Skip to main content

Home/ HGSET561/ Group items tagged questions

Rss Feed Group items tagged

Katherine Tarulli

Biz Stone Talks Tech Startups, His New Foundation, And The Best Vegan Food In San Franc... - 2 views

  •  
    Twitter founder Biz Stone talks about his foundation which focuses on education and conservation.
  •  
    I was struck by the city government question. Seems to be a parallel of how the government can interact with the people they represent using technology and how teachers can interact with their students using technology. (People centered government and student-centered learning.)
Bharat Battu

How Khan Academy Is Changing the Rules of Education | Magazine - 3 views

  •  
    an interesting writeup on on the basics of Khan Academy- including a couple of example teachers & classrooms. Also includes interview excerpts with Salman Khan.
  •  
    It seems that the gamification of Khan Academy is undermining the "dropping out/back" of the technology after a certain amount of time, but students are learning, so is this good or bad?
  •  
    This article seems pretty consistent with what we heard today. I think the most interesting aspect of the whole Khan Academy phenomenon is not what he does (make direct instruction videos- People learn to cook that way from Emeril), or how he does it (very few production values), or even that the internet makes him so distributable. The most incredible thing to me is that this one guy who did an end run around the entire establishment of EDUCATION is having this much impact on kids, teachers, and policy makers around the world. He isn't doing anything all that innovative and yet he is having the impact on education that one would think would come from an extraordinary innovator. Why isn't that innovator coming from EDUCATION. I think the big generative questions KA offers us in Education are: Why is this such a big deal? (And I do believe it is), Why didn't we think of it?; and Given all we know about education, shouldn't we be able have a much more substantial effect with much more substantial outcomes with as few resources as KA? If not? What are we doing?
anonymous

The Classroom of the Future - 0 views

  •  
    Scores becoming stagnant
Rupangi Sharma

Sugata Mitra shows how kids teach themselves - 1 views

  •  
    Saw this over the summer and thought it raised some good questions about IEP initiatives, a child's ability to learn technical frameworks without explicit instruction, community engagement, technological innovation in impoverished areas, etc.
  •  
    Speaking at LIFT 2007, Sugata Mitra talks about his Hole in the Wall project. Young kids in this project figured out how to use a PC on their own -- and then taught other kids. He asks, what else can children teach themselves? Sugata Mitra's "Hole in the Wall" experiments have shown that, in the absence of supervision or formal teaching, children can teach themselves and each other, if they're motivated by curiosity and peer interest.
  •  
    I thought this was a great video when I watched it. Very interesting experiment. It reminded me of how I know people who learned other languages through their love of music--they just memorized song lyrics and practiced until they figured out the language!
Amanda Bowen

How Khan Academy Is Changing the Rules of Education | Magazine - 3 views

  •  
    One teacher claims that "The idea is to invert the normal rhythms of school, so that lectures are viewed on the kids' own time and homework is done at school." - Do you agree that this is a good solution? 
  • ...2 more comments...
  •  
    That is the way a couple of my colleagues (science and math) use Khan and they feel it creates more opportunity to use them as a resource for their specific needs. The spend some time at the beginning of class to answer questions as a group and then students begin working on problems and asking for individual help during class.
  •  
    I think the idea of distributing video tutorials and courseware for free is a powerful lever for change and education (Khan Academy, MIT OpenCourseWare, etc). While I'm intrigued by Khan Academy and see the benefit to help student who want to pause and replay lessons, there is a limit to it's use as an educational tool. In the article linked below, the Los Altos district currently piloting the program noted that they have not seen any statistical difference between Khan students and the control group. http://losaltos.patch.com/articles/school-district-expands-khan-academy-to-all-schools
  •  
    I too am intrigued by this "inverting" of time spent in the classroom and at home. My idealized model would be to introduce learners to new material at their own pace out of the classroom (allowing for pausing, note taking, reflecting and/or rewinding) and focus classroom time on face to face guiding and coaching of clusters of students or individual students engaged in applying or exploring the current material. To help facilitate this (and assist with accountability) some brief form of pre-assessment before class or at the start of class could illuminate for student and teacher alike what material has been mastered and what needs more attention. The research report from the TIE Foundations summer reading appears to support this type of hybrid approach. => Marsha Lovett, Oded Meyer, and Candace Thille (2008). The Open Learning Initiative: Measuring the effectiveness of the OLI statistics course in accelerating student learning.
  •  
    An added benefit of tools such as Khan Academy is the option for reinforcement. In a traditional K-12 school environment students do not have the option to watch a video of their class or spend personalized time reviewing a concept they need more time with during class time due to the required pace of school curriculum. An online learning tool allows a student to watch a lesson as many times as needed and to learn from an expert. Often if a student needs help outside the classroom the only people they turn to is parents, who may or may not know about the content themselves.
Uche Amaechi

