I started using diigo a few months ago to keep track of links that I found. Mainly I dump them there so I can keep track of them, but diigo is nice for also sharing them with the wider world. Most of the resources relate to education or math, though I think there are some other odds and ends in there.
Before that I used Portaportal, but it's functionality (describing, tagging, sharing, listing, etc.) is limited (here is a link to my Portaportal page, but I stopped adding to it several months ago). Before that, I did my lists by hand (here is a link to my teaching math resources page), but it has been too cumbersome to maintain, and while generally available on the web, not as rich in features as a site like diigo. I tried delicious at one point, but couldn't get comfortable with it.
One of the most useful features of diigo has been its "group" feature. I am a member of the "diigo in education" group, and as a result, I receive a daily summary of new links that other members of the group have found. Links include both online activities as well as news articles on education. This has been an ongoing source of good new (to me) resources.
I have not been so good about sharing my links with others, except for whoever stumbles upon them via diigo.
I now have over 300 links on my bookmarks page organized into almost 50 lists. When I moved my Portaportal links over, the associated lists did not all transfer, so some of those links may not be in any lists. A number of the links have no description, so there is the danger of the links being orphaned in my diigo attic (now that's a rather bizarre mixed metaphor). This points to the general problem of Internet resources, the challenge of adequately indexing the material so relevant material can be quickly retrieved. Google of course is one blunt tool for retrieval. Librarians have been sensitive to this issue for a long long time. Diigo uses tags, which I have not taken advantage of until recently. The drawback with tags is the variety of tagging terms that people use.
Looking through the links, I am once again reminded first how much stuff is out there, and how the Internet is pretty amazing at making the stuff available. And second that there isn't so much a shortage of resources, but of the time to review, select and absorb the resources into one's teaching practice. That old metaphor about putting your mouth up to the firehose of information...
jd
P.S. In case you were wondering (why would you wonder?), this was posted to satisfy a course requirement.
Saturday, July 25, 2009
Friday, July 24, 2009
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Tech and ed spending in today's WSJ
Today's (7/23/09) Wall Street Journal reports on technology spending in education. The article is a bit confused, replicating many of the "e-lusions" that Todd Oppenheimer described in his book a few years ago. The article described federal stimulus money going into educational technology at the expense of money for teachers and other educational needs. The money has significant strings attached -- it's only for technology and tech training. So while teachers are laid off, classroom sizes expanded, and programs cut, more machines are being thrown at an educational system in crisis.
The fundamental fallacy is that machines can replace humans in education. The article repeats common dodgy research claims: a school district introduced laptops, and student scores went up over the next few years ("Sixth-graders taught with laptops the first year saw their reading and math scores rise 27% and 15%, respectively, by eighth grade, says District Superintendent Jerry Vaughn." Uhh -- they go up anyway; that's why the ISAT cut points go up for each grade level.
One North Carolina district saw signigicant gains after going to a one-to-one laptop program, but as with most tech and ed research, there is no basis for attributing causality to the laptops. My experience does support one observation by a school official: "Dr. MacNeill credits these advances in large part to the technology program, which she says has made the students 'more engaged, more active in their learning' and made school 'more purposeful and relevant to them.'" I think there is a sad statement about education and students in that statement though -- a sublation of some sort. Relevance is found in the interaction with an electronic device; and there is something in there about achieving engagement via consumption rather than self-generated. Some completely different physiological or neurological state is in play.
Some of the technology programs are accompanied by training in student-centered instruction:
jd
The fundamental fallacy is that machines can replace humans in education. The article repeats common dodgy research claims: a school district introduced laptops, and student scores went up over the next few years ("Sixth-graders taught with laptops the first year saw their reading and math scores rise 27% and 15%, respectively, by eighth grade, says District Superintendent Jerry Vaughn." Uhh -- they go up anyway; that's why the ISAT cut points go up for each grade level.
One North Carolina district saw signigicant gains after going to a one-to-one laptop program, but as with most tech and ed research, there is no basis for attributing causality to the laptops. My experience does support one observation by a school official: "Dr. MacNeill credits these advances in large part to the technology program, which she says has made the students 'more engaged, more active in their learning' and made school 'more purposeful and relevant to them.'" I think there is a sad statement about education and students in that statement though -- a sublation of some sort. Relevance is found in the interaction with an electronic device; and there is something in there about achieving engagement via consumption rather than self-generated. Some completely different physiological or neurological state is in play.
