Week 4 Delicious Site

Well I am moving along in my travels in technology. Now I am experimenting with social bookmarking and a site called delicious. Please check it out My Delicious Bookmarks I hope you like what you see. I will post more as the week moves on.

Week Two Reflections

Week Two Reflections

My impressions of using a Blog are great. I have never used one before and I can see the uses of this tool to keep in touch with students and parents. It is less fixed than a web page and allows for quicker changes. I would like also to have my students to develop their own Blogs as we have, so they can post responses to each other and me. I liked how after a little exploring of Blogger you can personalize your blog. Even if it may be argued that a Blog is not an answer to a question of a better newsletter. I still think the instantaneousness of the blog and its ability to get information out to more people quickly justifies its role as a tool. The RSS feed was much harder for me to figure out how to establish. However, once I had completed entering everyone’s blog address I was up and running instantaneously. I love how I got feed back and was able to read what everyone else was thinking in the class. I would like to know how to limit outside responses to my Blog that people can view through the RSS feed. Would prefer to have a group RSS feed that is specifically for this class. If I were setting this up for my class then I would want to filter out who is in contact to my students. I can see and I am sure I will find more and more uses for these two tools.

This weeks reading were markedly different from last weeks. They were more interesting despite one of them Dale’s Cone being one of then oldest reading so far. Dale was very progressive in his thinking for 1969 when it comes to technology. He made references to ways that technology could be used to enhance learning in both the abstract and concrete by products that were not common place then or even invented. Our blogs can be linked to video and create a simulated or virtual classroom or place to visit. Virtual field trips and demonstrations that include recordings and still pictures are prefect for blogs. Dale says “talking about experiences …is an excellent means of helping students learn to read intelligently about them. A blog is just that a way to convey my experiences.  Imaginative involvement by students on a teachers blog or even building their own is high in the abstract learning part of the cone but also hands on that can be in the concrete part of the cone. The cone has a fluidity that lends itself to moving students up and down the cone. In its simplest form pushing a button to make exhibits work is not needed but as Dale says it does engage. The RSS feeds in recent years have shown that news and comments from around the world can be instantaneous and when coupled with images such as the riots in Egypt are powerful tools for immediacy in learning. In his time Dale refers to television and satellite pictures “as close as any mechanical device can get to the direct experience.” As direct experiences go up by using tools like RSS feeds, abstraction can be mastered but balanced by more concrete hand on tools such as blogs. As Dale said “The medium influences the message and the message influences the medium. Both Blogs and RSS Feeds are different types of medium and message conveyors.

Siegel’s article on the concept of “computer imagination” actually asks the question what is a problem to which each of the tools is an answer. He asks what an e-learning application needs to have an advantage over print. Maybe we need to ask as Siegel asks which actually meets the goal of developing understanding that leads to effective learning. E-book books and readers may not fill that goal or even answer “the question” in an affirmative. The “Scenarios” did however lend themselves to our new tools. While the Blog may be questionable as to whether it is answering a problem it can be used as a starting point for the facilitator. I can be the starting point for discussion topics and survey results to be posted. RSS Feeds really do lend themselves to the scenario computer imaginative tool concept. They allow real time instantaneous responses that have “multiple points of view that are discovered …through asynchronous exchanges” The passing of information and responses can be done as we are doing during class and after classroom teaching has ended. Students can post comments and engage in abstract learning 24/7.

Reflection on Articles

Reigeluth, C.M. & Joseph, R. (2002). Beyond technology integration: The case for technology transformation. Educational Technology, 42(4), 9-13.

Postman, N. (1993). Of Luddites, learning, and life. Technos Quarterly, 2(4).

The two writings were very much opposing on their approach to technology and education. I think it is important to look at the dates of the articles as they were written at very different times when social norms, education and political governance were focused on very definite situations.

