It’s Not Just about the Information…

 

For a while now, there has been an ongoing discussion in the blogosphere about whether it is the technology or the information/learning that’s important. It seems like most people seem to be siding with the information/learning side.

However, following the Handheld Learning 2006 Conference in London, Tony Vincent posted this on the Handheld Learning Forum:

The second item that was pervasive throughout most all of the sessions in the Churchill Auditorium was that the device and software do not matter. I’m here to tell you that they do, especially software. As I said in my session, teachers need to know the abilities and limitations of the learning tools in their classrooms. You can’t expect them to figure it all out on their own time! Educators need training so they can use the devices effectively. Omitting discussion about hardware and software is a disservice because it really is necessary to know what your tools can do and can’t do. Also important in teacher training is classroom/technical management and instructional strategies. Without all of these, embedding handheld learning won’t be very successful.

And when educators go to a conference about technology, they are constantly thinking about how to apply the new tools to learning. Don’t insult them by constantly reiterating it’s about learning…they know-that’s why they are there!  Helping learners is their job and in most instances, it’s their passion.

Tony has a good point, and here was my response at that time:

Yes, the technology does matter, BUT, not to the point where it becomes the [sole] focus of learning. As Tony states in his post, teachers know it’s all about learning, they come to conferences like HH Learning to learn about technology and how to use it for teaching and learning. So… in my view we should be looking for a happy medium between learning and technology, especially when it comes to professional development.

I still stand by this. Information, and how to deal with it, is extremely important, no doubt about that, but I think what many of us are kind of pushing to the back burner sometimes is that technology,

• has changed the nature of this information. As David Warlick has said, the new information is networked, overwhelming, and never finished. In addition, Judy Breck keeps emphasizing open content.

• provides access to this new information. Just try to imagine for a minute what it would be like not having the Internet or your cell phone. What information would you not have access to?

• empowers students. There are plenty of examples of this out there, and I see it on a daily basis in the work that I do.

To me, it’s the combination of mobile devices and networked and open content that is going to be the key for future (and current) learning. And so this means a combination of technology AND information, not just one or the other. And to answer the question that Graham Brown-Martin asked about my discussion with Tony of “whether new technology should attempt to work around existing pedagogy or whether it should inform/stimulate a new one?” I’d say, given the current state of our schools, that we need a new one, badly…

 

Image Credit: marygrace: http://www.flickr.com/photos/marygrace/61340997

Spotlight on Digital Media and Learning (MacArthur Foundation)

Not one of my deeper thinking pieces, but an important entry nonetheless: The MacArthur Foundation announced its

five-year, $50 million digital media and learning initiative in 2006 to help determine how digital technologies are changing the way young people learn, play, socialize, and participate in civic life. Answers are critical to developing educational and other social institutions that can meet the needs of this and future generations. The initiative is both marshaling what is already known about the field and seeding innovation for continued growth.

Not sure how I missed this one, as the announcement came last Thursday. The project website is accompanied by a blog to which the likes of Mimi Ito, Henry Jenkins, and danah boyd are contributing. Very exciting stuff, and an area of digital technology research I’ve gotten increasingly interested in.

For a synopsis of the initiative’s launch, see danah boyd’s post on the Spotlight blog.  More than worth a read….

 

Image Credit: Cambodia4kids photostream:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/cambodia4kidsorg/273945607/in/set-72157594335708918/

Information Literacy, Digital Story Telling, Citizen Journalism, and …..

          

Today is the release of the movie “Flags of Our Fathers“, directed by Clint Eastwood, which I’m sure will bring about plenty of discussion about the role of the media when it comes to news reporting and war (reviews of the movie are already availble on sites like Rotten Tomatoes, and a quick Google search turned up about 3.5 million hits for the movie). A good article to get started with is Newsweek’s “Inside the Hero Factory“, which discusses how the government and media have been using images over time to manipulate reality, and how the more recent proliferation of technology has started to turn the tables (although one should wonder about the content of the article, given the media outlet that published it).

