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Barbara Lindsey

Modeling Social Media in Groups, Communities, and Networks - 0 views

www.tesl-ej.org/...ej51int

socialmedia cop communitiesofpractice networking

shared by Barbara Lindsey on 06 Dec 10 - No Cached
  • the evolution of what was initially a group into a community of practice is illustrated, as well as how social media enables one CoP to interact with others to become part of a distributed learning network. Participants in the networked communities continually leverage each other’s professional development, and what is modeled and practiced in transactions there is applied later in their teaching practices
  • Teachers can be shown how to use social media, but unless they use it themselves they are unlikely to change their practices. There is evidence that teachers trained in programs where their instructors used social media (modeled it) are more comfortable with technology than if their instructors did not themselves use these tools. This article suggests how teachers can interact with numerous communities of practice and distributed learning networks where other participants are modeling to and learning from one another optimal ways of using social media in teaching. This strongly suggests that teachers must be trained not only in the use of social media, but through its use.
    • Barbara Lindsey
      Barbara Lindsey on 06 Dec 10
       
      "Through its use" is key here!
  • “To teach is to model and demonstrate. To learn is to practice and reflect.”
  • ...24 more annotations...
  • Networks are ideal as enhancements for all four of these essential activities of lifelong learners, and they enable us to model, demonstrate, practice, and reflect constantly and effectively.
  • “teachers who practice autonomy in their own professional development formulate heuristics for harvesting knowledge within their personal learning spaces, and thus stand a better chance of inculcating the desired behaviors in their students, thus increasing the likelihood of producing potentially autonomous and lifelong learners. But it is a percolative process.
  • The wiki allowed anyone (anyone could write on it, not just Webheads) to leave an email address if they needed an invitation, and those who had spare invitations would give one to someone in need. The system worked to organize a quick and robust Webheads Wave, a sandbox for teachers to try out the tool and to model and demonstrate and practice with one another.
  • Networks provide the framework for this to happen.
  • Pedagogy
  • Networking
  • Literacy
  • Paradigm shift results when many people in a community or network follow the same process of seeing things modeled and demonstrated for one another in such a way that after considered reflection and weighing of the old and new ways of addressing a problem, they gradually alter their practice.
    • Barbara Lindsey
      Barbara Lindsey on 06 Dec 10
       
      ACOT showed this in the late 80's with their ten year study.  http://imet.csus.edu/imet1/baeza/PDF%20Files/Upload/10yr.pdf
  • Heuristics
  • hose with knowledge and those seeking it treat each other equally, often reversing roles frequently as seekers and providers of knowledge and content.
  • multiliteracies approaches
  • When the Writing for Webheads group of students and teachers formed in 1998, participants were distrustful of sending their pictures to strangers on the Internet, and even to reveal their real names.
  • Photographs and voice/webcam communications enable group members to see the human behind the text message and enhance bonds leading to a sense of community
  • Scaffolding one another’s practice by modeling to one another and answering each other’s questions
  • the evolution of social media has enabled the Webheads CoP to interact with others to become part of a much wider distributed learning network.
  • Siemens has long espoused the notion of connectivism, famously summarized as “The pipe is more important than the content within the pipe.” (Siemens, 2004, n.p.). Here, Siemens means that it is more important to nurture a system of connections between knowledgeable people (the pipe) than to be concerned with what these knowledgeable people know (the content within the pipe) since this content can be directed as needed to anyone with appropriate connections within the pipe.
  • Communities and networks help us to aggregate, filter, and assimilate this information into some kind of knowledge structure and then disseminate it throughout the community or network.
  • distributed learning networks (DLN’s), or personal or professional learning networks (PLNs), or personal learning environments (PLE’s)–all provide direct (and indirect) contact with many people in one’s network, each possessing a reservoir of knowledge which contributes to the entire pool of knowledge residing in the network. This can be accessed through listservs or sometimes almost instantaneously through Twitter or RSS feeds, or Skype, or instant messaging. Therefore the knowledge possessed by any individual, or node in the network, is the sum total of all aggregated knowledge within that network. It is to this that we ascribe the incredible power inherent in distributed learning networks which often comprise to some extent communities of practice.
  • Wenger, McDermott, and Snyder (2002, p. 6) promote the CoP model as an anecdote to the fact, as he puts it, that “increasing complexity of knowledge requires greater … collaboration; whereas … the half life of knowledge is getting shorter.”
  • the skill of leveraging networks is increasingly important in the 21st century in plumbing and aggregating knowledge when that knowledge base is forever changing at an increasingly accelerated pace.
  • or appropriate use of online social networks to be taught in schools, teachers themselves must be familiar with their impact on learning. One problem is that teacher-trainers without sufficient experience with technology and who are rooted in old-school methodologies are simply not modeling new age learning behaviors for their trainees by showing them how to reach out to networks.
  • research indicates that teachers don’t necessarily activate the knowledge they are exposed to in training curricula. The example he gave was on reverting to traditional methods rather than utilizing knowledge about communicative language teaching (Richards, 2009: 4), but the same applies to knowledge of technology.
  • In order for training in pedagogical affordances of networking to take hold it is crucial that teachers be trained not only in social media, but through its use. Those who use social media in their professional networking find this self-evident, but there is at least annecdotal evidence for the need for modeling by mentors.
  • teachers need to be shown the connections between their use of social media in their personal and professional lives. Glogowski and Sessums pointed out in their presentation at the WiAOC 2007 conference their surprise that student teachers who were already using technology with online acquaintances in their after-hours social networking were not carrying this over into their professional teaching practices.
    • Barbara Lindsey
      Barbara Lindsey on 06 Dec 10
       
