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Barbara Lindsey

Do You Speak "Academia"? » Edurati Review - 0 views

eduratireview.com/...do-you-speak-academia

academia writing journals

shared by Barbara Lindsey on 06 Sep 10 - No Cached
  • the opening main clause, “Education is an all-encompassing institution,” makes little sense, and the rest of the sentence fails to clarify its meaning. The use of “each and every” is redundant; if each continent and culture, then, by default, it is every continent and culture. After the semicolon, good verbs become weak adjectives: functional and organizational. The entire paragraph could be restructured as an easily understood sentence: In every society, schools organize, function, and operate similarly.
  • Why pick on paragraphs pulled from their contexts? If you read (or try to read) educational journals, you’ll find that these examples are not isolated. They illustrate the “academic style” characterizing such periodicals. These periodicals, their supporters argue, provide the link between research and classroom practice. But the poor communication—the academic writing—requires the reader to add steps to the usually efficient cognition of comprehension. The reader is forced to pause and ask, “What does that mean in plain English?” It’s not that different from reading text in a second language, one in which the reader may be knowledgeable but not proficient.
  • This same gap often exists between students and their textbooks.
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • This issue is so prevalent that some experts recommend we teach students “academic language.”
  • This additional distance between the writer and reader decreases the likelihood that the journals will actually be read. And if the journals are not read by teachers, the research will be slow to influence educational practice, if it does at all.
  • We are spending time, effort, and sometimes money on research doomed to remain idle because it’s not communicated well. The poor writing prevents worthwhile application.
  • If understanding depends on translating the language, students who struggle with this prerequisite may lack the motivation or inertia to think beyond, or even through, the interpretation. We’re making understanding more difficult—a seeming antithesis to our role as educators.
  • Why can’t “academic” journals and textbooks utilize common principles of good writing. Why do we insist on communication complexity when our goals would be better served by simple clarity?
  • Status? Are we insisting on “academic writing” because it separates journals from the “rags” intended for the masses or textbooks from the unlearned? If so, our goal must be to maintain some perceived elite readership—a readership probably not teaching or sitting in our classrooms.
  • Do we think that our research and subject matter is complicated, therefore our communicating should also be complex? This is so contrary to logic and sound teaching that it’s an oxymoron.
  • A complex topic requires simple writing, especially when the reader likely lacks the author’s background knowledge and experience. This is almost always the case when a researcher seeks to address individuals who were not part of the research team or involved in similar research themselves, or when experts in a field seek to articulate concepts for students.
  • Medina presents ideas simply and in ways known to foster learning. As the brain engages in elaboration, it overlays new data with known experiences, making connections that help construct understanding. Medina relates a new, complex topic to a familiar childhood activity—origami (even though he is not writing for children). By giving us a reference point for understanding DNA, he equips us with the tools needed to construct understanding. Isn’t this what we should be striving for, both in our textbooks and our journals?
Barbara Lindsey

Assessment | FunnyMonkey - 0 views

funnymonkey.com/assessment

assessment standards content learning

shared by Barbara Lindsey on 14 Sep 10 - No Cached
  • When a curriculum is defined by a pre-packaged text, teachers and students are relegated to content consumers.
  • Any process used to "learn" the material is overshadowed by the means of assessment that defines the experience, and defines one's success or failure within that experience.
  • Ironically, the quest for efficiency in assessment has occurred at the expense of efficiency in learning.
Barbara Lindsey

Education - One Day On Earth - 0 views

www.onedayonearth.org/...education-1

education global 101010 globaled10

shared by Barbara Lindsey on 13 Sep 10 - Cached
  • Barbara Lindsey on 13 Sep 10
     
    Across the planet, documentary filmmakers, students, and inspired citizens will record the human experience over a 24-hour period. By participating in this historic event, you will help capture the diversity of life and culture on this planet. Together we will create a document that is a gift to the world.
Barbara Lindsey

