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Sean McHugh

How the Google Suite Can Enhance Open-Ended Math Exploration | MindShift | KQED News - 0 views

ww2.kqed.org/...ce-open-ended-math-exploration

mathematics numeracy

shared by Sean McHugh on 10 Sep 17 - No Cached
  • Representations of math problems using words, images and numbers each use different parts of the brain, so the concept gets hardwired in a neural network drawing on multiple brain faculties instead of one numerical pathway
  • students are forced to articulate their thought process, how it compares and contrasts to ideas peers have shared, and in doing so may help the teacher identify any misconceptions.
  • Keeler sees many ways that technology could enhance the visual and collaboration elements of the work
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • open-ended math activities in Google Slides because each student can play with visual representations, give feedback to peers, and receive ongoing feedback from the teacher.
  • Keeler likes using the technology because she can easily see how each individual is thinking about the problem. And students can interact with one another’s ideas, even when they aren’t physically in her class
  • Keeler often tells students not to delete mistakes from the slides, instead telling them to duplicate the slide and keep working. That way she can see the progression of their thinking. This also helps students to see how far they’ve come.
  • visualize division by divvying up a pan of brownies equally among friends. Keeler does this activity in a spreadsheet
  • Sean McHugh on 10 Sep 17
     
    Exploring the potential for digital tools to enhance and facilitate numeracy.
Sean McHugh

Video Games Aren't Totally Damaging Your Brain - 0 views

vitals.lifehacker.com/damaging-your-brain-1797837012

video games gaming brain

shared by Sean McHugh on 18 Aug 17 - No Cached
  • It’s a tradeoff, because [people who play action games] show increases in other areas of mental function,” Fonzo points out. While their hippocampus shrank, they also showed increases in grey matter in their caudate nucleus, a region of the brain partially responsible for habit learning.
  • subjects who played a Mario Brothers 3-D platform games saw an increase in the grey matter of their hippocampus
  • the ideal is a balanced use of both the hippocampus and caudate nucleus memory systems,
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • by playing the right games, ones that encourage exploration and problem solving rather than just camping and sniping soldiers
Sean McHugh

Determining Success of Technology Integration in Classrooms, Schools, and Districts (Pa... - 0 views

larrycuban.wordpress.com/...s-schools-and-districts-part-4

technology integration

shared by Sean McHugh on 29 May 17 - No Cached
  • describing exemplars of technology integration is not synonymous with student-centered teaching. And student-centered teaching is not the same as “success” in student learning
  • Evidence of technology use in Europe, Asia, and the Americas  (see JECR PDF) have pointed out how powerful devices often end up being used to support teacher-centered instruction.
  • The all-important implementation question–too often overlooked, ignored, or forgotten by champions of new technologies–remains: have teachers altered their classroom practices as a consequence of using new technologies? Without such changes in teaching practices, then student learning and outcomes can hardly be expected to improve.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • determining to what degree teachers have altered how they teach as a consequence of integrating new technologies into their lessons
Sean McHugh

Defining Technology Integration (Part 2) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom P... - 0 views

larrycuban.wordpress.com/...-technology-integration-part-2

edtech integration

shared by Sean McHugh on 29 May 17 - No Cached
  • I wanted a definition that got past the issue of access to glittering new machines and Gee Whiz applications. I wanted a definition that focused on classroom and school use aimed toward achieving teacher and district curricular and instructional goals. I wanted a definition that put hardware and software in the background, not the foreground. I wanted a definition grounded in what I heard and saw in classrooms, schools, and districts.
  • “Technology integration is the routine and transparent use in learning, teaching, and assessment of computers, smartphones and tablets, digital cameras, social media platforms, networks, software applications and the Internet aimed at helping students reach the district’s and teacher’s curricular and instructional goals.”*
  • The devices and software are not front-and-center but routinely used in lessons
Sean McHugh

