Standard 3: Utilization
Candidates demonstrate the knowledge, skills, and dispositions to use processes andresources for learning by applying principles and theories of media utilization, diffusion,
implementation, and policy-making.
Constructivism and Its Application to Game-Based Learning Activities
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Gaming is an activity enjoyed by many students, and when used for educational purposes, games can improve student motivation towards learning, particularly when used in the creation of constructivist learning opportunities. Applying constructivist principles to educational game-based learning activities yields an approach that puts students in the role of active learners and content creators.
I’ve written a paper (embedded below) which outlines the rationale for using games for learning purposes, and proposes a problem-based constructivist gaming model for educational game design. Aspects of the model include stating well-defined goals and problems, promoting student hypotheses for solutions to the problems, encouraging experimentation in the game world, delivering prompt feedback, and allowing students to reflect on their learning experiences. Simulations and virtual worlds are particularly appropriate game genres for constructivist activities. The games Civilization, Hephaestus, and Second Life are explained with the problem-based gaming model. A particular focus is placed on K-12 learning environments, illustrating how teachers may use these games to support young students’ constructivist learning.
Digital Parent: Facing Facebook
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A few months ago, I co-founded a project called Digital Parent with a few other educators across North America. The goal of Digital Parent is to deliver technology workshops for parents. The basic idea is to help parents better understand technology, and provide training that will benefit them as they seek to understand the benefits of educational technology, as well as technology tools relevant to their personal lives. The project is still in its formative stages, and although we’ve been on hiatus for awhile, I’m hoping with this new instructional project I’ve designed we can get the project moving again.
My original role in Digital Parent was simply to provide technical support. However, since I’ve been learning quite a bit about instructional design, I plan on taking the initiative and helping the team form organized models to develop and assess future workshops.
Below is the instructional design document for “Facing Facebook,” a workshop to help parents better understand how children use Facebook, and how to talk to their kids about the service. The document is a little long (it was written for a graduate school class), and I feel it could use some trimming so it only addresses the basic needs of any Digital Parent instructor who downloads and uses it.
I’ve realized that Digital Parent will need both formative and summative evaluations included in the process, which will be a daunting yet important task since the workshops will be delivered as downloadable “modules,” so the instructional designers will likely never see the instruction put into practice. We can still hold our own one-to-one and small group evaluations, however, but any field trials will likely consist of an actual instructor presenting the content to an actual group of interested parents, without the presence or the knowledge of the instructional design team. Every workshop module should have a summative assessment for all participants (teachers and students), accessible on the Digital Parent web site, that is automatically reported back to the Digital Parent team. This will allow us to keep a careful watch over the effectiveness of our instructional design projects, and be able to revise and improve our work.
The Case for Ed Tech
0“I can’t believe you let students access the Internet without even talking to us parents about it. I don’t see why they need to be online. We didn’t have these things when we were in school and we got a good education. Kids are just wasting their time online on websites like Myspace and schools are doing nothing about it. How about you use the taxpayer money you waste on expensive computers to fix up the schools or pay the teachers more?”
This is just one of many messages that I’ve received from parents who are upset about the fact that our schools use technology. With a career in educational technology and having tinkered with computers since the age of seven, I sometimes find these statements foreign and quite confusing. It’s not uncommon to find parents who think schools are wasting their time buying new computers, and many of them have never even heard of an interactive whiteboard or a document camera. However, it’s a perfectly valid concern. They have good intentions. They believe education should come first, but it may not be readily apparent just how technology improves the quality of education. If we as educators are making decisions to adopt additional technology, the justification for its use rests on our shoulders. Fortunately, there is a wide body of evidence that demonstrates the powerful and beneficial impact technology can have on an educational environment.
What is Educational Technology?
So there’s no ambiguity, let’s define exactly what is meant by “educational technology.” According to the Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT), it is “the study and ethical practice of facilitating learning and improving performance by creating, using, and managing appropriate technological processes and resources” (Januszewski & Molenda, 2008, p. 2). What this means in a nutshell is that educational technology exists specifically to help students become better learners. If it does not help them in this capacity, it is not an appropriate technology.
Insisting we shouldn’t be using technology in a school is like saying we shouldn’t be driving cars because we have perfectly good horses. There are things a car can do that a horse can’t, such as travel 80 miles per hour and get people to their destinations faster. On the other hand, a horse can travel on rugged terrain most cars can’t reach.
