Learn Stuff

Learn Stuff is a web site which is useful for everyone not just students.

There are areas for education, health, science technology and infographics.  In addition there are helpful tips for students about how to study.

Technology has quickly become an integral part of our lives. On the web site is this graphic showing the use of technology at this time. Very interesting and makes you wonder what is going to happen in the future. Will books and paper become things of the past and only seen in museums. What will happen to libraries?  It is certainly an ever changing world particularly if you think that it was only around 50 years ago that television was first introduced into New Zealand. Computers did not make their entrance into schools until about 30 years ago and that was only in a few high schools. Certainly something like an iPad was not envisoned then but nor was it thought that people would want computers in the home (ask Bill Gates)!!






The purpose of education

After the earthquakes, here in Christchurch, the minister is looking at restructuring education - see some of my earlier blog posts about this. Teachers are not happy about the proposals at the present time. Teachers, parents and children are all upset about having another change in our city. We actually all need some stability and a chance to get some normality back into our lives before more changes are forced on us. Unfortunately parts of our city were largely untouched by the earthquakes while other parts are still like a third world country. It is those parts where all the changes are proposed and the people in these parts are finding it hard enough just living from day to day without these hassles.

Schools have ten weeks to survey their parents and put forward to the Ministry their own proposals.

It might be good if the Minister looked at Steve Wheeler's slide share about the purpose of education before she makes any final decisions.

The Purpose of Education from Steve Wheeler

Learning 3.0 and the Smart eXtended Web

Steve Wheeler gave a keynote presentation at the ICL conference in Villach, Austria on 28 September, 2012. This is the slideshow that accompanied his presentation. In this presentation he is looking at the future of education and how ICT is a part of that.

Learning 3.0 and the Smart eXtended Web from Steve Wheeler

3 D printers

I find these fascinating; it is like the TV shows (animated) about the future.

I wonder how long before some of these become more available and what we will be able to do with them.

Classroom of the future?

The New York Times has an online article (a version has also appeared in print) about whether the use of technology in the classroom does in fact improve the education for the students.

The article discusses Kyrene School District where digital classrooms are the norm. Here the aim is to transform the classrooms with the teachers facilitating the students' learning. However standardized tests of student performance in reading and maths have stagnated here while they have risen in other areas. They suggest that there is little convincing data to show that spending the money on technology is improving basic learning.

Teachers need some research which clearly shows the effect of technology on teaching and learning.

A question plaguing many education researchers is how to draw broader inferences from such case studies, which can have serious limitations.

Educators would like to see major trials years in length that clearly demonstrate technology’s effect. But such trials are extraordinarily difficult to conduct when classes and schools can be so different, and technology is changing so quickly.

And often the smaller studies produce conflicting results. Some classroom studies show that math scores rise among students using instructional software, while others show that scores actually fall. The high-level analyses that sum up these various studies, not surprisingly, give researchers pause about whether big investments in technology make sense.

I would be interested in what other teachers think of the article and their ideas of the use of technology in schools.

iPads

Someone just sent me a link to a story in the Mail Online about a school in Kent requiring the parents to help buy iPads and interactive whiteboards - the whiteboards will link to the iPads.

Some experts are criticising the school for pressurising the parents to pay for the ‘toy’ and are questioning the school’s desire to use iPads as an educational tool – they contend iPads are more suited to watching movies, surfing the internet and playing music.

Obviously it is not just New Zealand schools who are looking at using the iPads.

What is the important part of this idea is that the teachers are trained in using the technologies and are able to integrate these into the classroom to enhance the thinking and learning.

Future tools

An article in our local newspaper last week discussed the findings of some research done relating to ICT in the classroom. One of the findings the researcher suggested was that schools will be adding an iPad to the children's stationery lists as these will be tools that they need to be using for their futures.

As this researcher and many others have said we are preparing children for jobs that are not there yet using tools that have not been invented yet. I therefore wonder if using an iPad is the way to go. Some of the private schools here are already doing this but how long will these be the tool to be using - it is not beyond the realms of feasibility that children will need several different tools during their schooling.

Here these are around $800 which is a lot of money for many of our families. I am sure that in the higher socioeconomic areas that it will not be a problem but it will be in the lower socioeconomic areas. This is widening the gap between the 'haves' and the 'have nots'.

I wonder how other countries are getting on with this type of thing - does the government provide these, the school, the family??

The three Ts

I have been reading, in our local newspaper, that handwriting may become obsolete and that schools of the future may concentrate on The Three Ts rather than The Three Rs (for those of you who don't know what the Three Rs are - Reading wRiting and aRithmetic). The Three Ts refers to Typing, Texting and tapping. As I read this I was filled with dread and hoped that we were not going to throw the baby out with the bath water. Handwriting is a skill that we use a lot in many different ways.

I decided to see what other people were saying about this topic and found an article from The Tribune newspaper which reassured me. In this article the author points to some emerging research (from Indiana University) showing that handwriting "increases brain activity, hones fine motor skills and can predict a child’s academic success in ways that keyboarding can’t."

Here are some of the reasons this article referred to as to why handwriting is important:

• Handwriting may change the way children learn and how their brains develop. In the Indiana University study researchers used scans to measure brain activation in preschool children who were shown letters. One group of children then practiced printing the letters; the other group practiced seeing and saying the letters. After four weeks the children who practiced writing showed brain activation similar to an adult’s. The printing practice also improved letter recognition.

• Handwriting may be faster. Researchers in another study (from the University of Washington)tested children aged seven to ten and found that children compose essays faster when using a pen rather than a keyboard. In addition they found older children wrote more complete sentences when they used a pen. This study as also shows that forming letters by hand may engage our brains thinking differently rather than pressing down on a key.

• Handwriting aids memory. By writing yourself a list or a note you’re much more likely to remember the list rather than if you just tried to memorize it.

However technology may help invigorate the practice of handwriting as applications that allow users to hand-scribble notes on a touch screen rather than paper may be useful tools. Researchers are working on software to help improve handwriting.

I would be interested to know what others feel about this debate.

Wired for the future

Mission Heights, a school here in New Zealand, featured on our TV programme, Close Up, here last Thursday night. This is well worth watching. This is a new school who have set up a learning environment for this century. I wonder how things will change in the next twenty years?

The future of newspapers...

Fascinating article in The Independent. This is something that we regularly discuss at home as a family member was an old fashioned sport's reporter! A neighbour recently cancelled his paper as he is now reading it online each morning.

I love these maps in the article to look at different arguments on the topic.

It is a great idea to use in the classroom as a debate topic.