BYOD - Worst Idea of the 21st Century? : Stager-to-Go - 7 views

  •  
    Uche, you keep posting stuff I have a problem with- OK I understand that BYOD policies may not be so great but I really believe that familes should shoulder some of the costs for hardware since degredation is such a problem. The schools can have agreements with vendors to provide certain laptops or tablets for a certain price point and they can design their systems to support these items. Parents are expected to purchase backpacks, binders, and school supplies. When parents can't provide these back-to-school supplies, schools cover it. The same should be for computers. Speaking as a middle class parent (refer to above article) I believe this is an important investment in our schools so that they can focus on hardware support and software implementation/ integration.
  • ...1 more comment...
  •  
    @Allison and Uche - I am torn. While I initially thought BYOD was a good idea so that schools would have to stop "blaming" their fiscal woes on their inability to integrate emerging technologies into the curriculum, I now have some appreciation with points from this article - especially around "false equivalences" and "enshrining inequities" in light of my own children's "bring your own electronic device" day that took place two weeks ago. As a school wide reward for meeting their Accelerated Reading goal, all students were told they could bring an electronic device to school to "play" with on Friday afternoon. This prompted my kids to call me (Skype) on Thursday night and ask me if I could buy them a DS or a SmartPhone that NIGHT so that they could bring either of those devices to school for the celebration. Now mind you, my kids have access to lap tops, iPad, Smart Phones, Wii games, GameBoy, iPods, Flip camera, digital camera, etc - albeit not their OWN - but still access to them for use (when Mom and Dad are not using them). But apparently, of the devices left that Mom and Dad weren't using, none of them were "cool" enough for this event. That got me wondering if BYOD might have the same effect on our learners making those who don't have the latest and greatest feel bad or less adequate then their friends or classmates who could bring something they deemed as "better?" Allison, your point seems to be that requiring parents to cover the expense of a digital device as a requirement for school is not a bad idea, but I think you are referring to expecting the SAME device to be purchased and used, not myriad devices with various capabilities, features and functions - am I understanding you correctly? And if we did try to mandate parental supply of digital devices, would we have a different kind of fight on our hands because, as consumers, parents might have their own biases around what they deem is the best device of all (not just PC vs MAC or iOS vs Android, but sma
  •  
    I still believe that a system properly designed could mitigate some of your concerns. In reality, schools can not support any device that a student brings in. They are capable of supporting a certain number and if they build relationships with the vendors to sell those devices that the school is capable of supporting then families will be aware that the school will offer the best deal on the items that are compatible. Every year the school recommends items for back to school supplies. If the laptop could replace all of the binders it might be worth it. There are many factors to consider but the biggest obstacle is that schools maintain such old equipment because of their budget woes. Even when we can purchase the latest and greatest software, the computers can't run it.
  •  
    What a great debate you guys are having! One point worth considering is that typically the parents are responsible for purchasing the supplies, while the school is responsible for providing the content (textbooks, workbooks, handouts, worksheets, videos, etc). In the near future these devices may also be the primary sources of content, replacing textbooks altogether. I would hope perhaps funding for textbooks could be transferred to funding for these devices. I would also hope that the price of these devices drops significantly (is the $35 tablet in our future?). Then of course the question of who pays is less important. In my job producing educational video for publishing companies, I spend way too much time dealing with various formats and compatibility problems with browsers, so I'd love to see a future where this becomes more standardized.
Uche Amaechi

Avichal's Blog - 1 views

  •  
    This article is really informative. I guess I knew much of the article intuitively but I didn't have hard facts. My biggest question is his depiction of middle class Americans as viewing education as an expense as opposed to an investment. Our non- Univ of Pheonix college students mostly hail from middle class families who are worried if their child doesn't have a degree. His evidence for his viewpoint is that 50% of peope don't have a degree. However, what percent went to college and dropped out? I remember that in 1990's that 25% of Americans had college degrees. Sounds like there is some growth. Regardless, his views on the Asia market and servicing struggling districts is food for thought. Thank you.
Bridget Binstock

