From a Department of Education 1995 forum, some panelists contended that rather than debating the connections between technology-based instruction and test scores, schools should focus on the most obvious and compelling reason form implementing technology-namely, that students need strong technology skills to succeed in the world of work. This section will provide you with the impact technology has on learning.
This website has links to the different state educational technology plans from the United States of America. It has the statewide long-range strategic educational technology plans for improving student academic achievement through the effective use of advanced technology in classrooms.
Online social networking is spawning a new type of professional development that brings educators together to share face-to-face lessons, but in a more freewheeling-and, some argue, more targeted-way than traditional conferences intended to boost teaching skills.
Interesting article. As we have been discussing several problems exist. Lack of teacher training is one. The other looks to the behavior of the students. Perhaps the laptops need to stay at school so that no one "forgets" theirs at home. Students can only use them during classtime and there is a teacher sitting at the back of the room to ensure that all students are on appropriate sites.
Can we trust students? (I believe yes...We must trust students so they will rise to the occasion, rather than sink to lowest expectations.
I also think if students are challenged to use computers for more than pure peer social interaction, we may be able to limit the "inappropriate" use you mention.
So, actually, it comes back to teacher training.
It makes my head hurt.
Monday, April 23rd, for live and interactive FutureofEducation.com conversation with good friends Julie Lindsay and Vicki Davis, authors of Flattening Classrooms, Engaging Minds: Move to Global Collaboration One Step at a Time .
This webinar speaks to our next assignment on the future of education.
1:1 at Burlington High School. Check out the last example: It looks a lot like our final digital story project, only for high school students. Reflection is an important tool at any stage of education, and it is one we often forget.
I think the best place to start when thinking about incorporating technology into the classroom is by asking the question, “What is the right tool for this particular job?” Sometimes it’s a digital tool and sometimes it’s not. But when we force a digital tool into a classroom scenario where it isn’t the best one for the job, students are extremely quick to pick up on this “tech for tech’s sake” implementation.
And the faster and more intense our connectedness becomes, the further we move away from that ideal. Digital busyness is the enemy of depth.”
Instead, if used in a dynamic way that addresses the medium’s strengths, mobile media can actually get us to engage with each other and with the spaces we move through in deep, meaningful, and context-rich ways.
It is apparent that the students often shift between the two classroom spheres. Does this “distraction” take them away from engaging with the content I’m presenting? Quite the contrary. From my experience, they are engaged with the material that is being discussed in a much more sustained way because the devices that have typically severed as “distractions” in the past (e.g. using the laptop or the mobile phone to access Facebook) are now being utilized to constantly engage them with the material.
The quiz began with a QR code posted on my office door (I started here so they would all know where my office was located!) that led them to a download of the 7scenes app.
from Broadcastr to Foursquare
When they arrived to class on the day of the field test, we all went geocaching around campus.
The three groups each decided to create fictional narratives and used a range of mobile media from websites designed for the iPad, geocaches that contained narrative elements, and one group even built a reverse geocache that held the contents of the story.
Soon, if it hasn’t happened already, every teacher in higher education will have to develop a strategy for mobile phone use in the classroom (whether that be to integrate the technology or to ban it).
This website provides basic info and good breakdown of what TPACK is and why it is necessary for educators. It was created by a professor of education.
The Citation Project is a multi-institution research project responding to educators' concerns about plagiarism and the teaching of writing. Although much has been written on this topic and many have expressed concerns, little empirical data is available to describe what students are actually doing with their sources.
This is a video that goes through the different phases of technology use in Education. It is an advertisement for Smart equipment, but it's still an interesting short video
Nice find. Interesting how they showed the digital age in 1995 with people connecting all over the world, but then back in the classroom in 2000 with smartboards not really used to connect with others. In the video, it doesn't look like the smartboard is changing the classroom dynamic of teacher-centered learning.