I've posted information on the "Did You Know" series of videos created by Dr. Karl Fisch, Dr. Scott McCleod and others. There are several similar creations that live on the web. While we can certainly debate the statistics that are presented and the issues they raise, I believe they all serve a similar purpose. They make us think - something we all need to do more of.
The most recent thought provoking presentation that was brought to my attention is a video by B.J. Nesbitt. While it is a couple years old already and borrows heavily on the "Did You Know" vids as well as one by Michael Wesch, (they are credited) it certainly makes us think. How do students in our classrooms today learn? Is it any different than 20, 50 or 100 years ago? What does it mean to be a digital learner and do we teach them differently? As parents, (for those of you who are) how do you want your children to learn?
There has been criticism of this video for using kids to promote an adult agenda. I can see how some would think that way, but I also think it can be looked at as giving a voice to students. As I said before, that is debatable, as are the statistics. However, if we focus on those things and even turn it into a political debate, we forget to think about the real issue - which is finding better ways to reach and teach our children.
Here is the video for those who are not in a school building that blocks YouTube...
Monday, December 14, 2009
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Why wouldn't I want my child to have one...
Do you know how many times in the last two weeks I've said, "I should write that down and put it on the blog?" Too many to count. With the annual TIES conference upon us (for those not from Minnesota, it is the largest education technology conference in our part of the "states") it is high time I get going again! We'll shoot for once a week the rest of this month and then, hopefully more in 2010. I blogged about this once before, but here is a slightly different twist on the subject...
I will be presenting a session at the conference on the iPod Touch in the K-12 classroom from the perspective of a teacher and a parent. As my oldest son has entered into his teenage years, I've started to think more about this issue of digital learners. He is as engaged in the digital world as his parents will allow! He plays a few online games, is quite adept at accessing information and creates digital movies. He does not have a cell phone (he would have us believe he is the only one in 8th grade without one) but he does have an iPod Nano. I see what he and his friends do on a daily basis with the digital tools at their disposal and I can't help but start thinking about how useful these tools could be in the classroom.
Take the iPod touch, for example, and the over 100,000 apps available. It is no wonder that classrooms around the country are experimenting with it as a learning tool. With the proper apps (many of which are free) it is a graphing and scientific calculator, an e-book reader, a classroom response device, a video player, a podcast player and a web browser among many, many other things. So, as a parent... I ask the question, why wouldn't I want my child to have these tools available to him? That question brings up many more... Why doesn't the school allow my child to use this in class? Why doesn't the school technology department allow the device to connect to the school network - ever? When will education embrace the technology that is commonplace outside of the schools inside the schools? I'm sure I'm not the only parent wondering about these questions - or am I?
I'm curious what you think - please discuss.
I will be presenting a session at the conference on the iPod Touch in the K-12 classroom from the perspective of a teacher and a parent. As my oldest son has entered into his teenage years, I've started to think more about this issue of digital learners. He is as engaged in the digital world as his parents will allow! He plays a few online games, is quite adept at accessing information and creates digital movies. He does not have a cell phone (he would have us believe he is the only one in 8th grade without one) but he does have an iPod Nano. I see what he and his friends do on a daily basis with the digital tools at their disposal and I can't help but start thinking about how useful these tools could be in the classroom.
Take the iPod touch, for example, and the over 100,000 apps available. It is no wonder that classrooms around the country are experimenting with it as a learning tool. With the proper apps (many of which are free) it is a graphing and scientific calculator, an e-book reader, a classroom response device, a video player, a podcast player and a web browser among many, many other things. So, as a parent... I ask the question, why wouldn't I want my child to have these tools available to him? That question brings up many more... Why doesn't the school allow my child to use this in class? Why doesn't the school technology department allow the device to connect to the school network - ever? When will education embrace the technology that is commonplace outside of the schools inside the schools? I'm sure I'm not the only parent wondering about these questions - or am I?
I'm curious what you think - please discuss.
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Do They Know More?
OK... While I'm not ready to admit being "long of tooth" yet, I have started to notice that I am not among the young people at staff meetings, training sessions or other gatherings of educators anymore.
