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Sean McHugh

Inside the School Silicon Valley Thinks Will Save Education | WIRED - 0 views

www.wired.com/altschool

technology learning school edtech altschool

shared by Sean McHugh on 06 May 15 - No Cached
  • AltSchool is a decidedly Bay Area experiment with an educational philosophy known as student-centered learning. The approach, which many schools have adopted, holds that kids should pursue their own interests, at their own pace.
  • AltSchool mixes in loads of technology to manage the chaos, and tops it all off with a staff of forward-thinking teachers set free to custom-teach to each student.
  • no administrators, no gymnasiums, no cafeterias, no hallways. There are no report cards and no bells
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • AltSchools are more than just schools. They’re mini-research and development labs, where both teachers and engineers are diligently developing the formula for a 21st century education
  • the gap between the students (and teachers) using technology and the people building it needs to be as narrow as possible
  • letting kids learn primarily through independent projects rather than direct instruction
  • using tech tools to manage the mayhem of a personalized classroom
  • Ventilla’s goal is to bundle them up into what he calls an “operating system for a 21st century education” and license them to the education system at large.
  • The biggest failure of technology in schools is people thought there was some inherent value to technology, rather than saying the only value in technology is that it enhances teaching or engages kids
  • A lot of people looked at this through the technological lens rather than the teaching lens, and that’s a huge mistake
  • Sean McHugh on 06 May 15
     
    This is what a 21st Century school really looks like.
Sean McHugh

Four ways to tell if an educational app will actually help your child learn - 0 views

theconversation.com/ly-help-your-child-learn-40786

EdTech technology integration TEL

shared by Sean McHugh on 18 Nov 18 - No Cached
  • several well-worn principles that parents, educators and app developers can use to determine what is truly educational and what is simply masquerading as such
  • minds-on, not minds-off
  • actively solving problems and thinking deeply
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • engaging, not distracting
  • meaningful
  • it is crucial for children to know why this knowledge is actually important
  • social interaction
Sean McHugh

Why video games shouldn't freak parents out | - 0 views

ideas.ted.com/mes-shouldnt-freak-parents-out

Gaming

shared by Sean McHugh on 19 May 16 - No Cached
  • kids really do not like educational games; in fact, they hate them. And as I watched more kids play video games, I realized Sid was 100% correct. If given a choice between a game designed with a learning goal or a commercial game designed for fun, kids’ll choose fun every time.
  • when we reject the games that boys play, the games are merely a proxy for the boys themselves.We reject games because they’re violent, individualistic, competitive, engrossing and largely foreign to us as teachers, parents, leaders, adults. And these are the precise characteristics of boys that we reject when we enforce zero tolerance policies
  • We don’t have specific limits, because their lives are full of other things that are equally as fun and engaging for them. So, yes, it’s OK for your child to game, as long as they do it in a careful, balanced and sustained way (yes, sustained: deep engagement, grit, perseverance and other good skills are not built by grazing). Valuing their gaming activities amounts to respecting them and their culture
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • competitive, violent fantasy games contribute to the development of strong future leaders and citizens.
  • Sean McHugh on 19 May 16
     
    For years, I'd been making the case that we should borrow from the games kids love to create new kinds of educational games. But after that one memorable lunch, I realized that we didn't need to co-opt the mechanics of gaming at all. We could - and should - use the games that kids were already playing, the immersive, sometimes violent games that hold boys and girls enraptured for hours in a state of flow and focus.
Sean McHugh

