Worker\’s Playtime!

I stumbled across an interesting post and consequent interview with a high school student on Infinite Thinking. The reason I found it so interesting has to do with my focus over the past few weeks: I, along with 2 compatriots, have been drafting an academic technology plan for the college. The first iteration weighs heavily in favor of student engagement and authentic learning which may shake a few conceptions about technology and its place in education.

As we wrote and re-wrote the plan we referred to research by Stephen Downes, Dee Fink, Alma Clayton-Pedersen, and others who all had great stuff to say about education, change, teaching, and oh yeah, students. I wish I had come across this post earlier. It just confirms a lot of what we wrote. Did I mention that this kid is 14?

“The current learning system–one task, one person teaching–will just not be relevant in the future. And it’s not reflective of what college or work life are like. The education system owes it to students to prepare them for that world. We shouldn’t necessarily be teaching the tools, but teaching the thought processes that go into them. The teachers owe it to themselves and their students to be learning these new Web technologies.”

And did I mention that this very articulate kid got a wrist-slapping-comment from a teacher who tagged him with the name ’smart-ass’? Wow. Is this what change feels like?

I was so drawn in by the YouTube video that Mike Caulfield posted that I did a little digging only to find this gem produced by Kansas State students. It certainly caught my attention, (yes, the same K-State that is home to Michael Wesch and the subject of 2/07 “A Lesson in Viral Video“.

So I’ve been doing this for a number of years now (doing = working with technology in higher education and earning a Masters in Teaching with Technology) - and have come to the conclusion that I’ve been championing the wrong approach. I’ve been patient with the slow pace of technology adoption but frustrated that the masses haven’t even reached the peak of Everett Rogers bell curve. Part of the reason is that I, like many others in my profession, use terms that demonstrate our lack of a clear vision of what learning looks like. We use words like “integration” when in fact that’s exactly the wrong concept to be using and promoting! Integration implies that the curriculum is developed first and the technology is added later as an extra appendage. That’s not what we really are striving for is it?! Do we really want to nail it to the side of learning as an afterthought? Take for instance this comment left on Jeff Utecht’s blog “The Thinking Stick“:

“It’s a chicken and egg problem - if technology only supports existing practice or takes a background role, what you end up with is existing practice. If practice is transformed without understanding technology, you are still left playing catch-up. It has to be both/and - and that’s the tough part.”

So maybe David Warlick is on to something. Maybe it’s not integration or embedding that we need since this would still focus on the technology (thanks Jeff for pushing me to think hard about assumptions and the casual manner I bat about words). Maybe it should be on technology literacy and technology fluency which would put the emphasis where it should be - on student learning. With this approach technology would be a tool in the teacher’s chest which would also consist of a syllabus, goals and outcomes, rubrics, exams, etc.

So to paraphrase Warlick we have to stop focusing on technology integration and begin to understand technology literacy. This will result in the integration of literacy with the focus on literacy not technology. Technology will follow because students need to use, understand and manipulate it to navigate information landscape.

So from a pragmatist point of view what does this mean? I guess it means that we start small and start thinking hard about what we want our end result to be. Do we care about the # of faculty using PowerPoint to deliver lectures or should we instead focus on students and how they might use technology to better demonstrate their understanding of the course? Thinking about this is the fun part - the hard part comes when trying to implement change.

JENNY

I just finished reading an interesting blog post by David Warlick (check out 2 Cents Worth) who has taken a hit by some in the blogosphere for lauding the use of blogs in education. The comments against Warlick are revealing and an example of the road blocks that prevent meaningful integration of technology into the curriculum. His post was this simple observation: in an effort to attract technically savvy teachers school administrators might ask not only what journals they read but what blogs they read. What a great question! Ray Dewar posted a comment that took the conversation a step further. He says that to answer the question of a candidates technical fluency he asks each about the technology they use on a daily basis. Simple. Extraordinary.

Sacrilege.

There was a flurry of comments questioning the validity of blogs, their scholarly relevance, and their place in education.

Well if it’s validity that’s needed then read the 6/03 article in The Chronicle: “Scholars Who Blog“, or better yet get it right from the source and read 1 of the over 125 blogs on the site Professors Who Blog. Still not convinced that there is a place for blogging in education? Try Googling “using blogs in education site:edu” and you’ll get over 338,000 hits!

The point is that education needs students, staff, and faculty who are willing to try ‘new’ technologies to collaborate, share, inform, think and question. So then, why not ask candidates to assess their 21st century literacy skills? It might be the start of something big.

JENNY

I’m always interested in learning what others say about what the ‘best’ technology tools are for teaching and learning. It depends on who you ask and what their reference point is but it seems that these days, unlike 2001 where the tool of choice was a laptop (still a great tool but we’ve really moved beyond that), people are really taking notice of del.icio.us. If you don’t know what del.icio.us is other then it’s a kind of apple, then you might want to pay attention because it and other social applications like it are really taking a hold of the web and have the potential to transform the way we teach.

Del.icio.us allows you to save and tag web sites with words that are meaningful to you (think of tagging as a way a librarian might catalog material). The best part about social bookmarking sites is that you are in control of how site URL’s are organized and labeled (i.e. tagged). But it gets better: the real power comes with your ability to see and share your del.icio.us tags with others. In other words if I were to save a web site URL using del.icio.us I would see that “X” number of other people also saved the same URL…and I would have access to see what other sites they have saved! This is the Social piece of bookmarking that makes content more visible and more meaningful.