Some of the technology programs are accompanied by training in student-centered instruction:
Which is to applauded I think, and is a responsible way to incorporate technology into the classroom. But Herdman adds, "It’s about teaching the curriculum using technology as your vehicle." I question the necessity of delivering the curriculum via technology -- it may be possible (even about that I am not so sure) -- but if so it is an expensive, and unhuman, way to do it.
Many districts receiving these funds are looking beyond simply equipping classrooms with the latest gadgetry ... in favor of rethinking the way education is delivered. In some tech-equipped schools, teachers are playing a less-dominant role in the classroom, group work and problem-solving are emphasized...
Ms. Herdman [district head of ed tech] envisions such a transformation in North Kansas City. “It’s no longer going to be ‘Turn to page 10 and look at this,’ ” she says. “It’s more collaborative work, the learning style is inquiry-based, and the teacher is guiding, facilitating learning rather than lecturing.
jd
Friday, July 3, 2009
What good is the Internet for education?
I am taking a course from National-Louis this summer on designing Internet resources for teaching. One of the course requirements is a series of blog posts, which I will be posting here. The first topic is a reflection on the value of Internet resources for education.
What good is the Internet for education? The Internet is so many things now that there are many ways to think about its role in education. Thinking in terms of education roles, it is a conversation space, a meeting space, a filing cabinet, a classroom, a bulletin board, a library, and many types of museums. It is a printing press / radio or TV station / movie theater (where you can be the projectionist or an audience member). It's also a shopping mall, collaboratory and playground (of sorts). Thinking of Google Docs or Zoho, It is many types of computer applications, and the metaphors that they embody. I am sure I have left out important roles, and given short shrift to some. In all of these cases, the economics of the Internet mean that the Internet is a tremendously cost-effective resource for education. So one can interpret its value in a quantitative, monetary sense (quite high), or qualitatively, in terms of (for example) surprising discovered connections, social or otherwise.
On the other hand... It is important to remember what the Internet is not. It is not "right there" -- it can only be reached through electronic devices, and those magical gateways, although not that hard to find these days, are not ubiquitous or free. It is not nature, the real natural world. It is not tactile, physical, sensual world . It is not a real room where one can enjoy the richness of face-to-face interaction. The Internet experience is mediated through electronics, a bundle of media that exerts certain pressures on experience, and so alters and shapes and constrains it. The Internet, hyperlinks notwithstanding, is a programmed experience, where the rules governing interactions are limited by the imagination of the developers or the capabilities of the hardware. And all of the social networking opportunities notwithstanding, it is still a terribly segregated space, of like communicating only with like.
So while there is obvious and real value for education in the Internet, there is also a seductive lure to it. There is the danger that education gets swallowed up by the Internet. That educators might confuse the world with its (relatively) tiny subset, the Internet. Because the digital Internet is, if you are sitting in front of a screen, right there, easier to deal with than the messiness of the analog world.
Here is a more interesting question to me: What is the value of the Internet for education, versus leaving the school building, and spending an hour investigating the empty lot across the street?
jd
What good is the Internet for education? The Internet is so many things now that there are many ways to think about its role in education. Thinking in terms of education roles, it is a conversation space, a meeting space, a filing cabinet, a classroom, a bulletin board, a library, and many types of museums. It is a printing press / radio or TV station / movie theater (where you can be the projectionist or an audience member). It's also a shopping mall, collaboratory and playground (of sorts). Thinking of Google Docs or Zoho, It is many types of computer applications, and the metaphors that they embody. I am sure I have left out important roles, and given short shrift to some. In all of these cases, the economics of the Internet mean that the Internet is a tremendously cost-effective resource for education. So one can interpret its value in a quantitative, monetary sense (quite high), or qualitatively, in terms of (for example) surprising discovered connections, social or otherwise.
On the other hand... It is important to remember what the Internet is not. It is not "right there" -- it can only be reached through electronic devices, and those magical gateways, although not that hard to find these days, are not ubiquitous or free. It is not nature, the real natural world. It is not tactile, physical, sensual world . It is not a real room where one can enjoy the richness of face-to-face interaction. The Internet experience is mediated through electronics, a bundle of media that exerts certain pressures on experience, and so alters and shapes and constrains it. The Internet, hyperlinks notwithstanding, is a programmed experience, where the rules governing interactions are limited by the imagination of the developers or the capabilities of the hardware. And all of the social networking opportunities notwithstanding, it is still a terribly segregated space, of like communicating only with like.