Presentation Zen Bento Box - dr. jude rathburn's posterous - 0 views

4edtechies.posterous.com/presentation-zen-bento-box

presentationzen presentationtools assessmentforlearning

shared by Barbara Lindsey on 25 Sep 10 - No Cached
  • Take an hour to show Garr's award winning Presentation Zen video (included in the bento box) so that people can see the principles in action before trying to design their own presentations. 
  • since viewers are not familiar with the approach, I found it is helpful to take some time to discuss each element.
  • rovide risk-free (i.e. low stakes) opportunities for learners to practice various elements of the Presentation Zen approach, share the results and provide peer reviews.
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • In my senior level strategic management seminar I asked people to break up into groups of three and then distributed a Fortune article about a local firm so that we would all be working with the same course-related content.  I gave them class time to read the article and also provided an organizing framework to help them focus on the main themes regarding the company's business strategy.  I also printed out a blank storyboard using the 3-slide handout feature in MSPowerPoint and distributed a few copies to each group.  Their task was to come to some consensus about the most interesting aspect of the company's strategy and identify the one central point that they wanted to get across in their 2-3 minute presentation.  The only other constraints were that they had to include one slide that highlighted some data that supported their central point and they had to create their storyboard and script in analog form before they opened their laptops. 
  • I asked each group to create a narrated presentation using either Keynote or PowerPoint, which they then uploaded to a discussion forum in our web-based course management system.  Each student also reviewed at least one other group's presentation, providing feedback on content, as well as the application of the Presentation Zen approach.  I provided feedback in the forum as well, commenting on the presentations themselves and the peer reviews.  Everyone who participated got full credit, which is why I referred to the practice presentation and peer review as a risk-free or low stakes activity.
  • Provide an example of a presentation that used the Presentation Zen approach, along with the storyboard and script
  • It also opens the door for viewers to give me feedback on the effectiveness of the design decisions I made and offer suggestions on how to improve my presentation.  I have found that opening up the conversation and giving students permission to review my work helps to strengthen our connection and improves my practice at the same time.  It also helps me demonstrate that it takes time and practice to implement the PZ approach - we are all a work in progress!
  • My final tip, at least for now, is to give people plenty of opportunities to practice using the Presentation Zen approach and give and receive feedback.  My students decided they wanted to create at least four presentations throughout the course to demonstrate their understanding of course concepts and their ability to apply those concepts to real world examples. 
  • Barbara Lindsey on 25 Sep 10
     
    Talks about using Garr Reynold's Presentation Zen approach to designing presentations and how he structures his students' (and his) learning experiences in using this approach.
Barbara Lindsey

Online Learning in Higher Education. | D'etre une prof! - 0 views

didanglais.edublogs.org/...e-learning-in-higher-education

online learning higher ed learncentral elluminate

shared by Barbara Lindsey on 30 Sep 10 - No Cached
  • Barbara Lindsey on 30 Sep 10
     
    Candida blogged about her experience with us immediately after our LearnCentral session on online learning in higher ed
Barbara Lindsey

Cell Phones in the (Language) Classroom: Recasting the Debate (EDUCAUSE Quarterly) | EDUCAUSE - 0 views

www.educause.edu/...192995

shared by Barbara Lindsey on 06 Oct 10 - Cached
  • My Google Voice number has served primarily as a messaging service students call (sometimes spontaneously during the instructional period, more often outside of the classroom) to record dialogues, poetry, even song, either individually or in pairs. These recordings are stored on Google servers, but can be downloaded and posted on course management pages (Moodle, Blackboard, Sakai, etc.) or podcasting, blogging, or social networking sites (I post particularly good recordings on my Spanish Facebook page). While I have yet to experiment with this particular feature, Google Voice can also be used for conference calling, and dialogues with groups of students can be recorded for later informal group or formal teacher evaluation.
    • Barbara Lindsey
      Barbara Lindsey on 06 Oct 10
       
      Do you see any issues with posting recordings on Facebook?
  • It is generally accepted that students work harder and become more engaged and invested in activities and assignments that might be publicly posted (on the Internet or otherwise). My own experience shows that students required to record speech of any kind in a computer laboratory setting spend considerable time preparing prior to recording. The very act of recording their voices — creating a permanent record of their speech — instilled a strong desire to perform well. In short, the act of recording increased students’ investment and engagement in the learning process.
    • Barbara Lindsey
      Barbara Lindsey on 06 Oct 10
       