Today, Jon Larson, the ECMECC technology integration specialist was lamenting the number of times he had heard phrases to the effect that all of the new teachers are going to come to us with plenty of skills using (fill in the blank with a current technology.) Neither of us are convinced that is true. While the young folks may have more experience USING certain technologies, I don't believe they know much more about using the technologies to TEACH than those of us who have been in the profession for some time.
Ten years ago, I was working on a project at the University of Minnesota designed to transform the way pre-service teachers learned about using technology in the classroom. It was a bit painful trying to change the culture of having one class in the program that taught every education student how to use a half-dozen computer applications to an integrated approach to using technology as a tool for teaching and learning. That said, I think we managed to improve the program over three years.
So... I did some very quick and non-scientific research on some current teacher education programs around the state, checking course descriptions and requirements. I was disappointed to see that, in many cases, there were very few mentions of technology in course titles or descriptions. In fact, in most cases (perhaps the "U" being an exception), the list of requirements looked strikingly similar to my own course of study twenty years ago. I can only hope that technology is so integrated into the programs that it doesn't show up in titles and descriptions. After all, that is what we often say we want to accomplish in K-12, technology integration. I know that we are still far from that in our schools, so I fear that Academia may be even further behind.
I plan to do some additional research on this issue and I will report what I find here. I welcome any comments and responses. If you know of a teacher education program that is doing a great job preparing our teachers to use technology in the classroom, let us know. If you are a new teacher and want to describe your teacher education program, I'd love to hear about it. I hope I am completely wrong about what is going on. Clearly, it is easy to lose touch with issues that you've been away from for many years. For me, this is one issue that I need to reacquaint myself with as I work to make my organization more focused on technology professional development and integration.
Today, Jon Larson, the ECMECC technology integration specialist was lamenting the number of times he had heard phrases to the effect that all of the new teachers are going to come to us with plenty of skills using (fill in the blank with a current technology.) Neither of us are convinced that is true. While the young folks may have more experience USING certain technologies, I don't believe they know much more about using the technologies to TEACH than those of us who have been in the profession for some time.
Ten years ago, I was working on a project at the University of Minnesota designed to transform the way pre-service teachers learned about using technology in the classroom. It was a bit painful trying to change the culture of having one class in the program that taught every education student how to use a half-dozen computer applications to an integrated approach to using technology as a tool for teaching and learning. That said, I think we managed to improve the program over three years.
So... I did some very quick and non-scientific research on some current teacher education programs around the state, checking course descriptions and requirements. I was disappointed to see that, in many cases, there were very few mentions of technology in course titles or descriptions. In fact, in most cases (perhaps the "U" being an exception), the list of requirements looked strikingly similar to my own course of study twenty years ago. I can only hope that technology is so integrated into the programs that it doesn't show up in titles and descriptions. After all, that is what we often say we want to accomplish in K-12, technology integration. I know that we are still far from that in our schools, so I fear that Academia may be even further behind.
I plan to do some additional research on this issue and I will report what I find here. I welcome any comments and responses. If you know of a teacher education program that is doing a great job preparing our teachers to use technology in the classroom, let us know. If you are a new teacher and want to describe your teacher education program, I'd love to hear about it. I hope I am completely wrong about what is going on. Clearly, it is easy to lose touch with issues that you've been away from for many years. For me, this is one issue that I need to reacquaint myself with as I work to make my organization more focused on technology professional development and integration.
Monday, October 5, 2009
MEMO - "Did You Know"
It has been awhile and it is utterly amazing how fast time flies when the school year is getting underway and we are in the "normal" swing of education.
During the past several days, I was in attendance at the Minnesota Educational Media Organization's (MEMO) annual Fall conference. MEMO is a professional organization for school library media and technology staff. (http://memotech.ning.com) It was a great conference (though I was quite distracted during it - more on that in a minute) with a very strong program for instructional technology. I suggest all media and technology professionals in Minnesota who are not members consider joining the organization. The cost is relatively low and what you get more than anything else is connections with others in your profession. You will make of that what you will, but we are at a point in time when those connections are as important as they ever have been. If you are not in Minnesota, there are similar organizations in most states and some national organizations too such as the AASL and ISTE.
