The ASCILITE Conference 2004 held in Perth, Australia was just over.
Among the many papers presented during the conference, a paper “Communication dynamics: Discussion boards, weblogs and the development of communities of inquiry in online learning environments” by James Farmer was among them.
More computers at home hinder learning?
Some German researchers studied a sample of 175,000 15 years old students in 31 countries and discovered that too much exposure to computers may actually affect the developing mind.
Research shows that ability in maths and reading had suffered significantly among students who have more than one computer at home. And while students seemed to benefit from limited use of computers at school, those who used them several times per week at school saw their academic performance decline significantly as well.
“You could argue that’s the big issue here: People need guidance in how to use [computers in education],” says Dr. Marcia Linn, professor of education and director of the Technology Enhanced Learning in Science Center at the University of California at Berkeley.
The people here will refer to not only teachers but parents as well. Many of our current parents have grown up and learnt in the no-internet era. So it seems that there are still some gaps to be closed in our education before computers will bring less ‘side-effects’.
Read the source of report here.
Home Sweet Home
Back from Samui yesterday evening. Have had 3 days of sunshine (which came as a surprise as weather.com reported rains and thunderstorms for the weekend). Forgot to mention in the previous post that accompanied yh3 on the trip were also Cheryl and Raymond. 5 of us had truly enjoyed ourselves.
Will definitely go back to explore more of the island in future 🙂
yh3 at Changi Airport T1
Showing off the power of blogging, on the move, using a pc at the free internet access area. The yh3 is on the way to Koh Samui. Flight originally scheduled for 2010hr, then delayed till 2100hr. Due to some unforseen circumstances, the final (hopefully) departure is now 2130hr.
Will be back on 6/12 (Mon), until then … dun think will have access to internet over there 🙂
Blog–Ed Tech Tool of the Year ?
Will Richardson has stated FIVE(5) good reasons why he thinks that Blog should be titled the educational technology tool of 2004 in his post. In his words, blogs can provide:
1. Audience
2. Constructivist Learning
3. Collaborative Learning
4. Critical Reading, Thinking and Writing Skills
5. Information Literacy Skills
As presented during the EdTech Award Ceremony 2004, we too believe that the potential of blogs has yet to be unleashed, especially in the context of Singapore education.
I am not sure if anyone here has explored wiki, but looking at the online tools that we have experimented so far, web page, email, forum, none of which is so easy to use to faciliate teaching and learning. Best of all, blog empowers our students with ownership, the blog itself, as well as learning.