      Do you find this to be true for your students as well? How about for you?
  • The access that I had to that student combined with the ease and speed of communication presented by Google Voice solved more than a pronunciation problem; it likely helped me head off a building class management issue by engaging that student on his terms outside of the classroom setting.
    • Barbara Lindsey
      Barbara Lindsey on 06 Oct 10
       
      Your thoughts?
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • “I have a student who hasn’t done any homework this quarter, and out of the blue he sent me a goofy text message to my Google Voice number — completely unrelated to Spanish — something like “I hate this rain”— and, being the nerdy teacher, I texted him immediately back in Spanish: “No me gusta la lluvia tampoco.” One day later, he walks in for the first time with his homework and makes a big production about turning it in. I can’t help but feel that the personal connection of texting helped him remember — and actually want to do — the work for my class.”
  • While not all students will text back when I supply SMS feedback, those that do, like this one, tend to be looking for specifics and positive reinforcement. How is this additional engagement and interaction bad?
Barbara Lindsey

Information overload, the early years - The Boston Globe - 0 views

www.boston.com/...ation_overload_the_early_years

information overload bostonglobe finding filtering books Gutenberg printing press

shared by Barbara Lindsey on 27 Nov 10 - No Cached
  • In many ways, our key methods of coping with overload haven’t changed since the 16th century: We still need to select, summarize, and sort, and ultimately need human judgment and attention to guide the process.
  • Early modern compilers were driven by this enthusiasm, even beyond their hopes for acquiring reputation or financial gain. Today, we see the same impulse in the proliferation of cooperative information sharing on the Internet, such as the many designers and programmers sharing new ways to visualize and efficiently use huge quantities of data. In democratizing our ability to contribute to a universal encyclopedia of experience and information, the Internet has shown just how widespread that long-running ambition remains today.
  • Overload has long been fueled by our own enthusiasm — the enthusiasm for accumulating and sharing knowledge and information, and also for experimenting with new forms of organizing and presenting it.
  • Barbara Lindsey on 27 Nov 10
     