How Facebook is taking mind reading from sci-fi to reality - The Verge - 0 views

www.theverge.com/...uilding-8-mind-reading-f8-2017

touch typing

shared by Sean McHugh on 27 May 17 - No Cached
  • Facebook’s plans for two ambitious projects: one to develop a system for letting you type with just your thoughts, and another to let you “hear” using vibrations on your skin. This would be done through brain-computer interfaces — devices that can read neural activity and translate it into digital signals, and vice versa
  • Facebook’s goal is to develop something it calls a “brain click — a way to complete tasks in augmented reality using your mind. You could brain click to dismiss a notification that popped up on your AR glasses, for example
  • letting people type with their thoughts
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • send discrete messages delivered through touch
  • extract semantic meaning from touch, to create what just might amount to a new form of language
  • exploring how optical imaging could get real-time data from the brain and translate it into words. The resulting device could be something like a neural cap worn on the head, or some type of band that stretches around the back of the skull.
  • literally getting inside your head and under your skin.
  • the technology should be designed to operate only during the final part of the speech process, right before your brain tells your mouth to start moving. The thought is already formed, and you have made an explicit choice to share it.
  • Sean McHugh on 27 May 17
     
    Maybe this is the tech that could replace the keyboard, still a few decades away though.
Sean McHugh

Coding is not 'fun', it's technically and ethically complex - Quartz - 1 views

qz.com/...hnically-and-ethically-complex

programming coding

shared by Sean McHugh on 25 May 17 - No Cached
  • the profile of a programmer’s mind is pretty uncommon. As well as being highly analytical and creative, software developers need almost superhuman focus to manage the complexity of their tasks
  • you’d never hear someone say that brain surgery is “fun,” or that structural engineering is “easy.” When it comes to programming, why do policymakers and technologists pretend otherwise?
  • Insisting on the glamor and fun of coding is the wrong way to acquaint kids with computer science. It insults their intelligence and plants the pernicious notion in their heads that you don’t need discipline in order to progress. As anyone with even minimal exposure to making software knows, behind a minute of typing lies an hour of study.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • In an ever-more intricate and connected world, where software plays a larger and larger role in everyday life, it’s irresponsible to speak of coding as a lightweight activity.
Sean McHugh

The Art of Staying Focused in a Distracting World - The Atlantic - 0 views

www.theatlantic.com/...309312

time screen parenting

shared by Sean McHugh on 10 May 17 - No Cached
  • continuous partial attention to describe the modern predicament of being constantly attuned to everything without fully concentrating on anythin
  • Continuous partial attention is neither good nor bad. We need different attention strategies in different contexts
  • The important thing for us as humans is to have the capacity to tap the attention strategy that will best serve us in any given momen
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  • We may think that kids have a natural fascination with phones. Really, children have a fascination with whatever Mom and Dad find fascinating. If they are fascinated by the flowers coming up in the yard, that’s what the children are going to find fascinating. And if Mom and Dad can’t put down the device with the screen, the child is going to think, That’s where it’s all at, that’s where I need to be! I interviewed kids between the ages of 7 and 12 about this. They said things like “My mom should make eye contact with me when she talks to me” and “I used to watch TV with my dad, but now he has his iPad, and I watch by myself.”
  • What we’re doing now is modeling a primary relationship with screens, and a lack of eye contact with people. It ultimately can feed the development of a kind of sociopathy and psychopathy.
  • Sean McHugh on 10 May 17
     
    We may think that kids have a natural fascination with phones. Really, children have a fascination with whatever Mom and Dad find fascinating. If they are fascinated by the flowers coming up in the yard, that's what the children are going to find fascinating. And if Mom and Dad can't put down the device with the screen, the child is going to think, That's where it's all at, that's where I need to be! I interviewed kids between the ages of 7 and 12 about this. They said things like "My mom should make eye contact with me when she talks to me" and "I used to watch TV with my dad, but now he has his iPad, and I watch by myself."
Sean McHugh

