Olympic games

We are so pleased with the way our team has performed in London. From a small country we are doing very well - 3 golds.

This is where the Internet comes into its own in the classroom - instant news, videos, graphics all there ready for the children to find and report about. The news links are outstanding and having the videos as well for the class to see is just so wonderful.

Children can also use a spreadsheet (dare I say it) to keep a medal tally and then make graphs to depict the data.

Redefining research

I was interested to read in our local newspaper (hard copy!!) about Encyclopedia Britannica stopping printing their books and focusing on an online service.

Many years ago I remember some research where three groups of children were asked to find the answers to some research questions.

1. Group one used the Encyclopedia Britannica books
2. Group two used any site on the Internet
3. Group three used the Encyclopedia Britannica CD Rom 

Guess which group consistently got the answers first?

It was Group 1, followed by Group 2 and finally Group 3. - It would be interesting to see how the children would get on now.

I really like this graphic which shows how Wikipedia has developed over time and is now an acknowledged source of information.
Via: Open-Site.org

Social media

Steve Wheeler has just put up a slide show about researching social media in education and what we, as teachers, can learn.

Researching Social Media in Education: What can we learn?

View more PowerPoint from Steve Wheeler

This slide show is really interesting and discusses social media and the case for using these in education.

In addition he discusses researching, researchers, and publishing research. I found this very interesting as here our universities are 'rated' on the research 'outputs' of the lecturers which aligns with slide 55. Outputs are counted when they have been published in an international academic journal.  I guess one of the reasons I have found this part of the presentation so interesting is that I have found that many of the articles I have found most useful are ones in open journals with are not considered as prestigious.

Interactive Learning

Interactive learning is a new web site dedicated to improving student performance through interactive learning. Here teachers can find how schools are integrating technologies into the classroom to enhance the thinking and learning.

There is a very interesting article which gives a ten year update on technology and education. The article points to how, after 30 years with technology in the schools, there has been a lack of change in the classrooms:

"The reality is that advocates have over-promised the ability of educators to extract a learning return on technology investments in school. The research studies now suggest that the error was not in citing the potential of technology to augment learning – for research now indicates that the effective use of technology can result in high levels of learning. The error was in underestimating the critical need for the system changes required to use technologies effectively in learning."

Here in New Zealand, we have a similar scenario. Although we have some schools where change is evident and the teachers are using the technology as a tool in their classrooms to build 21st century skills we also have others where the technology is used as a 'reward' for good behaviour or for word processing a story but little else.

I was teaching some students in an intermediate school last term. The students in this group came from every class in the school and were learning new skills to be able to show others in their class as well as using the skills in their own learning. Every Web 2 tool I went to use with the group was either blocked or was not able to be used properly on the school's network - very frustrating for the teachers wanting to use these technologies. Staff professional development was offered to the teachers in this school on a needs basis and was held before school in the morning. Few teachers took up this offer 'we are too busy in the mornings getting ready for the day'.

The research states that the real potential of the technology has still not been realised in education.

"Overall,across all uses in all content areas, technology does provide a small, but significant, increase in learning when implemented with fidelity and accompanied by appropriate pedagogical shifts. While this is generally encouraging, the real value lies in the identification of those technology interventions that get significant positive results that warrant investment."

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.

Converge Special Report

Center for Digital Education published a Converge Special Report.

This report covers such things as:

• From digital tools to digital teaching
• What does digital teaching mean?
• Types of digital content
• Digital teaching and the evolving classroom
• Ensuring digital teaching is effective

It discusses the different roles and the skills a digital teacher requires. They point to the focus in the classroom being on the student creating more personalised learning. They suggest that the classes are able to be interactive where students are fully engaged in their learning.

A teacher who uses Web 2 tools in her classroom has found that her students have a higher level of interest when they are allowed to illustrate their own videos and upload them to a blog or when they participate in a wiki collaboration with another school.

Another teacher discusses how they have used Inanimate Alice to infuse digital and interactive literature. The teacher says; 'I have never seen them more engaged in text'.

A learning theory for 21st century learners

Marie Sontag has written an interesting article in the latest Innovate journal.

She argues that due to students being so involved with connective technologies that this impacts on cognitive processes and that educational theory must change to accommodate these changes.

She acknowledges the need to incorporate elements from other theories that are relevant and to restructure them to meet the needs of the students.

In the article she describes a social- and cognitive- connectedness schemata (SCCS) theory and presents a study to show increases in transfer by using a model designed on this theory. In the SCCS model she discusses student behaviours as 'link, lurk and lunge' (see graphic).

