Wiki on using IT in curriculum

My mom (who has a Ph.D. in early childhood education) sez, "What does teaching and learning look like in the 21st Century? What about 21st Century learning spaces? How can Bloom's Taxonomy be applied to the Digital world? Check out Andrew Churches' wiki where 21st educators are invited to share in this emerging conversation."

Educational Origami (Thanks, Mom!)

[teufelsdroch May 29, 2009 1:38 PM]

Here's the thing: adults expect kids to have a natural ability with computers. That isn't true.

Early on, kids can't (physiologically) dig beyond the splash page. And if they don't have access to a computer--and here the expectations of a college grad are totally opposite of reality--they don't learn to use the computer for what it can do.

If anything, poor students are culled from the group and set in front of old computers. Computers are plopped in the library--not the classroom. What that means is that underperforming students see the computer as punishment, as something they're not part of, and they quickly learn to evade learning.

While I expected the opposite, I now believe that computers do more harm than good to the curriculum. And I think the reason is that students are still expected to deal with computers one-on-one. Networking is too dangerous. (No, really, social networking between students is literally illegal in some states).

I would love to see the paper that established at what age, and economic group, kids learn to **really** use computers. My own work has convinced me--while trying to show an opposite conclusion--that the unbreakable hurdle to IT in the curriculum CONTINUES to be the lack of computers in classrooms and in homes.

I have concluded that, whatever computers have to offer, their useful application in curriculum is still beyond me. At least, if you take teaching the lower economic groups seriously.

I would LOVE to hear researched opinions on this subject. Or better, a website to find it.

[failix May 29, 2009 2:08 PM]

Teufelsdroch, I agree. The unhealthy relationship that the majority of the adult population shares with technology is transmitted to the kids. Probably because they expect kids to know how it works, to understand it, just because it already existed when they were born. But how exactly is social networking harmful?

[Captain Squiffy May 29, 2009 2:11 PM]

My experience is that computers in the classroom really interfere with learning, partly because of the great points that teufelsdroch makes, but also because oldhead administrators, who don't understand tech, are making decisions about software, hardware and access.

For example, I teach a 9th grade history course in two separate classrooms, one with a SmartBoard, the other with a Prometheus. No one at the top understood the difference when they bought the boards. I can use the technology, but I have to set up two different kinds of files to go with the proprietary software. On a good day, I'm working overtime. I just am unable to do double the work for tech lessons. Consequently, we don't do much tech. The kids don't get the opportunity to learn in ways that might help the course content stick.

Don't even get me going about the random blocking of sites that I think are essential learning tools.

[Rtarara May 29, 2009 2:24 PM]

Firstly, as adults people are expected to be able to use computers both in college and in the workplace. If all children don't learn these skills in school it will just serve to further the gap between the kids who had computers in their home and those who didn't. I agree with Teufelsdroch that computers need to be in the classroom. It is a challenge for funding, but it is a necessary undertaking.

Computers also provide the opportunity for students to be self directed learners in a very powerful way. Direct instruction (teacher lectures and students absorb) is not very effective. It would be more effective for students to be given some basic background information and instructed to do research and then come back and share it will the rest of the class.

You'd be surprised what children are capable of doing with computers. You can teach programming to very small children using Logo. The basics of searching for information can be done at the elementary school level with more advanced searching and applications at the middle school level. By high school children can use technology for very powerful purposes.

It may not be something that happens overnight, but there definitely is a shift towards student directed learning and using computers to assist this. The CSTA has technology standards they are proposing and the 21st century skills that many states are adopting have a heavy technology focus (I don't agree with them 100%, but the technology focus is good). The earlier students are exposed to computers the better their chances of being able to use them later. Learning to click a mouse is something that is learned. These are the sort of skills taught at first. They don't come completely naturally, but there is a natural curiosity that schools can foster. I've discussed this at length with colleagues and they all agree that the integration of technology is necessary though it needs to be done appropriately.

Experience : Masters Student in Education eventually leading to Computer Science certification.

[Roy Trumbull May 29, 2009 3:19 PM]

Considering that we still don't teach how to balance a checkbook in high school, I doubt we'll get around to teaching students how to sniff out BS. When I consider some of the crap student's parents pass along as gospel, I find my hopes are limited.
In textbooks there is plenty of derivative content and poor to fair fact checking. If it gets into someone's book it will keep popping up in other books 50 years later. I'm afraid the internet makes for research-lite. I've seen plenty of heavily footnoted worthless blather on the web. As we read items we should be able to vote on them. I'd like to stage Beckett's "waiting for Godot" with all the players pondering laptops.

