology tools and concepts, which can improve the process reflected in the flow chart.

Example how to meet the requirements for the first goal:  1. based on your technological proficiency, how can you aid your study using system thinking/systems approach? the work ahead of you is collaborative. What collaborative tools do you know, which can help the team work across time and space? Skype, Google Hangouts for audio/video/desktopsharing. Google Drive/Docs for working on policies and similar text-based documents.

Work on the following assignment:
Trends in technology cannot be taken separately from other issues and are closely intertwined with other “big” trends :

e.g., mobile workspaces (https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims/2015/12/03/mobile-workspaces-on-campus/ ) are part of the larger picture, namely active learning spaces (https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims/?s=learning+spaces&submit=Search), which involves, furniture, building construction, etc.

keeping in mind this interdependence / balance, please work in groups on the following questions. Using the available links above and the literature they lead to, as well as your own findings, please provide your best opinion to these questions:

  • when planning for a new building and determining learning spaces, what is the percentage of importance, which we place on technology, in relation to furniture, for example?
  • how much do teachers have a say in the planning of the building, considering that they had worked and prefer “their type” of learning space?
  • who decides what technology and how? how one rationalizes the equation technology = learning spaces = available finances?
  • how much outsourcing (consulting) on any of the components of the equation above one can afford / consider? How much weight the strategic planning puts on the consulting (outsourcing) versus the internal opinion (staff and administrators)?
  • how “far in the future” your strategic plan is willing / able to look at, in terms of technology – learning spaces?

How to stay current with the technology developments:

– the second goal of this technology instruction is to become acquainted with future technological trends and developments.
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims/2015/11/25/future-trends-in-education/

 

The New Horizon Report 2015 K12 Edition:
http://k12.wiki.nmc.org/

https://www.graphite.org/ – reviews and ratings for educational materials

ideas:

Are Schools Wasting Moneys on Computers?

https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims/2015/12/04/computers-in-education/

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