New Horizons for Learning EdTech Database

The venerable New Horizons for Learning journal, now hosted at Johns Hopkins University, has announced the addition of a database of educational technology tools reviewed by educators.

I used to think that technology could help education. I’ve probably spearheaded giving away more computer equipment to schools than anybody else on the planet. But I’ve had to come to the inevitable conclusion that the problem is not one that technology can hope to solve. What’s wrong with education cannot be fixed with technology. No amount of technology will make a dent. It’s a political problem.
Steve Jobs | 1996 interview with Wired.com (via courtenaybird)

(via infoneer-pulse)

Source: Wired

Students are drawn to hot technologies, but they rely on more traditional devices Students report technology delivers major academic benefits Students report uneven perceptions of institutions’ and instructors’ use of technology Facebook generation students juggle personal and academic interactions Students prefer, and say they learn more in, classes with online components — ECAR National Study of Undergraduate Students and Information Technology, 2011 Report
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  • Students are drawn to hot technologies, but they rely on more traditional devices
  • Students report technology delivers major academic benefits
  • Students report uneven perceptions of institutions’ and instructors’ use of technology
  • Facebook generation students juggle personal and academic interactions
  • Students prefer, and say they learn more in, classes with online components

— ECAR National Study of Undergraduate Students and Information Technology, 2011 Report

Pew: College students and technology

Community college students and device ownership:

  • 67% have desktop computer;
  • 70% laptop;
  • 72% ipod/mp3 player;
  • 94% cell phone.

So tell me again please why online courses and learning management systems are still designed around a desktop paradigm?

(Photo: robotpolisher) From a teacher in my course on authentic assessment of student learning: The millennial generation is already inundated with technology and it’s up to the instructors to harness that and utilize it in the class. My reply: I think ultimately this may be the most important thing we can do — to carefully identify what kinds of technology our students are already familiar with (such as texting) and discover ways to leverage this prior knowledge for learning and assessment (such as texting collaboratively in Twitter). Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development is a good model here — if we stretch our students a bit beyond their current use of technology, they will grow, but if we stretch them too far beyond where they are, they may not be able to make the leap. Pew Internet collects a lot of data on what technologies are being used and how they are being used. This might be an excellent way to go about selecting the appropriate technology for our assessments. Teachers have their own Zone of Proximal Development. A teacher who uses Skype to talk to faraway loved ones is probably more likely to use similar technology in the classroom. Maybe faculty development efforts in technology start at the wrong place. There is much greater risk for a teacher to try a new technology in the classroom without having already learned to use it in “real life.” Your family will be forgiving if your Skype video isn’t perfect. Your students might not be. Maybe we should be offering workshops for faculty (and students) to learn to use technology outside of the classroom where the stakes aren’t so high, and then let the technology migrate back into the classroom on its own. Adults need both safety and relevance for learning, and both are abundant when you have a video chat with your grandkids. — Visual Turn
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(Photo: robotpolisher)

From a teacher in my course on authentic assessment of student learning:

The millennial generation is already inundated with technology and it’s up to the instructors to harness that and utilize it in the class.

My reply:

I think ultimately this may be the most important thing we can do — to carefully identify what kinds of technology our students are already familiar with (such as texting) and discover ways to leverage this prior knowledge for learning and assessment (such as texting collaboratively in Twitter).

Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development is a good model here — if we stretch our students a bit beyond their current use of technology, they will grow, but if we stretch them too far beyond where they are, they may not be able to make the leap.

Pew Internet collects a lot of data on what technologies are being used and how they are being used. This might be an excellent way to go about selecting the appropriate technology for our assessments.

Teachers have their own Zone of Proximal Development. A teacher who uses Skype to talk to faraway loved ones is probably more likely to use similar technology in the classroom.

Maybe faculty development efforts in technology start at the wrong place.

There is much greater risk for a teacher to try a new technology in the classroom without having already learned to use it in “real life.” Your family will be forgiving if your Skype video isn’t perfect. Your students might not be. Maybe we should be offering workshops for faculty (and students) to learn to use technology outside of the classroom where the stakes aren’t so high, and then let the technology migrate back into the classroom on its own. Adults need both safety and relevance for learning, and both are abundant when you have a video chat with your grandkids.

— Visual Turn

Study: why bother to remember when you can just use Google?

infoneer-pulse:

In the age of Google and Wikipedia, an almost unlimited amount of information is available at our fingertips, and with the rise of smartphones, many of us have nonstop access. The potential to find almost any piece of information in seconds is beneficial, but is this ability actually negatively impacting our memory?

» via ars technica

Curious, isn’t it, that almost 2400 years ago, Socrates had precisely the same fear about the new technology of his time — writing:

“This discovery of yours will create forgetfulness in the learners’ souls, because they will not use their memories; they will trust to the external written characters and not remember of themselves. The specific which you have discovered is an aid not to memory, but to reminiscence, and you give your disciples not truth, but only the semblance of truth; they will be hearers of many things and will have learned nothing; they will appear to be omniscient and will generally know nothing; they will be tiresome company, having the show of wisdom without the reality.” — Plato, The Phaedrus

— Visual Turn

Source: infoneer-pulse

Technology and Inequality

csessums:

… higher education will eventually be hit by the same kind of sweeping wave of technology that has flattened the automobile and media industries, among others. If the commoditization of education eventually extends to at least lower-level college courses, the impact on income inequality could be profound.

Source: project-syndicate.org

A vision of education in the year 2000 … as imagined in the year 1910. Villemard, 1910, À l’ École, Visions de l’an 2000
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A vision of education in the year 2000 … as imagined in the year 1910.

Villemard, 1910, À l’ École, Visions de l’an 2000

Ten Truths About Teaching with Technology

thingsforteachers:

1.  Teaching WITHOUT technology is just not acceptable any longer.  Can you imagine …

Teaching IS a technology. And so are schools. And reading. And writing. And books. And language. Technology did not begin with online learning, or the Internet, or computers, or electricity, or the steam engine, or agriculture. Technology is every kind of human communication, interaction, representation, and activity that shapes our culture and our world.

— Visual Turn

Source: thingsforteachers