Category: 03. Other Ed Techs

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Footprints …

The title of Will Richardson’s latest article on ASCD reads “Footprints in the Digital Age” (first saw this article mentioned in Anne Davis’s post. Thanks Anne for highlighting the article). As I read through the online article, the following sentences resonated:

  • (As) a consequence of the new Web 2.0, … (we) are becoming increasingly woven into the fabric of almost every aspect of our lives.
  • … like it or not, social Web technologies are having a huge influence on students …, even the youngest ones.
  • … like it or not, social Web technologies are having a huge influence on students …, even the youngest ones.
  • One of the biggest challenges educators face right now is figuring out how to help students create, navigate … the Web and helping them do this effectively, ethically, and safely.
  • The things we create are searchable to an extent never before imagined and will be viewed by all sorts of audiences, both intended and unintended.

And the recurring theme on the importance of teachers’ leading/scaffolding appears in the following sentences:

  • … we may find opportunities to empower students to learn deeply and continually in ways that we could scarcely have imagined just a decade ago
  • … they’re doing all sorts of things with online tools that, for the most part, we’re not teaching them anything about.
  • Our teachers have to be colearners in this process, modeling their own use … and understanding the practical pedagogical implications … technologies and online social learning spaces.
  • (educators should learn that) transparency fosters connections and … (willing) to share our work and, to some extent, our personal lives.
  • … still needs the guidance of teachers and adults who know them in their own practice.
  • … students have the potential to own their own learning—and we have to help them seize that potential.
  • Younger students need to see their teachers engaging …
  • Middle school students should be engaged in the process of cooperating and collaborating with others …, just as they have seen their teachers do.

And the ending paragraph reminds us to be a lifelong learner in ICT if we were to teach and prepare our students for their future lives:
“But to do all that, we educators must first own these technologies and be able to take advantage of these networked learning spaces.”

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On educational gaming

Have neglected this storeroom and my choked up bloglines feeds for quite some time. Came upon two posts by Christopher D. Sessums@eduspaces.net. One post was him brainstorming on possible exams questions for his summer “Introduction to Ed Tech Course” (with many excellently practical questions), qn 10 was on “Serious Gaming” which used Neuromatrix, a new educational video game designed to teach neuroscience to 9-15 children. In his other post on a brief look of video/computer games, there’s a comprehensive review of Dodlinger’s (2007) literature review on elements that promoted learning.
As a gamer myself for over 15 years (until recent shifting of priorities to work n family), I would definitely love to engage students in games and learning CL as they play the games. Have not seen ed. games like Neuromatrix in Chinese yet. When will such games materialise, next 10 yrs perhaps? And in the meantime, any chance of learning CL while engaging in non-CL games? *hmm*

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ISTE – NECC – NETS

this 2nd post within an hour is to capture the recent NECC (National Educational Computing Conference) held in San Antonio, organised by ISTE (International Society for Technology in Education). reading a highlight from eSN, saw NETS (National Educational Technology Standards) being mentioned. looks like i have not been tracking developments in FRAMEWORK for quite some time *LOL* anyway it’s now included in the storeroom, so will read more about it when time permits 😛
oh yes, the NECC 2007 Research Papers can be found in this archive, and the NECC 2008 Papers here.

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classroom of the (near) future?


“She is one of 650 students who receive an Apple Inc laptop each day”
“compete for high scores by completing mathematical equations”
“It has no textbooks”
” ‘The dog ate my homework’ is no excuse here”
” ‘Why would we ever buy a book when we can buy a computer? Textbooks are often obsolete before they are even printed’ ”
“Computers track a range of aptitude levels, allowing teachers to tailor their teaching to their students’ weakest areas”
” ‘Our projections show that 50 percent of high school courses will be taught online by 2019. It’s about one percent right now.’ ”
“Horn expects demand for teachers to fall and virtual schools to boost achievement in a U.S. education system…”
” ‘You deliver education at lower cost, … a teacher can spend with each student because they are no longer delivering one-size-fits-all lesson plans’ ”

exciting development i would say but ‘demand for teachers’ doesnt sound too good though i dont really agree with that 😛 how will the school (in today’s definition) become and what would be the teachers working more on, assuming the subject matters can all be first taught by software?
check out the full article “Technology reshapes America’s classrooms“.

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iBreadCrumbs – archiving and sharing your research journey

saw this new online tool mentioned in Anne Davis’s post and thought it’s a nice tool to try out, and best of all, you get to share your findings with other users. something about the tool:

iBreadCrumbs is…
A Social Network for Researchers
to Share Recorded URLs, Track Websites,
Review Notes Online, and Encourage
Online Collaborative Research.

to find out more, visit the site now!
2 things that came to my mind before i actually try out the tool:
1. the dynamicity of the www can lead to the fast outdating of our research. for how long would such a research ‘history’ be useful and how much would it benefit other fellow users?
2. organising makes info more mearningful but it takes effort and time as well if we were to review the list recorded by the tool and strike off sites that we deemed not useful. not sure if this would be too overwhleming.
will try it out soon 🙂

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