The article draws a comparison between World War II and Iraq:

It hasn’t been a conflict in which photographers or network-news producers have captured the “picture that can win or lose a war” in Iraq. It was a shutterbug soldier who thought it would be cool to document the fun and games at Abu Ghraib. What the Pentagon didn’t foresee, and couldn’t control, was the rise of new media—the unfiltered images popping up on the Web, the mini-DV cams put in the hands of soldiers that emerge in the recent documentary “The War Tapes.” We don’t see much of the real war on network TV, but the unauthorized documentaries—”The Ground Truth,” “Gunner Palace” and many more—come pouring out. Just as more people think that they get a straighter story from Jon Stewart’s mock news reports than from traditional outlets, it’s been the “unofficial” media that have sabotaged the PR wizards in the Pentagon. The sophistication of the spinners has been matched by the sophistication of a media-savvy public.

 

It isn’t difficult to point out here that it is exactly because of these types of developments that it is sooooo important for educators to learn about and teach with and about many forms of media, including the ones that are currently being labeled as being bad for kids. Examples like flickr and YouTube come to mind, but let’s not forget television and the movies (especially those controlled by the large media conglomerates).

Again, this is yet another example of it is not the technology that is the focus of teaching and learning, but the information (a la David Warlick). How are kids going to learn to make their own informed decisions if we don’t

• show them there is more than one side to a story?

• teach them how to look for and recognize bias?

• give them the tools to effectively analyze and synthesize a variety of sources on a given topic?

• help them figure out the (un)importance of source and authority (see David Warlick’s post on that one)

As a former social studies teacher, I can tell you from experience that teaching these types of skills is much more important, relevant, (and fun) than plowing through an 800-page textbook of facts (which, btw, are not always correct either!!).

More to follow on this one …

 

Image Credits: mcfarland0311’s photostream
(Flag Raisers on Iwo Jima, 1945):
http://www.flickr.com/photos/76444302@N00/152754502/
(Marines in Kuwait, 2006):
http://www.flickr.com/photos/76444302@N00/159284925/

Cell Phones in Schools? Part IV

 

Ewan Mcintosh’s post I referred to in Part III of my cell phone ramblings was blogged from the Handheld Learning 2006 conference in London. The presentation he refers to has been posted here. In addition, many other presentations from the Handheld Learning 2006 conference are available for viewing on the Handheld Learning Forum. The forum as a whole is a great resource for anything related to mobile devices and learning, btw.

While my work is still focused mostly on the ideas of ubiquitous computing for education, what I keep seeing over and over again is the importance of both mobility and connectedness. That’s why conferences like Handheld Learning are still so very important. Sorry to say I had to miss it this year, maybe next year…

Image Credit: N. Mexico’s photostream:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/hippychic/34907490/

Information Literacy

Here is why it is so important that we teach students how to deal with the flood of information that’s available to them on the Internet, instead of blocking them from it:

Students Lack ‘Information Literacy,’ Testing Service’s Study Finds

This article is from yesterday’s Chronicle of Higher Education’s Daily News. According to the piece,

A study by the nonprofit testing service [ETS] looked at the scores of about 3,000 college students and 800 high-school students who earlier this year took a new ETS test designed to measure their information literacy and computer savvy. The test is called the ICT Literacy Assessment Core Level. “ICT” stands for “information and communication technology.”

According to the preliminary report, only 13 percent of the test-takers were information literate. ETS set what company officials described as a rough, unofficial information-literacy bar using information from a variety of sources, including the Association of College and Research Libraries.

The article doesn’t give a definition of information literacy (although I kind of get the feeling it’s heavily text/print based) as used by ETS, specifics on the actual test, or detailed information on what it measures, but it does caution the reader that the findings are preliminary. An excerpt from the findings:

Among the study’s findings, the ETS labeled the following as “good”:

• Students generally recognized that Web sites whose addresses end in .edu or .gov were less likely to contain biased material than those with addresses ending in .com.
• Students typically favored print material over Web sites for authoritative information.
• When searching a database of journal articles for a research project, 63 percent of students identified reasonably relevant materials.