The Common Craft Show does a great job of explaining social bookmarking phenomena and some of its lingo.

But really, don’t take my word for it try it our yourself.

JENNY

I just returned from sleuthing in search of examples of student multimedia projects with an academic purpose. It’s amazing to think that I thought first to use Google to find examples, (and I did find some good ones!), when stellar examples were right here under foot!

Tracy Mendham teaches English at Keene State and is well into the throws of her revamped English 101 class: Thinking and Writing 101 “A Blog of One’s Own: Women and Authorship in the Digital Revolution.”

“This course examines the ways in which information technology is reshaping the relationship between reader, writer, and text, and the role of women’s voices in the digital revolution…A semester-long research project will challenge you to explore and respond to a chosen topic related to social computing as a means of empowerment for women and other marginalized groups. Participation in group discussions and contribution to online weblogs and podcasts will aid in your development as self-aware participants in public discourse.”

It’s important for teachers to take advantage of the passion of students for learning by tapping into the digital environment they are familiar with. Tracy is modeling the best of academic use of technology by using a class blog to facilitate discussion and she takes it a step further by requiring students to blog and develop a podcast. Have a look at the developing blogs by her and her students: http://keeneweb.org/tmendham

JENNY

There is a lot of buzz around campus these days about digital natives getting technology. We witnessed students texting, taking pictures with their cells, IM’ing, asking about online access to….X, the list goes on. If “getting it” means using it then it’s true. Natives see technology as a transparent means of communicating, finding information and hanging out.

The point is that we (anyone over the age of 35) assume that students don’t need support with any kind of technology, that somehow by some miracle they know how to configure their bluetooth access, create a blog, subscribe to syndicated content, create digital presentations, etc. It’s not a wrong assumption it’s just not entirely accurate. The 2007 Horizon Report confirms anecdotal evidence that students do need support with choosing a tool and creating meaningful academic content (caveat: the definition of “support” needs to be examined that might take on the flavor of a mentor/tutor model versus a “how-to” skill building model).

“There is a skills gap between understanding how to use tools for media creation and how to create meaningful content. Although new tools make it increasingly easy to produce multimedia works, students lack essential skills in composition, storytelling, and design. In addition, faculty need curricula that adapt to the pace of change and that teach the skills that will be needed—even though it is not clear what all those skills may be.

Students’ views of what is and what is not technology are increasingly different from those of faculty. From small, flexible software tools to ubiquitous portable devices and instant access, students today experience technology very differently than faculty do, and the gap between students’ view of technology and that of faculty is growing rapidly.”

So what does this tell us? Rather then continue down the beaten path of technology workshops that focus on skill building for faculty (still a valued means for introducing technology) why not develop new models for showing/sharing how technology might be used to engage students. Modeling technology use with and for students comes to mind and is another way to make technology transparent. The first step in making this happen is to open the door to students and invite them to help shape academic use of technology.

JENNY

A colleague of mine recently sent me an article from the Chronicle dated 1/2007 that addresses education and web 2.0 (What Web 2.0 Can Teach Us About Learning). I think it’s right on target and reminds me of 1999/2000 when the challenge that I had was finding the hook to lure faculty to use technology to enhance the teaching and learning experience. The bait was the CMS (course management system). Back then the reticence had more to do with answering the question from faculty: “how does it help me?” One of my classmates (tenured professor at PLU) insisted that faculty had a valid question and the only way to show them the benefits was to phase technology into what they already do . Start by showing them how technology could alleviate administrative tasks. Demonstrate how an online gradebook can benefit faculty and students, demonstrate how class material can be posted for the entire class to see thus saving reams of toner (etc.), and demonstrate how assignments can be collected and graded digitally. Get faculty on board with this she insisted, and they will be more inclined to explore the more powerful possibilities of using technology to impact student learning. Once this phase has been realized then educators will be well positioned to move towards the next step: infusing technology into the curriculum so that it has a meaningful impact on learning.

So our next phase shouldn’t only focus on faculty development but rather it should include an examination of how students use technology or, more important, how they want to use technology <see Chronicle article above>. The currents of technology run rampant and the digital natives know the water better than we do. Doesn’t it make sense to include students in the discussion and let them navigate?

JENNY

I recently returned from an electronic portfolio conference at Stanford University <more on that later> where we explored how eportfolios could support integrative learning, learning outcomes, and make the learning process more visible. The whole discussion of eportfolios is very exciting for a number of reasons. In some respects educational technology has not gained traction in higher education. Sure there has been adoption of tools that have made communication easier and administrative tasks more efficient. But the adoption of technology to really transform learning (in the true constructivist sense) lags. Why is that? Effort has been made towards developing faculty acuity with technology but the potential is still not even close to what it could be. In part it has to do with the unbalanced effort being put towards faculty development and not enough attention being paid to student use of technology. If the efforts were shifted to better support creative use of technology by students eportfolios and other academic technology initiatives would flourish. Momentum would build because students would be driving the effort for academic use of technology. This seems to be happening with regular frequency in the k-12 environment - why not in higher ed? The adoption of student centered eportfolios could be a good beginning.

JENNY