[Anonymous May 29, 2009 3:44 PM]

I can code in over 25 languages and I can read schematics and blueprints and build physical things from them. I can casually throw linnean taxonomic nomenclature around while making bad jokes involving the overlap between cladistic terminology and aristotelian categorism. I teach computer systems architecture classes to people with advanced degrees and I study history and etymology.

That wiki has some of the most impenetrable jargon I have ever seen.

[FoetusNail May 29, 2009 3:55 PM]

It should look like a version of OLPC's XO

Short video on the Sugar interface.
http://laptop.org/en/laptop/interface/index.shtml

[Anonymous May 29, 2009 4:15 PM]

@#5 What are you talking about? I'm in 11th grade, and just finished the mandatory Finance class, which included balancing both fictional checkbooks (worksheets) as well as turning in your own, real-life balanced checkbook. (It's opt-out, so no worries about ethics.)

[teufelsdroch May 29, 2009 8:53 PM]

@8 -- you tell 'im!

Roy, I disagree entirely. Textbooks are read critically by every school district and--what's more important--by every one of the millions of teachers who use them. #1 on my list of crap parents believe is that teachers aren't doing a helluva good job.

What's more to the point is--education is the biggest power still left to the states. That means every state has its own curriculum, so that textbooks don't cover the material a teacher has to. Districts either skip textbooks, or buy stacks of them that teachers don't use. I'd say that at least half of the classrooms I've seen don't HAVE a class text.

This brings up what I see as a coming fight over intellectual property in schools. Without texts, teachers scavenge what they can. All it takes is one or two lawsuits from textbook companies (for putting material online, or for copying it) and school districts will clamp down hard.

This is one area that is crying out for better networking. There's no reason states can't collaborate on open-source textbooks and materials, so that every teacher isn't out there making curriculum on their own. This is a very real challenge to the top down structure of the education system, but it needs to happen.

[Anonymous May 30, 2009 6:01 AM]

Cory, your Mom has your style of writing down pat. Or maybe you got it from her. Either way, you could let her write your posts and I bet nobody would notice the difference.

[Anonymous May 30, 2009 8:52 AM]

I'm a lowly peon at at major university, working in a group that is supposed to be exploring these technologies and these issues. Although I don't deal directly with curriculum design or best practices in pedagogy or instructional technology initiatives, I'm around it enough to know that this "jargon" is far from impenetrable. It's just not your jargon, so it might seem that way.

It is not the instructors who are pushing this on the students. It's the students who are pushing this on instructors. As such, our group and the initiatives we undertake are more reactive than proactive. A site like this is one step in the right direction.

We cannot afford to wait to see what technology the students are going to adopt next. We need to keep up with emerging technology and what effect it's going to have on the future of classroom education. Doing anything less is breaking open the big box of fail.

[wolfiesma May 30, 2009 12:54 PM]

One of the new ed tech products that has a TON of potential is the "Tag Reader" system made by Leapfrog. There have been other attempts at this, but these guys really did an amazing job. You take high quality children's books, like Green Eggs and Ham, for example, and you put an invisible bit matrix over each page and then you take this little electronic pen and put it over the words, and it reads the words. Under the pictures you program sounds, in the back of the book you have some word games related to the story. They must have a lot of great designers and programmers and educators on the job, because the whole product line is pretty damn cool. The best thing is that, even if you lose the pen or it runs out of batteries, you still have a high quality children's book in front of you that you could read the old fashioned way, if push came to shove.

I think this technology is relatively inexpensive (compared to a laptop per child, for example) and could be developed into something to assist older students, too.

[Anonymous May 31, 2009 3:08 AM]

Thanks #10 - that's high praise! I may have to continue writing blog posts after such a compliment. (signed "Cory's mom")

[Anonymous May 31, 2009 3:16 AM]

#11 I appreciate your comment. Yes, it is the students who are leading this. I'm sorry if the wiki contains "jargon" but it is the way educators talk to one another and is meant for educators as a way to begin to understand how schools need to change to reflect life in the 21st century for young people. School is, imho, irrelevant to many kids. What's important for kids to learn in today's schools is critical thinking and using technology helps teachers help kids to develop these critical thinking skills. (Cory's mom)

[arkizzle / Moderator May 31, 2009 11:03 PM]

Hello Cory's mom!

Not only do you need a name tag, but it also has to say "Cory's mom", in brackets, so that when you're commenting on one of Cory's posts, and happen to be in innocent disagreement with something, we can all go, "oooohh! busted!"

*I totally miss making fun of friends when they got in trouble with their parents.. *
/nostalgia

[FoetusNail June 1, 2009 5:47 AM]

I would ban my mother!