      The same holds true for our students.
Barbara Lindsey

Convenience, Communications, and Control: How Students Use Technology | Resources | EDU... - 0 views

www.educause.edu/...6070

student survey technology

shared by Barbara Lindsey on 21 Oct 07 - Cached
  • They are characterized as preferring teamwork, experiential activities, and the use of technology
  • Doing is more important than knowing, and learning is accomplished through trial and error as opposed to a logical and rule-based approach.2 Similarly, Paul Hagner found that these students not only possess the skills necessary to use these new communication forms, but there is an ever increasing expectation on their part that these new communication paths be used
  • Much of the work to date, while interesting and compelling, is intuitive and largely based on qualitative data and observation.
  • ...34 more annotations...
  • There is an inexorable trend among college students to universal ownership, mobility, and access to technology.
  • Students were asked about the applications they used on their electronic devices. They reported that they use technology first for educational purposes, followed by communication.
    • Barbara Lindsey
      Barbara Lindsey on 21 Oct 07
       
      All self-reported. Would have been powerful if could have actually tracked a representative sample and compared actual use with reported use.
  • presentation software was driven primarily by the requirements of the students' major and the curriculum.
  • Communications and entertainment are very much related to gender and age.
  • From student interviews, a picture emerged of student technology use driven by the demands of the major and the classes that students take. Seniors reported spending more time overall on a computer than do freshmen, and they reported greater use of a computer at a place of employment. Seniors spent more hours on the computer each week in support of their educational activities and also more time on more advanced applications—spreadsheets, presentations, and graphics.
  • Confirming what parents suspect, students with the lowest grade point averages (GPAs) spend significantly more time playing computer games; students with the highest GPAs spend more hours weekly using the computer in support of classroom activities. At the University of Minnesota, Crookston, students spent the most hours on the computer in support of classroom activities. This likely reflects the deliberate design of the curriculum to use a laptop extensively. In summary, the curriculum's technology requirements are major motivators for students to learn to use specialized software.
  • The interviews indicated that students are skilled with basic office suite applications but tend to know just enough technology functionality to accomplish their work; they have less in-depth application knowledge or problem solving skills.
  • According to McEuen, student technology skills can be likened to writing skills: Students come to college knowing how to write, but they are not developed writers. The analogy holds true for information technology, and McEuen suggested that colleges and universities approach information technology in the same way they approach writing.6
  • he major requires the development of higher-level skill sets with particular applications.
    • Barbara Lindsey
      Barbara Lindsey on 21 Oct 07
       
      Not really quantitative--self-reported data back by selected qualitative interviews
  • The comparative literature on student IT skill self-assessment suggests that students overrate their skills; freshmen overrate their skills more than seniors, and men overrate their skills more than women.7 Our data supports these conclusions. Judy Doherty, director of the Student Technologies Resource Group at Colgate University, remarked on student skill assessment, "Students state in their job applications that they are good if not very good, but when tested their skills are average to poor, and they need a lot of training."8
  • Mary Jane Smetanka of the Minneapolis–St. Paul Star Tribune reported that some students are so conditioned by punch-a-button problem solving on computers that they approach problems with a scattershot impulsiveness instead of methodically working them through. In turn, this leads to problem-solving difficulties.
  • We expected to find that the Net Generation student prefers classes that use technology. What we found instead is a bell curve with a preference for a moderate use of technology in the classroom (see Figure 1).
    • Barbara Lindsey
      Barbara Lindsey on 21 Oct 07
       
      More information needs to be given to find out why--may be tool and method not engaging.
  • It is not surprising that if technology is used well by the instructor, students will come to appreciate its benefits.
  • A student's major was also an important predictor of preferences for technology in the classroom (see Table 3), with engineering students having the highest preference for technology in the classroom (67.8 percent), followed by business students (64.3 percent).
  • Humanities 7.7% 47.9% 40.2
  • he highest scores were given to improved communications, followed by factors related to the management of classroom activities. Lower impact activities had to do with comprehension of classroom materials (complex concepts).
  • I spend more time engaged in course activities in those courses that require me to use technology.
  • The instructors' use of technology in my classes has increased my interest in the subject matter. 3.25 Classes that use information technology are more likely to focus on real-world tasks and examples.
  • Interestingly, students do not feel that use of information technology in classes greatly increases the amount of time engaged with course activities (3.22 mean).12 This is in direct contrast to faculty perceptions reported in an earlier study, where 65 percent of faculty reported they perceived that students spend more time engaged with course materials
  • Only 12.7 percent said the most valuable benefit was improved learning; 3.7 percent perceived no benefit whatsoever. Note that students could only select one response, so more than 12.7 percent may have felt learning was improved, but it was not ranked highest. These findings compare favorably with a study done by Douglas Havelka at the University of Miami in Oxford, Ohio, who identified the top six benefits of the current implementation of IT as improving work efficiency, affecting the way people behave, improving communications, making life more convenient, saving time, and improving learning ability.14
    • Barbara Lindsey
      Barbara Lindsey on 21 Oct 07
       