One of the keynote speakers was Dr. Scott McLeod from Iowa State University (previously with the University of Minnesota). http://www.scottmcleod.net/ Dr. McLeod discussed many issues facing media specialists and technology integrationists in education today. He shared with us the latest version of the popular "Did You Know" video. I recommend you take a look. (http://www.dangerouslyirrelevant.org/2009/09/did-you-know-4.html) Be prepared to read fast as it moves right along! It is amazing how much information technology has changed the way we do almost everything -- except, in some cases, teach. I pin some of the blame for that on the mandates for accountability using traditional testing methods. It is difficult to effectively change the content and methods for teaching when we are still testing the same rote knowledge. Not impossible, just difficult. If you agree with any of this, you might consider sharing some of the information in the video and from Dr. McLeod's blog (http://www.dangerouslyirrelevant.org) with school administrators, school boards, parents and legislators. We don't need to turn this ship on a dime. Dr. McLeod might have us think that we need to move quite quickly - but it would be good to start moving that wheel soon.
So, I mentioned that I was kind of distracted during the conference. We were experiencing some major network slowdowns in my school districts. Fixed now, but it took several days and it made me realize even more how important the network, Internet access and so on are to our schools. We joke about the phenomenon of being distracted with the phrase "look, a chicken!" Being at MEMO and having several "chickens" distract me made me remember the ultimate chicken that distracted us during a working session at a summer conference recently. It was "Mike, the headless chicken," and for those who don't know what that is, here is a chicken to distract you for a few minutes. How would we have ever known about this before the Internet!! http://www.miketheheadlesschicken.org
Enjoy!
During the past several days, I was in attendance at the Minnesota Educational Media Organization's (MEMO) annual Fall conference. MEMO is a professional organization for school library media and technology staff. (http://memotech.ning.com) It was a great conference (though I was quite distracted during it - more on that in a minute) with a very strong program for instructional technology. I suggest all media and technology professionals in Minnesota who are not members consider joining the organization. The cost is relatively low and what you get more than anything else is connections with others in your profession. You will make of that what you will, but we are at a point in time when those connections are as important as they ever have been. If you are not in Minnesota, there are similar organizations in most states and some national organizations too such as the AASL and ISTE.
One of the keynote speakers was Dr. Scott McLeod from Iowa State University (previously with the University of Minnesota). http://www.scottmcleod.net/ Dr. McLeod discussed many issues facing media specialists and technology integrationists in education today. He shared with us the latest version of the popular "Did You Know" video. I recommend you take a look. (http://www.dangerouslyirrelevant.org/2009/09/did-you-know-4.html) Be prepared to read fast as it moves right along! It is amazing how much information technology has changed the way we do almost everything -- except, in some cases, teach. I pin some of the blame for that on the mandates for accountability using traditional testing methods. It is difficult to effectively change the content and methods for teaching when we are still testing the same rote knowledge. Not impossible, just difficult. If you agree with any of this, you might consider sharing some of the information in the video and from Dr. McLeod's blog (http://www.dangerouslyirrelevant.org) with school administrators, school boards, parents and legislators. We don't need to turn this ship on a dime. Dr. McLeod might have us think that we need to move quite quickly - but it would be good to start moving that wheel soon.
So, I mentioned that I was kind of distracted during the conference. We were experiencing some major network slowdowns in my school districts. Fixed now, but it took several days and it made me realize even more how important the network, Internet access and so on are to our schools. We joke about the phenomenon of being distracted with the phrase "look, a chicken!" Being at MEMO and having several "chickens" distract me made me remember the ultimate chicken that distracted us during a working session at a summer conference recently. It was "Mike, the headless chicken," and for those who don't know what that is, here is a chicken to distract you for a few minutes. How would we have ever known about this before the Internet!! http://www.miketheheadlesschicken.org
Enjoy!
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