Summer Homes
Tag Archives: education in a digital age
Picture Of The Day February 4
Reflection
State of the Union Education Roundtable With Arne Duncan
This is actually quite interesting.
Educational Apps for Google Apps
Letter To My Representatives In Response To New Hampshire House Bill 39
NH House Bill 39 I sent the following e-mail to the reprsentatives from my distinct in response to the attempt to eliminate arts education, world languages, technology,communication and health. It seems obvious that the bill wouldn’t pass but it could be dangerous to let such bills come before the legislature without comment.
I am writing to encourage you to vote against House Bill 39. Tom Friedman in his book The World is Flat stresses that the institutions that encourage imagination will be the successful schools in the ever changing world of the 21t century. To return to the 19th century concept of reading, writing and arithmetic is reactionary in a world dominated by change. Arts education is integral to the development of a well rounded creative and imaginative individual. World language is even more important today than it has ever been as our population will be called upon to collaborate with people from many different cultures. It would be short sighted to cancel health classes at a time when many segments of our population are embracing unhealthy lifestyles. The idea that we should not be training our students to use technology and communication in effective, creative, and ethical ways is also counterproductive when our children will be called upon to function in a rapidly evolving technological age. William Butler Yeats pointed out that “Education is not filling a pail but the lighting of a fire.” Returning to the “3 R’s” will not create the well rounded citizens that the great educational philosopher John Dewey envisioned. It will simply be an attempt to fill the pail and we will be doing children a great disservice if Bill 39 is passed. This will certainly not light any fires.
Link To An Interesting Study About Learning From “Discover Magazine”
This article is about a study done by Elizabeth Bonawitz from the University of California, Berkeley
Thoughts on Shelly Wright’s Blog ntitled “Blogging is the New Persuasive Essay” By Rick Davidson
I have just finished reading Shelly Wright’s blog entitled “Blogging is the New Persuasive Essay”. http://shelleywright.wordpress.com/2011/01/03/blogging-is-the-new-persuasive-essay/ The article suggests that many students lack effective writing skills because our educational system is not producing independent thinkers. Without the ability to articulate an informed opinion, it is difficulty to develop and defend a thesis statement. Ms. Wright’s thesis statement is the title of her blog entry. If blogging is indeed the new persuasive essay, it is yet another example of how technology is in the process of changing how we define literacy.
As a technology integrator in a middle school, I have spent a great deal of time pondering how to encourage our students to begin to function on the upper level of Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy. http://www.uwsp.edu/education/lwilson/curric/newtaxonomy.htm This has been especially challenging given that the standardized testing movement stresses the lower two levels in the cognitive domain. The lowest being remembering retrieving and recalling. The next lowest being understanding. While we should not ignore these skills, the challenge of “21st Century Education” is to help our students develop the ability to apply knowledge, analyze concepts, evaluate information, and create a product. In other words our students need to become independent thinkers.
The traditional dictionary definition of literacy tends to look like the following:
literate – able to read and write
literate – versed in literature; dealing with literature
literate – knowledgeable and educated in one or several fields; “computer literate”
wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn
The National Council of Teachers of English has developed the following guidelines for what is needed to be literate in the 21st Century:
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“Develop proficiency with the tools of technology
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Build relationships with others to pose and solve problems collaboratively and cross culturally
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Design and share information for global communities to meet a variety of purposes
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Manage, analyze and synthesize multiple streams of simultaneous information
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Create, critique, analyze, and evaluate multiple-media texts
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Attend to the ethical responsibilities required by those complex environments”
http://www.ncte.org/governance/literacies I would suggest that visual media has become at least as important as written media.
The International Society for Technology in Education ISTE points out that “societies are changing, expectations are changing, teaching is changing and educators must lead”.