      Would have been good to know exactly what kinds of technologies were meant here.
  • Our data suggest that we are at best at the cusp of technologies being employed to improve learning.
  • The interactive features least used by faculty were the features that students indicated contributed the most to their learning.
  • he students in this study called our attention to performance by noting an uneven diffusion of innovation using this technology. This may be due, in part, to faculty or student skill. It may also be due to a lack of institutional recognition of innovation, especially as the successful use of course management systems affects or does not affect faculty tenure, promotion, and merit decisions
  • we found that many of the students most skilled in the use of technology had mixed feelings about technology in the classroom.
  • What we found was that many necessary skills had to be learned at the college or university and that the motivation for doing so was very much tied to the requirements of the curriculum. Similarly, the students in our survey had not gained the necessary skills to use technology in support of academic work outside the classroom. We found a significant need for further training in the use of information technology in support of learning and problem-solving skills.
  • Course management systems were used most by both faculty and students for communication of information and administrative activities and much less in support of learning.
  • In 1997, Michael Hooker proclaimed, "higher education is on the brink of a revolution." Hooker went on to note that two of the greatest challenges our institutions face are those of "harnessing the power of digital technology and responding to the information revolution."18 Hooker and many others, however, did not anticipate the likelihood that higher education's learning revolution would be a journey of a thousand miles rather than a discrete event. Indeed, a study of learning's last great revolution—the invention of moveable type—reveals, too, a revolution conducted over centuries leading to the emergence of a publishing industry, intellectual property rights law, the augmentation of customized lectures with textbooks, and so forth.
  • Both the ECAR study on faculty use of course management systems and this study of student experiences with information technology concluded that, while information technology is indeed making important inroads into classroom and learning activities, to date the effects are largely in the convenience of postsecondary teaching and learning and do not yet constitute a "learning revolution." This should not surprise us. The invention of moveable type enhanced, nearly immediately, access to published information and reduced the time needed to produce new publications. This invention did not itself change literacy levels, teaching styles, learning styles, or other key markers of a learning revolution. These changes, while catalyzed by the new technology, depended on slower social changes to institutions. I believe that is what we are witnessing in higher education today.
  • The institutions chosen represent a nonrepresentative mix of the different types of higher education institution in the United States, in terms of Carnegie class as well as location, source of funding, and levels of technology emphasis. Note, however, that we consider our findings to be instructive rather than conclusive of student experiences at different types of Carnegie institutions.
  • Qualitative data were collected by means of focus groups and individual interviews. We interviewed undergraduate students, administrators, and individuals identified as experts in the field of student technology use in the classroom. Student focus groups and interviews of administrators were conducted at six of the thirteen schools participating in the study.
anonymous

Confessions of a Podcast Junkie: A Student Perspective (EDUCAUSE Review) | EDUCAUSE - 3 views

www.educause.edu/...156831

podcast student studyabroad educause

shared by anonymous on 12 Mar 10 - Cached
  • My experience in creating podcasts came through much nobler endeavors. It began with a research project in the working-class neighborhoods of North Belfast and a frustrated conversation over pints in a pub. I was on a research high after an interview with two women of very different political backgrounds. They were friends, brought together by the work of a local nonprofit, and their mutual admiration shone from the lightning-fast banter that they tossed back and forth throughout the interview. It was clear to me that they were a perfect example of a friendship from different sides of the political divide. But my friend at the pub just couldn't get it. He suggested that their friendship might be contrived, a mere show for my benefit, or that if real, it didn't mean as much as I thought. Exasperated, I pulled out my recorder and played the conversation back to him. As their Belfast accents filled up our corner booth, I could see his posture slacken and the battle turn my way. In that moment, I decided that only a podcast could finish telling my story. Over the next months, armed with just an MP3 player and some freeware suggested by a friend, I worked to piece together the story of North Belfast through interviews, conversations, and the sounds of the streets. The result was crude, elementary, and slightly difficult to listen to. But I was hooked.
  • Student Use (and Misuse) of Podcast Technology
  • In fact, the iPod topped the list of the most "in" things on campus in 2006, according to Student Monitor's Lifestyle & Media Study.
    • Barbara Lindsey
      Barbara Lindsey on 12 Mar 10
       
      How many in our class own an iPod? Other mp3 player?
    • Inas Ayyoub
      Inas Ayyoub on 15 Mar 10
       
      I don't have any of them, but after studying and teaching in an American university , I feel it is one of the important things that I have to own!!
    • Kemen Zabala
      Kemen Zabala on 15 Mar 10
       
      I own an iPod touch and I believe my cellphone is also part mp3 player
    • Barbara Lindsey
      Barbara Lindsey on 15 Mar 10
       
      I have 2
    • Blanca Garcia Valenzuela
      Blanca Garcia Valenzuela on 15 Mar 10
       
      I have a mp3 player, not an iPod and, anyway, I do not see why iPods are so popular...
    • Catherine Ross
      Catherine Ross on 15 Mar 10
       
      I own an iPod but I never use it!
    • Celeste Arrieta
      Celeste Arrieta on 15 Mar 10
       
      I don't have an IPod
    • Celeste Arrieta
      Celeste Arrieta on 15 Mar 10
       
      You made very interesting comments, Inas! Congratulations!!
    • suzanne ondrus
      suzanne ondrus on 15 Mar 10
       
      I own one but have yet to use it! :(
    • Christopher Laine
      Christopher Laine on 15 Mar 10
       