Perhaps it’s ironic that the parent who sent the complaint did so through email. Why was email used instead of the traditional postal service? Because modern technology advances allow near-instantaneous communication across the world, and since my email address was readily available to this parent, it was the obvious choice. It was the best tool for the job, just like depending on the situation, a car or horse may be the best means of transportation.
A proper study of educational technology identifies the best tools that will create optimal learning experiences for students, or benefit teachers in some way that helps them communicate their instruction more efficiently and effectively. One important fact should be kept in mind: Technology is not a replacement for a teacher. There is no time in the foreseeable future when a teacher’s job will be made obsolete. Instead, when placed in the hands of a good teacher, technology can improve teaching skills and cultivate an improvement in students’ learning.
Technology Transforms the K-12 School System
Most of our students are already immersed in a technological world. They’re skilled users who have grown up with technology in their daily lives. They’re users of cell phones, iPods, video games, blogs, Twitter, Facebook, and many other technology tools. Prensky (2001) refers to these children as “digital natives,” young people who are adept users of technology and have always been surrounded by it. They are familiar and competent with the digital tools, and embrace new technologies as they appear. Contrasted with “digital natives” are the “digital immigrants,” the older generation who recall a time when modern technology tools did not exist, and who often have an awkward time adopting them. Students today have different expectations of technological engagement than students used to, and they may expect the same level of engagement in their schools.
Fortunately, there is a wide spectrum of technology tools that can benefit learning in a K-12 environment. For example, teachers can use podcasting to improve their students’ reading, literacy, and language skills, and use auditory playback to identify where they need additional instructional assistance. Podcasting can also be used to share lectures that students may have missed (Hew, 2009). Document cameras and digital projectors allow teachers to display papers, photographs, books, and lab specimens on a big screen (Doe, 2008). Google Earth allows students to instantly explore the world, locate famous landmarks, and watch embedded instructional videos. Blogs allow both students and parents to instantly communicate with the teachers, and provide a window into the classroom. When used by students, they can increase literacy skills and promote global citizenship (Witte, 2007). Augmented reality devices project images over real-life objects, creating visual, highly-engaging activities (Dunleavy, Dede, & Mitchell, 2007). Even the video games students like to play online have educational promise because “they immerse students in complex communities of practice” and “invite extended engagement with course material” (Delwiche, 2006). Our youngest learners can benefit from technology, too, as one study showed that preschoolers who were introduced to video and educational games experienced marked improvement in literacy and conceptualizing skills over students who did not have access to these technology tools (Penuel, Pasnik, Bates, Townsend, Gallagher, Llorente, & Hupert, 2009).
Students with disabilities also benefit from using technology tools. Rhodes & Milby (2007) found that students with disabilities are often proficient with using technology to accomplish learning tasks and interactive activities they wouldn’t otherwise be able to do. Electronic books, with their text-to-speech capabilities, animation, and interactivity can boost their confidence, and encourage fluency, comprehension, and language skills.
Technology is more than just a gimmick. It can improve the cognitive learning abilities of students, and support and enhance their learning capabilities (Krentler & Willis-Flurry, 2007). Even students who generally struggle with learning or have disciplinary problems show improvement when technology is used (Dunleavy, et al., 2007). Technology can stimulate children’s cognitive development by improving logical thinking, classification, and concept visualization skills, and creating intellectually stimulating hands-on learning activities. Skills such as literacy, mathematics, and writing are improved and reinforced by a technology-oriented education (Mouza, 2005). Students who recognize technology’s educational benefits are more likely to become engaged in the learning process, seek out their own learning opportunities, maintain a stronger focus on accomplishing their learning tasks, and improve their higher-order thinking skills that allow them to become better problem-solvers (Hopson, Simms, & Knezek, 2001).
One benefit of the Internet is that students have an easy way to share their hard work with a wide audience. Students gain confidence and pride when they see their products in a visual form. The online social aspect can also reduce feelings of isolation, and encourage discussions and peer instruction (Mouza, 2005). One researcher commented, “Youth could benefit from educators being more open to forms of experimentation and social exploration that are generally not characteristic of educational institutions” (Ito, Horst, Bittanti, Boyd, Herr-Stephenson, & Lange, 2009). So important is technology to a K-12 school environment that the National Association for the Education of Young Children states that technology should be used as an active part of the learning process (Rhodes & Milby, 2007).
Technology Enhances Professional Development
Professional development refers to any skills or knowledge obtained that benefits one in their career. We are experiencing an unusual phenomenon in our school systems. For once, most of our students possess a greater knowledge and skill in a field than many teachers do. It’s important that teachers engage in professional development opportunities so they can “keep up” with the students’ extensive experience with technology.