This article has many ideas for us to ponder and is worth reading.

eLearning Research

Sarah Jones from the Ministry of Education has created a social network on Ning for eductors interested in elearning.

The aim of this community is:

From research to practice: transforming New Zealand education through
e-learning

Teachers are encouraged to share evidence about the impact elearning is having on teaching and learning. Members are invited to share research they are doing.

It is so fantastic to be able to share ideas and thoughts with others and to get their feedback.

H. Sapiens Digital: From Digital Immigrants and Digital Natives to Digital Wisdom

In the latest edition of Innovate is an interesting article by Marc Prensky (of Digital natives fame) about Homo Sapiens Digital. He discusses Digital Wisdom and how technology may enhance the homo sapiens digital. It is an interesting read and gives a lot of food for thought about the future.

"I do not think technology is wise in itself (although some day it may be) or that human thinking is no longer necessary or important. It is through the interaction of the human mind and digital technology that the digitally wise person is coming to be. I believe it is time for the emerging digitally wise among us, youth and adults
alike, to embrace digital enhancement and to encourage others to do so. With our eyes wide open to enhancement's potential harm as well as its benefits, let us bring our colleagues, students, teachers, parents, and peers to the digital wisdom of the twenty-first century."

Prensky (2009)

Educators and ICT usage

In Australia a report was commissioned, using McGregor Tan Research, to provide informed data to enable the development of new products and services relevant to educators and its key markets.

This findings from this report would, I suspect, be similar to one done in New Zealand.

Key findings include:

• 85% of participants use the internet daily but
• 41% said that they experienced barriers or blocks to effective use of the internet
• a lack of investment in providing teachers with the techniques and strategies to use computers in their classrooms.

Study about how children use media

The Broadcasting Standards Authority (BSA) have launched a report, 'Seen and Heard: Children's Media Use'. 600 children between the ages of 6 and 13 were interviewed as well as their primary caregiver. The focus of the research was how New Zealand children use and respond to television, radio, the internet, and cellphones in the home.



This report is of interest to us as teachers as it gives us real data to show what children are actually doing. It tells us what they like, what they find disturbing and if the caregivers have any rules in place in regards to these. It is very interesting to see that many children are using the Internet on their own (53% mainly use the Internet alone). 29% of caregivers whose children have cellphones have no rules on how these are used. However children say:

When it comes to cellphone use, the most frequently mentioned inappropriate
behaviour is text bullying or playing pranks on other people (30% of children
mention this). Older children are much more likely than younger children to
mention this kind of behaviour (55% of 12-13 year-olds mention specific risk or
prank behaviour, compared to 39% of 9-11 year-olds and just 7% of 6-8
year-olds).

Relating to what disturbed children when using the Internet:

Sexual content or nudity (16%) most commonly upset children who have access to
the internet. Eleven percent mention internet-related risk areas that bother or
upset them, such as YouTube or pop-ups and advertising. Sixty-three percent were unable to mention anything that bothered them.

A very interesting report.

"Whatever!" Mark Treadwell

Mark Treadwell's new book is out. This is a new paradigm and a new renaissance in learning.

This book is well worth getting - great value.

"Education is in the throes of the greatest paradigm shift ever experienced . . . ever! As a consequence of this paradigm shift, how we view education and its role in the community is set to dramatically change within a very short time span. This transition is initiating a global “second Renaissance” which will power economies and societies for the next 100 years. This paradigm shift allows learners new flexibility and capabilities, providing a simple underlying architecture for innovation and ingenuity via the provision of rich information and communication environments via the internet. Within this new environment educators and learners can instantly create dynamic learning communities within which learning transitions from knowledge, to developing understanding and then applying that understanding with wisdom." (Treadwell, 2008)

Online Teaching and Classroom Change

Susan Lowes has written an article in the latest issue from Innovate: Journal of online education.
Her webcast is scheduled for March 26 at 3:00 PM EST.

Online and face-to-face courses are often viewed and studied as two distinct worlds, but the social field of the teacher who teaches them may well include both, and both the teacher and the courses he or she teaches may be transformed by the movement from one environment to the other. Susan Lowes explores this two-way interaction between face-to-face and online teaching, addressing two important questions: Do teachers who move between face-to-face and online classrooms transfer ideas, strategies, and practices from one to the other? If so, which strategies and practices do they transfer? Particularly, Lowes focuses on the constraints and affordances of the online environment itself and how these affect face-to-face classroom practice.

This is well worth reading and it costs nothing to sign up to this journal.