      Mine doesn't really work since I put it in the laundry. But I never used it much anyway because it's not compatible with .flac files.
  • ...14 more annotations...
  • transfer lectures and course material
  • "The good thing was that you could listen to a section over and over again if you wanted to review it," Clemen says. "There were a few podcasts that I had to review a couple of times. I could write out what he was saying and listen to what he was saying again." Reviewing came in handy, they all say, especially during project or exam times. "[With the podcasts], I've got more material to go back to if I wanted to review that module," Clemen says. "Whereas with the rest of the material, I just have some PowerPoint and my own notes."
  • The trick, students say, is to make sure that there is something to gain by attending class and downloading the lecture.
  • the material has to be relevant to the rest of the course. Otherwise, it's just a cool technology to have." Material should have a clear connection to the actual course, making a seamless transition between face time and the online realm.
  • Students stress the need to keep audio and video concise and engaging.
  • ust because a student totes an iPod on campus doesn't mean that the student is podcast-savvy.
  • "There aren't any time constraints. Your podcast doesn't have to be an exact amount of time. You have carte blanche to change the format and grow your show." He also helps capture audio from guest speakers so that the programs can be
  • n to the guest lectures while on the bus, at the gym, or in their dorm rooms. Still, Stein never felt the urge to skip class. "It was nice to know that if you missed class, you could record the lectures," she says. "But the iPod didn't encourage you to miss class. There's not a chalkboard that you can see or problems that you can see worked out. I think more people show up in a [podcasting] course because it encourages more interaction."
  • "It's much better than writing a paper. It's more interesting, much more fun, and much more creative. You get a lot of time to work on it, and it's more collaborative because you're working with other people. You're creating the performance as you go and then continuously working on it." Creating a podcast didn't mean less work, he says.
    • Barbara Lindsey
      Barbara Lindsey on 12 Mar 10
       
      Your thoughts?
    • suzanne ondrus
      suzanne ondrus on 15 Mar 10
       
      This seems to go on the idea of trying to make one's class accessible to everyone. So with podcasts students with strong oral skills might excell.
    • Inas Ayyoub
      Inas Ayyoub on 15 Mar 10
       
      Still, we don't want students to end up with poor writing skills. So I guess with the help of other uses of technolog like wikis we can make writing papers more fun and help stdents improve that as well.
  • Though her goal was to increase learning for her peers in the anatomy course, she found that creating the material was a boon to her own learning. "As a student creating the podcasts, I had the chance to learn a lot more than I would have taking a course," she says. "It's about learning how to teach the material and how to make a narration out of it. You have this intimate knowledge of the material, and now you know how to show the different sides of an issue."
  • Besides the entertainment value, Westfall and Finnegan say that the podcasts were especially useful for reviewing material. They used the podcasts as refreshers throughout the semester and during exam time. In addition, creating a segment meant that they had to brush up on their own knowledge of the subject.
  • I don't want [the podcasts] to overlap with lectures too much; I still want people to go to the lecture. This is a very relaxed way to get the information to them. They can do it on their own time and download it whenever."
    • Inas Ayyoub
      Inas Ayyoub on 15 Mar 10
       
      Though the podcasts arre a great idea for reviewing materials and catching up on things you missed in a class, still they will result in having less and less face-to-face interaction which is still needed especially when learning languages. I guess students will be tempted to miss classes more and more , even though the article suggested that using podcasts will encourage them not to do so!!
  • Knowing my own podcast history, I had to wonder just how quickly the students were jumping on board. Armed with my same recorder—though it was now slightly rougher for the wear—I asked students at colleges and universities across North America about their iPod and MP3 use, their familiarity with podcasting, and just how they saw podcasting as part of the classroom.
  • Knowing my own podcast history, I had to wonder just how quickly the students were jumping on board. Armed with my same recorder—th
  • Inas Ayyoub on 15 Mar 10
     
    "Besides the entertainment value, Westfall and Finnegan say that the podcasts were especially useful for reviewing material. They used the podcasts as refreshers throughout the semester and during exam time. In addition, creating a segment meant that they had to brush up on their own knowledge of the subject."
Barbara Lindsey

Classroom in the Cloud: 5 Awesome Things You Can Do With an IPad and an LCD Projector - 0 views

www.classroominthecloud.net/...ings-you-can-do-with-ipad.html

IPad projector ideas

shared by Barbara Lindsey on 20 Dec 11 - No Cached
  • Barbara Lindsey on 20 Dec 11
     
    The original post about using an iPad as a classroom doc camera and 5 ideas for using it. Comments also have additional suggestions.
Barbara Lindsey

A comparison of computer game and language-learning task design using flow theory - 0 views

callej.org/...Franciosi_2011.pdf

journal article gaming languagelearning comparison

shared by Barbara Lindsey on 05 Feb 12 - No Cached
  • Barbara Lindsey on 05 Feb 12
     
    Interesting, specific suggestions in conclusion
Barbara Lindsey

http://www.charlesleadbeater.net/cms/xstandard/LearningfromExtremes_WhitePaper.pdf - 0 views

www.charlesleadbeater.net/...ingfromExtremes_WhitePaper.pdf

charlesleadbeater pedagogy learning claudio

shared by Barbara Lindsey on 12 Sep 10 - No Cached
  • Barbara Lindsey on 12 Sep 10
     
    A suggested reading by Diego Leal in response to a blog comment by Claudio Pinna on our Learning Repositories post
Barbara Lindsey

Education Week: Science Grows on Acquiring New Language - 0 views

www.edweek.org/...09window_ep.h30.html

language learning brain research

shared by Barbara Lindsey on 26 Oct 10 - No Cached
  • For example, when babies born to native-English-speaking parents played three times a week during that window with a native-Mandarin-speaking tutor, at 12 months, they had progressed in their ability to recognize both English and Mandarin sounds, rather than starting to retrench in the non-native language. By contrast, children exposed only to audio or video recordings of native speakers showed no change in their language trajectory. Brain-imaging of the same children backed up the results of test-based measures of language specialization.
  • The research may not immediately translate into a new language arts curriculum, but it has already deepened the evidence for something most educators believe instinctively: Social engagement, particularly with speakers of multiple languages, is critical to language learning.
  • “The key to that series of studies is exposure and live interactions with native speakers,” Ms. Lebedeva said. “The interactions need to be naturalistic: eye contact, gestures, exaggerated phonemes.”
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • “Human brains are wired to learn best in social interactions, whether that learning is about language or problem-solving or emotion,” Ms. Lebedeva said, “but language is such a ubiquitous human behavior that studying it gives us an example of how more general learning takes place.”
  • at the science-oriented Ultimate Block Party held in New York City this month, children of different backgrounds played games in which they were required to sort toys either by shape or color, based on a rule indicated by changing flashcards. A child sorting blue and yellow ducks and trucks by shape, say, might suddenly have to switch to sorting them by color. The field games exemplified research findings that bilingual children have greater cognitive flexibility than monolingual children. That is, they can adapt better than monolingual children to changes in rules—What criteria do I use to sort?—and close out mental distractions—It doesn’t matter that some blue items are ducks and some are trucks.
  • Barbara Lindsey on 26 Oct 10
     