Not long ago, the extent of a teacher’s learning didn’t stretch beyond the walls of the school. Teachers would gather in the teachers’ lounge to discuss their instructional strategies. One way to motivate teachers and provide ongoing work-related educational support is through online communities, where peers support each others’ learning. Hausman and Goldring (2001) found that teachers are most committed to their schools when they have a sense of community, and are offered opportunities to learn.
In an online community, a teacher can post a question and receive back insightful answers with minimal effort on their part. Teachers can also share their experiences, and gather evidence of the success of new techniques (Duncan-Howell, 2010). Online courses are prevalent, podcasts are available to extend learning, professional-oriented chat rooms spring up, educators share their thoughts on their blogs, and teachers set up and share webcam feeds at conferences so other members of the online community can learn the new techniques and skills necessary for teaching modern students. Technology has allowed teachers to figuratively break through the walls of their schools and engage a vast community of like-minded individuals who come together to interact, learn, and share knowledge with each other.
Technology is Necessary in the Outside World
One of the expectations of our education system is that students will be taught the skills necessary to be productive and competitive members of society and the modern workplace. As Harris (1996) pointed out, “Information Age citizens must learn not only how to access information, but more importantly how to manage, analyze, critique, cross-reference, and transform it into usable knowledge” (p. 15). Businesses are rapidly adopting new technologies to simplify and enhance their processes, and are demanding higher-order critical thinking skills of their job candidates. Adults who use the Internet have greater success at obtaining jobs, and have higher salaries (DiMaggio, Hargittai, Celeste, & Shafer, 2004), and technology prepares students for the modern-day jobs they will obtain by teaching them skills such as motivation, engagement, and online collaboration (Ringstaff & Kelley, 2002). If students are not taught the necessary skills they need during their K-12 education, they will be at a severe disadvantage when they are ready to enter the workforce.
Face-to-face communication skills are and likely always will be important in the workplace, but social business skills have expanded to include more than just face-to-face communication. Teleconferencing, collaborative document authoring, online correspondence, video conferencing, and more are common in modern workplaces. While parents think their children are wasting their time talking to others online, our youth are acquiring basic social and technological skills they need to fully participate in contemporary society (Ito, et al., 2009). If we restrict our children from using these online social forms of learning, we are stifling their future careers, and preventing them from being able to compete in this digital age.
Conclusion
In the parent’s message at the beginning of this paper there was one fundamental misconception: that technology and learning are at odds with each other. This is simply not the case, and the research paints a very different picture. We are experiencing a “shrinking world” as technology has opened lines of communication that just 20 years ago were either impossible or a monumentally expensive feat. Students should realize the educational potential of technology, and we must be prepared to create learning opportunities that encourage them to use technology in their education. Ultimately, if we wish to create motivated, lifelong learners with the necessary knowledge and skills that give them a competitive advantage in modern careers, we must embrace technology in our schools.
References
Delwiche, A. (2006). Massively multiplayer online games (MMOs) in the new media classroom. Educational Technology & Society, 9(3), 160-172.
DiMaggio, P., Hargittai, E., Celeste, C., & Shafer, S. (2004). From unequal access to differentiated use: A literature review and agenda for research on digital inequality. Social inequality, 355–400.
Doe, C. (2008). A look at document cameras. MultiMedia & Internet@Schools, 15(5), 30-33.
Duncan-Howell, J. (2010). Teachers making connections: Online communities as a source of professional learning. British Journal of Educational Technology, 41(2), 324-340. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8535.2009.00953.x
Dunleavy, M., Dede, C., & Mitchell, R. (2009). Affordances and limitations of immersive participatory augmented reality simulations for teaching and learning. Journal of Science Education & Technology, 18(1), 7-22. doi:10.1007/s10956-008-9119-1
Harris, J. (1996). Information is forever in formation, knowledge is the knower: Global connectivity in K-12 classrooms. Computers in the Schools, 72(1-2), 11-22.
Hausman, C. S., & Goldring, E. B. (2001). Sustaining teacher commitment: The role of professional communities. Peabody Journal of Education, 76(2), 30-51.
Hew, K. (2009). Use of audio podcast in K-12 and higher education: A review of research topics and methodologies. Educational Technology Research & Development, 57(3), 333-357. doi:10.1007/s11423-008-9108-3
Hopson, M. H., Simms, R. L., & Knezek, G. A. (2001). Using a technology-enriched environment to improve higher-order thinking skills. Journal of Research on Technology in Education, 34(2), 109-120.