The testing service labeled the following findings as “bad”:

• Some students were too willing to believe print materials, failing to distinguish authoritative from mass-market sources.
• Students were generally poor at identifying biased Web content.
• When searching a database, only half of students downplayed irrelevant results.

As has been said so many times, it’s not about the technology, but about the information…

 

Image Credit: Nandudesign’s photostream:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/91382338@N00/262758007/

Cell Phones in Schools? Part III

Just finished editing a manuscript for an upcoming special issue (Spring 2007) of Educational Technology Magazine on highly mobile computing. The manuscript in question was submitted by Giasemi Vavoula, Mike Sharples, Paul Rudman, Peter Lonsdale, and Julia Meek, and is entitled “Learning Bridges: A Role for Mobile Technology in Education.”

The manuscripts describes a project that involves the use of mobile phones for learning in museums, called MyArtSpace. It’s one of the better applications of technology for learning I have seen in a while. In a nutshell, learning is

• set up in the classroom with a broad question;
• students then visit a museum and use a cell phone to to collect physical objects from a cultural venue using a mobile phone, learn more about the objects that they collect, and then publish their own gallery online;
• after the museum visit, students reflect on their visit at school/home; and
• present their results in multimedia format. 

More information about the project can also be found at CultureOnline and the SEA.

This project is a good example of

• emphasizing information over technology;
• using mobile technology when it is appropriate;
• using this technology within an existing technology and learning infrastructure.

I’d like to see more ideas on how a project like this is scaleable to large audiences, including visitors to museums and other places of learning who bring their own mobile, connected devices. It would be great if it would be scaleable that way, because learning with technology as described in MyArtSpace can truly be lifelong…

For the full article you will have to wait for the Ed Tech issue to appear

Image Credit: MyArtSpace
http://www.myartspace.org.uk/web/index.php

Cell Phones in Schools? Part II

 

I read a post on Ewan McGregor’s blog this morning entitled “Dutch mobiles in primary school: turn that phone on!” and couldn’t resist commenting, as it is after all a description of technology use in Dutch schools . The project is using 4G cell phones for teacher and student reflection on learning, focusing on the multimedia capabilities (vod, pod, and mp3) of these phones.

A couple of observations related to this post:

Ewan reports that “the very pragmatic Dutch have no issues letting the parents and students pick up the tab of this apparently enhancing education experience. Is that such a bad thing?” My answer to this question is NO! Yes, I’m aware of digital divide issues when some parents can afford to buy their kids the technology and others can’t, but the current and most prevalent practice of schools providing technology to students doesn’t work for a variety of reasons:

• If schools can’t afford technology, nobody has access;
• If schools can afford technology, student and teacher use is often restricted by filters, limited functionality for the sake of security (or to make the tech person’s job easier);
• Technology is only used during the school day and in school (this is esp. detrimental for mobile technologies which are designed to be, well, mobile);
• Because of the previous bullet point, technology used in schools is not seen by student as a lifelong learning tool.

I’ve said this before, but I really believe that we will get to a point where students, not schools, will provide the technology for learning, and it will be up to the schools to make a wide variety of devices work together, using ad hoc, wireless networks.

Another thing I’d like to point out is the concept of Homo Zappiens, described by Prof. Wim Veen, which Ewan’s post links to as well. Veen describes the net generation in an interesting way. A few excerpts from his article:

Homo Zappiens is the generation that has grown up using three devices from early childhood on: the TV remote control, the PC mouse and the cell phone. These three devices have enabled today’s’ children to control information flows, to deal with information overload, and to select information properly, swiftly and according to their needs.

Note that the devices Veen mentions are all small and mobile, AND that the focus is on controlling and using information, not technology (along the lines of what David Warlick has been saying all along).

The net generation considers school as a meeting place for friends rather than a learning environment. School does not challenge them sufficiently for learning and take the risk of getting disconnected from their audience.

Nothing new here, but another voice to add to the discussion related to the need to revamp schools to change this attitude.

