http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/tech/iphone.html
It’s been announced. We know it’s coming, but as of this writing, we don’t know when. Let’s see first hand what it can do to change the nature of learning in Canada.
There was a recent Twitter discussion that I was involved in around the issue of presenters speaking on topics that they have no practical experience in. For example, at a conference I attended last year, I sat in on a keynote address where the presenter was discrediting the value of Second Life as an educational space but had never actually immersed himself within that virtual world. Come to think of it, I’m beginning to see that this happens a lot more that I previously realized. I’ve heard individuals who don’t have an iPod talking about the dangers of students bringing iPods to schools and how they believe that iPods don’t have any educational value. I have also heard opinions expressed that one piece of software/hardware is better than another from individuals who have no more than a superficial understanding of the software/hardware they are criticizing.
I think that it goes without saying that if one wants to talk the talk, then one has to walk the walk. In this blog, I write about mobile tools that can be used to help kids learn. While it is true that I’m currently not teaching in a classroom (thus, I am not using the tools directly with kids), I have an iPod that I utilize and I have a smart phone that I interact with. I’ve written about using mobile digital devices to read books from anywhere at any time because I myself read books on my smart phone. Currently, I am reading Jane Jacob’s Dark Age Ahead. I have written about using an iPod to listen to audiobooks because I have downloaded a number of public domain audiobooks from Librivox and have listened to them while driving to/from work. I have discussed listening to instructional podcasts on an iPod because I myself do just that. I subscribe to the Napoleon 101 podcast produced by Cameron Reilly and J David Markham and I am currently unofficially enrolled in a History of Ancient Rome class at Berkley. I’ve talked about using the Opera Mini 4 browser on a cell phone to access the Internet because I do so myself to search the web or to communicate on Twitter.
In short, I don’t just talk about mobile learning, but I try to practice what I preach and immerse myself in that culture.
As a result, I think it is important that if we are going to espouse the wonders of the new digital age, then we need to be a part of that culture. If we are going to praise or criticize Web 2.0 tools, then we need to have used those tools in more than just a superficial way. Otherwise, we are in danger of being hypocritical and out of touch.
I just finished reading this article in Educase Quarterly that looked at mobile devices, mobile learning and discussed whether or not we are ready for mobile learning. What I got from this article is that both students and faculty have mobile devices, use mobile devices in non-educational contexts but this use has not transferred to teaching and learning.
While the majority of benefits appear to be pedagogical, the majority of drawbacks seem to stem from either cost or faculty reluctance.
The article states:
“Mobile computing/communication devices offer a unique opportunity for teachers and students in different kinds of instructional settings to capitalize on the flexibility and freedom afforded by these devices. However, these benefits demand new pedagogies and new approaches to delivering and facilitating instruction.”
The costs for device will come down and faculty acceptance will become more commonplace with time. The question is: how do we begin the process of designing new teaching approached and new pedagogies?
How much of a time investment is needed to get connected using web 2.0 tools? Here is a graphic that summarizes the time investments various online activities require.
Link: http://lfpress.ca/newsstand/News/Local/2008/04/15/5287346-sun.html
To those educators and students who work and learn at the London Catholic District School Board in London Ontario, I wish to offer you my condolences. It appears that relevant and modern education has died in your school district. It appears that the reactionary forces within your school district over-powered the visionaries to the detriment of the 23,000 students that learn within your school board.
I wish to state the opinions expressed here are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of my employer. I also wish to begin by apologizing to those educator’s in the employ of London Catholic who disagree with their trustees’ decision. I hope that by expressing my lowly opinion, I can help bring awareness to your cause.
Is the board of trustees banning electronic devices because of the “behaviour problems that they are causing”. I would argue that it is the behaviour that is the problem not the device and it is the behaviour that needs to be dealt with. Why don’t we ban pencils because a student can use it to physically injure another students? Why don’t we ban scissors because students sometimes use it to stab other students? In these cases, we deal with the behaviour. With digital technology, we ban the devices.
I am quite shocked to hear that the board of trustees of the London Catholic District School Board would essentially ban electronic devices in schools. Obviously, the trustees of this school board have not investigated the pedigological benefits of mobile technologies such as cell phones, iPods, PDA and other electronic devices. We live in a society where universities such as ACU in the US is distributing an iPod Touch to students . In Japan, Cyber University has an online class with a version built for cell phones . Many other universities world wide are making lectures available to students through iTunesU to allow students to download lectures to their iPods. MyArtSpace is a service that allows museums to give students cell phones during their field trip to record their experiences while at the museum. The board that I work for, Toronto Catholic District School Board, is experimenting with the use of iPods to help ELL students learn English. Yes, we have given students iPods and are encouraging them to bring it to school and are encouraging teachers to incorporate them in their lessons.
Teachers can use iPods as an assistive technology, to differentiate instruction and to address multiple intelligences by: allowing students to listen to audiobooks while read digital text, creating interactive tests, allowing students to access the Internet (iPod Touch only) and publish/collaborate online, create and present slideshows, poetry study through music analysis, access educational video, reference databases and even learn a music instrument! Teachers and students can use cell phones to record interviews, access the internet, photograph or video record data from a field trip and then transfer data to others using bluetooth, listening to and creating podcasts, organize their lives using calendar, etc.
This is a classic case of generational disconnect. How are teachers supposed to prepare their students for the 21st century when the tools that are used in the 21st century workplace and in 21st century society are being kept out of school?