Video Games Aren't Addictive - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...deo-games-arent-addictive.html

gaming addiction video games

shared by Sean McHugh on 15 Apr 17 - No Cached
  • Playing video games is not addictive in any meaningful sense. It is normal behavior that, while perhaps in many cases a waste of time, is not damaging or disruptive of lives in the way drug or alcohol use can be
  • This is true but not illuminating.
  • These areas of the brain — those that produce and respond to the neurotransmitter dopamine — are involved in just about any pleasurable activity: having sex, enjoying a nice conversation, eating good food, reading a book, using methamphetamines.
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • On its own, the fact that a pleasurable activity involves dopamine release tells us nothing else about it.
  • A large-scale study of internet-based games recently published in the American Journal of Psychiatry bears out our skepticism about this “addiction
  • the diagnosis of addiction doesn’t make much sense to begin with
  • by treating the immoderate playing of video games as an addiction, we are pathologizing relatively normal behavior
  • We don’t deny that new technologies come with some perils. We understand the nostalgia for the halcyon days of, say, the 1950s, when people were not yet bound to their personal technology and were free to enjoy the simpler pleasures of life, like stickball and climbing trees — and getting polio and having to wait in line at the bank to check your account balance.We doubt most people would actually want to return to the good old days. We and our children are “addicted” to new technologies because, for the most part, they improve our lives or are simply pleasurable
  • indulging in panic about technology or nostalgia for a better past that never really existed does us no good
Sean McHugh

Do Cellphones Cause Cancer? | WIRED - 0 views

www.wired.com/...nes-dont-cause-cancer-probably

radiation scare airplane mode

shared by Sean McHugh on 28 Feb 17 - No Cached
  • when you realize that lipstick, pickles, and styrofoam are on that list, it puts it into a different perspective.” None of those things are necessarily super high-risk
    • Sean McHugh
      Sean McHugh on 28 Feb 17
       
      You can be sure that many of the people who make the biggest fuss, will themselves be smokers, obese, or heavy drinkers... 
  • a dearth of data means that no one would conclude right now that that cellphones cause cancer
  • no one has yet proven a solid link between cancer and phone use
Sean McHugh

Please don't learn to code | TechCrunch - 0 views

techcrunch.com/...please-dont-learn-to-code

shared by Sean McHugh on 24 Feb 17 - No Cached
  • There’s an idea that’s been gaining ground in the tech community lately: Everyone should learn to code. But here’s the problem with that idea: Coding is not the new literacy.
  • Selling coding as a ticket to economic salvation for the masses is dishonest
  • engineering and programming are important skills. But only in the right context, and only for the type of person willing to put in the necessary blood, sweat and tears to succeed. The same could be said of many other skills. I would no more urge everyone to learn to program than I would urge everyone to learn to plumb.
    • Sean McHugh
      Sean McHugh on 24 Feb 17
       
      Nice analogy, who uses plumbing? EVERYONE. Who knows how it works and how to fix it or fit it? Not many, and the small group of skilled individuals who do, are called Plumbers.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • An excessive focus on coding ignores the current plight of existing developers.Technology changes at a rapid pace in this industry.
  • The line between learning to code and getting paid to program as a profession is not an easy line to cross.Really.
  • If becoming an engineer is what you want, don’t let me — or anyone, for that matter — get in the way of your goal. And don’t let traditional confinements like the educational system slow you down
  • Sean McHugh on 24 Feb 17
     
    ... engineering and programming are important skills. But only in the right context, and only for the type of person willing to put in the necessary blood, sweat and tears to succeed. The same could be said of many other skills. I would no more urge everyone to learn to program than I would urge everyone to learn to plumb.
Sean McHugh