    Final page of article
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

My School, Meet MySpace: Social Networking at School | Edutopia - 0 views

www.edutopia.org/my-school-meet-myspace

21stcentury critical pedagogy education sla technology web2.0

shared by Barbara Lindsey on 11 Jul 08 - Cached
  • Months before the newly hired teachers at Philadelphia's Science Leadership Academy (SLA) started their jobs, they began the consuming work of creating the high school of their dreams -- without meeting face to face. They articulated a vision, planned curriculum, designed assessment rubrics, debated discipline policies, and even hammered out daily schedules using the sort of networking tools -- messaging, file swapping, idea sharing, and blogging -- kids love on sites such as MySpace.
  • hen, weeks before the first day of school, the incoming students jumped onboard -- or, more precisely, onto the Science Leadership Academy Web site -- to meet, talk with their teachers, and share their hopes for their education. So began a conversation that still perks along 24/7 in SLA classrooms and cyberspace. It's a bold experiment to redefine learning spaces, the roles and relationships of teachers and students, and the mission of the modern high school.
  • When I hear people say it's our job to create the twenty-first-century workforce, it scares the hell out of me," says Chris Lehmann, SLA's founding principal. "Our job is to create twenty-first-century citizens. We need workers, yes, but we also need scholars, activists, parents -- compassionate, engaged people. We're not reinventing schools to create a new version of a trade school. We're reinventing schools to help kids be adaptable in a world that is changing at a blinding rate."
  • ...11 more annotations...
  • It's the spirit of science rather than hardcore curriculum that permeates SLA. "In science education, inquiry-based learning is the foothold," Lehmann says. "We asked, 'What does it mean to build a school where everything is based on the core values of science: inquiry, research, collaboration, presentation, and reflection?'"
  • It means the first-year curriculum is built around essential questions: Who am I? What influences my identity? How do I interact with my world? In addition to science, math, and engineering, core courses include African American history, Spanish, English, and a basic how-to class in technology that also covers Internet safety and the ethical use of information and software. Classes focus less on facts to be memorized and more on skills and knowledge for students to master independently and incorporate into their lives. Students rarely take tests; they write reflections and do "culminating" projects. Learning doesn't merely cross disciplines -- it shatters outdated departmental divisions. Recently, for instance, kids studied atomic weights in biochemistry (itself a homegrown interdisciplinary course), did mole calculations in algebra, and created Dalton models (diagrams that illustrate molecular structures) in art.
  • This is Dewey for the digital age, old-fashioned progressive education with a technological twist.
  • computers and networking are central to learning at, and shaping the culture of, SLA. "
  • he zest to experiment -- and the determination to use technology to run a school not better, but altogether differently -- began with Lehmann and the teachers last spring when they planned SLA online. Their use of Moodle, an open source course-management system, proved so easy and inspired such productive collaboration that Lehmann adopted it as the school's platform. It's rare to see a dog-eared textbook or pad of paper at SLA; everybody works on iBooks. Students do research on the Internet, post assignments on class Moodle sites, and share information through forums, chat, bookmarks, and new software they seem to discover every day.
  • Teachers continue to use Moodle to plan, dream, and learn, to log attendance and student performance, and to talk about everything -- from the student who shows up each morning without a winter coat to cool new software for tagging research sources. There's also a schoolwide forum called SLA Talk, a combination bulletin board, assembly, PA system, and rap session.
  • Web technology, of course, can do more than get people talking with those they see every day; people can communicate with anyone anywhere. Students at SLA are learning how to use social-networking tools to forge intellectual connections.
  • In October, Lehmann noticed that students were sorting themselves by race in the lunchroom and some clubs. He felt disturbed and started a passionate thread on self-segregation.
  • "Having the conversation changed the way kids looked at themselves," he says.
  • "What I like best about this school is the sense of community," says student Hannah Feldman. "You're not just here to learn, even though you do learn a lot. It's more like a second home."
  • As part of the study of memoirs, for example, Alexa Dunn's English class read Funny in Farsi, Firoozeh Dumas's account of growing up Iranian in the United States -- yes, the students do read books -- and talked with the author in California via Skype. The students also wrote their own memoirs and uploaded them to SLA's network for the teacher and class to read and edit. Then, digital arts teacher Marcie Hull showed the students GarageBand, which they used to turn their memoirs into podcasts. These they posted on the education social-networking site EduSpaces (formerly Elgg); they also posted blogs about the memoirs.
Barbara Lindsey

Second Life: Do You Need One? (Part 4) : July 2007 : THE Journal - 0 views

www.thejournal.com/...20986_4

shared by Barbara Lindsey on 02 Dec 07 - Cached
    • Barbara Lindsey
      Barbara Lindsey on 02 Dec 07
       
      This is a fascinating insight that should be investigated further.
  • Digital learners then typically end up in extremely diverse networks, further expanding their cultural experience in the digital world.  Digital learners are also constantly faced with challenges to their established real world social norms and ask some very tough questions about those real world dividers.  Many traditional visitors remain in those topic-centered social groups, which typically consist of people of common interest and backgrounds, providing them less immersion into the diversity of the digital environment.
    • Barbara Lindsey
      Barbara Lindsey on 02 Dec 07
       
      This is a fascinating insight that should be investigated further.
  • Most traditional educator-visitors soon ask how they can find the space inworld to create a "classroom."  The result is typically a walled building, with ceilings, desks and chairs, and a lectern at the front next to a PowerPoint screen.  Digital visitors may also request space for a "classroom," but it is more likely to end up being a platform floating in the sky, with clouds instead of chairs, and digital media streamed onto the side of a giant bubble floating in the middle of the space.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • this point represents a key distinction between the traditional and digital person.  While the traditional educator approaches the virtual world to learn how it can be used in education, the digital educator approaches the environment asking how this experience can change the entire practice of teaching and learning.  One seeks to perhaps adapt their current practices to fit a new environment, while the other looks to completely transform what they do based upon the opportunity provided in the virtual world.
    • Barbara Lindsey
      Barbara Lindsey on 02 Dec 07
       
