Learning and NET

Does computer technology improve student learning and achievement? How, when and under what conditions? (Schacter and Fagnano 1999)

I agree with the authors that teachers need to be able to make informed judgements about which technologies are best suited to enhance student achievement.

How can we be better informed?

Often people who come to schools to talk about LMS, interactive whiteboards etc... have their own agenda. We need unbiased information. Is this possible?

I was interested in their discussion about the rhetoric around use of technologies emphasises the ease and efficiency of learning with technologies. However, this does not necessarily equate to deep and meaningful learning.

John Hattie says that an effect size of .40 or higher makes a significant impact. The meta-analyses in this report show effect sizes from .22 to .57. However, the defining factor of difference is not discussed. We are left to question what makes the biggest difference between successful and less successful teaching and learning using computer technology. Other research suggests that teacher implementation is the key factor of difference.

Web based collaborative technologies are based on socio-cultural, constructivist and cognitive theories rather than behaviourist, which fits more with the effective pedagogy of the NZC. If e-Learning is designed around these principles it can be powerful and transformative.

I use co-operative learning frequently in my lessons and I believe it boosts engagement, motivation and achievement. Students benefit from interacting with other learners.

We shouldn’t just buy in to e-Learning tools before we have had a chance to see how they support and reflect the learning theories we espouse.

Meeting the needs of our students

Today's child is bewildered when he enters the 19th century environment that still characterizes the educational establishment where information is scarce but ordered and structured by fragmented, classified patterns, subjects, and schedules.-Marshall McLuhan, 1967 (cited in blog on the side)

This idea is explored in Michael Wesch’s video “A Vision of students today” and resonates with me as I wonder how many of my students really feel fully engaged with what we are doing in lessons.

With our overloaded curriculum, number of classes we see everyday and pressure of exams and other assessments do we really take enough time to know our students and what shapes them and constitutes engagement for them? This video has reminded me of the importance of this aspect of teaching and that we can know our students really well but until we ask them vital questions like: What does learning look like for you? What motivates you to do well? What is your goal for this year? What do you need to be successful in this subject? How are things going for you this year? How do you feel about this subject and why? we won't know the whole truth. Something to action with my classes this week.

I also viewed Wesch’s presentation at the University of Manitoba “A Portal to Media Literacy” (June 17 2008)



One of the main contentions outlined in this presentation is “There are no natives here…”. Wesch challenges Prensky’s notion of “Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants”:

What should we call these “new” students of today? Some refer to them as the N-[for Net]-gen or D-[for digital]-gen. But the most useful designation I have found for them is Digital Natives. Our students today are all “native speakers” of the digital language of computers, video games and the Internet.
So what does that make the rest of us? Those of us who were not born into the digital world but have, at some later point in our lives, become fascinated by and adopted many or most aspects of the new technology are, and always will be compared to them, Digital Immigrants.

Wesch contends that there are no digital natives because most technology is new and students don’t necessarily know how to use the technologies available to learn or to create something interesting and new. His challenge to teachers is to encourage students to see that new media is not just for entertainment; it can help them educationally as well.

I found this argument a bit more comforting than Prensky’s label “Digital Immigrant”, although I can see that using technology is not as instinctive for me as it is for some (but not all) of my students.

Wesch’s challenge is one that I feel I am beginning to help my students learn – that online networking and other technologies can be of benefit for them socially and in terms of their learning, especially if they collaborate with other students to create new meaning.

Am I doing enough to prepare my students for the future? Probably not, but I feel that I am doing my best while working within the constraints of the NZ education system.

Technology adoption - where I fit

Prensky (2005) summarises the typical process of technology adoption as: (1) dabbling; (2) doing old things in old ways; (3) doing old things in new ways; (4) doing new things in new ways. Reflecting on my own use of technology I think I am a mix of 1, 2 and 3.

1. I like trying out new things but often it is just dabbling until I’ve got the hang of it.

2. Although I try to be creative and innovative in the classroom at times I do teach old things in old ways (e.g. co-operative learning that doesn’t use New Technologies, or going to the school library to read books). Part of the reason for this is that I believe a mixture of methodologies works best for my students – some of whom appreciate the older, slower world – and also there is a time factor. I’m sure that most of what I teach could be enhanced in some way through e-Learning but I don’t have the time to explore how.

3. An example of this is that instead of always having discussions in class and then getting students to write answers to key questions about the topic which they hand in to me to check, I will post the questions onto our class blog and the students answer them online as a comment which can then be read and responded to by other students. Because the students also have authorial rights, they can post their own questions to be answered by the rest of the class. I see this as an invaluable tool as many of the quiet students have more of an opportunity to speak their mind in this kind of forum.

Exploring other blogs

I have been spending a bit of time perusing other educators' blogs and have found a lot to reflect on about Web 2.0, e-learning and new technologies. I thought this resource from Konrad Glogowski's blog of proximal development - "how to grow a blog" was especially helpful as I reflect further on the benefits of using blogs with my students.

How to Grow a Blog - Upload a Document to Scribd

Read this document on Scribd: How to Grow a Blog

My experiences of e-learning

Some of the ways that I think educational technology is used to greatest effect in educational settings.
I think that educational technologies are used widely in all educational institutions but from personal experience I know that some schools/ learning centres have a much more holistic approach than we have had at the school I teach in. We have some access to computers for students, although priority goes to Technology, ICT, Design, Mathematics ... and NCEA assessments, which means that there is not much opportunity for my classes to use computers at school apart from the odd period here and there. The lack of computer access means that my students and I have to be quite creative.
We have had an intranet (Knowledgenet) at school for the last few years which has been a great tool, but we have had many technical issues and only the really persistent and keen teachers have persevered with keeping it up and running.
I believe the greatest use of educational technologies is the ability for students to move beyond the classroom to create knowledge - this may be through research using the internet, posting new information into a wiki (such as wikipedia), creating personal blogs in which to reflect and publish their writing, podcasts ... There are so many fantastic tools out there for our students and ourselves to use to construct new knowledge, that it is very hard to keep up. In fact I've just asked one of my Y10 students to give me a tutorial on all the online tools she uses in her day to day life - she mentioned a tumbleblog to me today and I had no idea what she was talking about. I think it's pretty cool that students can teach us (and their peers) something really useful and they're the expert, not us.