Technology in Education | American Federation of Teachers - 0 views

www.aft.org/...ruyckere-kirschner-and-hulshof

shared by Sean McHugh on 20 Mar 16 - No Cached
  • pedagogy (i.e., teaching practice) and not the medium (i.e., technological tools and resources, such as whiteboards, hand-held devices, blogs, chat boards) that made a difference in learning, stating that instructional media are “mere vehicles that deliver instruction but do not influence student achievement any more than the truck that delivers our groceries causes changes in our nutrition
  • there was no proof to show that a medium was capable of ensuring that pupils and students could learn more or more effectively. He saw the medium as a means, a vehicle for instruction, but that the essence of learning remained—thankfully—in the hands of the teacher
  • it is not the medium that decides how effectively learners learn
  • ...16 more annotations...
  • the effectiveness of learning is determined primarily by the way the medium is used and by the quality of the instruction accompanying that use
  • The crucial factor for learning improvement is to make sure that you do not replace the teacher as the instrument of instruction, allowing computers to do what teachers would normally do, but instead use computers to supplement and amplify what the teacher does
  • the use of both e-learning and contact education—which is known as blended learning—produces better results than lessons given without technolog
  • the medium does not influence the learning
  • the medium seldom influences teaching, learning, and education, nor is it likely that one single medium will ever be the best one for all situations
    • Sean McHugh
      Sean McHugh on 20 Mar 16
       
      But 'ordinary real life is mediated by computers! I'm still only in classrooms where the myth that this is not true still persists! 
  • students do not naturally make extensive use of many of the newest technologies, such as blogs, wikis, and virtual worlds
  • the main reasons young people use technology. These reasons are mainly social
  • Digital natives! Whenever the question of digital innovation in education is discussed, this is a term that immediately comes to the surface. But it should be avoided. Even the person who coined the term digital natives, Marc Prensky, admitted in his most recent book, Brain Gain, that the term is now obsolete.2
  • Prensky’s coining of this term—and its counterpart for people who are not digitally native—was not based on research into this generation, but rather created by rationalizing phenomena that he had observed
  • The students use a large quantity and variety of technologies for communicating, learning, staying connected with their friends, and engaging with the world around them. But they are using them primarily for “personal empowerment and entertainment
  • university students do not really have a deep knowledge of technology, and what knowledge they do have is often limited to basic Microsoft Office skills (Word, Excel, PowerPoint), emailing, text messaging, Facebook, and surfing the Internet
  • There is simply no experimental evidence to show that living with new technologies fundamentally changes brain organization in a way that affects one’s ability to focus. Of course, the brain changes any time we form a memory or learn a new skill, but new skills build on our existing capacities without fundamentally changing them. We will no more lose our ability to pay attention than we will lose our ability to listen, see or speak.
  • Note that many of these studies examined the influence of television rather than the influence of interactive technology, such as smartphones and social media
  • when people think that young people today read less, it’s not about reading online content or text messages, it’s about reading book
  • young people are still doing a lot of reading, and these statistics make clear that many of them are reading for pleasure. However, we need to be careful about making too many sweeping assertions, since the reading figures in many countries are falling. Even so, we know that reading continues to be important: both reading by young people themselves and parents reading to their childre
Sean McHugh

No, Fortnite Isn't Rotting Kids' Brains. It May Even Be Good for Them - Education Week - 0 views

www.edweek.org/...nt-rotting-kids-brains-it.html

education kids fortnite gaming

shared by Sean McHugh on 23 Aug 18 - No Cached
  • we see little to be concerned about with the game
  • Granted, kids’ enthusiasm for Fortnite can be a little much, but we are old enough to remember Garbage Pail kids and have played Pokémon.
  • one of the best things educators can do is bystander training. That is, we can teach kids appropriate ways to respond when they see distrustful, harassing, or hateful behavior.
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  • Can we really blame kids for being so taken by Fortnite? The game itself—a combination of army guys, building forts, and king-of-the-hill battles—would have taken place with sticks or toy guns in the vacant lots or wooded strands that are increasingly designed out of today’s suburban neighborhoods
  • look beyond the immediate content of the game (its characters and themes), and focus more intently on what kids are doing with it
  • Although there are no established links between games and violence, there are some obvious connections between gaming too much and wider problems
  • Wrangling over what extent games are the cause or the symptom somewhat misses the point; unhealthy game play can be a signal
  • Rather than focusing on what games kids are playing, we should attend more to who they are meeting and gaming with online, what type of talk they are engaged in, and what kinds of groups they are becoming a part of
  • just like offline ones
Sean McHugh

Screen Time? How about Creativity Time? - Mitchel Resnick - Medium - 0 views

medium.com/...ut-creativity-time-928528c0214

creativity screen screen time time childhood kindergarten early

shared by Sean McHugh on 22 Jan 18 - No Cached
  • Too often, designers of educational materials and activities simply add a thin layer of technology and gaming over antiquated curriculum and pedagogy
    • Sean McHugh
      Sean McHugh on 22 Jan 18
       