Is it time to swap your Mac for a Windows laptop? | Technology | The Guardian - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...ook-pro-microsoft-surface-book

windows technology swap mac

shared by Sean McHugh on 08 Jan 17 - No Cached
  • It’s one thing to have to relearn behaviours when you switch machines, it’s another to have to re-learn them every time you plug in a peripheral.
  • the necessity, or not, of drivers for accessories was a big part of that competitive push by Apple, which made a point of ensuring out-of-the-box support for many of the most commonly used peripherals like printers, cameras and mice. When Steve Jobs said “it just works”, this is the sort of thing he was referring to: the ability to plug in a mouse and have it Just Work. Installing drivers for a mouse to enable a niche behaviour is no great hardship, but it still left me moderately concerned. Microsoft made both the mouse and the laptop, yet the two weren’t able to play nicely together without my intervention. This digging in the nuts and bolts of the machine was not something I had missed.
  • It’s a fantastic machine. Small and powerful, with a long battery life, it impresses as a laptop, but its real strengths are revealed when you undock the screen from its base. Being able to carry my laptop around the kitchen when doing the weekly shop, before docking it back and typing up some recipes, was genuinely cool.
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • Unfortunately, cool is all it was for me. The ability to pop out my laptop and write on it with a (very accurate) stylus was never that useful. If anything, it served to underscore how efficient the keyboard-and-touchpad combo is for a lot of hefty tasks.
  • I simply didn’t do it much, and most of the time when I did, it was just to see if I could.
  • Two-fingered swipe on the touchpad? The answer, of course, is to reach up to the screen, and swipe that way. A shortcut it is not, particularly if the screen is up on a dock and you’re already using a keyboard and mouse.
  • I was shocked by the amount of advertising and cross-promotion riddled throughout the OS, from adverts for apps in the start menu, to a persistent pop-up offering a free trial of Office 365. I was surprised by the paucity of solid third-party apps in general, and particularly by the lack of any good consumer productivity suite.
  • Most of all, though, I couldn’t stand the small irritations, from the failure of Chrome windows to correctly adapt when dragged from a high-res screen to a low-res one, to the trackpad’s inability to accurately click when I used it with my thumb rather than my finger.
  • Ultimately, the question comes down to how much you’re prepared to pay to keep things the same as they have been
Sean McHugh

Seven reasons why grown ups should play more video games | Technology | The Guardian - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...s-should-play-more-video-games

video games games Gaming parents

shared by Sean McHugh on 06 Jan 17 - No Cached
  • the last five years has seen a huge renaissance in video game design
  • a lot of the technologies that are going to affect our lives in the next decade are being tested and developed in the video game sphere.
  • A lot of the people now making, producing and funding television and movies grew up playing video games – and that influence is becoming ever more obvious and important.
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • how you cooperate on video game tasks is a pretty good indicator on how you will cope with real-life challenges
  • Games will break out of two-dimensional screens and into rooms, either through VR or AR, or through new combinations of TV and tablets. It’s possible that in twenty years, the idea of sitting down and just watching a narrative drama will seem outdated and anachronistic
  • video games remain astoundingly good value. A big mainstream release like Witcher 3 or Fifa 2017 will cost around £50 on console and less on PC, but they can provide hundreds of hours of entertainment
  • Video games have become important testbeds for artificial intelligence research
  • it’s a way of meeting with your children in a domain they enjoy and feel comfortable. It lets them take the lead; it lets them show you stuff
  • Games are fun. They provide fascinating worlds to explore and take part in, they let us do incredible, sometimes terrible things without recourse. They test out intelligence and reaction; they posit weird futures and possibilities; they let us take control of lives and bodies that we could never own or experience. They are made by artists and visionaries, they provide moments of utter transfixing beauty and resonance. The glowing sunset over the city of Los Santos in GTA V, the swoop of a dragon over the plains of Skyrim; the desperate struggle to survive in the snowy wastelands of The Long Dark; the heart-wrenching power of friendship in Life is Strange – these are valid forms of escape and experience; they tell us things.
  • it is time to see video games alongside – and equal to – books, television and cinema as a popular imaginative medium. It is OK to play.
Sean McHugh