Parents are concerned that their kids are only playing games, surfing the net, watching TV and hardly go out for sports or never read a book. This is all understandable, but instead of looking at children from the point of view of what they should do according to school and parents, let’s look into what they actually do. By using the web, playing PC games and zapping TV channels, they develop critical learning skills that are extremely useful in an information society.

Emphasis added by me. Here is where a big part of the problem lies. It’s easy to blame the kids for not fitting into the existing system. It’s much more difficult for schools and parents to take a long, hard look at themselves and reflect on whether their point of view is still tenable in a society that is driven by digital, networked information.

Finally, Veen provides a list of skills that Homo Zappiens has:

• Scanning skills: looking at a variety of digital information formats on a screen and deciding where to go or what to do next;
• Multi-tasking: doing many things at once;
• Processing discontinued information: “processing various interrupted information flows and extracting meaningful knowledge out of them. This skill helps kids to deal with huge amounts of information effectively.“
• Non-linear learning: information on the Web is organized in this way. Starting to use something without reading the manual is another good example, because it becomes learning by trial and error instead of a linear process.

Veen argues that, by and large, schools are not taking advantage of these skills, and I tend to agree. It’s an important component of the reason why there is such a disconnect between kids and schools, because schools tend to focus on text-based information, single-tasking, and linear information and processes.

And as Veen concludes with this question, so will I: “Western countries have invested huge amounts of money and effort in restructuring their old industrial economies into modern service-oriented societies. Isn’t it strange we did not the same with our education system? “

Image Credit: Wim Kok: 
http://www.flickr.com/photos/wim_kok/214355992/ 

Digital Storytelling

 

As an educator in the fields of social studies and language arts, I’ve always been very interested in stories and story telling. People have told stories as long as they’ve been around and for a long time it was the only way that information was passed down from generation to generation. With the advent of writing systems, stories were recorded for posterity on clay, paper, murals, etc. Note that these writing systems did not always just contain text. In fact, most early writing systems were more pictographic, and could be considered an early form of multimedia.

Jumping ahead to more current times, digital tools have enabled us to create some extremely powerful narrations in text, image, video, and sound. One of the earliest examples of digital stories about education that I was exposed to is this teacher story, called A Story of Hands, created as part of a digital storytelling program at Western Michigan.  A more recent one that is very good as well is the story of Digital Kids @ Analog Schools., created by Consuelo Molina, which I blogged about here. These are just two examples of many more stories that have got to be out there.

What I like about digital storytelling is that it provides students with an outlet for their stories, using media that they understand and are comfortable with using as a part of their daily lives. It also provides them with choices in a world that is mostly dictated by adults. Finally, it gives them a voice, because it is easier than ever today to shoot video and post it online for a potential audience of millions. Obviously, sites like YouTube come to mind here, but also others like Command Post or Current Studio. And of course, many entities have their own websites on which they share their own digital stories.

Finally, what actually got me to write this post was a very different type of digital story that I ran across the other day. It’s a story that is going to be created by many people across the world. Chances are they don’t know each other, but they are all going to contribute a small piece to a much larger story that is called the Yahoo Time Capsule. According to the website:

the Yahoo! Time Capsule sets out to collect a portrait of the world – a single global image composed of millions of individual contributions. This time capsule is defined not by the few items a curator decides to include, but by the items submitted by every human on earth who wishes to participate. We hope to reach a truly global expression of life on earth – nuanced, diverse, beautiful and ugly, thrilling and terrifying, touching and rude, serious and absurd, frank, honest, human.The Time Capsule itself is realized digitally so that the maximum number of people can have access. It is organized around ten themes, chosen to illuminate different corners of the human experience. The ten themes are: Love, Sorrow, Anger, Faith, Beauty, Fun, Past, Hope, Now, and You. Each theme harbors an open-ended question: What do you love? What makes you sad? What makes you angry? What do you believe in? What’s beautiful? What’s fun? What do you remember? What is your wish? Describe your world. Who are you? People respond to these questions in five simple ways – with words, pictures, videos, sounds, and drawings.