    researchers long thought the window for learning a new language shrinks rapidly after age 7 and closes almost entirely after puberty. Yet interdisciplinary research conducted over the past five years at the University of Washington, Pennsylvania State University, and other colleges suggest that the time frame may be more flexible than first thought and that students who learn additional languages become more adaptable in other types of learning, too.
Barbara Lindsey

In Defense of Open, Online Communication in Education | U Tech Tips - 0 views

www.utechtips.com/...ine-communication-in-education

onlineprivacy rights safety digitalfootprint

shared by Barbara Lindsey on 28 Oct 10 - No Cached
  • I suggested that perhaps his daughter should not leave her full name when commenting on my blog, and that I would make this suggestion to all my students so as to protect those who wished to remain anonymous.
    • Barbara Lindsey
      Barbara Lindsey on 03 Dec 10
       
      It seems that Jason Welker hadn't discussed this with his students prior to this.
  • If, in your personal view, these ethics interfere with your own child’s learning, and reduce the likelihood that she will achieve future academic or professional successes, then I would encourage you to engage her in conversations about economics in your own preferred manner and direct her to online or print media that you think will better enhance her understanding of the subject yet still allow her to meet the requirements of my course without having to participate in the public discussions and debates occurring between students and teachers around the world on my blog.
  • At the beginning of the year, we talked about the privacy issues resulting from name-identified and web-searchable articles from ZIS students and class work on your website. By when do you think you will have past, present and future contributions annonymized?
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • The father’s wish was that I would require all those who participate in discussions online to do so anonymously.
  • The most I can do is encourage my students to respond to posts using only their first name or even initials, and more importantly, to post responsible and thoughtful comments relating to the economic topics the blog discusses.
  • To the contrary, in my years of using the blog and other online media, I can point to several examples of students who were uncomfortable or shy about participating in face to face discussions with their peers in the the traditional classroom but blossomed in online discussions and debates such as those held on my blog, expressing themselves much more freely and openly in online discussion than they were ever capable of through traditional, classroom based discussions.
  • By participating in public discussion about the subject, my students have improved not only their understanding of the economic concepts I teach them, but have also strengthened their ability to critically evaluate economic topics and to engage in a broader discussion about the subject than they would have ever been able to achieve if these conversations were confined to a brick and mortar classroom of 16 students and one teacher.
  • My blog presents a forum through which my students, myself, other Economics teachers and their students, and anyone else interested in Economics can come together to learn about how our subject relates to what’s going on in the real world, but more importantly to engage in discussion and debate with one another over the issues our subject focuses on.
Barbara Lindsey

Major New Study Shatter Stereotypes About Teens and Video Games - MacArthur Foundation - 0 views

www.macfound.org/site/apps/nlnet/content2.aspx?c=lkLXJ8MQKrH&b=4192109&content_id={CF9B933A-8261-4FE5-B9AD-AD751CDEEFC6}&notoc=1&tr=y&auid=4041075

civic gaming macarthur pewresearch social teens

shared by Barbara Lindsey on 23 Sep 08 - Cached
  • gaming experience is rich and varied, with a significant amount of social interaction and potential for civic engagement.
  • 99% of boys say they are gamers and 94% of girls report that they play games.
  • A typical teen plays at least five different categories of games and 40% of them play eight or more different game types.
  • ...15 more annotations...
  • 76% of gaming teens play games with others at least some of the time. 82% play games alone at least occasionally, though 71% of this group also plays games with others. 65% of gaming teens play with others in the same room.
  • 76% of youth report helping others while gaming. 44% report playing games where they learn about a problem in society.
  • 12-14 year olds are equally as likely to play Mature and Adults Only rated games as their 15-17 year old counterparts.
  • “Gaming is a ubiquitous part of life for both boys and girls. For most teens, gaming runs the spectrum from blow-‘em-up mayhem to building communities; from cute-and-simple to complex; from brief private sessions to hours’ long interactions with masses of others.”
  • A focus of the survey was the relationship between gaming and civic experiences among teens. The goal was to test concerns that gaming might be prompting teens to withdraw from their communities. It turns out there is clear evidence that gaming is not just an entertaining diversion for many teens; gaming can be tied to civic and political engagement. Indeed, youth have many experiences playing games that mirror aspects of civic and political life, such as thinking about moral and ethical issues and making decisions about city and/or community affairs. Not only do many teens help others or learn about a problem in society during their game playing, they also encounter other social and civic experiences:
  • Moreover, the survey indicates that youth who have these kinds of civic gaming experiences are more likely to be civically engaged in the offline world. They are more likely than others are to go online to get information about current events, to try to persuade others how to vote in an election, to say they are committed to civic participation, and to raise money for charity.
  • Youth, parents, teachers, and others who work with youth should know about the wide diversity of video games – so they can take full advantage of games and their civic potential.”
  • The study also found that these civic gaming experiences occurred equally among all kinds of game players regardless of family income, race, and ethnicity. These data stand in contrast to teens’ experiences in schools and others community situations, where white and higher-income youth typically have more opportunities for civic development.
  • “This study offers us a glimpse into the potential of these new tools to foster learning and civic engagement, yet the findings about mature content suggest that parents and other adults need to be involved in young people’s game play, helping to realize the potential benefits while moderating unintended consequences. We see these results as the beginning of an important discussion about the role of digital media in learning, community, and citizenship in the 21st century.”
  • virtually all American teens play computer, console, or cell phone games and that the gaming experience is rich and varied, with a significant amount of social interaction and potential for civic engagement.
  • A typical teen plays at least five different categories of games and 40% of them play eight or more different game types.
  • 76% of youth report helping others while gaming. 44% report playing games where they learn about a problem in society.
  • gaming can be tied to civic and political engagement. Indeed, youth have many experiences playing games that mirror aspects of civic and political life, such as thinking about moral and ethical issues and making decisions about city and/or community affairs. Not only do many teens help others or learn about a problem in society during their game playing, they also encounter other social and civic experiences:
  • “Games that simulate aspects of civic and political life may well promote civic skills and civic engagement. Youth, parents, teachers, and others who work with youth should know about the wide diversity of video games – so they can take full advantage of games and their civic potential.”
  • This study offers us a glimpse into the potential of these new tools to foster learning and civic engagement, yet the findings about mature content suggest that parents and other adults need to be involved in young people’s game play, helping to realize the potential benefits while moderating unintended consequences. We see these results as the beginning of an important discussion about the role of digital media in learning, community, and citizenship in the 21st century.”
  • Barbara Lindsey on 23 Sep 08
     
