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Sean McHugh

Let's Ban The Classroom Technology Ban. - 0 views

  • The claim that the students who didn’t use tablets performed better academically is based upon exam scores, which were only one-third of a standard deviation higher for the non-tablet crowd than the others. Some might see this as a large difference; I do not, and I doubt a majority of statisticians would either. But hey–why let the fact that this was a superficial study conducted with a small sample size of atypical students examining only one type of technology deter you from claiming that all technology in the classroom is bad? This is what people in the psych business call “confirmation bias,” I believe.
  • no mention of pedagogy at all
  • They don’t even acknowledge, much less control for, pedagogy.
    • Sean McHugh
       
      Although to be fair in terms of the study all students would be experiencing the same learning environment and would be equally "disadvantaged". Given that the actual impact of the technology was negligible this would explain why, the technology wasn't really able to be much of an advantage in that kind of teaching and learning environment.
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  • If students in a large lecture course with no laptop or device policies are doing poorly, is it because they’re on Facebook or because they’re in a cavernous auditorium with several hundred other captives, being talked at by someone who’s likely had no formal pedagogical training whatsoever?
  • unilateral bans on technology in the classroom accomplish nothing but demonstrating an off-putting rigidity and an adversarial view of students.
    • Sean McHugh
       
      "Adversarial" the tone of the entire study clearly spoke to this as the dominant perspective when considering tech use in classrooms.
  • If you’re the grumpy faculty member who kvetches about students not being taught penmanship in primary school, and who makes their classes take notes by hand to build character or whatever, take a step back and think about what you’re actually saying to your students: that some are inherently deficient, that they will fall short, and that your way is the only possible way to learn.
  • But if two-thirds of the class is doing non-class related stuff on a laptop or cell phone, why is that happening? Are they incorrigible internet addicts, or is it a pedagogical issue? If they’re not getting to where you want them to be, is it Twitter’s fault? Or is it the side effect of a lecture-based, passive pedagogy that doesn’t engage anyone?
  • Let’s be real: it’s not as if students paid rapt attention to everything faculty said until the smart phone was invented.
  • Of course, there are situations where you’ll want your students to not use devices. But there will also be occasions where you’ll want to encourage their use (quick polling, checking something online). That’s the whole point–there are no hard and fast rules, nor should there be. Good pedagogy is, above all, flexible. And, rather than an end unto itself, technology is a tool that can support good pedagogy if it’s used appropriately.
  • Rather than banning the tool because of an instance where someone used it improperly, we should work to prevent the processes which led to that instance. Our students need to be our allies, not our adversaries, if genuine learning is to occur. Students cannot experience the transformative effects that higher education can and should inculcate if we refuse to treat them as responsible agents who are the co-architects of their learning.
Sean McHugh

Three problems with the debate around screen time - 0 views

  • it increasingly feels as though scientific evidence has become a casualty in the process.
  • the factors which underlie why the public discourse around technology is so dysfunctional
  • Google does not sort search output by quality; it ranks search input by popularity.
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  • Academics, public servants and other stakeholders alike need to recognise that plugging in a few terms of interest into a search engine will give an inherently skewed view of the actual state of the field
  • Academics, public servants and other stakeholders alike need to recognise that plugging in a few terms of interest into a search engine will give an inherently skewed view of the actual state of the field
  • these factors aren’t just focused on debates around the effects of technology – they speak to wider debates around science and evidence-based policy
  • Very recent evidence, that might use much better quality data or methods but that has not received much coverage, will not be featured. Yet one piece of high quality evidence might be worth 500 pieces of low quality evidence that populate the search output.
  • In 21st century life, finding evidence is not the most important skill anymore. Instead, it is recognising which evidence should be considered and which should be ignored, based on objective markers of quality.
  • Until this is addressed, moral entrepreneurs and doomsayers will dominate discourse with dire yet never fully substantiated claims
  • we need to be wary of any question which frames screen time as a simple number – questions like ‘how much screen time we should be engaging in?’, or ‘should we impose limits or bans on screen use?’ oversimplify a very complex concept to the point of becoming meaningless.
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