Januszewski, A., & Molenda, M. (2008). Educational technology: A definition with commentary. New York, NY: Lawrence Erlbaum, Inc.
Ito, M., Horst, H., Bittanti, M., Boyd, D., Herr-Stephenson, B., & Lange, P. G. (2008). Living and learning with new media: Summary of findings from the digital youth project. Retrieved May 4, 2010, from http://digitalyouth.ischool.berkeley.edu/files/report/digitalyouth-WhitePaper.pdf.
Krentler, K. A. & Willis-Flurry, L. A. (2005). Does technology enhance actual student learning? The case of online discussion boards. Journal of Education for Business, 80(6), 316-321. doi:10.3200/JOEB.80.6.316-321
Mouza, C. (2005). Using technology to enhance early childhood learning: The 100 days of school project. Educational Research & Evaluation, 11(6), 513-528.
Penuel, W. R., Pasnik, S., Bates, L., Townsend, E., Gallagher, L. P., Llorente, C., & Hupert, N. (2009). Preschool teachers can use a media-rich curriculum to prepare low-income children for school success: Results of a randomized controlled trial. Summative evaluation of the “Ready to learn initiative”. Education Development Center. Retrieved May 4, 2010 from http://cct.edc.org/rtl/pdf/RTLEvalReport.pdf.
Prensky, M. (2001). Digital natives, digital immigrants. On the Horizon, 9(5). Retrieved May 4, 2010, from http://www.hfmboces.org/HFMDistrictServices/TechYES/PrenskyDigitalNatives.pdf
Rhodes, J., & Milby, T. (2007). Teacher-created electronic books: Integrating technology to support readers with disabilities. Reading Teacher, 61(3), 255-259.
Ringstaff, C., & Kelley, L. (2002). The learning return on our education technology investment: A review of findings from research. San Francisco: WestEd. Retrieved May 4, 2010, from https://www.msu.edu/~corleywi/documents/Positive_impact_tech/The%20learning%20return%20on%20our%20educational%20technology%20investment.pdf
Witte, S. (2007). “That’s online writing, not boring school writing”: Writing with blogs and the talkback project. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 51(2), 92-96.
Review of "Learning Online with Games, Simulations, and Virtual Worlds"
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Learning Online with Games, Simulations, and Virtual Worlds: Strategies for Online Instruction is a book by Clark Aldrich, an educational game consultant, which explains the benefits of different types of games, and contains suggested models for instruction. It is intended mainly for teachers and curriculum designers, but could also function as a good introduction to educational games for any interested layperson. It focuses on the preparatory work required to successfully implement educational games in a learning environment, and how to maximize their benefits for students and teachers. The book does more than just describe educational games and argue for their usage. It shows the reader how to identify opportunities for building games, use best practices, and outlines specific steps for developing, preparing, and designing game-oriented instruction.
There are three parts to this book. Part 1 argues for the use of games in education, and posits that virtual environments are actually a natural part of human thinking. Research and studies are referenced, demonstrating the effectiveness of games in education, and showing quite clearly how and why they work.
Different types of interactive learning activities are defined, and divided into three primary categories: games, simulations, and virtual worlds. Games are simpler activities that are meant to be engaging and encourage awareness, while simulations focus more on skill-building. Educational simulations are “structured environments, abstracted from some specific real-life activity, with stated levels and goals” (p. 7). Virtual worlds are “3-D environments where participants from different locations can meet with each other at the same time” (p. 8). Virtual worlds are noted for their detailed interactive models and real-time collaborative learning environment. Visual cues can play a part in virtual world learning, whereas they may not in the other types of interactive learning activities. These different types of activities are not mutually exclusive; there may be overlap among their components. Different types of simulations are broken down into several genres, and the author does a great job classifying the different aspects of games and levels of interaction.
The real meat of the book is in Part 2, which describes how to put highly interactive content into practice. These interactive learning activities are referred to as “Highly Interactive Virtual Environments” (HIVEs). The book mentions stumbling blocks that may be encountered from both students and teachers, and how to overcome them. Detailed steps are provided on how to use HIVEs, including preparing instructional material, obtaining technical support, how to build them or recruit others (such as students) to build the content, and how to determine the best courses of action. The book has a heavy focus on Second Life, and most of the discussion of virtual worlds directly references how to plan and accomplish tasks in Second Life. A lot of the tasks described are often best suited for a higher education environment, so someone in the K-12 field will naturally have to read through the filter of their own unique student safety and appropriate use policies.