      I think because the designers of these apps are not educators and are therefore assuming that they often traditional education they experienced is the norm or at the very least is still a desirable outcome for the kids that they are designing their Apps for.
  • But I’m also sure that some students found it very discouraging and disempowering. And the activity put an emphasis on questions that can be answered quickly with right and wrong answers — certainly not the type of questions that I would prioritize in a classroom.
  • In many cases, the skeptics apply very different standards to new technologies than to “old” technologies. They worry about the antisocial impact of a child spending hours working on a computer, while they don’t have any concerns about a child spending the same time reading a book. They worry that children interacting with computers don’t spend enough time outside, but they don’t voice similar concerns about children playing musical instruments. I’m not suggesting that there are no reasons for concern. I’m just asking for more consistency.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • For kids growing up today, laptops and mobile phones aren’t high-tech tools — they’re everyday tools, just like crayons and watercolors.
  • Of course there’s a problem if children spend all their time interacting with screens — just as there would be a problem if they spent all their time playing the violin or reading books or playing sports. Spending all your time on any one thing is problematic. But the most important issue with screen time is not quantity but quality. There are many ways of interacting with screens; it doesn’t make sense to treat them all the same
  • Rather than trying to minimize screen time, I think parents and teachers should try to maximize creative time. The focus shouldn’t be on which technologies children are using, but rather what children are doing with them
Sean McHugh

Will Gaming Save Education, or Just Waste Time? -- THE Journal - 1 views

thejournal.com/...cation-or-just-waste-time.aspx

technology gaming minecraft

shared by Sean McHugh on 31 Aug 13 - No Cached
  • Sean McHugh on 31 Aug 13
     
    "Today's sophisticated digital games are engaging students and conveying hard-to-teach concepts like failure and perspective. So why aren't more classrooms playing along?"
Sean McHugh

Should Googling in exams be allowed? | Lola Okolosie and Chris McGovern | Comment is fr... - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...d-google-searches-gcse-a-level

exams edtech

shared by Sean McHugh on 06 May 15 - No Cached
  • pupils should be able to use Google during GCSE and A-level exams.
  • It’s perhaps best to concede that this is something that would work better in some subjects – history and geography come to mind – than others, and only then for particular questions. Colleagues in the languages department might well despair at the thought of exam scripts peppered with inexplicable phraseology gathered from Google Translate.
  • Why then pretend this isn’t a fact of 21st-century life, an important part of how grownups in the world of work conduct their research? The role of a teacher is varied. We are here to inspire, encourage, excite and prepare pupils for the wider world. It is bizarre to omit this cornerstone of modern life from our pupils’ most important educational experiences.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • Without a solid knowledge foundation, pupils won’t be able to conduct a quick and fruitful Google search anyway.
Sean McHugh

Girls Should Play More Video Games, And Other Thoughts On "Cognitive Balance"... - 0 views

anniemurphypaul.com/...-thoughts-on-cognitive-balance

games video games play balance Gaming gamers learning

shared by Sean McHugh on 27 Sep 15 - No Cached
  • Girls should play more video games.
  • spatial skills matter: The ability to mentally manipulate shapes and otherwise understand how the three-dimensional world works turns out to be an important predictor of creative and scholarly achievements
  • spatial skills can be improved by training; these improvements persist over time; and they “transfer” to tasks that are different from the tasks used in the training
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • the informal education children receive can be just as important as what they learn in the classroom. We need to think more carefully about how kids’ formal and informal educational experiences fit together, and how one can fill gaps left by the other.
  • The informal learning environments of television, video games, and the Internet are producing learners with a new profile of cognitive skills.
  • playing an action video game “can virtually eliminate” the gender difference in a basic capacity they call spatial attention, while at the same time reducing the gender difference in the ability to mentally rotate objects, a higher-level spatial skill
  • As kids grow older, much of the experience they get in manipulating three-dimensional objects comes from playing video games
    • Sean McHugh
      Sean McHugh on 27 Sep 15
       