As an education system, it is our duty to provide students with access to the tools they need to access the information that they require. That is why we have libraries and that is why we have books. However, libraries and books cannot keep up with the exponential rate of change that is happening in our society. Textbooks are out of date by the time they enter students’ hands. Students are coming to school with the tools they need to access the information they need to make their education relevant. Yet the London Catholic board has chosen outdated information and obsolete teaching methods over current information and dynamic, relevant teaching strategies.
The industrial society of the 19th and 20th centuries is long gone. Why are we still preparing students for that world?
I like to think that I am open to any idea. If it leads to increased understanding, then it is worth investigating. I recently purchased Jane Jacobs last book Dark Age Ahead from Fictionwise.com in ebook format for my phone. As of this writing, I have read to the beginning of the second chapter and have already encountered important ideas that are quite relevant for my discussion here. True, this book about the health and decline of civilizations. However, we can apply a lot of this to education as education is one aspect of civilization and the education system, in my eyes at least, is large enough to be seen as a civilization on a micro scale.
Jane Jacobs looks at 6 areas of our civilization and discusses how problems are appearing that, if led unchecked, will result in a future Dark Age. I wanted to share two ideas that I’ve read thus far that are very relevant to us in education:
On the importance of educators being living examples:
“Educators and mentor, whether they are parents, elders or schoolmasters, use books and videos if they have them, but they also speak, and when they are most effective, as teachers, parents or mentors, they also serve as examples.”
Warnings against the refusal to adapt:
“What dooms losers?…Losers are confronted with such radical jolts in circumstances that their institutions can’t adapt adequately, become irrelevant, and are dropped.”
Dark Age Ahead does have a complete chapter on education and it will be interesting to see what Jane Jacobs had to say about this. I will report back once I have read that chapter.
It appears that even this is possible. Take a look at the three videos below to see how a piano and a guitar can be played on a jailbroken iPod Touch/iPhone. I’m sure that since Apple has put out a software development kit for the iPhone, a legitimate version of these apps will be available soon
I recently watched this video about a medical reference database called epocrates. It’s a database of information concerning Drug Dosing, Drug Interactions, Retail Pricing, Safety/Monitoring and Adverse Reactions of over 3300 brand name and generic drugs. The purpose is to inform and to make this information available to anyone.
There seems to be a potential for education here. In traditional classrooms, many hours are spent introducing facts and trying to get students to memorize information relating to important curricular concepts. In the study of mathematics, it could be formulas and calculations. In science, it could be theories and laws of nature. In history, it could be names and dates of events. In language, it could be grammar rules and stages of writing. Any way you slice it, much time is spent teaching this reference material because it is important. Well how about if this reference material is always available to students on an iPod? What could a teacher do with all the time that was freed up as a result? In this scenario, a teacher would have much more time to engage students in knowledge creation and construction and less on knowledge retention and memorization. At the end of the day, it is the skills that the students take with them as memorized facts are often only retained until the test is written.
I’ve never heard of anyone actually compiling this information and making it available digitally. I know that students and teachers around the world have paper versions of these databases but imagine students had digital versions of entire databases that they could access at any point in their learn at the beginning of the school year!
I came across the following NY Times article today in my feed reader. It’s about how school districts that have adopted 1 to 1 laptop programs are abandoning these programs because they are very expensive and are showing no progress in student learning. The article cites that, ” …school officials here and in several other places said laptops had been abused by students, did not fit into lesson plans, and showed little, if any, measurable effect on grades and test scores at a time of increased pressure to meet state standards.“
I feel frustrated. What seems to be under the microscope is not teaching practice but the technology. Don’t get me wrong, if the technology really isn’t helping kids learn, then it would be wasteful to continue using it. However, it doesn’t appear from this article that classroom teaching changed to reflect the presence of this powerful technology. The comments that the laptops “…did not fit lesson plans…” and that the programs encountered “…resistance from teachers…”confirms this point. Also, the comment that students are using the laptops to play games shows that teachers are not monitoring what their students are doing.
The criticism of cost is not really an argument if the money spent on the technology is being taken from budgets that were previously used for textbooks. No one ever talks about how money is being wasted on textbooks despite the fact that the information found in textbooks is already obsolete when they are given to students. Besides, with the introduction of the ultra-portable laptop and their $300-$400 price tags, using technology may actually be cheaper than buying textbooks. It’s interesting that the article focuses on money spent on the program but did not discuss the potential savings of such a program.
Then there was this comment: “Alice McCormick, who heads the math department, said most math teachers preferred graphing calculators, which students can use on the Regents exams, to laptops, which often do not have mathematical symbols or allow students to show their work for credit. “Let’s face it, math is for the most part still a paper-and-pencil activity when you’re learning it,” she said.” Only a generation ago, many of these same teachers were arguing against the use of calculators in math class and now they “prefer” them? True, math in today’s classroom is still a paper and pencil activity but mathematics in the real world is not. And we wonder why there is such a disconnect between school and the world outside of school. And then we wonder why students feel that what they learned in school is useless to them.
I have to agree with Mark Warschauer’s comment: “Where laptops and Internet use make a difference are in innovation, creativity, autonomy and independent research,” he said. “If the goal is to get kids up to basic standard levels, then maybe laptops are not the tool. But if the goal is to create the George Lucas and Steve Jobs of the future, then laptops are extremely useful.”
When are we ever going to learn!!
