Education, Social Media, and Ethics: Howard Gardner, Harvard Graduate School of EducationEducation Week on Vimeo.
The Wild West in Digital Education
Education, Social Media, and Ethics: Howard Gardner, Harvard Graduate School of EducationEducation Week on Vimeo.
Training Begins at Home
Access to ongoing training opportunities, relevant literature, subscriptions, mailing lists, blogs, webinars, discussion forums, among others, provide a wealth of entry points to keep abreast of developments. Gavin Dudeney articulates some central arguments in support of web-based Teacher Development accruing benefits for the successful implementation of technology in the classroon. Of these, training is key. We can have the latest technology but, if we haven't been trained in how to exploit technology from a pedagogical point of view , the best computer lab can go to wastage. The bottom line is blending technology and teaching. There are two training fronts then: practicing teachers and trainee teachers.
The web opens up a window to otherness : contact with materials, knowledge, members of communities. Nobody expects us to be Web 2.0 experts. The big issue is joining others, sharing, learning together, exploring. What we need to to have developed to begin with is the capacity to send an email and access the Internet. If so, we're ready to move beyond. We're going to gain all the rest by contact with people. We can all become 'the more tech savvy' in the future and give back a little something of what today's 'more advanced ed-tech gurus' are doing in the name of literacy. Communities lie at the core of teacher development. They are home to ideas, perspectives, inspiration and that's where training begins.
The 'Holy Grail' of Ed Tech
Tech-Literacy Confusion: What knowledge and skills really matter?
Although learners may be more technologically adept than their teachers, they have 'holes' in their knowledge. They need to fill in the gaps with content. In the Media Age, teaching reading and writing in many modalities, including web 2.0, enhances and expands learners' capacities. Web 2.0 helps comprise the literature of the 21st. century, and its importance will continue to grow.Media literacy has more of an emphasis on the content of messages generated and technology literacy has more of an emphasis on the tools and their uses. This is why we need to be careful that our curriculum focuses on underlyig scientific concepts, content and skills, and not on drag-and-drop education.
Media Literacy: the ability to access, analyze, evaluate, create and participate with media, driven by technology, in all its forms. Regardless of the technology, there are five key questions that form the framework for teaching writing (construction) and five for teaching reading (deconstruction):
Construction: 1) What am I authoring? 2) Does my message reflect understanding in format, creativity and technology? 3) Is my message engaging and compelling for my target audience? 4) Have I clearly and consistently framed values, lifestyles and points of view in my content? 5) Have I communicated my purpose effectively?
Processes: These questions can be expanded to encourage a process of inquiry. It is by learning to ask quesitons that learners become skeptics who realize that they cannot passively take in information. Inquiry-based learning is based on (a) making good judgement based on values and critical analysis and (b) knowing how to learn and what to do with the learning. Through these process skills, the learners acquire the content knowledge they need. In a sense, by teaching the critical skills, we also ensure that learners acquire the facts they need.
Goal: The ultimate goal is to prepare learners for life in a technology-driven world and this goal can best be reached by providing a context for learning whereby learners are observant and skeptical.
Technology Literacy: learning how to learn and relearn. When teaching is geared to solving problems and engaging with real-life issues, learners find answers and bring what they know to the problem. Content knowledge is needed, but in life no one spoon feeds answers to anybody.
In the quest of the Holy Grail of EdTech, we cannot lose sight that our mission lies in using technologies because they improve learning, not because they exist. The real power of technology happens when it encourages us to examine our pedagogy and find better ways to engage, inspire and educate our learners.
Bubbl.us
* Summarizing information
* Blending information from different sources
* Showing the overall structure of a subject
With bubbl.us, you can:
* Create colorful mind maps online
* Share and work with friends
* Embed your mind map in your blog or website
* Email and print your mind map
* Save your mind map as an image
You Digital, Me Immigrant
Technology or Pedagogy: Is it a question of one or the other?
The ELT profession is brimming over with Web 2.0. Enthusiasts plunge into a sea of tools and applications while reluctants avert the flow. The benefits of learning with technology are undeniable. What is at stake is how ICT deploys of pedagogy. Do we need a new science? Tech-pedagogy? Or do theories of
Sitting at my 'ideas table', a message I've just posted to the Enhancing Lessons with Web 2.0 mailing list about lesson planning summarizes my perspective on the integration of technology into classroom practice:
"I wouldn't go for detailed lesson planning either. In fact, I haven't since my teacher training days. I can still hear myself groaning and moaning. anyway, I must have served its purpose then!
You said it Margaret: systematic reflection, self-examination, evaluation of potential uses. These processes are crucial to escape the Web 2.0 collective madness. To me, there's nothing inherently good, or bad for that matter, in Web 2.0 per se. Granted, much has been said about connectivity, creation of content, going public, a genuine communicative purpose, meaningfulness, real-life semblance and the like but if these don't go hand-in-hand with a principled rationale, the best tool or application can fall flat. In thought or in writing, planning is part and parcel of our profession. So why should it be a question of technology or pedagogy? The shelf-life of learning with technology could be short-lived if there were no sound underpinnings. If technology should be at the service of learning, then that's a plus. We have learned the ropes already, and fortunately, technology is user-friendly.
I'd say that lesson planning, in this sense, is a time-and-energy saver besides ensuring that we know what we're doing and why. How many teaching-with-tech attempts have dried because of lack of planning? And then, leaving technology aside, don't students realise when a teacher is going into a classroom without a lesson plan? So, why wouldn't they see that there is or there isn't any sense in learning with technology? Watch out!
There was another interesting thread about 'reluctance' going on. Would any colleague or principal be convinced that learning with technology does pay if we showcase the technicalities or cosmetics only?
Lastly, we're not alone. We've all given proof that we're up to it...."
Here, I would like to highlight the value of belonging to a CoP in working together towards a common goal: Educational Development.
Slideshare Blooms
Bloom’s new taxonomy presents a clear account of processes involved in the development of digital literacy. As technology advances and it becomes more ubiquitous, users need to move in a continuum between Low Order and High Order Thinking Skills. The underlying rationale for the development of digital skills and processes, then, is subsumed by thinking and doing and enhanced by collaboration with others.