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Tarmo Toikkanen

What is the Future of Teaching? - 0 views

  • According to the New York Times Bits blog, a recent study funded by the US Department of Education (PDF) found that on the whole, online learning environments actually led to higher tested performance than face-to-face learning environments.
  • “In many of the studies showing an advantage for online learning, the online and classroom conditions differed in terms of time spent, curriculum and pedagogy. It was the combination of elements in the treatment conditions (which was likely to have included additional learning time and materials as well as additional opportunities for collaboration) that produced the observed learning advantages,” writes the authors of the report (emphasis theirs). “At the same time, one should note that online learning is much more conducive to the expansion of learning time than is face-to-face instruction.”
  • We can conclude that those in online learning environments tested better, but not necessarily why.
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  • Researchers warned that “various online learning implementation practices may have differing effectiveness for K–12 learners than they do for older students,” which seems plausible.
  • The word education, after all, comes from the Latin educare, which means, “to lead out.” I.e., think Socrates. Anyone can absorb information from a book or video, but good teachers will always be necessary to draw out that knowledge and help students develop the skills needed to think critically about the information they consume. In other words, online learning tools are just like any other tools in a teacher’s bag of tricks: what matters is how they’re applied. The instruction of good teachers will be made better by the proper application of web tools, while bad teachers won’t necessarily be made better by utilizing online education methods.
  • It comes down to knowing how to best use the tools at your disposal to maximize the impact of education for students, which has always been what separates good teachers from bad ones. The major difference between teachers of today and teachers of the future is that in the future educators will have better online tools and will require better specialized training to learn how to utilize them properly.
    • Tarmo Toikkanen
       
      Exactly. The tools are not the point, it's the learning results that matter. And they stem from the learning activities, which in turn are supported by the tools that are employed.
  • Teachers will certainly need to adapt in order to use new tools and methods, but that’s nothing new. Online education may never completely replace face-to-face learning, though as the Department of Education study shows, with enough time and under the guidance of a good teacher, online learning environments can produce results that are just as good or better than classroom learning. Online learning is likely to be used more often to enhance face-to-face learning in the future, however, and in communities where classroom learning is infeasible due to lack of funds, online learning is an adequate stand-in.
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    Good analysis on the impact of new tools, and the need for great teachers.
Tarmo Toikkanen

DSpace at Open Universiteit Nederland: Evidence of cross-boundary use and reuse of digi... - 0 views

  • In this study we conducted an investigation on the server-end log-files of teachers’ Collections of educational resources in a number of content platforms. Our goal was to find empirical evidence from the field that teachers use and reuse learning resources that are in a language other than their mother tongue and originate from different countries than they do. We call these cross-boundary learning resources. We compared the cross-boundary reuse of educational resources to the general reuse figure of 20%, and find that it was either equal to or less than the general reuse. We further studied the coverage, the overlap and the pick-up rate of these resources, and propose steps that could improve the probability of discovery, use and reuse of cross-boundary resources.
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    Riina Vuorikari's article. In this study we conducted an investigation on the server-end log-files of teachers' Collections of educational resources in a number of content platforms. Our goal was to find empirical evidence from the field that teachers use and reuse learning resources that are in a language other than their mother tongue and originate from different countries than they do. We call these cross-boundary learning resources. We compared the cross-boundary reuse of educational resources to the general reuse figure of 20%, and find that it was either equal to or less than the general reuse. We further studied the coverage, the overlap and the pick-up rate of these resources, and propose steps that could improve the probability of discovery, use and reuse of cross-boundary resources.
Tarmo Toikkanen

Attacking the Factory Model School System - 0 views

  • The only way to make learning easy, is to create a passion and safe culture for easy learning. The only way to make learning any subject easy is to create a community of learners where the students feel comfortable and safe to take risks. I have broken down this "easy" rule into four steps that make it easier to understand. A. Listen to why students are participating in the classroom and fulfill the learning needs that they are identifying. When these needs are being met. the student’s interest level and cooperation with the teacher will be highest. B. Understand how the classwork relates to the student’s daily lives. The student’s have to see the connection between the material and who they are to feel motivated C. Immerse the students in both the theoretical and material ways that the classwork affects the students lives. If the teacher presents the material in a complete fashion the classwork will be easier to place in its context. D. Give students the chance to learn. Create a community of learners where every member is trying to learn. Students and teachers have the ability to learn at every moment of their lives
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    Attacking the Factory Model School System (or) 12 easy steps to turn a teacher into a prison guard and one very hard way to make it easy to learn.
Tarmo Toikkanen

50 Awesome Ways to Use Skype in the Classroom | Teaching Degree.org - 0 views

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    "Skype is a free and easy way for teachers to open up their classroom and their students to a world way beyond their campus. With Skype, students can learn from other students, connect with other cultures, and expand their knowledge in amazing ways. Teachers and parents can also benefit from Skype in the classroom. Read below to learn how you can take advantage of the power of Skype in your classroom."
Tarmo Toikkanen

Socrative | Student response system | Engage audiences - 0 views

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    "Socrative is a smart student response system that empowers teachers to engage their classrooms through a series of educational games and exercises via smartphones and tablets. Our apps are super simple and take seconds to load and run. Teachers control the questions and games on their laptop, while students respond and interact through their smartphones/laptops. Run it as an app or on any web browser."
Tarmo Toikkanen