      This is such a critical observation!
Sean McHugh

Games, Standards, and Assessment: Staying out of the Toxic Mess | EdSurge News - 1 views

www.edsurge.com/...-staying-out-of-the-toxic-mess

gaming assessment

shared by Sean McHugh on 29 Jun 14 - No Cached
  • Sean McHugh on 29 Jun 14
     
    We can use games to make a new toxic mess if we use them merely as a shiny new delivery device for old, bad ideas about teachers, testing and learning. Just like books, games are a technology that can be used for good or ill. Textbooks are the least good educational tool ever made (VanLehn et al. 2007) because they seek to be a one-size-fits-all, standardized, single system, stand-alone delivery platform for facts fit mostly for testing. Games should, together with other tools and with good teaching, deliver customized and collaborative problem solving for a complex, high-risk and fast-changing global world.
Sean McHugh

Parenting for a Digital Future - Media literacy - everyone's favourite solution to t... - 0 views

blogs.lse.ac.uk/...iteracy-problems-of-regulation

media_literacy media literacy media fake news critical literacy

shared by Sean McHugh on 20 Mar 19 - No Cached
  • Media Literacy … provides a framework to access, analyze, evaluate, create and participate with messages in a variety of forms — from print to video to the Internet.
  • The more that the media mediate everything in society – work, education, information, civic participation, social relationships and more – the more vital it is that people are informed about and critically able to judge what’s useful or misleading, how they are regulated, when media can be trusted, and what commercial or political interests are at stake. In short, media literacy is needed not only to engage with the media but to engage with society through the media.
  • any media literacy strategy requires sustained attention, resources and commitment
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • let’s get media literacy firmly embedded in the school curriculum
  • it might be wise to calculate the cost also – to individuals, to society – of not promoting media literacy, of having a population with insufficient critical knowledge to manage its digital safety, security, privacy, civic and health information needs or consumer rights.
  • it is commonly said that media literacy is, at heart, critical thinking (demand evidence, question sources, analyse claims, consider what’s at stake for whom, etc.) and, therefore, should be taught right across the curriculum from history to science or English
  • In order to enable citizens to access information, to exercise informed choices, evaluate media contexts, use, critically assess and create media content responsibly, they need advanced media literacy skills.
  • Media literacy should not be limited to learning about tools and technologies, but should aim to equip individuals with the critical thinking skills required to exercise judgement, analyse complex realities, recognise the difference between opinions and facts, and resist all forms of hate speech
  • Work to get media literacy firmly embedded as compulsory in the school curriculum.
  • Media education is a long term solution – it takes thought-through pedagogical strategies and years of teaching, not a one-shot campaign
Sean McHugh

The Kids (Who Use Tech) Seem to Be All Right - Scientific American - 0 views

www.scientificamerican.com/...-use-tech-seem-to-be-all-right

parents screen time screentime screen time tech

shared by Sean McHugh on 19 Jan 19 - No Cached
  • Social media is linked to depression—or not. First-person shooter video games are good for cognition—or they encourage violence. Young people are either more connected—or more isolated than ever. Such are the conflicting messages about the effects of technology on children’s well-being. Negative findings receive far more attention and have fueled panic among parents and educators. This state of affairs reflects a heated debate among scientists. Studies showing statistically significant negative effects are followed by others revealing positive effects or none at all—sometimes using the same data set.
  • at a population level, technology use has a nearly negligible effect on adolescent psychological well-being
  • Technology use tilts the needle less than half a percent away from feeling emotionally sound. For context, eating potatoes is associated with nearly the same degree of effect and wearing glasses has a more negative impact on adolescent mental health.
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • The size of the association documented across these studies is not sufficient or measurable enough to warrant the current levels of panic and fear around this issue.”
  • Unfortunately, the large number of participants in these designs means that small effects are easily publishable and, if positive, garner outsized press and policy attention,
  • put these extremely miniscule effects of screens on young people in real-world context
  • some positive behaviors such as getting enough sleep and regularly eating breakfast were much more strongly associated with well-being than the average impact of technology use.
  • Strikingly, one of the data sets Przybylski and Orben used was “Monitoring the Future,” an ongoing study run by researchers at the University of Michigan that tracks drug use among young people. The alarming 2017 book and article by psychologist Jean Twenge claiming that smartphones have destroyed a generation of teenagers also relied on the data from “Monitoring the Future.” When the same statistics Twenge used are put into the larger context Przybylski and Orben employ, the effect of phone use on teen mental health turns out to be tiny.
  • “The real threat isn’t smartphones. It’s this campaign of misinformation and the generation of fear among parents and educators.”
  • All of this is not to say there is no danger whatsoever in digital technology use. In a previous paper, Przybylski and colleague Netta Weinstein demonstrated a “Goldilocks” effect showing moderate use of technology—about one to two hours per day on weekdays and slightly more on weekends—was “not intrinsically harmful,” but higher levels of indulgence could be.
Sean McHugh