    Game playing is universal, diverse, often involves social interaction, and can cultivate teen civic engagement
Barbara Lindsey

Innovate - Backwards into the Future: Seven Principles for Educating the Ne(x)t Generation - 0 views

innovateonline.info/index.php

audience creative student

shared by Barbara Lindsey on 10 Sep 07 - Cached
  • In contrast to traditional English courses, which are mostly paper-based, our reading materials can all be found on the Web, and the students present their work in the form of interactive Web pages that are accessible to everyone in the class, thereby forging a virtual learning community to parallel the physical community of the classroom.
  • Teaching to the future, we contend, involves forging pathways for our students that we do not necessarily intend to travel ourselves.
  • With each new iteration of Poetry off the Page, our students' expertise has driven the course design, rather than vice versa.
  • ...18 more annotations...
    • Barbara Lindsey
      Barbara Lindsey on 10 Sep 07
       
      Comments?
  • We provide ample support and encouragement to "trailing edge" students whose online capabilities barely extend beyond e-mail, but at the same time, we leave the door open for those at the leading edge to suggest innovations that we ourselves would be incapable of imagining, much less of implementing.
  • By recasting students as researchers and teachers, we invite them to participate in what is arguably the most exciting and fulfilling aspect of university life: the production of new knowledge (Exhibit 2).
    • Barbara Lindsey
      Barbara Lindsey on 16 Sep 08
       
      Brown and Adler's concept of 'learning to be'
  • We would be hard pressed to name a profession—including academe itself—that does not demand some ability to interact effectively with other human beings. Yet higher education remains, especially in the humanities, a highly individualistic enterprise. In a typical English course, students write their essays for an audience of one—namely, the instructor who does the grading—while "group discussions" frequently consist of individuals talking directly to the teacher with little regard for their peers. In a discipline built around the ideal of the lone genius, our epigraph to this section remains as wishfully subversive today as it was a century and a half ago.
    • Barbara Lindsey
      Barbara Lindsey on 10 Sep 07
       
      Response?
  • Teaching to the future involves harnessing the collaborative impulses already at large in digital culture and directing them toward educational ends, so that "group work" shifts in our students' perception from an eyeroll-inducing educational gimmick to a cutting-edge skill worthy of cultivation and scrutiny.
    • Barbara Lindsey
      Barbara Lindsey on 10 Sep 07
       
      Comments?
  • Later, they take part in a formative peer assessment exercise during which we project draft versions of their final projects onscreen while classmates ask questions and provide suggestions for improvement. The success of this "Live Crit" session (a concept borrowed from architecture and the fine arts) reflects the atmosphere of collaboration and trust that we have consciously cultivated among the students all semester
    • Barbara Lindsey
      Barbara Lindsey on 16 Sep 08
       
      Again, similar to what Brown and Adler talk of when they discussed the open critic of architecht students' work.
    • Barbara Lindsey
      Barbara Lindsey on 10 Sep 07
       
      Could you envision using this in your courses and how?
  • Exhibit 4).
  • Higher education is an aquifer, not a spigot.
  • "The Poem of the Contents of Everybody's Pockets"; on the second day, we send them off around campus to chalk poems on the ground in public places; on the third day, we engage them in a critical analysis of both events, prompting them to come up with inventive ways in which such multifaceted live performances might be recorded (photographed? taped? videoed? narrativized?) for posterity.
    • Barbara Lindsey
      Barbara Lindsey on 10 Sep 07
       
      How about for a language or lit course?
  • (Exhibit 7).
  • with the students' enthusiastic permission—as permanent exhibits in the Archives section of our course Web site
    • Barbara Lindsey
      Barbara Lindsey on 16 Sep 08
       
      What about a permanent archive of exemplary work for all to benefit from?
  • Exhibit 3
    • Barbara Lindsey
      Barbara Lindsey on 16 Sep 08
       
