“A generation of children has grown up with continuous connectivity to the internet. A few years ago, nobody had a piece of plastic to which they could ask questions and have it answer back. The Greeks spoke of the oracle of Delphi. We’ve created it. People don’t talk to a machine. They talk to a huge collective of people, a kind of hive. Our generation [Mitra is 64] doesn’t see that. We just see a lot of interlinked web pages
“Within five years, you will not be able to tell if somebody is consulting the internet or not. The internet will be inside our heads anywhere and at any time. What then will be the value of knowing things? We shall have acquired a new sense. Knowing will have become collective.”
if you imagine me and my phone as a single entity, yes. Very soon, asking somebody to read without their phone will be like telling them to read without their glasses.”
Twenty children are asked a “big question” such as “Why do we learn history?”, “Is the universe infinite?”, “Should children ever go to prison?” or “How do bees make honey?” They are then left to find the answers using five computers. The ratio of four children to one computer is deliberate: Mitra insists that the children must collaborate. “There should be chaos, noise, discussion and running about,” he says.
. Year 4 children (aged eight to nine) were given questions from GCSE physics and biology papers. After using their Sole computers for 45 minutes, their average test scores on three sets of questions were 25%, 26% and 13%. Three months later – the school having taught nothing on these subjects in the interim – they were tested again, individually and without warning. The scores rose to 57%, 80% and 16% respectively, suggesting the children continued researching the questions in their own time.
he says the main benefit of his methods is that children’s self-confidence increases so that they challenge adult perceptions.
the propositions that children can benefit from collaborative learning and that banning internet use from exams will get trickier, to the point where it may prove futile. It’s worth remembering that new technologies nearly always deliver less than we expect at first and far more than we expect later on, often in unexpected ways.
I would like to get in touch regarding your experience with eBooks for research we are doing.
Dr. Patricia Donohue, San Francisco State University, pdonohue@sfsu.edu
I no longer engage in a ritual that too often happens among assigners of research papers (you know who you are), that frantic last week reading and marking 50 term papers before grades are due. Too often, in the old days, I would read and write comments on papers that wound up in a box outside my office door that few students ever came by to collect--a pointless and deadening pedagogy if there ever was one.
Interestingly, the tipping point in these classes is when someone the student doesn't know, an anonymous stranger, responds to their work. When it is substantive, the student is elated and surprised that their words were taken seriously. When it is rude or trollish, the student is offended. Both responses are good. The Internet needs more people committed to its improvement, to serious discourse.
"What really happened at the First Thanksgiving?
Become a history detective and find out!
In this fun, award-winning activity, kids take on the role of "history detectives" to investigate what really happened at the famous 1621 celebration. (Hint: It was a lot more than just a feast!) Along the way, they'll read a letter written by an eyewitness to the event, learn about Wampanoag traditions of giving thanks, and visit Pilgrim Mary Allerton's home. As a final activity, kids can design and print their own Thanksgiving exhibit panel."
More pointedly still: Creating an opposition between "critical thinking" and "reading and discussing," on the one hand, and electronic/social media on the other, is a logical false disjunctive (in plain talk, a false either/or). Any competent teacher can use the new literacy tools to create new possibilities in critical thinking, reading, discussing, and more, that were only dreamt of in pre-Internet philosophies.
Absolutely the key part of the argument. It's how you use the tools that matters.
Among the studies Greenfield analyzed was a classroom study showing that students who were given access to the Internet during class and were encouraged to use it during lectures did not process what the speaker said as well as students who did not have Internet access. When students were tested after class lectures, those who did not have Internet access performed better than those who did.
"Wiring classrooms for Internet access does not enhance learning," Greenfield said.
Restrain me, quick, before I break something. Because there’s a missing element in this bit of sloppy science that makes me want to throw my beloved laptop through the window. It’s this: the freaking teacher. So let me correct this: “CLUELESSLY wiring classrooms for internet access does not enhance learning.”
It’s totally schooly, and divorced from the authentic uses we put this stuff to in that non-school place called the real world.
The technology is still very visible, if students are talking in terms of 'computers' rather than the skills involved. We don't talk about 'paper' but writing, critical reading etc. Yet here the platform itself is emphasized. Early days, I guess.
Well, the problem here is that some of that can be ascribed to novelty. Once every class uses 'interactive technology' (yuk) then how much difference will there be? The tools are great. All tools can be useful. But focus on the pedagogy, people!
I'm for focusing on understanding. I love the word "pedagogy" because most lay people don't really know what it entails--theory (which can be anything institutional or community deems effective or correct), practice (which, as we know, can be summed up with the phrase "mileage will vary"), and some third thing which if I could come up with it I'd have the magic 3 elements in an effective argument. I think effective tools used effectively by effective teachers (there! 3 uses of one adjective!) will remain effective as long as they are used to promote understanding. No argument here, Ed, just sayin'...
Perhaps the magic third thing would be 'attitude' or 'state of mind'? Alternatively, perhaps another of those non-transparent terms, 'praxis'. The point I was trying to make, of course, was that it ain't what you use, it's the way that you use it.