Is There a Healthy Way for Students to Use Social Media? | Greater Good Magazine - 0 views

greatergood.berkeley.edu/...r_students_to_use_social_media

screen screentime screen time social media students

shared by Sean McHugh on 27 May 18 - No Cached
  • we might be overlooking the “educational and psychological benefits of using social media sites,” such as developing critical thinking and perspective-taking skills
  • parents and educators have been led to demonize what could simply be an evolving means of social connection
  • a constant stream of interruptions
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • we are probably all struggling to balance what our devices make possible with what they seem to impose on our attention spans and the rest of our health. Yet, for children, this difficulty is more acute because their bodies and brains are still developing.
  • heighten awareness of our multi-generational love of screens and encourage kids and parents to face it together.
  • None of us know the full extent of how our digital dependence is affecting us, or how it will affect the youngest generations growing up today. The least we can do is look up every now and then to ask each other how we’re doing, and how we can do better
  • they’re not alone in this struggle to practice what they preach
Sean McHugh

Teachers have been let down by a decade of inaction on digital technologies - 0 views

theconversation.com/on-digital-technologies-142938

technologies teachers

shared by Sean McHugh on 22 Jan 23 - No Cached
  • A general lack of preparedness for digital technology in England has left many children without the tools they need to access and benefit from remote learning.
  • the coalition government of 2010 brought in policies that increasingly neglected the role of digital technologies in education. It began with the closure of the British Educational and Communications Technology Agency in 2011.
  • However, all reference to the use of digital technologies for teaching and learning were removed from the 2010 Teacher Standards which trainees need to demonstrate to gain Qualified Teacher Status in England
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • different attitudes towards or ways of using digital technology, can have an impact on the effectiveness of teaching and learning. But many trainee teachers are left to develop this understanding by chance.
  • Teachers need to be supported by policy and research to help them develop expert knowledge on the use of digital technologies
  • a lack of detailed explanations provided to teachers “as to how, or why, using tablets within certain activities can improve learning”.
Louise Phinney

The 2 Most Important Skills Every Teacher Needs - Calgary, AB, Canada, ASCD EDge Blog p... - 0 views

edge.ascd.org/...127586.html

skills professional

shared by Louise Phinney on 11 Mar 13 - No Cached
  • Louise Phinney on 11 Mar 13
     
    The power of a reflective teacher is unstoppable. Hand in hand with reflective practice is coachability.  Coachability speaks to the teachers capacity to: hear feedback; analyze and understand the feedback; implement the feedback into their teaching.
Sean McHugh

1-to-1 Essentials Program | Common Sense Media - 0 views

www.commonsensemedia.org/...1to1

digital citizenship edtech resources technology parents

shared by Sean McHugh on 05 Apr 13 - No Cached
  • Sean McHugh on 05 Apr 13
     
    "1-to-1 Essentials offers the guidance you need in order to proactively, rather than reactively, address issues that schools commonly face when going 1-to-1. We encourage you to explore, customize, and choose the resources that will best support your school community."
Sean McHugh

MindShift - 0 views

blogs.kqed.org/mindshift

education technology learning edtech Mindshift classroom teaching

shared by Sean McHugh on 07 Feb 13 - No Cached
  • Sean McHugh on 07 Feb 13
     
    Awesome source of edtech news and articles curated for us by Tina Barseghian
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