      Very important note here.
  • "In the coming decades," warns hypertext theorist Jerome McGann, "the entirety of our cultural inheritance will be transformed and re-edited in digital forms," a monumental task for which both we and our students remain, by and large, seriously underprepared (2005, 181).
    • Barbara Lindsey
      Barbara Lindsey on 16 Sep 08
       
      the entirety--transformed and re-edited!
  • to teach our students not to follow in our footsteps but to outstrip us.
Barbara Lindsey

Big Ideas - Exploring the Essential Questions of Education - 0 views

www.authenticeducation.org/...article.lasso

assessment UbD formative Wiggins writing students Glastonbury aroundtheworld beyondwebct

shared by Barbara Lindsey on 26 Feb 10 - Cached
  • Barbara Lindsey on 26 Feb 10
     
    Written homework as formative assessment. Suggested activities for students.
Barbara Lindsey

FRONTLINE: digital nation: reactions to digital nation: henry jenkins | PBS - 0 views

www.pbs.org/...ital-nation-henry-jenkins.html

frontline digitalnation henry_jenkins discussion pbs

shared by Barbara Lindsey on 04 Feb 10 - Cached
  • I have found the Digital Nation website to be an extraordinary resource which I used repeatedly in my teaching last semester, drawing in many different segments to stimulate discussion, to allow students to hear more directly the point of view and see the personalities of writers we were engaging with through our readings. What works for me about the website is that it is multi-vocal, allowing many points of view to be expressed on more or less equal footing, encouraging reflection as people make their own decisions about what to watch and how to juxtapose the pieces. I doubt any two readers took the same path through this material or any two teachers used the resources the website provides in precisely the same ways. Y
  • The website allows us to ask our own questions, while the documentary tells us what to think.
  • For example, I might use the documentary to talk about the primacy effect -- the degree to which what comes first in a linear media experience sets the horizon of expectations and frames how we understand the material which follows. It strikes me that we go more than 20 minutes into the film before we hear what might be considered an authoritative voice offering a sympathetic comment about the value of digital media and that initial critical framing of media as a social problem gets reasserted multiple times in the course of the documentary. This surely encourages greater skepticism when alternative viewpoints get expressed later.
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • We might talk about the ways that voice-over narrators carry much greater weight in our response to documentaries than the subjects they are drawing upon
  • We might talk about conversion narratives such as the way Rushkoff deploys his own shifts in thinking to add greater credibility to his current position in the classic "once was lost but now am found" tradition of religious witnessing.
  • We might talk about notions of juxtaposition -- the ways that each positive claim is followed by a critical perspective, while for the most part, people who are more sympathetic to new media practices are not allowed to interject or challenge claims made in the more critical segments.
  • As someone who taught at MIT for 20 years, I scarcely recognized the place depicted on the documentary -- I certainly would have no trouble creating a documentary which arrived at the exact opposite conclusion about what was going on when those students used their computers in the classroom.
  • Critics of new media are allowed to make unqualified statements, while advocates are shown to be more equivocating. The result of such practices over time has served to polarize the conversation -- so we are either for or against digital media, it is either good or bad, rather than allowing a meaningful discussion of its potentials and risks, its benefits and problems, which might allow for us over time to find common ground and act meaningfully in response to a situation none of us fully understand.
  • I am struck by how consistently the documentary connects new media practices to hot button issues within the demographic which is most apt to watch PBS -- framing digital media in opposition to books, say, or linking it to the military or to corporations.
  • You had a chance to do so much more than this -- creating a context where serious thinkers with a range of different perspectives can talk through their differences and try to arrive at a more nuanced understanding of a complex situation. I believe the website did this. I believe an online conversation may do this. I don't think the documentary does. What does this tell us about television as a vehicle for serious reflection? What does this suggest about the value of the kinds of social spaces for open ended inquiry and discussion digital media at its best can provide? For example, what does it suggest about the need of television to compress for time and the potential of the web to offer unlimited material?
  • It is nonsensical to make a judgement about whether the web is good or bad. The web is. How do we use it in a way which maximizes the benefits and lowers the risks?
Barbara Lindsey

Deliberate Engagement of Laptops in Large Lecture Classes to Improve Attentiveness and ... - 0 views

www.lecturetools.com/...Deliberate_Engagement.pdf

laptops classroom large engagement learning2.0

shared by Barbara Lindsey on 29 Jan 11 - No Cached
  • Barbara Lindsey on 29 Jan 11
     
    The value of in-class Internet technologies to student attentiveness, engagement, and learning remains both controversial and filled with promising potential. In this study, students were given the option to use LectureTools, an interactive suite of tools designed specifically for larger classes. The availability of these tools dramatically changed the mechanics of the course as over 90% of students attending lecture voluntarily brought their laptops to class. On one hand, surveys over multiple semesters show that students believe the availability of a laptop is more likely to increase their time on tasks unrelated to the conduct of the course. On the other hand, the surveys also ascertained that students felt more attentive with the technology, significantly more engaged, and able to learn more with the technology than in similar classes without it. LectureTools also led to a dramatic increase in the number of students posing questions during class time, with more than half posing at least one question during class over the course of a semester, a percentage far higher than achieved in semesters prior to the use of this technology. These results suggest that while having laptops in the classroom can be a distraction to students, students of today show confidence that they are capable of productive multitasking, showing that they not only can handle this technology when applied through "deliberate engagement" using tools like LectureTools, but thrive with it, as seen through improved attentiveness, learning, and overall engagement even in larger classes.
Barbara Lindsey

Homepage | Poor Economics - 0 views

pooreconomics.com

economics global poverty UCONN educationaltrends

shared by Barbara Lindsey on 06 Sep 11 - No Cached
  • Barbara Lindsey on 06 Sep 11
     