"I think the kids that have turned school off because it's boring to them will come here and see something familiar,"
Boring and familiar seem to me to be closely related, not opposites. I suspect that often when students say their learning environment is 'boring' they mean 'challenging'.
Computer technology in my classroom has revolutionized my teaching of biology. Instead of static images on a printed page, or talk and chalk, my students can manipulate 3-D images of DNA, RNA and proteins. These have even been embedded in a research-based learning progression that leads the students to a robust understanding of the foundational elements of molecular literacy.
1. Atoms and molecules are constantly in motion. (A visualization is not possible on a 2-3 printed page.)
2. All atoms and molecules have a 3-D structure that determines how they interact with other particles.
3. Charges and other intermolecular forces play a role in atomic and molecular interactions.
My students can see these for themselves, change the number of particles in a box, or the distribution of charge on a large particle or the temperature of the box and other thought experiments which they can follow in real-time.
There is no way, I could do that without the computer!
Search engine - with readability built in
"Twurdy uses text analysis software to "read" each page before it is displayed in the results. Then Twurdy gives each page a readability level. Twurdy then shows the readability level of the page along with a color coded system to help users determine how easy the page will be to understand."
GRADUATE education is the Detroit of higher learning. Most graduate programs in American universities produce a product for which there is no market (candidates for teaching positions that do not exist) and develop skills for which there is diminishing demand (research in subfields within subfields and publication in journals read by no one other than a few like-minded colleagues), all at a rapidly rising cost (sometimes well over $100,000 in student loans).
When it comes to the Internet, it seems kids will believe anything.But it was thought that something as absurd as an octopus that lives in a tree might be enough to cast some doubts in their minds - it wasn't.
But, before the multiple choice, standardized testing crowd starts thumping their chests, it's important to note the kind of test the researchers administered. After reading the passage, students "wrote what they remembered in a free-form essay for 10 minutes. Then they reread the passage and took another retrieval practice test."
So, to decipher the wonkitude, the students read a passage, wrote a reflection essay, reread the passage a second time, and then wrote another reflection essay.That's a far cry from bubbling in the letter "C" on a scantron form.
The studying that middle school and high school students do after the dismissal
bell rings is either an unreasonable burden or a crucial activity that needs
beefing up. Which is it? Do American students have too much homework or too
little? Neither, I’d say. We ought to be asking a different question altogether.
What should matter to parents and educators is this: How effectively do
children’s after-school assignments advance learning?
The quantity of students’ homework is a lot less important than its quality.
And evidence suggests that as of now, homework isn’t making the grade. Although
surveys show that the amount of time our children spend on homework has risen
over the last three decades, American students are mired in the middle of
international academic
rankings: 17th in reading, 23rd in science and 31st in math, according to
results from the Program for International Student Assessment released last
December.
“Spaced repetition” is one example of the kind of evidence-based techniques
that researchers have found have a positive impact on learning. Here’s how it
works: instead of concentrating the study of information in single blocks, as
many homework assignments currently do — reading about, say, the Civil War one
evening and Reconstruction the next — learners encounter the same material in
briefer sessions spread over a longer period of time. With this approach,
students are re-exposed to information about the Civil War and Reconstruction
throughout the semester.
Feed readers
are probably the most important digital tool for today's learner because they
make sifting through the amazing amount of content added to the Internet
easy. Also known as aggregators, feed readers are free tools that can
automatically check nearly any website for new content dozens of times a
day---saving ridiculous amounts of time and customizing learning experiences for
anyone.
Imagine
never having to go hunting for new information from your favorite sources
again. Learning goes from a frustrating search through thousands of
marginal links written by questionable characters to quickly browsing the
thoughts of writers that you trust, respect and enjoy.
Feed readers can
quickly and easily support blogging in the classroom, allowing teachers to
provide students with ready access to age-appropriate sites of interest that are
connected to the curriculum. By collecting sites in advance and organizing
them with a feed reader, teachers can make accessing information manageable for
their students.
Here are several
examples of feed readers in action:
Used specifically as
a part of one classroom project, this feed list contains information related to
global warming that students can use as a starting point for individual
research.
While there are literally dozens of different feed reader
programs to choose from (Bloglines andGoogle Reader are two
biggies), Pageflakes is a favorite of
many educators because it has a visual layout that is easy to read and
interesting to look at. It is also free and web-based. That
means that users can check accounts from any computer with an Internet
connection. Finally, Pageflakes makes it quick and easy to add new
websites to a growing feed list—and to get rid of any websites that users are no
longer interested in.
What's even
better: Pageflakes has been developinga teacher version of their tooljust for us that includes an online grade tracker,
a task list and a built in writing tutor. As Pageflakes works to perfect
its teacher product, this might become one of the first kid-friendly feed
readers on the market. Teacher Pageflakes users can actually blog and create a
discussion forum directly in their feed reader---making an all-in-one digital
home for students.