So while there is obvious and real value for education in the Internet, there is also a seductive lure to it. There is the danger that education gets swallowed up by the Internet. That educators might confuse the world with its (relatively) tiny subset, the Internet. Because the digital Internet is, if you are sitting in front of a screen, right there, easier to deal with than the messiness of the analog world.
Here is a more interesting question to me: What is the value of the Internet for education, versus leaving the school building, and spending an hour investigating the empty lot across the street?
jd
Monday, June 29, 2009
Developmentally appropriate
The term "developmentally appropriate technology" refers to the notion that children develop, with different physical and intellectual needs and abilities at different ages. Children are not mini-me's, with the same cognitive faculties as an adult minus experience, facts, memories, etc. Their bodies are going through specific changes, and so are their brains -- they see and experience the world in different ways, and have different learning needs. So everything education-related, including technology, needs to be geared to -- appropriate to -- the child's age. The idea of "developmentally appropriate technology" is related to other "developmentally appropriate practices" in education.
I think one of the most important criticisms of technology in the classroom is that, in many cases, the technology that students are expected to work with is just not appropriate for their level of physical and cognitive development. Some criticisms of educational technology, like poor software, physical dangers, online dangers, and poor integration/application can be addressed through better modeling, scaffolding, monitoring, etc. The criticism that the cost/benefit ratio of new technology doesn't justify the education establishment's infatuation with it is another big criticism, and worth a separate posting. But the idea that a computer in the hands of a, say, 6-year-old is a bad idea, because a 6-year-old not only does not have the cognitive capacity to get the most out of the machine, but that it might actually hurt the child's development is a substantial criticism.
This is a theme in the technology critiques referenced in previous posts. For example, Fool's Gold argues that the "sheer power" of computers "seems more likely to repress the development of important intellectual capacities than to enhance it." (p. 33) Jane Healy writes in Failure to Connect that "computer use, being primarily a two-dimensional symbolic activity, may simply not be developmentally appropriate before the age of seven or eight."(p. 135) The brain-science logic behind this argument, according to Healy, is that the brain "undergoes certain 'critical' or 'sensitive periods in both childhood and adolescence when learning environments exert special kinds of effects and when certain types of activities and stimulation are most appropriate and necessary to maximize mental potential... If we waste or subvert these developmental windows, the losses may be irrecoverable." (p. 27) Important and necessary opportunities for imaginative play, concrete learning, physical activity, and social and emotional interaction with children and adults will be missed while the child is busy at the keyboard. There would seem to be a steep opportunity cost paid by thrusting computers onto students too early, or in the wrong way. (For a quick summary and great pullquotes of Healy's book, see this book review of Failure to Connect).
(Aside: The Waldorf approach to education, which informs Fool's Gold, Tech Tonic, and Oppenheimer, generally frowns on the heavy use of computers before high school. By high school age, teens are cognitively ready for the heavy amount of abstract reasoning, and will quickly pick up the basic computing skills they need for post-high school. The above-reference books agree that computer use in high schools is appropriate, as long as the technology curriculum includes an exploration of how computers work (along the lines of a shop class) and technology's role in society, in addition to learning computer operation and maintenance. Setzer and Monke (2001), also building on Waldorf ideas, in their article An Alternative View on Why, When and How Computers Should Be Used in Education are at the extreme end of the spectrum of technology use in schools, arguing that "they should not be used by children in any form before approximately age 15." Setzer and Monke lay out an ideal technology curriculum, which is of interest.)
But between the primary years (say, up to seven years old / 2nd grade) and high school (say, starting at age 14), that is, from Grades 3 through 8, there is a broad period of growth and transition in the child, with changing cognitive abilities and readiness for new types of learning.
I have not been able to find a technology curriculum that explicitly references a model of child development. The International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) provides examples of its National Educational Technology Standards for Students (NETS) for students that are tiered in grade bands (K-2, 3-5, 6-8) in its 2007 Profiles for Technology Literate Students. For ISTE, a kindergartner might "identify, research, and collect data on an environmental issue using digital resources and propose a developmentally appropriate solution." Such an example recognizes that the kindergartner is a mini-me, constrained only by his or her knowledge. For ISTE, "developmentally appropriate" means -- well the way they use it I don't know -- a solution that kindergartners could implement? That uses vocabulary a kindergartner understands? But it does not suggest that a kindergartner sees the world in different ways than older students, that he or she needs to strengthen certain faculties through tactile engagement and physical activity and active, imaginative play that older students maybe no longer need, or need as much.