A hypothetical setup and process for engaging students in a sim is described, with information about game interfaces, how to draw everyone in, setting the tone, determining learning objectives and outcomes, how to determine appropriate coaching during use, and the value of including competition as a game element to trigger motivation. The author also discusses how to deal with disinterested and frustrated students, and emphasizes the importance of tying the sim to real life.
Of course, knowing all this information about HIVEs is meaningless if you can’t convince your stakeholders that they’re worthwhile. Part 3 contains some much-appreciated and much-needed tactics for convincing administrators, parents, and politicians of the value of HIVEs. The author points out that advocating HIVEs requires that we don’t defend them blindly, but evolve them intelligently. Many people have the misconception that games “dumb down” learning material, simplifying it to a point that entertainment comes before usefulness. We must be able to demonstrate exactly how and why simulations can enrich, rather than flatten content.
The author also spends a good deal of time discussing methods for evaluating instruction in the simulations. In fact, an entire chapter is dedicated to this topic, with references to it throughout the entire book. The psychomotor skills that are often learned through sims can’t be measured through a multiple choice post-test. This is where formative evaluation comes in handy.
The book is shorter than one might expect, but it’s packed with information, and written concisely and informatively. The author gets right to the point. The main concepts are not over-simplified, and there’s a lot of detail specifically about how to approach different types of learning in HIVEs. The author drove home a good point for me: The goal is not to just recreate the classroom in a virtual world environment, but to provide an extension of the classroom that uses the virtual world’s advantages.
After reading this, my thoughts on virtual worlds have changed. I used to think that virtual worlds were just a good way to increase student engagement. Students like games, so naturally many of them would become more involved in the learning process if games were used, right? Well, it’s a lot more than that. There are times when an educational game, simulation, or virtual world is THE best form of instruction. What this book attempts to do is equip the reader with enough tools to recognize WHEN a game, simulation, or virtual world is the best form of instruction, and I think it does a good job of this.
References
Aldrich, C. (2009). Learning online with games, simulations, and virtual worlds: Strategies for online instruction. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Three Articles on Professional Development Models
0I evaluated a few different professional development models. Even though the district does a lot to train faculty and staff, there’s still a lot of improvement we can make to our district’s professional development opportunities. We could also gather better statistics on the effectiveness of our existing professional development.
There are four main venues of PD in our district. We have an online self-directed learning portal, two site-based PD programs — one for administrators, one for teachers, and an annual [site-based] summer conference where hundreds of our district’s teachers and administrators come for intensive workshop-based training on a variety of technology tools. I realize the value of ongoing professional development. Teachers should not simply learn something then not have it reinforced. While self-motivation is essential for any teacher’s PD, districts should also find ways to create learning opportunities that directly benefit their careers.
I don’t think our teachers have responded that well to our online inservice portal, though that’s largely because of a lack of summative evaluation and revision in the instructional material. This will need some revising before it gets to an acceptable state. I’d also like to explore more models of professional development and put them to use in our district. One particular PD model is almost completely unused: live web conferencing. The state provides everyone with free Wimba accounts, but no one I’m aware of even uses them. I’d like to start organizing weekly/biweekly live professional development sessions just for our employees, perhaps during prep hours or after school is released.
Three Professional Development Models
Duncan-Howell, J. (2010). Teachers making connections: Online communities as a source of professional learning. British Journal of Educational Technology, 41(2), 324-340. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8535.2009.00953.x
The author, Jennifer Duncan-Howell, discusses the benefits of online communities for professional development. Social networking is a valuable model for professional development, and has increased the depth of online learning available to teachers. This article shares the results of a study on three online learning communities, and demonstrates that teachers can benefit from engaging community-oriented learning environments, as 86.7% of the teachers surveyed considered their online communities a valuable form of professional learning.
There’s a few good things to think about in this article. My district could be doing a lot more to involve teachers in online communities. I set up a Moodle-based forum a couple years ago for all our district’s teachers and administrators, but there is only about one new post every other month. This seems unacceptable coming from a district with 1500+ teachers. A potential goldmine of collaborative information is sitting there, unused. Few will disagree that being connected to like-minded educators is absolutely invaluable for teachers. Being able to stay on top of emerging trends, and share resources, lesson plans, ideas for integrating technology into the classroom, inservice opportunities, and strategies for engaging students are important. The problem is, many teachers don’t realize they can establish a venue of collaboration outside the walls of their own school. Teachers should realize they don’t have to work inside a box, and that there’s a worldwide learning network out there waiting for them, filled with thousands of educators willing to step in and help them out.