      Key distinction in most technology-enhanced learning environments.
    • Barbara Lindsey
      Barbara Lindsey on 02 Dec 07
       
      key distinction in much adaptation/adoption of technology-enhanced learning environments.
  • traditional educators seek a structure to their inworld activities, while digital learners self define a process to reach the outcome they have decided upon. 
  • digital gamers are familiar with self-investigation to determine what is needed to "win the mission" and seek only resources and support.
Barbara Lindsey

Web 2.0: beyond the buzz words | 4 Jun 2007 | ComputerWeekly.com - 0 views

www.computerweekly.com/...-2.0-beyond-the-buzz-words.htm

web2.0

shared by Barbara Lindsey on 11 Sep 08 - Cached
  • Lee Bryant, one of the founders of Headshift, says the network effect is the difference. Traditional applications, such as groupware, became slower the more people used them, he says. With Web 2.0 applications the reverse is true: the more people use them, the more effective they become.
  • “You influence each other, so that if you use a social tagging system, for example, themes start to emerge and other people pick up on them and you get these positive feedback loops. It is that difference that leads to the network effect.”
  • These technologies are mostly just HTML and Javascript web pages designed to offer a more streamlined user experience, sitting atop a relational data layer used to feed back user-contributed data in new ways.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • “We suddenly have enough bandwidth, memory and computing power around these net-centric platforms,” he says. This means that the “people-to-people” concept that Web 1.0 wanted to accomplish can be supported, but with software interfaces that make it easier to contribute.
  • Seely Brown’s project-by-project approach is well-advised. “Start by putting together a decent collection of RSS feeds relevant to your project,” says Bryant. Then, enabling the posting and sharing of bookmarks will help glean knowledge from the project team. Complementing this with blogs will enable people to spend more time on those elements from the bookmarks and feeds that are particularly relevant and need further articulation.
  • Understanding the difference between consuming newsfeeds and consuming e-mail demonstrates a wider cultural shift that needs to take place in Web 2.0-savvy organisations. Generally, e-mails demand focused attention. They are processed in sequence and each takes a couple of minutes (or more) from your day. Handling newsfeeds and blog posts in that way would make you unproductive, says Bryant. They require a “river of news” approach, in which workers skim large amounts of information for helpful nuggets. Social tagging helps to naturally elevate certain topics above others by making them more popular.Finally, a wiki will help escalate blog discussion to more collaborative working, as needed. This has certainly been Ward’s experience: “The way the sites tend to work is that the blog is where people have a dialogue, but if it moves into more detailed work, it moves into the wiki,” she says.
Barbara Lindsey

Curricula Designed to Meet 21st-Century Expectations | Resources | EDUCAUSE - 0 views

www.educause.edu/...6065

expectations implementation student technology

shared by Barbara Lindsey on 21 Oct 07 - Cached
  • W here students had once called a large number of their classes "death by lecture," she noted they were now calling them "death by PowerPoint." >
  • here students had once called a large number of their classes "death by lecture," she noted they were now calling them "death by PowerPoint."
    • Barbara Lindsey
      Barbara Lindsey on 21 Oct 07
       
      Not representative sample
  • ...13 more annotations...
  • With such specific applications of technology and the limited use of other forms (for example, multimedia), students' low expectations for the use of technology in the curriculum is not surprising. Such constrained use of technology by the faculty in the curriculum and low student expectations may serve to limit innovation and creativity as well as the faculty's capacity to engage students more deeply in their subject matter. Like all organizations, colleges and universities respond to the demands placed upon them. Students' and institutions' low expectations for the use of technology for learning provide insufficient impetus for faculties to change their behavior and make broader, more innovative use of these tools in the service of learning.
  • Consider this scenario:
  • From the beginning, however, a problem arose in that those middle school students went on to high schools and later to colleges that did not (and do not) provide this type of rich learning experience—a learning experience that can best be achieved when technology is used in the service of learning.
  • Data obtained from these sessions with high school and college seniors in Indiana, Oregon, and Virginia
  • Less attention has been given to how to help students achieve the desired learning outcomes through technology.
  • Faculty concerns perhaps center less on being "replaceable" and more on worrying that the teaching and learning enterprise will be reduced to students gathering information that can be easily downloaded, causing them to rely too heavily on technology instead of intellect.
    • Barbara Lindsey
      Barbara Lindsey on 21 Oct 07
       