Anyway, this is my quest now -- to find a technology curriculum that includes a "developmentally appropriate" dimension that is based on a model of child development that recognizes distinctive stages of development and matches technology use to those stages.
To be continued...
jd
I think one of the most important criticisms of technology in the classroom is that, in many cases, the technology that students are expected to work with is just not appropriate for their level of physical and cognitive development. Some criticisms of educational technology, like poor software, physical dangers, online dangers, and poor integration/application can be addressed through better modeling, scaffolding, monitoring, etc. The criticism that the cost/benefit ratio of new technology doesn't justify the education establishment's infatuation with it is another big criticism, and worth a separate posting. But the idea that a computer in the hands of a, say, 6-year-old is a bad idea, because a 6-year-old not only does not have the cognitive capacity to get the most out of the machine, but that it might actually hurt the child's development is a substantial criticism.
This is a theme in the technology critiques referenced in previous posts. For example, Fool's Gold argues that the "sheer power" of computers "seems more likely to repress the development of important intellectual capacities than to enhance it." (p. 33) Jane Healy writes in Failure to Connect that "computer use, being primarily a two-dimensional symbolic activity, may simply not be developmentally appropriate before the age of seven or eight."(p. 135) The brain-science logic behind this argument, according to Healy, is that the brain "undergoes certain 'critical' or 'sensitive periods in both childhood and adolescence when learning environments exert special kinds of effects and when certain types of activities and stimulation are most appropriate and necessary to maximize mental potential... If we waste or subvert these developmental windows, the losses may be irrecoverable." (p. 27) Important and necessary opportunities for imaginative play, concrete learning, physical activity, and social and emotional interaction with children and adults will be missed while the child is busy at the keyboard. There would seem to be a steep opportunity cost paid by thrusting computers onto students too early, or in the wrong way. (For a quick summary and great pullquotes of Healy's book, see this book review of Failure to Connect).
(Aside: The Waldorf approach to education, which informs Fool's Gold, Tech Tonic, and Oppenheimer, generally frowns on the heavy use of computers before high school. By high school age, teens are cognitively ready for the heavy amount of abstract reasoning, and will quickly pick up the basic computing skills they need for post-high school. The above-reference books agree that computer use in high schools is appropriate, as long as the technology curriculum includes an exploration of how computers work (along the lines of a shop class) and technology's role in society, in addition to learning computer operation and maintenance. Setzer and Monke (2001), also building on Waldorf ideas, in their article An Alternative View on Why, When and How Computers Should Be Used in Education are at the extreme end of the spectrum of technology use in schools, arguing that "they should not be used by children in any form before approximately age 15." Setzer and Monke lay out an ideal technology curriculum, which is of interest.)
But between the primary years (say, up to seven years old / 2nd grade) and high school (say, starting at age 14), that is, from Grades 3 through 8, there is a broad period of growth and transition in the child, with changing cognitive abilities and readiness for new types of learning.
I have not been able to find a technology curriculum that explicitly references a model of child development. The International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) provides examples of its National Educational Technology Standards for Students (NETS) for students that are tiered in grade bands (K-2, 3-5, 6-8) in its 2007 Profiles for Technology Literate Students. For ISTE, a kindergartner might "identify, research, and collect data on an environmental issue using digital resources and propose a developmentally appropriate solution." Such an example recognizes that the kindergartner is a mini-me, constrained only by his or her knowledge. For ISTE, "developmentally appropriate" means -- well the way they use it I don't know -- a solution that kindergartners could implement? That uses vocabulary a kindergartner understands? But it does not suggest that a kindergartner sees the world in different ways than older students, that he or she needs to strengthen certain faculties through tactile engagement and physical activity and active, imaginative play that older students maybe no longer need, or need as much.
Anyway, this is my quest now -- to find a technology curriculum that includes a "developmentally appropriate" dimension that is based on a model of child development that recognizes distinctive stages of development and matches technology use to those stages.
To be continued...
jd
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Teaching social justice via science and math
These are some notes from a Teachers for Social Justice event I attended here in Chicago way back in March. Titled "Teaching and learning mathematics and science for social justice", the speakers discussed ways that social justice issues have been raised in the course of teaching chemistry and math at the Little Village/North Lawndale Social Justice High School. Again, these are notes, and may be verbatim (or close to) material from the main speakers, Daniel Morales-Doyle, Alejandra Frausto and Rico Gutstein.