Mushayikwa, E., & Lubben, F. (2009). Self-directed professional development: Hope for teachers working in deprived environments? Teaching and Teacher Education, 25(3), 375-382. doi:10.1016/j.tate.2008.12.003
This article explores self-directed learning in technologically underprivileged educational systems, specifically among teachers in Zimbabwe. I was particularly interested in the comments made by the teachers, as they share how they currently use technology for learning (e.g. using email because they lack travel funds to come together in groups, using the Internet to make lesson plan organization easier), and the concerns behind self-directed professional development. The model presented in the article is really a model of concerns. It first addresses the basic needs of feeling that professional learning and collaboration is worthwhile in the first place, followed by concerns over career development and content knowledge. When these are met, the teacher is guided toward professional efficacy and efficacy in their classroom, and finally becomes an effective teacher.
This article made me think about our own school district’s self-paced inservice site. It’s Moodle-based, and teachers can use it to earn state certification credit. I didn’t design any of the courses — one of our techs did — and now after several weeks in my instructional design class now I’m starting to notice that the courses could be developed much better. There were no needs or learner analyses conducted when the courses were created, and there’s no form of evaluation on the effectiveness of the learning. I’ll need to get more involved in the instructional design process for our online learning opportunities, and use what I’ve been learning about to benefit my district’s teachers. There is much more to professional development than simply providing a few training exercises and a printable, pixelated certificate they can hang on their wall.
Gerber, B. L., Brovey, A. J., & Price, C. B. (2001). Site-based professional development: Learning cycle and technology integration. Retrieved from http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/contentdelivery/servlet/ERICServlet?accno=ED472987
This article intrigued me because it directly analyzes how professional development impacts not only teachers, but students as well. The authors approach the study from an empirical perspective: “Students learn most readily about things that are directly accessible to their senses – tactile, kinesthetic, visual, and auditory. Teaching should be consistent with the nature of scientific inquiry” (Gerber et al., 2001, p. 6). The authors also make a good point when they write, “Cognitive research strongly suggests students know less than we think they do following instruction. The quality of student understanding should be emphasized rather than the quantity of information presented” (Ibid).
Following this particular study, teachers reported that students were finding more ways to foster their own creativity, were more inquisitive in the learning process, and that their mutual relationships with their teachers improved significantly.I think more studies like this would be worthwhile, because sometimes we forget that the final intended beneficiary of any professional development opportunity is not the teacher, but ultimately the student. Professional development should help teachers become better at their job, and in return students should benefit from the extra skills and techniques the teacher has developed.
Instructional Design Presentation
0Below is a presentation I created about some of my instructional design readings.
Some Articles About Technology in Education
0Jackson, A., Gaudet, L., McDaniel, L., & Brammer, D. (2009). Curriculum Integration: The use of technology to support learning. Journal of College Teaching & Learning, 6(7), 71-78.
Mouza, C. (2005). Using technology to enhance early childhood learning: The 100 days of school project. Educational Research & Evaluation, 11(6), 513-528.
Rhodes, J., & Milby, T. (2007). Teacher-created electronic books: Integrating technology to support readers with disabilities. Reading Teacher, 61(3), 255-259.
Squire, K., Barnett, M., & Grant, J. (2004). Electromagnetism supercharged! Learning physics with digital simulation games. Proceedings of the 2004 International Conference of the Learning Sciences. Los Angeles, CA.
Wall, K., Higgins, S., & Smith, H. (2005). “The visual helps me understand the complicated things”: Pupil views of teaching and learning with interactive whiteboards. British Journal of Educational Technology, 36(5), 851-867.
Wenglinsky, H. (2005). Technology and achievement: The bottom line. Educational Leadership, 63(4), 29-32.
Exploring Some Technology Trends
0Reading through the 2010 Horizon Report, I learned about a few things I wasn’t too familiar with. I first heard about augmented reality a couple years ago from this article in THE Journal: http://thejournal.com/articles/2008/02/01/when-worlds-collide-an-augmented-reality-check.aspx. The idea of encouraging students to apply what they’ve learned in a real-world simulation really struck a chord with me, but I never had a chance to explore augmented reality on my own until now. Many of the mobile AR apps mentioned in the report were for the iPhone, and I’m a die-hard BlackBerry user, so I switched to web-based tools and loaded up Unifeye.