Digital Badges - 4 views

  •  
    The idea of "showing what you know" and earning badges instead of degrees? In this economic downswing, could something like this become the new emergent way of learning and of assessing? Thoughts?
  •  
    Sounds like the digital badge is more lke a digital portfolio- which I would more likely support. I find it interesting that our education system (which strives and struggles to provide consistent, high quality education from coast to coast) is seen as deficient but this badge proposal will be the answer? It's like the flood of support for home-schooling after a home-schooler wins a national competition but no one knows about the tens of homescholers I had to remediate in rural NH. Standardization is the key for any system to be integrated into another system. The variety of education models we have in our country makes it difficult for employers to integrate employees. If this digital badge concept relies on a variety of models, they will have the same problem.
  •  
    The prospect of digital badges to show what you know is both exciting with its potential affordances and worrisome with some of its limitations and ambiguity. It'd be great if the ideal came to pass that digital badges would allow valid demonstration of super-specific skills and knowledge over a greater range of fields and topics than what having a B.A. or B.S. currently does. Digital badges could represent the most particular concepts or skills at a granular level even-- those that are essential in the real-world (whether that be desired by employers or otherwise). If the task or test or challenge, or whatever else would be the means of assessment for earning a badge, was carefully designed and evaluated to be a truly valid measure of proficiency, then earning a badge for something would be a clear indication that you know something. But like Allison said, standardization would be key. What would these assessments/ badge challenges be- so that they would be truly valid indicators of proficiency? Who would be the purveyors or authorities to determine the assessments or challenges to accomplish a badge? Given the medium (completing badge assessments on one's own computer or mobile device - from any site they're at potentially) - what's to stop a user from going "open book" or "opening another tab" in order to look up answers to questions or tutorials on how to do a task, in order to complete the assessment? Doing this would allow a user to ace the assessment and earn the badge- but would defeat any value of the badge in truly demonstrating knowledge or skill. By imagining if digital badges did reach mass-acceptance and use in the real world, and we were to ultimately find them all over the internet like we're now finding social media widgets, it made me realize that the "prove proficiency anywhere I am in any way I want" won't work. I changed fields and career paths from what I studied in college, so I definitely appreciate the value in being able to truly show e
Nick Siewert

How video games are good for the brain - The Boston Globe - 2 views

  • Generalizability to non-game situations is the big question surrounding other emerging games, particularly software that is being marketed explicitly as a way to keep neurons spry as we age. The jury is still out on whether practicing with these games helps people outside of the context of the game.
    • Nick Siewert
       
      The central quation is generalizability of skills learned or transferrence of acquired knowledge.
Shawn Mahoney

Education Week: Twitter Lessons in 140 Characters or Less - 0 views

  • shared articles on the separation of church and state, pondered the persistence of racism, and commented on tobacco regulation in Virginia now and during the Colonial period—all in the required Twitter format of 140 or fewer characters
  • He and other teachers first found Twitter valuable for reaching out to colleagues and locating instructional resources
  • short-form communications may have for students’ thinking and learning are not known
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • Twitter has not caught on among school-age children as quickly or universally as other Web 2.0 tools, such as Facebook or MySpace: Only about 1 percent of the estimated 12 million users in the United States are between the ages of 3 and 17, although young adults are the fastest-growing group of users, according to recent reports.
  • get students engaged in the content and processes of school.
  • “It’s getting kids who aren’t necessarily engaged in class engaged in some sort of conversation.”
  • A recent study, however, renewed concerns about the potential negative impact of the latest technological applications. The study, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that adults who attempted multiple tasks while using a range of media simultaneously had difficulty processing the information or switching between tasks.
  • Mr. Willingham, who is the author of the new book, Why Don’t Students Like School?: A Cognitive Scientist Answers Questions About How the Mind Works and What It Means for the Classroom.
  • Somebody’s got to create something worth tweeting
  •  
    Connected to a few class discussions (including one in HT 500 about multitasking)... *potential for greater/more diversity in discussion/participation than in person *what do we mean when we say "multi-task"? *weighty topics/140 characters Somebody's got to create something worth tweeting
Xavier Rozas

Education Week: Twitter Lessons in 140 Characters or Less - 1 views

  • “It’s not a research-based tool,” said Daniel T. Willingham, a professor of psychology at the University of Virginia, in Charlottesville. “The most important thing to remember is that we have no idea what impact these tools have on learning, and it will take a decade to answer that question.”
  • A few studies have found some positive correlations between text-messaging aptitude and literacy. Research on gaming and educational multimedia programs have also shown some positive impact on learning. But few scientific experiments can show a direct link between the use of such technology and student achievement.
  • “The medium is not enough,” he added. “People talk about the vital importance of Web 2.0 and 3.0, and that kids have got to acquire those skills. But we can’t all just be contributing to wikis and tweeting each other. Somebody’s got to create
  •  
    Good article that plainly states, Web 2.0 and 3.0 are tools that if used properly can engage and effect teaching and learning beyond traditional classroom spaces.
Jennifer Jocz

News: Tweeting in Class - Inside Higher Ed - 0 views

  • Suddenly, I’m not just the one at the front just dispensing everything, and the students aren’t just sort of milling about doing their thing — we’ve actually got a team of people working together. And Twitter is the glue that holds the team together.”
  • It’s also a data-gathering resource. Live discussion threads, Campbell noted, give professors loads of data on the previously mysterious question of what exactly is going on inside the heads of students during a lecture. No longer is a student’s ability to participate in classroom discussions contingent upon whether he is willing to raise his hand and has the good fortune to be called on, he said.
  •  
    Discusses some pros and cons of using twitter in the classroom
Caroline Hendryx