What does it mean to teach social justice in science? Science is a way of grappling with identity. It provides a means for students to shift away from solely being consumers of knowledge and culture to also being producers of knowledge and culture. Science can also be used to de-mystify the objects of consumption.
In the chemistry class example, youth popular culture provides the entry point for social justice issues in the curriculum. Scientific concepts and experiments tie in with artifacts of popular culture and their production process (including environmental implications, the labor process, and the political and social conditions of production).
The (ideal) social issue science curriculum needs five components: A reference point to youth popular culture, engaging lab activities, a social justice issue, good science content, and rigorous academic skills. The successful curriculum relies on good pedagogy: clarity of purpose (to help students and their community), high expectations, caring, discipline, a good work ethic, consistency, modeling uncertainty and seeking additional information, passion, enthusiasm. [Discipline and punishment are two different things.] Good pedagogy also values student knowledge ("foreground their knowledge").
For younger science students, teachers can help students visualize what a scientist is (and help them visualize themselves as scientists). Teachers should help students maintain (or encourage in them) a curiosity about the natural world. Teachers should build student confidence in the student's observations and thinking.
The speakers handed out a diagram of "Critical Praxis in Chemistry" that portrayed a cycle on inquiry. The cycle begins with a problem in popular culture. This is followed by learning about chemistry theory to support the inquiry into the popular culture problem. Chemistry theory is supported and enhanced by experiments, conducted in series of threes, or triads. Experiment one introduces a concept; experiment two builds skills, and experiment three has students exploring and inquiring about the unit problem. The learning/experimenting stages may go through multiple iterations. The fourth stage of the cycle comprises assessment and action -- students are asked "to apply their newly constructed knowledge of nature to produce culture that may affect changes in the problems [they] have identified." This in turn may initiate a new cycle of investigation.
The speakers provided several examples of "critical chemistry" in practice. One example, "The Science of Bling", begins with the unit question, "How is the value of diamonds justified by their physical and chemical properties?" The question connects to youth culture through engagement and wedding rings, hip-hop, fashion, and films like Bling and Blood Diamond. Social justice issues include conflict diamonds and the exploitation of natural resources in developing countries. Key chemistry concepts include the chemical and physical properties and classification of matter. For an authentic assessment, students write a pre- and post-unit "Love Letter" to a hypothetical fiance(e) about the issue of a diamond engagement ring.
Social justice issues in math are introduced in a similar way. Math is used to help students understand social reality. Units begin with authentic problems that students encounter in their community. Rico Gutstein described a unit that he did with high school students on predatory lending. The impetus for the unit arose from one student's family facing foreclosure. The math component included concepts like principal and interest, growth rates, compounding, budgeting and so on. Gutstein also described an investigation students did into the 2004 elections which addressed probability and the possibility that the presidential election was stolen (students produced an editorial raising these questions as a result of their work). Gutstein has elsewhere described a unit on racial profiling which incorporated probability concepts. An important element of "social justice math" is that it should tie into the lives of students. [Personal aside - This places an additional burden on the teacher to collect the necessary data and research to ensure a productive unit for the students.]
jd
What does it mean to teach social justice in science? Science is a way of grappling with identity. It provides a means for students to shift away from solely being consumers of knowledge and culture to also being producers of knowledge and culture. Science can also be used to de-mystify the objects of consumption.
In the chemistry class example, youth popular culture provides the entry point for social justice issues in the curriculum. Scientific concepts and experiments tie in with artifacts of popular culture and their production process (including environmental implications, the labor process, and the political and social conditions of production).
The (ideal) social issue science curriculum needs five components: A reference point to youth popular culture, engaging lab activities, a social justice issue, good science content, and rigorous academic skills. The successful curriculum relies on good pedagogy: clarity of purpose (to help students and their community), high expectations, caring, discipline, a good work ethic, consistency, modeling uncertainty and seeking additional information, passion, enthusiasm. [Discipline and punishment are two different things.] Good pedagogy also values student knowledge ("foreground their knowledge").
For younger science students, teachers can help students visualize what a scientist is (and help them visualize themselves as scientists). Teachers should help students maintain (or encourage in them) a curiosity about the natural world. Teachers should build student confidence in the student's observations and thinking.