      Mentioned frequently by our group members.
  • To develop intentional learners, the curriculum must go beyond helping students gain knowledge for knowledge's sake to engaging students in the construction of knowledge for the sake of addressing the challenges faced by a complex, global society.
  • institutional structures and practices to resolve technical problems that faculty invariably encounter are very limited or are not the type of aid needed. Such lack of support limits the amount of time faculty can spend on what they do best—building a compelling curriculum and integrating technology for more powerful learning.
  • integrating study abroad into courses back on the home campus;
  • comparatively little support has been devoted to helping faculty use computers and other technologies in creative and innovative ways to deepen student learning.
  • First, traditional age students overwhelmingly prefer face-to-face contact with faculty to mediated communication. Second, technology used in the service of learning will require more—not less—sophistication on the part of students as they engage in processes of integration, translation, audience analysis, and critical judgment.
  • Faculty with expertise in one or more subjects, who have been exposed to what we know about how people learn, can determine how to enhance this learning through the use of technology. But simply understanding how to use technology will not provide the integration needed to reach the desired learning outcomes.
    • Barbara Lindsey
      Barbara Lindsey on 21 Oct 07
       
      Last sentence here most important.
  • There is a need for integrating technology that is in the service of learning throughout the curriculum. More intentional use of technology to capture what students know and are able to integrate in their learning is needed.
Barbara Lindsey

Convenience, Communications, and Control: How Students Use Technology | Resources | EDUCAUSE - 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.
Barbara Lindsey

Digitally Speaking / Social Bookmarking and Annotating - 0 views

digitallyspeaking.pbworks.com/ial-Bookmarking-and-Annotating

diigo del.icio.us social bookmarking Ferriter actfl09

shared by Barbara Lindsey on 15 Feb 10 - Cached
  • intellectual philanthropy and collective intelligence
  • While these early interactions are simplistic processes that by themselves aren't enough to drive meaningful change in teaching and learning, they are essential because they provide team members with low risk opportunities to interact with one another around the topics, materials and instructional practices that should form the foundation of classroom learning experiences.
  • A tagging language is nothing more than a set of categories that all members of a group agree to use when bookmarking websites for shared projects.
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • In Shirky's terms, teams that embrace social bookmarking decrease the "cost" of  group transactions.  No longer do members resist sharing because it's too time consuming or difficult to be valuable. Instead, with a little bit of thought and careful planning, groups can make sharing resources---a key process that all learning teams have to learn to manage---remarkably easy and instant.
  • Imagine the collective power of an army of readers engaged in ongoing conversation about provocative ideas, challenging one another's thought, publicly debating, and polishing personal beliefs.  Imagine the cultural understandings that could develop between readers from opposite sides of the earth sharing thought together.  Imagine the potential for brainstorming global solutions, for holding government agencies accountable, or for gathering feedback from disparate stakeholder groups when reading moves from a "fundamentally private activity" to a "community event."
  • Understanding that there are times when users want their shared reading experiences to be more focused, however, Diigo makes it possible to keep highlights and annotations private or available to members of predetermined and self-selected groups.  For professional learning teams exploring instructional practices or for student research groups exploring content for classroom projects, this provides a measure of targeted exploration between likeminded thinkers.
  • Diigo takes the idea of collective exploration of content one step further by providing groups with the opportunity to create shared discussion forums
  • Many of today's teachers make a critical mistake when introducing digital tools by assuming that armed with a username and a password, students will automatically find meaningful ways to learn together.  The results can be disastrous.  Motivation wanes when groups using new services fail to meet reasonable standards of performance.  "Why did I bother to plug my students in for this project?" teachers wonder.  "They could have done better work with a piece of paper and a pencil!"
  • With shared annotation services like Diigo, powerful learning depends on much more than understanding the technical details behind adding highlights and comments for other members of a group to see.  Instead, powerful learning depends on the quality of the conversation that develops around the content being studied together.  That means teachers must systematically introduce students to a set of collaborative dialogue behaviors that can be easily implemented online.
suzanne ondrus