    Suggest as the UCONN Reads book
Barbara Lindsey

elearnspace › A Comparison of an Open Access University Press with Traditiona... - 0 views

www.elearnspace.org/...press-with-traditional-presses

openaccess publishing scholarly research opencontent siemens

shared by Barbara Lindsey on 16 Sep 11 - No Cached
  • Results suggest that there is no significant difference in the Amazon rankings. This suggests that releasing academic books on open access does not lessen printed book sales online in comparison with traditional university presses using Amazon.com and Amazon.ca rankings. On the other hand, AUPress, because it is open access and publicly available at no cost, can boast of having a significantly larger readership for its books. The traditional university presses, because of their cost, print-only format, and other proprietary limitations are not readily available and therefore not accessible to many potential readers.
  • if you’re publishing, think beyond the financial impact of a book. Consider peripheral factors such as extending the reach of your work and non-monetary reward factors such as connecting with colleagues in emerging economies, speaking invitations, collaboration opportunities, etc.
Barbara Lindsey

The Magic of Going Mobile: Augmented Reality, Design Thinking and the Power of Place | ... - 0 views

spotlight.macfound.org/...ty-design-thinking-power-place

augmentedreality mobile learning storytelling place

shared by Barbara Lindsey on 01 May 12 - No Cached
  • Game designers say that as a narrative tool, ARIS is especially primed for helping educators create structures that allow students to go out into new environments, collect information, and then to aggregate, find patterns, and make meaning of that information.
  • Alice Leung, a teacher at Merrylands High School in Sydney, Australia, recently used ARIS with a group of students to design a tour of the school’s main landmarks for student orientation day.
    • Barbara Lindsey
      Barbara Lindsey on 01 May 12
       
      What I suggested to the Global Curriculum Committee over 5 years ago...
  • “The rich area for kids is really designing,” he says. “Being part of community, play testing, learning about content, science, civics, social studies. It’s a really rich space where people move from players to designers and back. People are rallying around them and commenting on each other’s work.”
  • Barbara Lindsey on 01 May 12
     
    fall 2012 syllabus
Barbara Lindsey

SpeEdChange: Considering Universal Design - 0 views

speedchange.blogspot.com/...sidering-universal-design.html

UDL universal design socol

shared by Barbara Lindsey on 04 Jun 10 - Cached
  • UDL means many things, depending on which group of researchers and advocates you are speaking to, but the general idea is to create learning environment which can be individually adapted to learner needs. In other words, the environment adapts rather than forcing the learner to.
  • educational institutions, content delivery systems, assessment systems, and ICT should be flexible enough to meet the diverse needs of the learner population.
  • And school ends in graduate school with them telling you that you are making your citations wrong - not that they can't tell where you got your information from, you're just not conforming absolutely to whichever nonsensical citation system your particular department has chosen to embrace."
    • Barbara Lindsey
      Barbara Lindsey on 17 Oct 11
       
      Do you see any problems with either conforming to or not conforming to an agreed upon citation system? What is Socol's argument here? Is this a good example for his argument? 
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • A decade ago the Centre for Applied Special Technology (CAST) proposed 3 principles that could be applied to the curriculum and set an agenda for inclusion, as follows:1. Provide multiple representations of content.2. Provide multiple options for expression and control.3. Provide multiple options for engagement and motivation.and these remain essential, but I want to add a fourth which must apply to them all:4. That these representations and options be available to all students on the basis of understood needs and/or informed preference, without the need for diagnosis.
    • Barbara Lindsey
      Barbara Lindsey on 17 Oct 11
       
      To what extent have you experienced this in the courses you've taken? Would offering this to your students be helpful to them? Would it change the way you assess? Would this change the way a course is taught? How a program is structured? Do you see any problems with this?
  • This is not just privileging one media form over another, this is elevating the "how" over the "what" to an extreme extent. It not only humiliates those labelled with "disabilities," it refuses to accommodate the very legitimate choices of all students. Choices which might significantly improve the comfort, attention capabilities, and learning opportunities for that 60%-65% who currently fall far behind, and might even help those already doing well to achieve their full potential.
  • Under UDL content would be fully flexible in delivery.
  • UDL should really go further - especially in recognizing that not all students benefit from following the same path to skills and knowledge. Any system which applies the same pedagogy to all students is clearly not a universal design (in my mind it is not even moral). Insisting on everyone using the same textbook, or doing the exact same assignments, or following the same schedule - those are all industrial practices which are based in the belief that students are a raw material which can be shaped by repeated stampings. Any claims to some kind of rational meritocracy within that "same requirements" argument are simply a mask for the essential anti-humaness of the system.
    • Barbara Lindsey
      Barbara Lindsey on 17 Oct 11
       
      Would love to hear your thought on this assertion by Socol. If you agree with what he says, how would/could you structure the courses you teach? How could the courses you are taking as a student change? Would that help you? Could these courses then attract more diverse students? What would the learning look like? The assessments?
  • "Create something," he told us, "which demonstrates your in-depth knowledge of at least one critical moment in that century."
    • Barbara Lindsey
      Barbara Lindsey on 17 Oct 11
       
      How would you design an assessment around this?
  • I am not imparting malice to their position, simply suggesting that there is little incentive - emotionally, psychologically, or economically - for them to change.
    • Barbara Lindsey
      Barbara Lindsey on 17 Oct 11
       
      Do you think this is true?
  • I think that teacher training institutions should be required to have at least a third of their teaching and research faculty consist of individuals who have special needs, or who needed alternative educations, or who simply did badly in school.
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