The Reigeluth article was written at a time when the government was encouraging integration of technology into classroom, education was becoming more holistic and computers and technology was more common place in the home. Internet speed and access had been increased but was not universal coverage. Technology was supposed to transform teaching and allow for greater diversity in teaching. The table comparing the Industrial Age with the Information Age systems was interesting but some of the word choice could be rethought. Planned obsolescence moving to customer is “king” is debatable as customer service has a long way to go even today. Many of the top tech companies have monopolies on technology and can ask any price for their products and update as soon as you have bought the “latest and greatest” without a conscience for the consumer, Conformity moving to diversity is hard when everybody wants the same products and the education system want all students to reach a common standard by a certain level. Standardization is not customization especially in education. I wonder if it is good for the demands of industry to drive education or should education be a stand alone product that drives invention, and new products that filter down to industry.

The concept that Reigeluth proposes of a “learning –focused educational system that offers customization rather than standardization” is wonderful; but will require a huge shift in educational practice. I believe technology integration should be part of that shift. The second table could be easily confused with explanation of the Montessori Method which is not a new system. The learning focused paradigm is not widely practiced in the public school system even now. Technology is a perfect match for this education philosophy. It will allow individualized instruction, encourage, performance based assessment rather than standardized tests and help students develop self directed learning. My question I ask whenever new systems are proposed is how we are going to pay for this change. The public education system has been cut to the bone and the integration of new methods and technology are very expensive. 

Reigeluth clearly has a greater understanding of the pedagogy. He recognizes that it would be a mistake to rely entirely on technology to provide the answers to the education problem and that teachers need to be facilitators while guiding students to scaffold from their peers and explore different sources of information and technology. He recognizes that different teaching methods are needed for each student and type of technology. I worry that some technology driven learning can remove the teacher from the big picture. I don’t want to see differentiated instruction becoming plug_and_play. You need the personal interaction with students.  

When Reigeluth raises the subject of new capabilities in technology I had to smile when he listed the “hard: technologies. My fourth grade students this Christmas received notebooks, nooks, ipads, phones, tablets. It was amazing that they were so comfortable with the technology that they had received and were already reading books, making movies and writing stories. They are all working with “soft “technology like they were born wired and ready to run. I am excited that technology is going to be a focus in their education. Now all we need to do is get equal access to all so we can teach to the individual.

The Postman article written in the early 90’s was at time when people were still scared of technology. People were worried it would take their jobs away from them; people were reluctant to trust computers with information. The people who made decisions in education and government were of the “Reaganomics” era and big business excesses.  The article calls machines “distractions diverting the intelligence and energy of talented people from addressing the issues we need to confront” Postman also claims “new technologies drive old technologies out of business.” and this causes problems rather than progress. I feel he misses the point that change of thinking often is the catalyst of invention. He questions the “costs intellectually and socially of putting computers in the classroom. It is not that computers should be in every classroom but how they are used. I have used computers to drive instruction and augment instruction. But have also seen students go into a computer lab for an hour a week and play games where no productive learning is evident. I agree with Postman that we tend to invent problems to justify using new computer technology and often do not have a clear plan on how or the best way to incorporate technology into the curriculum.

I found the section about Stephen Hawking and how the powers that be in Texas could draw the “god” card as a means to generate funding from a “Christian Nation” amusing. This was so typical of that era when people were getting huge funding dollars for projects that had no real life significance. When Postman asks the question about the information superhighway he clearly shows his political colors. He fails to see the benefits of communication in real time. Al Gore was not proposing the internet to sell more TV’s but broadening knowledge in real time and providing equal access to all communities: urban, rural and social economic. 

When Postman moves onto his education and technology section of the article he answers his question “What is the problem that technology is the solution?” in such a negative way. He apparently wants to remain in the 1840’s with the telegraphy and photography. He fails to acknowledge that both of which were improvements on prior technology. We had not solved the speed of information distribution at that time. Also to claim that technology can not give access to more information in the classroom than that which is already in the classroom is ridiculous. Schools are about presenting information and teaching skills to students so that they are able to learn. Teaching children to behave in groups is not the primary function of schools. Claiming that the youth of America “no longer experience powerful and exhilarating narratives” because people want to introduce technology into the classroom is so fatalistic. Students are being taught these narratives but in a different more exciting way. Students are given access to real time events and experiences that they can then relate to the past. Teachers need to teach students how to filter out irrelevant information and learn from the information they do access. Computers I agree are not the solution to the nation’s education problems but they are a tool to increase educational success.

 

First Time Blogger

This is my first experience with a blog. I am setting it up for my Ed Tech class at WMU