Ending the semester, Lessons Learned (Part 4: Assessment) | Language Lab Unleashed! - 0 views

www.languagelabunleashed.org/...sons-learned-part-4-assessment

assessment student-centered student-created sawhill

shared by suzanne ondrus on 09 Feb 10 - Cached
  • I see teaching as constantly re-tooling, tweaking, re-evaluating, scrapping, starting over.
  • One of my goals for this class (and for me) was to see what student-centered assessment would look like in a conversation class. I took a big leap and gave the reigns over to them. The content of the class and flow of the class was based on their interested and idea. They were there because they had personal goals that needed to be acknowledged and realized… or at least approximated.
    • Barbara Lindsey
      Barbara Lindsey on 16 Feb 10
       
      What do you think about this?
    • suzanne ondrus
      suzanne ondrus on 21 Feb 10
       
      This is a really cool idea! It resonates with Vance's approach.
  • What would happen if I felt they didn’t merit the grade they said they did? what if they all wanted an A+?
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • This is what I asked each student to do: 1) create a series of three goals or metas, one progressively more complex than the other, and each building upon the other, that were to be accomplished his term. The first goal was to be done by the end of March, the second by the end of April, the third maybe by the end of the term…but probably not. 2) create a series of tasks that s/he felt would lead to realizing those goals. 3) blog about about his or her progress at least 2 times per week 4) At the end of the term: write up a final self assessment (in English or in Spanish), reflecting upon the progress completed, including the work done in class that would contribute to these goals, and assign a grade for the term. The students needed to evidence of their progress as a way of justifying their chosen grade. CAVEAT: If the grade s/he chose was lower than one than I would have selected, they would get my grade and an explanation. If the grade was higher, we would continue the conversation and try to see what it was that I was missing. I was willing to be (and wanted to be!) swayed, given that this was the student’s assessment of his/her personal learning goals in Spanish.
  • Some (but very few indeed) met ALL of their goals. Almost all acknowledged that they had set up unrealistic expectations for themselves (in terms of how much they could get done in a semester) and many used their self assessment as a way to set up future goals for their language growth. (Exactly the kinda thing you hope to see happen…learning extending beyond the limits imposed by the classroom).
    • Barbara Lindsey
      Barbara Lindsey on 16 Feb 10
       
      If I understand correctly, Barbara Sawhill then did not tell them to revise their metagoals?
  • A shy, timid young man, he did not mention in his evaluation the class discussion he led, and managed, and blogged about at the end of the term… nor did he see how any of this was helping him move towards his most lofty goal…to be able to travel with friends in Spain and to be able to communicate with ease and without anxiety.
  • It pains me to read this, but not because of the critiques she makes about me, the tools, or the class. It pains me because Edie passed on an opportunity to try something new, experiment, take a calculated risk…all things she will eventually have to do when she travels in another culture. It’s sad because she was the only student who did not “let go” of something during the semester and instead just held on tight to how she wanted this class to be, vs how it really, truly was. Unstructured to her meant undirected. Allowing the group to decide the flow of the class frustrated her, because the cadence of the class was not one that was controlled by the teacher and therefore predictable
    • Barbara Lindsey
      Barbara Lindsey on 16 Feb 10
       
      Do you think this is a fair critique?
    • suzanne ondrus
      suzanne ondrus on 21 Feb 10
       
      I don't see how this problem situation happened. The teachr said that each individual student had to make individual goals and tasks!
  • In the end, she presented me with a chart that logged over 40 hours of Skype conversations with a native speaker she eventually found, and 110 pages (!) of chat transcripts with others with whom she tried to make regular contact. In class, as a result of her out of class experiences, she became more involved and engaged, eventually leading a class discussion about her interests in music, but doing so such that it wove itself in with the topic the class was discussing that week.
    • Barbara Lindsey
      Barbara Lindsey on 16 Feb 10
       