The speakers handed out a diagram of "Critical Praxis in Chemistry" that portrayed a cycle on inquiry. The cycle begins with a problem in popular culture. This is followed by learning about chemistry theory to support the inquiry into the popular culture problem. Chemistry theory is supported and enhanced by experiments, conducted in series of threes, or triads. Experiment one introduces a concept; experiment two builds skills, and experiment three has students exploring and inquiring about the unit problem. The learning/experimenting stages may go through multiple iterations. The fourth stage of the cycle comprises assessment and action -- students are asked "to apply their newly constructed knowledge of nature to produce culture that may affect changes in the problems [they] have identified." This in turn may initiate a new cycle of investigation.
The speakers provided several examples of "critical chemistry" in practice. One example, "The Science of Bling", begins with the unit question, "How is the value of diamonds justified by their physical and chemical properties?" The question connects to youth culture through engagement and wedding rings, hip-hop, fashion, and films like Bling and Blood Diamond. Social justice issues include conflict diamonds and the exploitation of natural resources in developing countries. Key chemistry concepts include the chemical and physical properties and classification of matter. For an authentic assessment, students write a pre- and post-unit "Love Letter" to a hypothetical fiance(e) about the issue of a diamond engagement ring.
Social justice issues in math are introduced in a similar way. Math is used to help students understand social reality. Units begin with authentic problems that students encounter in their community. Rico Gutstein described a unit that he did with high school students on predatory lending. The impetus for the unit arose from one student's family facing foreclosure. The math component included concepts like principal and interest, growth rates, compounding, budgeting and so on. Gutstein also described an investigation students did into the 2004 elections which addressed probability and the possibility that the presidential election was stolen (students produced an editorial raising these questions as a result of their work). Gutstein has elsewhere described a unit on racial profiling which incorporated probability concepts. An important element of "social justice math" is that it should tie into the lives of students. [Personal aside - This places an additional burden on the teacher to collect the necessary data and research to ensure a productive unit for the students.]
jd
Saturday, June 20, 2009
What a good Technology in Education program should include
I have just completed another term at National-Louis University (NLU), in their Technology in Education (TIE) program. As part of the coursework, I also finally finished Todd Oppenheimer's Flickering Mind, and it got me to thinking about what a good Technology in Education program should have (and what I think is missing from the NLU program).
First, a good technology in education program needs a solid history (and maybe philosophy or ethics) of technology class. The class would delve into the relationship of humans to their technology, the relationship of technology to social change, technology as extensions of the human body and what that has meant for social development, and some good discussion of the dialectic between technology and mind or ideas (ideas shape technology, technology shapes ideas). Some exploration of the specific relationship between capitalism and technology would be good. Students could prepare reports on the development of specific technologies and their impact. Students should somewhere in the program be exposed to the idea of "appropriate technology", this might be the class to introduce it. Readings might include Mumford, Marx, McLuhan, maybe E. F. Schumacher, also Steve Talbott. The main hoped-for outcome of the class would be for students to understand that technology is developed within a social and historical context, and affects a society in unpredictable and not always desirable ways. The class should discuss "Ten Principles for a New Literacy of Technology" and evaluate the NETS standards. The NETS standards are curiously weak on these topics.
Second, a good technology in education program should have a serious course on the history of technology in education. This class would parallel a history of education, especially in the United States, but with a special focus on technology in the classroom. Obvious authors to read would include Larry Cuban and Todd Oppenheimer. Tech Tonic might fit here also. This class would provide an important context for technology teachers to understand their role in education. The development of the NETS standards could be explored here.
Third, while educational psychology is included in the current TIE curriculum, it should have a special focus on the role of technology in learning. This would include an exploration of concepts of child development, and their implications for technology in the classroom. The fundamental question to address would be what kinds of technologies are appropriate in the classroom, and at what age. The NLU "Cognition and Instruction" course used the National Academy Press book How People Learn, which is okay, but for some reason the course skipped Chapter 9, "Technology to Support Learning" that specifically addressed research findings (which, in the context education research, might be an oxymoron) relating to technology and learning. A Jane Healey reading would be helpful here; also maybe Fool's Gold.
I'm not sure where this should go, but I think serious personal reflection on how one thinks about technology should take place somewhere. Maybe in the context of one of the two classes above. I had to develop a "personal philosophy of education" for a history and philosophy of education class which was a useful exercise; I'm thinking here of a "personal philosophy of technology in education". Or even better, a perspective written at the start of the program, and then at the end of the program. The end-of-program perspective would be an important portfolio artifact. (As a principal, I would want to know a prospective technology teacher's view of technology in education.