The interface itself is very cool, and,

In addition to submitting your own content, you can view, read, or hear the images, words, and sounds contributed by users from around the world.

You can also comment on the content you and others have submitted – and engage in a digital conversation that is just as revealing and important as any of the content you’ll witness.

Very cool! I may actually contribute something myself. As of this posting, there were 12790 contributions from all over the world. If you’d like to contribute something:

For 30 days, from October 10 until November 8, Yahoo! users worldwide can contribute photos, writings, videos, audio – even drawings – to this electronic anthropology project. This is the first time that digital data will be gathered and preserved for historical purposes.

Imagine the possibilities of something like this for education ….

 

Image Credit: Yahoo Time Capsule:
http://timecapsule.yahoo.com/capsule.php

Five Days until the K12online Conference

Reposted from Will Richardson’s Web-logged:

…5 Days, 12 Hrs, 48 min and 53…er…51…you get the idea seconds as of this writing…that’s when David Warlick’s keynote goes up on the Conference Blog and let me just say that I just got a sneak preview of David’s talk (I am a psuedo organizer of the conference, ya know) and IT IS FANTASTIC!

But you’ll just have to see for yourselves in 5 Days, 12 Hrs, 45 min and 44…er…41 seconds. Spread the word!

So I’m spreading the word…. I noted btw that the link to the conference site is wrong in the original post so I fixed it here. Also, take a look at the comments posted, interesting….

Although I didn’t get a chance to put a proposal in for a presentation, I will definitely try to follow the conference. Should be a worthwhile event.

Image Credit: K12conferenceonline:
http://k12onlineconference.org/

High Tech, Not So High Touch, or … ? Part III

 

Wes Fryer made a good point about online communication being supplementary to f2f communication in his recent post “Complexities of open content“:

I do think I am personally experiencing a sort of “bridging” between the “second economy” that Lessig writes about (of WikiPedia, Second Life, and much of the edublogosphere) and the real economy of face-to-face existence. I think many of the intellectual investments I’ve made in the past via this blog, my podcast, and other articles I’ve written related to teaching and learning have had real-world payoffs in terms of connections I’ve made and invitations I’ve received to share and present with others. These evolving interactions are very dynamic but also exciting. I don’t want to be overly naive about the possibilities for “open content,” but at the same time I don’t want to play a limiting role in the possibilities for the resources and collaborative content which the world’s learners seem bound to create together in the years to come.

In fact, I would take his comments one step further and say that he is talking about online communication as a way to get to know people online first, and in person as a result of online communication. I’m sure there are many contacts that he’s made that have led to sincere collaborations down the line.

So…. here’s another example that shows that the boundaries between the online and physical world aren’t that clear-cut as some of the examples from the CNN article in my previous post on this topic may want us to believe. I’ve come up with a (somewhat incomplete I’m sure) continuum of connections between people in the physical and online worlds. Obviously there is room to move from one part of the continuum to the next.

• Physical world connection only: f2f

• Physical world connection first, followed by online later on (e.g. somebody you got to know in person first, then you were forced to move online due to physical distance)

• Physical and online connections simultaneously (people you know in your surroundings, and who you communicate with both f2f and online)

• Online world connection first, personal connection later on (what Wes talked about in his post)

• Online world connection only, but more deeply. I think the blogosphere is a great example of this. Jeff Utecht wrote about that recently in “1 year and counting“, when he mentioned that “This blog led to amazing conversations in San Diego at NECC. Where I felt comfortable walking up to David Warlick, David Jakes, Will Richardson Tim Lauer, Tim Wilson and others and introducing myself. The weird part was, although we’d never met they knew who I was.”

• Online world connection only: e.g. your list of “friends” at MySpace. You really don’t know them, other than what you’ve seen online in a superficial sort of way.

How you use aspects of one realm in the other, or how you move from one part of the continuum to the other is really up to the user … and again, this is were education can play a key role in teaching kids what’s safe, ethical, appropriate … but only if educators come to a more full understanding of the power and pitfalls of the Internet…

 

Image Credit: Roland:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/roland/68800265/