      Is there anything in Batson's interview, "Beyond Campus Boundaries", that you see reflected here? Could you picture using similar assessments with your students?
Barbara Lindsey

Great first impressions of videoconferencing via Google Chat » Moving at the Speed of Creativity - 0 views

www.speedofcreativity.org/...eoconferencing-via-google-chat

fryer videoconferencing video chat google skype ichat

shared by Barbara Lindsey on 13 Feb 10 - Cached
  • Barbara Lindsey on 13 Feb 10
     
    Wes Fryer's experience video conferencing with Google Voice
Barbara Lindsey

Sacramento Press / We don't need no stinking badges? - 0 views

www.sacramentopress.com/...Badges

authority knowledge reporting news infomation

shared by Barbara Lindsey on 03 Feb 10 - No Cached
  • Barbara Lindsey on 03 Feb 10
     
    A made-from-scratch platform for hyperlocal news and advertising uses storylines, rather than articles or posts, to organize current and archived information. The site advances and integrates interface design, Web publishing, data analytics, digital media and the social Web to deliver a unique, warm and engaging hyper-local user experience. Rolling out authority badges to distinguish staff refporters from community contributors
Barbara Lindsey

Digital Natives - 0 views

www.digitalnative.org/#home

digital natives cybersafety fryer media

shared by Barbara Lindsey on 07 Feb 10 - Cached
  • Barbara Lindsey on 07 Feb 10
     
    A collaborative space supported by the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School and the Research Center for Information Law at the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland. The project's goal is to better understand young people's experiences with digital media, including Internet, cell phones and related technologies. By gaining insight into how digital natives make sense of their interactions in this digital lanscape, we may address the issues their practices raise, learn how to harness the opportunities their digital fluency presents, and shape our regulatory and educational frameworks in a way that advances the public interest. Thx to Wes Fryer for this find!
Celeste Arrieta

Consensus: Podcasting Has No 'Inherent' Pedagogic Value -- Campus Technology - 1 views

campustechnology.com/...-inherent-pedagogic-value.aspx

shared by Celeste Arrieta on 12 Mar 10 - Cached
  • "Podcasting does not contain any inherent value. It is only valuable inasmuch as it helps the instructor and students reach their educational goals, by facilitating thoughtful, engaging learning activities that are designed to work in support of those goals."
    • Barbara Lindsey
      Barbara Lindsey on 12 Mar 10
       
      You are on a job interview. You've been asked if and how you would use podcasting with your students. How would you respond?
    • Inas Ayyoub
      Inas Ayyoub on 15 Mar 10
       
      As a language teacher , I would highly be interested in using podcasting with my students. The point here comes to not only ask students to download certain podcasts to repeat words and have an all time accessable materials to improve pronunciation and study vocabs. The ability to link what students listen to on the podcasts with post activities to be performed in the classroom that help them even go beyond what that podcast has to offer, is one key to do that. So, using podcasting hould be highly planned and integrated in a way that serves our desired outcomes that will lead at the end to empower students to create or add podcasts that serve that as well.
    • Barbara Lindsey
      Barbara Lindsey on 18 Mar 10
       
      Inas-this is a wonderful example of extending the learning outside the classroom and then bringing it back into the classroom to reinforce and advance students' competencies. If you were on an interview, you might want to give a specific example. Could you think of one?
    • Celeste Arrieta
      Celeste Arrieta on 18 Mar 10
       
      ...and how the tool is connected to the class goal so it can be meaningful for the learning experience. Personally, I used them frequently as "realia" sources to develop other activities.
    • Celeste Arrieta
      Celeste Arrieta on 18 Mar 10
       
      I can't find my sticky notes for this web site. I did it 3 times. If you can see any of them, please let me know. Thanks
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • "The answer to that question depends entirely on the educational context, including goals and appropriate learning activities, and on how the tool is implemented,"
    • Celeste Arrieta
      Celeste Arrieta on 18 Mar 10
       
      ...and how the tool is connected to the class goal so it can be meaningful for the learning experience. Personally, I used them frequently as "realia" sources to develop other activities.
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