TeachPaperless: Why Teachers Should Blog - 0 views

  • And so, we should teach this new generation to move beyond embarrassment and fear. This is not to condone manifestly insolent behavior online, rather in teaching the qualities -- the unique qualities -- of the globally connected public square, we should be instilling in students both a strident determination to take part in the unadulterated public debate and yet have humility.I think both are achieved through the crucial practice of critical thinking and earnest self-analysis. And no where, if sincerely met with daily conviction, can both be better employed than in the practice of blogging.
  • And so, I firmly believe that all teachers should be bloggers. Because if Descartes is wrong, then the thrust of our identity is determined not by our inalienable and essential state of being but by the differences in idea and sense that we demonstrate through our interactions with others.
Tarmo Toikkanen

dy/dan » Blog Archive » BetterLesson Reviewed - 0 views

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    Contrast these criteria to LeMill.
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    Dan Meyer analyses a lesson plan creation service, BetterLesson, and shares what he considers key aspects of a working teacher community.
Tarmo Toikkanen

Stuff for Classroom Teachers - 0 views

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    Links to resources. Includes lots of IWB (interactive whiteboard) activities.
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    Interesting things for Teachers on the World Wide Web.
Jukka Purma

JIME - Building Open Educational Resources from the Ground Up: South Africa's Free High... - 0 views

  • Ultimately this involves instilling practices within the organization or project that imitate the very characteristics of the resources that OER projects serve to create and support.
  • In March 2002, Mark Horner, a graduate student in physics at the University of Cape Town (UCT), presented a demonstration on waves at a science fair in South Africa. After the demonstration, several high school students approached him, explaining that they did not have a science textbook, and had never had wave phenomena described to them before. The students had pooled their money to purchase a notebook and pen, and they asked Horner to write down the demonstration, step by step, so they could share the notes with their classmates and teachers. Wanting to give the students more than the steps of a wave demonstration, Horner returned to UCT and engaged his colleagues in writing a high school science text that would be free and sharable for all teachers and learners in South Africa. In the process, Free High School Science Texts (FHSST) was born.
  • Through its communication and networking channels, the project grew from an original group of five graduate students who wrote the content locally, to over 420 volunteers who have, since 2002, signed up for an account and logged onto the project website.[[3]] The number of active and sustained contributors of content, however, was smaller—about 50 volunteer authors globally, from South Africa to India, Pakistan, Scotland, and the United States. Of these 50 active volunteers, approximately ten became core participants, contributing content regularly and consistently (i.e., weekly).
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  • Getting volunteers set up to use the CVS repository was a laborious process, and volunteers needed extensive technical understanding. As a result, this placed a substantial burden on the core team volunteers, who had to facilitate contributions from the other volunteers. To lessen this burden, the project experimented with WikiBooks.
  • As a result, FHSST shifted to a third solution, the eventual development and implementation of a content management system (CMS)[[5]]. Drupal was chosen because it was free, relatively easy to set up, and met volunteer needs effectively.
  • In order to submit content to FHSST within the Drupal system, volunteers signed up on the FHSST website, logged on, and chose from the list of available assignments based upon their expertise and interests. The sign-up and log-on processes did not require a screening for credentials. During the initial stages of the project, people volunteered to complete large sections of text, such as chapters. However, FHSST soon found that many of the sections were not being completed within expected timeframes. As a result, FHSST began to divide volunteer tasks into smaller assignments, such as portions of chapters, drawings, illustrations, activities, and examples. FHSST noted that this adaptation facilitated volunteers’ ability to consistently complete assignments within expected timeframes.
  • Since its inception, FHSST offered face-to-face work sessions in which volunteers in the same geographic area met together to develop content collaboratively
  • hackathons
  • The aim of our trials was to identify the weaknesses in the books to inform our second-round editing process and make sure we fix the issues to make the books as usable as possible to our target audience. We also wanted to identify […] what is the [science] laboratory situation at the schools? Do they have equipment to do the experiments so that we could […] tailor our content accordingly.
  • experimentation and adaptation are central components of an open education projects’ ability to sustain itself
  • Since FHSST did not obtain funding until four years after its inception,
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    Mielenkiintoinen ja onnistunut "agile" oppikirjankirjoitusprojekti
Tarmo Toikkanen

Social Media is Killing the LMS Star - A Bootleg of Bryan Alexander's Lost Presentation... - 0 views

  • Hence the title of my talk. CMSes lumber along like radio, still playing into the air as they continue to gradually shift ever farther away on the margins. In comparison, Web 2.0 is like movies and tv combined, plus printed books and magazines. That’s where the sheer scale, creative ferment, and wife-ranging influence reside. This is the necessary background for discussing how to integrate learning and the digital world.
  • Students can publish links to external objects, but can’t link back in.
  • Moreover, unless we consider the CMS environment to be a sort of corporate intranet simulation, the CMS set of community skills is unusual, rarely applicable to post-graduation examples. In other words, while a CMS might help privacy concerns, it is at best a partial, not sufficient solution, and can even be inappropriate for already online students.
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  • Think of a professor bringing a newspaper to class, carrying a report about the very subject under discussion. How can this be utilized practically? Faculty members can pick a Web service (Google News, Facebook, Twitter) and search themselves, sharing results; or students can run such queries themselves.
  • A second emergent field concerns social media literacy. An increasing amount of important communication occurs through Web 2.0 services.
  • Can the practice of using a CMS prepare either teacher or student to think critically about this new shape for information literacy? Moreover, can we use the traditional CMS to share thoughts and practices about this topic?
  • And so we can think of the CMS. What is it best used for? We have said little about its integration with campus information systems, but these are critical for class (not learning) management, from attendance to grading. Web 2.0 has yet to replace this function. So imagine the CMS function of every class much like class email, a necessary feature, but not by any means the broadest technological element. Similarly the e-reserves function is of immense practical value. There may be no better way to share copyrighted academic materials with a class, at this point. These logistical functions could well play on.
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    Discussion on how LMS and CMS are fading into the margins, and social media is taking the center stage.
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