Facebook message frees NYC robbery suspect - Tech and gadgets- msnbc.com - 2 views

  •  
    This caught my attention in the question of how web-stored or shared information can be counted as legal documentation.
Brigham Hall

Selling Lesson Plans Online, Teachers Raise Cash and Questions - NYTimes.com - 1 views

  •  
    When a teacher writes a lesson plan, does the intellectual property (IP) belong to the teacher, the school, or both? This article discussing the online lesson plan marketplace and the debate over who (teacher, school) gets the proceeds. What do you think?
  •  
    When a teacher writes a lesson plan, does the intellectual property (IP) belong to the teacher, the school, or both? This article discussing the online lesson plan marketplace and the debate over who (teacher, school) gets the proceeds. What do you think?
Bridget Binstock

Putting Text Messaging BACK in the Classroom - 0 views

  •  
    See a need, build something to meet the need, and go from there... StudyBoost is the result of a brother watching his brother and friend try to study for the GMAT without carrying around the book. Born: an IM client that allows for collaboration on questions and answers applicable to the test by both students and teachers - wherever and whenever. For Wiske's class - wouldn't this fit nicely into the CoI and PI models? If so, why wouldn't school embrace this use instead of worrying about inappropriate use of phones in class? Make the lesson or assignment engaging enough - generative enough - to hook and sustain appropriate interaction on the device that 93% of children have ACCESS to? Sounds like a win-win?
Jennifer Lavalle

Enrollment in Online Courses Increases at the Highest Rate Ever - 2 views

  •  
    For those of you in Professor Wiske's class, this makes our course work all the more relevant. For the purposes of this class, what technologies are effective in providing the tools for teachers and students to engage in quality online education? Certainly a question that, based on these numbers, is only going to grow more complex with time...
Irina Uk

Education Week: Districts Tackle Questions Surrounding BYOT Policy - 1 views

  •  
    Published Online: October 17, 2011 Published in Print: October 19, 2011, as Crafting Your BYOT Policy For the small but passionate minority of school districts that are opening doors to student-owned mobile devices, there's a lot riding on how effective the policy shift turns out to be in improving teaching and learning. I will be looking strongly at this experiment to assist with the charter school district I am putting together.
  •  
    I can understand a districts hesitance towards the BYOT because of its responsibility for and inability to control the accessing of inappropriate content on such devices. What I would like to see - even if in baby steps (which I know is occurring in small scale all over the country), is the creation and sharing of engaging lessons that encourage this BYOT movement and combat the urge for students to be inappropriate because of the level of motivation the lesson itself provides. And I would also like to see some of the responsibility shift from policy makers to the students for self moderation - they know what is right and wrong in an educational setting - why can't we hold THEM accountable more?
  •  
    Article addresses policy challenges in implementing BYOT
Jennifer Lavalle

WSD Board Ponders 21st Century Learning with $7M Price Tag - 1 views

  •  
    Interesting, real-time, questions about the topics we are covering in T561. Illuminates some of the key pieces (and challenges there within) of the scaling process... "Wissahickon School District (WSD) board members are divided on how to meet educational technology goals that bridge the "digital divide" and foster 21st Century Learning skills for students. A "1:1" plan presented to board members calls for giving every secondary student a computer to bridge the digital divide for students who do not have a computer, and enhance learning for all."
anonymous

I'mOk App - Gamefying the act of staying connected to parents - 0 views

  •  
    I'mOK is a mobile app that rewards your kids for taking responsibility for staying connected. Checking in with parents is gamefied so that by checking-in to locations earns you points.
  •  
    interesting premise.. first thing I thought was, it's taking something kids *might* be into (gameification, badges, etc) and mixes it with something they dread (letting their parents know where they are, what they're doing) -- what's the point for kids? What benefit can they draw? Why would they want to earn badges or points in game/app their parents suggested? ... But as the homepage suggests, the premise of parents using this app/system to translate the app's points into real-life rewards (a currency system that parents & kids can negotiate together)... that's an interesting idea. Maybe this kind of arrangement can actually work in some cases. But with gameification in general, I'm wondering about the likelihood of true internalization. Usually we're wondering the question of if kids are actually learning content for the long-term when intertwining it with the motivating factors of game elements. But now this adds on a layer of moral values, obligations, responsibility... are kids going to internalize that they should keep their parents in the loop cause their parents worry, it's the right/responsible thing to do? Or will it stay at the "well I'm earning points/money/privileges"...
« First ‹ Previous 101 - 120 of 120
Showing 20 items per page