Teens, Technology and Friendships | Pew Research Center - 1 views

www.pewinternet.org/...ens-technology-and-friendships

social media technology pew research friends digital citizenship

shared by Sean McHugh on 13 Nov 16 - No Cached
  • Social media and online gameplay are the most common digital venues for meeting friends
  • Along with texting, teens are incorporating a number of other devices, communication platforms and online venues into their interactions with friends
    • Sean McHugh
      Sean McHugh on 13 Nov 16
       
      The overlap between socialising within a gaming context and within the context of platforms like Facebook is an interesting one... Teen use of social media has many parallels with MMORPGs, I wonder how the time spent on these platforms compares... I'd bet the girls spend as much, if not more time on social media than the boys do, even combined with their gaming time.
  • Video games play a critical role in the development and maintenance of boys’ friendships
  • ...10 more annotations...
  • Playing video games is not necessarily a solitary activity; teens frequently play video games with others.
  • video gameplay, particularly over online networks, is an important activity through which boys form and maintain friendships with others:
  • 38% of all teen boys share their gaming handle as one of the first three pieces of information exchanged when they meet someone they would like to be friends with
  • 78% of teen online gamers say when they play games online it makes them feel more connected to friends they already know
  • Some 76% of teens ages 13 to 17 use social media
  • Social media helps teens feel more connected to their friends’ feelings and daily lives, and also offers teens a place to receive support from others during challenging times.
  • But even as social media connects teens to friends’ feelings and experiences, the sharing that occurs on these platforms can have negative consequences. Sharing can veer into oversharing. Teens can learn about events and activities to which they weren’t invited, and the highly curated lives of teens’ social media connections can lead them to make negative comparisons with their own lives
  • 88% of teen social media users believe people share too much information about themselves on social media
  • Teens face challenges trying to construct an appropriate and authentic online persona for multiple audiences, including adults and peers. Consequently, many teens feel obligated to project an attractive and popular image through their social media postings.
    • Sean McHugh
      Sean McHugh on 13 Nov 16
       
      Again, classic gamification of social media, where the online persona becomes more like a 'role' than the true character of the person, the equivalent of social media becoming a 'massive, multiplayer online, role playing game', but with the critical difference that this is IRL, which is a little scary, Black Mirror crazy...!
  • Girls are more likely to use text messaging – while boys are more likely to use video games – as conduits for conversations with friends
Sean McHugh

We Were Wrong About Limiting Children's Screen Time - 0 views

gizmodo.com/ildrens-screen-time-1788065909

screentime

shared by Sean McHugh on 22 Oct 16 - No Cached
  • Sean McHugh on 22 Oct 16
     
    Screen time
Sean McHugh

20 ways to use a tablet in the classroom | Teacher Network | The Guardian - 1 views

www.theguardian.com/...-use-a-tablet-in-the-classroom

iPad edtech apps

shared by Sean McHugh on 01 Oct 16 - No Cached
  • Sean McHugh on 01 Oct 16
     
    Great summary of effective uses of an iPad, interesting that they don't present Seesaw and EasyBlog as competitors either.
Sean McHugh

6 Digital Work Habits Every Student (and Adult) Needs | JSTOR Daily - 1 views

daily.jstor.org/-every-student-and-adult-needs

Digital PSE digital citizenship organisation

shared by Sean McHugh on 10 Sep 16 - No Cached
  • setting up those systems at the beginning of the school year will help kids for far longer than the school year ahed.  After all, today’s students will eventually be living and working in a tech-suffused world. Learning to study digitally is the best way for them to learn to live and work in that world– and isn’t that what school is supposed to prepare them for?
Sean McHugh

How I connected with my autistic son through video games | Life and style | The Guardian - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...tistic-son-through-video-games

screentime screen time families video games autism Gaming

shared by Sean McHugh on 04 Jun 16 - No Cached
  • Sean McHugh on 04 Jun 16
     
    "We played together." A magnificent example of effective 21st Century parenting. 
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