This is really quite slick. I think augmented reality has great potential in the classroom. What’s more, it can lead to engaging hands-on activities that go beyond the two-dimensional computer screen most of us are used to. I watched a YouTube video one of my classmates posted about AR being used to teach chemistry: http://www.youtube.com/v/iT2ek8N0VlY. It actually reminds me of all the virtual reality hype back in the 1980s, and how the future would all be immersed in virtual reality. I don’t think we’re quite there yet (the current reality’s just fine), but this opens quite a few doors, especially if the simulations are done in 3d space. Imagine, for example, being able to teach medical students how to perform surgeries on a plastic cadaver, with AR showing all the incisions and sutures.
What I would like to see is an open source framework that makes it possible for K-12 teachers to easily create their own AR scenarios. It should be compatible with any PC or smart phone, and users should be able to select from a range of templates that have different features like GPS geocaching, setting up interactions with a simple graphical scripting engine, the ability to share AR programs with others through a central repository, and anything else that might be useful for educators.
I also tried out Google Sketchup, and I’m kind of shocked that I skipped over this until now, because it has enormous potential. I’ve seen the models in the 3d warehouse and plenty of Sketchup projects made by educators. I love how easy it is to import models directly into the program, though it doesn’t integrate very well with other applications like 3d Studio Max or Maya unless you have the Pro version. Student discounts are available, though: http://sketchup.google.com/industries/edu/students.html
All this particularly interests me because our district has been exploring the possibility of setting up our own virtual world server. The first time I heard about virtual worlds was in reference to Harvard’s “River City Project” cited, again, in an article in THE Journal: http://thejournal.com/articles/2006/09/01/educational-gaming–all-the-right-muves.aspx. Most teachers I find familiar with virtual worlds take exception to referring to them as “games” but I don’t think students know the difference. Right now, I see them as potential extensions of online learning systems, where teachers can interact directly with students in a secure space, but give them a lot more options. For example, drafting students could bring their blueprints to life and create architectures within the virtual world. Students could participate in virtual science fairs. What’s more, a school or district could have a public area showcasing the best work from their students.
Letter Regarding the Digital Divide
0As an exercise in my EDTECH 501 class, I wrote a fictional letter to my city’s mayor about the issue of digital inequality. My proposals might be a little overly ambitious, but this was a good exercise nonetheless.
I did actually have a minor familiarity with the digital divide and digital inequality. Digital inequality is a problem with many of our district’s students, since our district almost exclusively covers suburban and rural areas. In many of the outer areas, high-speed Internet access isn’t even available, and households are still limited to dial-up.
I believe it’s important for teachers to be aware of this issue, and be able to adapt their lessons and homework to the students who may not be able to access computer-based content at home. In our district, many of our teachers make use of online classrooms, blogs, videos through our media sharing site, and more. Our state, like many others, requires that up-to-date records of student grades and attendance be provided to parents via the web. We invest a lot of effort in making sure parents have ready access to their students’ information, even though many of them simply will never log in because they don’t have the means to.
On the other hand, there are people who insist that digital inequality isn’t really much of an issue anymore (see, e.g. http://www.edweek.org/dd/articles/2007/09/12/02divide.h01.html). Internet coverage is expanding, ISP prices are dropping, smart phones are becoming more and more advanced and connecting to the Internet faster, open wi-fi hotspots are popping up all over the place, and many businesses and fast food restaurants provide free wireless access. Some schools (not Weber yet) are even providing 1:1 programs which allow students to take laptops home. Is it possible that one day digital inequality will be a complete nonissue, much like the digital divide is now? I certainly think so.
I’m the web manager of Weber School District, and I’m writing in regards to a problem in the community, and asking for your assistance in endorsing three measures to address it. In our schools we work hard to provide Internet access to students regardless of gender, ethnicity, disability, or family social status. Every student in the school has equal access to a safely-filtered Internet in our media centers, computer labs, and in many of our classrooms. At one point, the “digital divide” or a disparity of Internet access in different schools was a concern, but now, every school in our district has high-speed Internet access. However, the instant they return to their homes, the situation changes.
A “digital inequality” still exists in our community’s homes. In a nationwide study, it was found that while 78% of white students have Internet access at home, only 46% of African-American and 48% of Latinos had the same benefit. 68% of non-disabled students had Internet access at home, compared to 55% of disabled students. Since the only option for many disabled students to participate in education is through home schooling or virtual schools, the importance of having a computer at home is becoming increasingly necessary.