The ISTE student guidelines mirror the NCTE literacy guidelines:
“Demonstrate creativity and innovation
Communicate and collaborate
Conduct research and use information
Think critically, solve problems, and make decisions
Use technology effectively and productively”
http://www.iste.org/standards/nets-for-students.aspx
The teacher guidelines are”
“Facilitate and Inspire student learning and creativity
Design and develop digital-age learning experiences and assessments
Model digital-age work and learning
Promote and model digital citizenship and responsibility
Engage in professional growth and leadership”
http://www.iste.org/standards/nets-for-teachers/nets-for-teachers-2008.aspx
The ability to read and understand is simply not enough to claim literacy in the modern world. Being versed in literature certainly adds to the quality of one’s life. It also helps us understand the human condition. My favorite English teacher was wont to point out the literature is the highest form of communication. It is still right up there, but technology has kicked opened so many new doors that all of us can access information that was only available to “experts” in the past. Many forms of publication that were only available to the highly trained are now accessible to everyone. Newspapers and magazines are no longer the sole purveyors of editorial content. Witness the proliferation of blogging. Would be movie makers can purchase high definition digital cameras for less than $1000. Inexpensive editing suites can do more than what Hollywood was able to do only a few years ago. Photography enthusiast can now create high quality images without needing a degree in photo technology. If the tools available to our students are to be used in a competent manner, the NCTE and ISTE guidelines need to be incorporated into all curriculum areas and into every level of education. Shelly Wright is absolutely right. Blogs are the new persuasive essay. They are the new editorial column. They provide the opportunity to reach a large audience. They provide me, as an educator, with a platform to attempt to convince others to accept the value of the new paradigm of cognitive learning. This will enable our students to became ethical independent thinkers capable of collaboration, expressing themselves, and creativity. If we can accomplish that, our place as a nation in the world, will take care of itself.
In spite of the fact that I am a published novelist, I wonder if I would use the written word to contemplate and persuade if I had to adhere to the formatting of traditional essays. The above ruminations are very effective way for me to keep my goals in mind. If I can convince others of the importance of these goals, so much the better.
Edutopia-Six steps for Project Based Learning
These steps for creating a project were developed by David Grant at King Middle School in Portland, Maine.
http://www.edutopia.org/maine-project-learning-six-steps-planning
Shelly Wright on Blogging as the New Persuasive Essay
This is interesting discussion of student blogging: http://shelleywright.wordpress.com/2011/01/03/blogging-is-the-new-persuasive-essay/
Random Thoughts on Returning from the Christa McAuliffe Technology Conference in Manchester New Hampshire by Rick Davidson
Random Thoughts on Returning from the Christa McAuliffe Technology Conference in Manchester New Hampshire
I have just returned from the three-day Christa McAuliffe Technology Conference. I have been attending and presenting at this conference for a number of years and as has been the case in the past, I am experiencing the frustration of trying to reconcile the ideal with real. The new paradigm espoused by experts from all over the world has been encouraging us, as teachers, to use technology to move away from the 19th century concept of the instructor centered talking head in front of the classroom in favor of a student based project oriented approach. Back to actuality, I feel like the ride from Manchester was in fact time spent in a time machine. The enthusiasm created by attending the conference is tempered by the reality that change takes time.
Recently I watched the US Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, speak about innovation and education. I believe that just about everyone believes in the importance of these two concepts. Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy creates the following hierarchy of applying knowledge. Starting at the bottom, they are: remembering-understanding-applying-analysis-evaluating-creating. While I agree with many of Mr. Duncan’s points, it baffles me that the initiative coming from the department of education seems to stress the lower applications of learning. Because of the time spent preparing for lower level standardized testing, we are failing to provide our students with the opportunities to conduct authentic research, and to analyze, synthesize, evaluate, and create. Mr. Duncan speaks of the “dumbing down” of American students. We as educators need to consider that this implied “lowering of the bar” may be the result of our resistance to accept the fact that today’s young people are learning differently from students from past generations. The modern world demands that its citizens be critical thinker. Today’s students more than ever must learn how to learn. They must be adaptable to change and understand and have a command of digital media. The day of the solitary expert at the front of the room has passed. Access to the Internet is morphing today’s students into independent lifelong self- learners. Top-down teaching and standardized curriculum is reactionary. Citizens of the digital age don’t need to memorize information; they need to learn to differentiate between what information is reliable and valuable and what is not. It is difficult to see how NCLB and standardized testing is helping to promote this new paradigm of teaching. Standardization does not promote creativity. Do we really want all of our future citizens to be the same? Our greatness in the United States has been traditionally based in its diversity and its ingenuity. Students need to be given the opportunity to collaborate and communicate with other students, teachers, professionals, and enthusiasts that share the students’ interests. Knowledge and tolerance of other cultures is not optional in Thomas Friedman’s “flat world”.
Change is taking place in my district. The International Society for Technology Education guidelines have been accepted in all of our schools. More and more of our teachers are integrating computer technology into their curricula. We need to work on providing access to computers to all of our students all of the time. Computers are today’s pencils. The technology should be available when it is needed, not only when it has been planned. The greatest irony is that while schools all across the country and the globe are debating on how to use technology in the schools, some students are bypassing formal pedagogical institutions in favor of educating themselves on line. I know because I am one of them. Why should I pay thousands of dollars to listen to the “expert” at the front of the classroom when I can find anything and everything I need to know on the Internet? The real challenge in the 21st Century is to provide the opportunities for our students to be motivated to learn for themselves.