For more
information about the teacher version of Pageflakes, check out this
review:
These are my reasons about how and why I continue to blog almost four years on. Key points:
Blogging keeps me current
Blogging encourages me to read
Blogging makes me think, justify and engage in debate
Blogging makes me develop a discipline and a time to write
Blogging encourages me to make practice explicit
Blogging is for me a form of curation, of gathering sources that matter
Increasingly I see blogging as a form of professional self-development.
at least 45 percent of undergraduates demonstrated "no improvement in critical thinking, complex reasoning, and writing skills in the first two years of college, and 36 percent showed no progress in four years."
What good does it do to increase the number of students in college if the ones who are already there are not learning much? Would it not make more sense to improve the quality of education before we increase the quantity of students?
students in math, science, humanities, and social sciences—rather than those in more directly career-oriented fields—tend to show the most growth in the areas measured by the Collegiate Learning Assessment, the primary tool used in their study. Also, students learn more from professors with high expectations who interact with them outside of the classroom. If you do more reading, writing, and thinking, you tend to get better at those things, particularly if you have a lot of support from your teachers.
Increasingly, undergraduates are not prepared adequately in any academic area but often arrive with strong convictions about their abilities.
It has become difficult to give students honest feedback.
As the college-age population declines, many tuition-driven institutions struggle to find enough paying customers to balance their budgets. That makes it necessary to recruit even more unprepared students, who then must be retained, shifting the burden for academic success away from the student and on to the teacher.
Although a lot of emphasis is placed on research on the tenure track, most faculty members are not on that track and are retained on the basis of what students think of them.
Students gravitate to lenient professors and to courses that are reputedly easy, particularly in general education.
It is impossible to maintain high expectations for long unless everyone holds the line in all comparable courses—and we face strong incentives not to do that.
Formerly, full-time, tenured faculty members with terminal degrees and long-term ties to the institution did most of the teaching. Such faculty members not only were free to grade honestly and teach with conviction but also had a deep understanding of the curriculum, their colleagues, and the institutional mission. Now undergraduate teaching relies primarily on graduate students and transient, part-time instructors on short-term contracts who teach at multiple institutions and whose performance is judged almost entirely by student-satisfaction surveys.
Contingent faculty members, who are paid so little, routinely teach course loads that are impossible to sustain without cutting a lot of corners.
Many colleges are now so packed with transient teachers, and multitasking faculty-administrators, that it is impossible to maintain some kind of logical development in the sequencing of courses.
Students may be enjoying high self-esteem, but college teachers seem to be suffering from a lack of self-confidence.
Clear indication that the system as a whole is not supporting a generally accepted set of goals. Instead, the schools are trying to achieve a goal they see as important at worst while fighting the systemic demands.
One such school leader told us they had taken a conscious decision with one group of young people to focus on five key subjects and some life skills, knowing that the accountability system would score them down for it, as it expected eight qualifications from all students at that time.
Our system should reward schools making brave decisions which focus on boosting long-term outcomes for pupils, not punish them.
It should be able to survive changes of government and provide the test against which policy changes and school actions are judged
shine the light on whether the system is truly addressing the needs of all students, rather than just the few required to meet a government target.
Focus on raising the ambition and attainment for every child as far as their abilities permit
guide young people effectively on their choice of enabling subjects…
thos and culture that build the social skills also essential to progress in life and work, and allow them time to focus on this
Have a school accountability and assessment framework that supports these goals rather than defining them.
social literacy
a range of core subjects
ncluding critically maths, English, the sciences
effective use and understanding of computer science.
‘enabling subjects’
humanities, languages, arts, technical and practically-based subjects
equip a young person to move on
o university, or to an apprenticeship or vocational qualification
a set of behaviours and attitudes,
An exclusive focus on subjects for study would fail to equip young people with these, though rigour in the curriculum does help
‘employability skills’
Behaviours can only be developed over time, through the entire path of a young person’s life and their progress through the school system.
right context at school
A supportive culture, pastoral care and the right ethos are all needed to make the difference.
a long tail of pupils failing to achieve the desired outcomes can no longer be accepted.
enable all of our young citizens to reach the desired standards.
conflicting expectations placed on schools.
renewed system should be able to judge performance against the goals based on more complex metrics.
judgement
on overall culture and ethos, teaching and governance
group of data points, including testing but also outcomes data.
Development of a clear, widely-owned and stable statement of the outcome that all schools are asked to deliver.
beyond the merely academic, into the behaviours and attitudes schools should foster
basis on which we judge all new policy ideas, schools, and the structures we set up to monitor them
Ofsted
asked to steward the delivery of these outcomes
resourcing these bodies to develop an approach based on a wider range of measures and assessments than are currently in use,
Both the author of the article and the people she criticizes are making a fundamental mistake. It is an illusion that kids once learned facts in some deeper way. If the tree octopus had been presented in a book, the kids would have made the same mistake. Much of traditional teaching was not about absorbing certain facts but about learning techniques for accessing those facts. The internet and google really have changed the way we access information. The real challenge is how to restructure knowledge itself to take advantage of the new forms of accessibility. And as for using technology in the classroom: banning computers is like forcing kids to memorize arithmetic tables in an age when everyone has a calculator. We don't need slide rules nor an abacus and there is no reason to teach kids how to use them.