I am generally disappointed in the NLU Program, including its conception and its delivery. I will skip the analysis, but offer this possible enhancement. I think programs like this would be more effective if they were organized more like a "work-study" program, and the coursework more tightly bound to our work lives. Assignments in the course work would be actual projects that we would be expected to carry out at our respective school, not in addition to everything else we do, but as part of it. So the school work would also be work work. (As it is now, homework assignments are on top of an extra-heavy workload, and rarely tie in with what is happening at school.) This would require some tighter coordination between our program sponsor, the Office of Academic Enhancement (OAE), the NLU TIE program, the principals at our respective schools, and the students (and we would then really become co-creators of our education). The principals especially would need to be on board, and transcend their perception of their technology teachers as OAE-subsidized tech support personnel (aka electronic janitor). I think there are a lot of possibilities here. Our schools would become more like lab schools for discovering best practices; and our classes at NLU become more like a collaborative forum for evaluating results.
jd
First, a good technology in education program needs a solid history (and maybe philosophy or ethics) of technology class. The class would delve into the relationship of humans to their technology, the relationship of technology to social change, technology as extensions of the human body and what that has meant for social development, and some good discussion of the dialectic between technology and mind or ideas (ideas shape technology, technology shapes ideas). Some exploration of the specific relationship between capitalism and technology would be good. Students could prepare reports on the development of specific technologies and their impact. Students should somewhere in the program be exposed to the idea of "appropriate technology", this might be the class to introduce it. Readings might include Mumford, Marx, McLuhan, maybe E. F. Schumacher, also Steve Talbott. The main hoped-for outcome of the class would be for students to understand that technology is developed within a social and historical context, and affects a society in unpredictable and not always desirable ways. The class should discuss "Ten Principles for a New Literacy of Technology" and evaluate the NETS standards. The NETS standards are curiously weak on these topics.
Second, a good technology in education program should have a serious course on the history of technology in education. This class would parallel a history of education, especially in the United States, but with a special focus on technology in the classroom. Obvious authors to read would include Larry Cuban and Todd Oppenheimer. Tech Tonic might fit here also. This class would provide an important context for technology teachers to understand their role in education. The development of the NETS standards could be explored here.
Third, while educational psychology is included in the current TIE curriculum, it should have a special focus on the role of technology in learning. This would include an exploration of concepts of child development, and their implications for technology in the classroom. The fundamental question to address would be what kinds of technologies are appropriate in the classroom, and at what age. The NLU "Cognition and Instruction" course used the National Academy Press book How People Learn, which is okay, but for some reason the course skipped Chapter 9, "Technology to Support Learning" that specifically addressed research findings (which, in the context education research, might be an oxymoron) relating to technology and learning. A Jane Healey reading would be helpful here; also maybe Fool's Gold.
I'm not sure where this should go, but I think serious personal reflection on how one thinks about technology should take place somewhere. Maybe in the context of one of the two classes above. I had to develop a "personal philosophy of education" for a history and philosophy of education class which was a useful exercise; I'm thinking here of a "personal philosophy of technology in education". Or even better, a perspective written at the start of the program, and then at the end of the program. The end-of-program perspective would be an important portfolio artifact. (As a principal, I would want to know a prospective technology teacher's view of technology in education.
I am generally disappointed in the NLU Program, including its conception and its delivery. I will skip the analysis, but offer this possible enhancement. I think programs like this would be more effective if they were organized more like a "work-study" program, and the coursework more tightly bound to our work lives. Assignments in the course work would be actual projects that we would be expected to carry out at our respective school, not in addition to everything else we do, but as part of it. So the school work would also be work work. (As it is now, homework assignments are on top of an extra-heavy workload, and rarely tie in with what is happening at school.) This would require some tighter coordination between our program sponsor, the Office of Academic Enhancement (OAE), the NLU TIE program, the principals at our respective schools, and the students (and we would then really become co-creators of our education). The principals especially would need to be on board, and transcend their perception of their technology teachers as OAE-subsidized tech support personnel (aka electronic janitor). I think there are a lot of possibilities here. Our schools would become more like lab schools for discovering best practices; and our classes at NLU become more like a collaborative forum for evaluating results.
jd
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