An application of NET I think is particularly useful is the blog. This is probably because I set one up for my Y13 English class and it has been an easy and effective way to get them to explore topics more widely and deeply. They also have the opportunity to author the blog themselves, so if they find links etc that are valuable they can add them. Websites and all the online tools such as igoogle, google notebook, mindmeister ... are other tools that I personally find useful and I know that many of my students use them too.

Here is a list of the e-learning tools that I currently use personally and with my English classes and extra curricular groups:
www: EPIC, search engines, class blog, mindmeister, google tools - igoogle, google notebook, google earth ...
Microsoft Office: Word, Publisher, PowerPoint, Excel with macros
widgets
RSS
webquests
digital photography and video
asTTle
Quintura Search engine
Audio books (mp3)
Hot potatoes
...
I have found all of these technologies to be beneficial.

Applications of NET that I think are not so educationally useful - there are many technologies that I am not too sure about (time, which is precious and there is never enough of, is needed to learn about them) and therefore I may not see their relevance to education but other people may be staunch advocates. I have an open mind but I like to see evidence of their benefits before I invest time and effort in learning about them and using them with my students.
From my experience "Good" use of NET in education is widespread but, especially I think in Secondary Schools (?), not always within specific institutions. I have met many teachers at conferences, clusters, seminars and workshops who are using NETs to enhance student learning. However, in my own school there are very few people who are using educational technologies for more than just basic things such as publishing writing in Word, creating spreadsheets in Excel, photoshop ... but I guess we all have to start somewhere.

Web 2.0 and blogging

A comment on RSS for educators (Hendron, 2008)

“Welcome to the new web”
Again I was stumped by jargon. The first sentence of this reading clarified the acronym RSS as Really Simple Syndication, however I am reading a book at the moment, Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms (Richardson, 2006) which defines it as Rich Site Summary. It is probably a minor difference but it shows that like many areas of Education, people who are involved with Educational Technology use terminology to mean different things. Just like the many different understandings of the term ICT. As a student this is something that I need to get my head around and will become clearer as I learn more about e-learning.

An aspect of using blogs in education that I had not thought of before was as a way for teachers to communicate with parents. At school we have an intranet that students can access to check homework, look at exemplars, access readings and resources etc. However, the class pages are not able to be accessed by parents unless their child gives them their id and password. Using a blog would allow parents individual access and the ability to see what the class have been learning and how they can support their child with this. It would also mean that parents would not have to communicate with the teacher directly. I just wonder how New Zealand teachers would feel if they were required to maintain a blog as teachers are in Goochland County, Virginia. Some teachers are teaching up to 5-6 classes per day. Would they be expected to update the blog for every class, every time they taught them? We haven’t had all teachers buy into our school intranet, so I’m pretty sure that the same thing would happen with blogs.

My understanding of Web 2.0 has also developed. Web 2.0 according to this reading is the read/write web. Users are able to manipulate content without knowledge of html. However, according to the first chapter of How to Use Web 2.0 in your library (bradley, 2007), What is Web 2.0?, the definition is "not easy to pin down" and not that simplistic. I guess it's not the definition that counts it is how we use the tools Web 2.0 provides to create new and deeper learning experiences for our students.

This portal supplements the book How to Use Web 2.0 in your library.

What is NET? What is e-learning? Interchangeable terms?

Readings for EDPROFST 714

A Confusion of Terms

I am in the process of coming to terms with the jargon of this course and I guess Educational Technologists (is there such a term?) worldwide. From what I can gather New Educational Technology and e-learning are interchangeable terms, although e-learning focuses more on the process of learning, whereas Educational Technology focuses on the design of learning.

For myself, I find the term e-learning encompasses what I want to achieve when my students and I use electronic technologies to enhance their learning (the what and the how).

The definition found in e-Learning: Concepts and practice (Holmes & Gardner, 2006) "online access to learning resources, anywhere and anytime", fits with this. However, the word "online" needs to be explored further. My understanding was that "online" meant access to a network or the internet. A quick google search for the definition comes up with a large number of definitions, none of which are the same. A few of these are listed below:

Definitions of Online on the Web:

Any capability available or work done directly on a computer. For example, online help or online cataloging. ublib.buffalo.edu/libraries/help/glossary.html

Accessible via a computer or computer network. Generally synonymous with the words "automated," "computerized," and "electronic." www.lib.iup.edu/instruction/glossary.html

Turned on and connected to the network. www.micro2000.co.uk/network_glossary.htm

Refers to accessing a remote computer via a terminal. Our online catalog is one example of an online database. www.wit.edu/library/Orientation/glossary.html

This is the status of a user when connected to the internet.www.broadband-guide.org.uk/jargon-buster.html

and so on ...

My interpretation of Holmes & Gardner's use of the term e-learning is that it means learning that is explored, applied and promoted through the use of computer technology. The reason I have come to this conclusion is that all the New Edudational Technologies that I can think of and have researched use computer technology - audio and video podcasts, email, internet tools such as blogs and wikis, digital video, photography, web design, interactive whiteboards... the list goes on. Am I thinking too narrowly? What about DVDs etc - can they be classified as computer technology?