For Spanish-only speaking families, only 32% of kids had home Internet access, compared with 69% of kids with English-speaking parents. Parental income plays a part, too. 88% of kids with parents who earned more than $75,000 a year had Internet access at home, compared to 37% of kids with parents earning under $20,000 a year.
The majority of our city’s children attend schools within Weber School District, and the district places a heavy focus on Internet technologies. Our online course system, which supplements in-class learning, is growing by leaps and bounds. Many of our district’s teachers now expect their students to access online course material from home. Teachers also share assignments, classroom updates, and news on their blogs, which is invaluable for parents. However, this is all useless if the family has no computer at home. This creates a significant educational disadvantage for students in underprivileged families.
Fortunately, there are other means to obtain computer access, such as the local library. This is a great service to the community. However, every time I visit the library, the computer lab is always full. It doesn’t seem to matter what time of day, either. There are sometimes even people waiting in line to use a computer.
I am suggesting the following measures be implemented:
- I strongly encourage that a second computer lab be built in the Weber County Library, Roy Branch. Library hours should also be extended, if possible, so members of the community have a larger time window in which to access a computer and the Internet.
- The city should implement a volunteer-based computer recovery program to obtain discarded, unused, and broken computers and repair them for reuse. I’m familiar with a great many technology professionals in the area who have expressed their interest to me in donating their spare time to this type of project. Hundreds of computers are thrown away every day, when they could be salvaged and refurbished. An assortment of free, open source software would then be installed on the machines, including a Linux operating system, the OpenOffice word processing suite (which is comparable to Microsoft Office), a web browser, an email client, and free educational games for kids. All this software is available at absolutely zero cost. These recycled computers would then be donated to underprivileged families in our community. We would also provide free classes at the local library once a month. The classes would train people on how to use the donated computer systems’ software, since I believe training should accompany any technological deployment.
- Providing computers is only one step in addressing digital inequality, and does not necessarily guarantee Internet access will be available to low-income or underprivileged families. For this reason, I propose a feasibility study be conducted investigating the possibility of providing Roy with a free, open wireless Internet service. This has been accomplished in large cities such as Chicago, San Francisco, Houston, and St. Louis, and in numerous smaller cities and towns across the U.S.
I believe these measures will help narrow the gap caused by Digital Inequality in our community, and help ensure that our city’s population will be afforded equal access to both computers and the Internet. I appreciate your consideration in this matter.
Sincerely,
Justin K. Reeve
References
Barzilai-Nahon, K. (2006). Gaps and bits: Conceptualizing measurements for digital divide/s. The Information Society, 22(5), 269-278. (PDF file)
Computer and Internet Use by Students in 2003. (2006, September 5). Retrieved September 21, 2008, from http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2006065.
Cooper, M. (2004). Expanding the digital divide and falling behind in broadband. Consumer Federation of America and Consumers Union, October. Retrieved from http://www.consumerfed.org/pdfs/digitaldivide.pdf.
DiMaggio, P., & Hargittai, E. (2001). From the ‘digital divide’ to ‘digital inequality’: Studying Internet use as penetration increases. Princeton University Center for Arts and Cultural Policy Studies, Working Paper Series, number 15. Retrieved from http://www.princeton.edu/~artspol/workpap/WP15%20-%20DiMaggio+Hargittai.pdf.
DiMaggio, P., Hargittai, E., Celeste, C., & Shafer, S. (2004). From unequal access to differentiated use: A literature review and agenda for research on digital inequality. Social Inequality, 355-400. Retrieved from http://www.eszter.com/research/pubs/dimaggio-etal-digitalinequality.pdf.
Hargittai, E. (2003). The digital divide and what to do about it. New Economy Handbook, 821-839. Retrieved from http://www.eszter.com/research/pubs/hargittai-digitaldivide.pdf.
McConnaughey, J., Nila, C. A., & Sloan, T. (1995). Falling through the net: A survey of the “have nots” in rural and urban America. National Telecommunications and Information Administration. July. Retrieved from http://www.ntia.doc.gov/ntiahome/fallingthru.html.
Trotter, A. (2007, September 12). Digital Divide 2.0: Ed. tech. experts tackle the question: Is there still a technological divide between the haves and have-nots? Digital Directions, September 2007. Retrieved from http://www.edweek.org/dd/articles/2007/09/12/02divide.h01.html.
