Sunday, June 28, 2009
Technology as important as literacy?
There are those who argue that exposing children to technology at an early age, is as important as literacy skills and vital to their personal and academic development. I came across this article last week. It speaks to the importance of information technology in the primary school curriculum.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Can We Gauge Technology's Impact on Learning Outcomes?
The ongoing debate as to the effectiveness of technology use for student learning outcomes still seems to have no clear answers. Recently, some universities have decided to end their laptop programs for students because of the economic challenges facing those institutions. But there is no consistent response as to the effect on students. Some say it has been highly effective for students, and others say that it has not had any significant impact in how students learn.
What is interesting is that there is also no real agreement as to what should be measured or even whether it can be measured in order to quantify success in this regard. Institutions--whether K-12 or higher education--that have adopted technology for instruction, often have little or no systematic methodology in place for instructional technology use or how its success can or should be measured. Rather, the technology use has typically relied upon individual teachers and faculty who have given up time to learn and use new technology and who are always underfunded and unable, as a result, to expand their use to other programs and other instructors for ongoing research.
So technology use remains conflicted between the generalized rollout of hardware and software and the individualized adoption for instruction. What then can be done to truly assess benefits to learning in regards to technology use.
By Ruth Reynard
03/25/09
Read the complete article
What is interesting is that there is also no real agreement as to what should be measured or even whether it can be measured in order to quantify success in this regard. Institutions--whether K-12 or higher education--that have adopted technology for instruction, often have little or no systematic methodology in place for instructional technology use or how its success can or should be measured. Rather, the technology use has typically relied upon individual teachers and faculty who have given up time to learn and use new technology and who are always underfunded and unable, as a result, to expand their use to other programs and other instructors for ongoing research.
So technology use remains conflicted between the generalized rollout of hardware and software and the individualized adoption for instruction. What then can be done to truly assess benefits to learning in regards to technology use.
By Ruth Reynard
03/25/09
Read the complete article
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
What happened to all the talk about digital divide?
A few years ago the term “Digital Divide” was everywhere. I even joined the bandwagon back in 2003 with my Masters Degree thesis focused on digital divide. It seems that socially conscious researchers have moved away from talking about issues of digital divide. Is it because there is no digital divide anymore? I doubt…
A few weeks ago I met with Don Tapscott and discussed the net generation and his latest book Grown Up Digital. During that discussion I could not help but think about many in North America and globally who belong to the net generation due to age but who have not been exposed to technology because of low socio economics. It seems that an even bigger divide may be happening even though we have moved on to other socially conscious topics like greening.
A few weeks ago I met with Don Tapscott and discussed the net generation and his latest book Grown Up Digital. During that discussion I could not help but think about many in North America and globally who belong to the net generation due to age but who have not been exposed to technology because of low socio economics. It seems that an even bigger divide may be happening even though we have moved on to other socially conscious topics like greening.
Monday, June 15, 2009
Global learning content – Is that even possible?
Photo source: https://sislmc.wikispaces.com/Subjects
It is very obvious that individuals learn differently. Certainly, a lot has been written about this in the past. Click here for information on addressing different learning styles. It is even more obvious that differences exist in learner needs from one country to the next. However, increasingly learning content developers and suppliers are making claims that they produce content for a global audience. Now I am a strong proponent of sharing knowledge globally. Indeed that’s what the open education movement and thus the Open Courseware Consortium is all about. As chair of the membership committee for the Open Courseware Consortium, I certainly do my part to increase access to information globally. However, I am very well aware that the content created for learners in a North American context may not completely fulfill the learning needs of learners in the West Indies and other parts of the world though the subject matter may be the same.
I read this article recently called E-learning on a Global Basis. The author(s) note that launching a global learning strategy is not easy. They go on to state that an effective learning strategy gets all employees — no matter where they’re situated on the globe — on the same page and all working at top efficiency.
In theory this sounds great but I question the need and practicality of a global learning strategy. This is a topic that I will for sure be following up in future blogs.
Saturday, June 13, 2009
Classrooms of The Future
Source:www.woohome.com
Over the past few weeks, I have been thinking a lot about the classroom of the future. I came across quite a few videos depicting possibilities for the future classroom. I decided to share these with you, not because I agree with the authors but to help demonstrate some of the innovations that may be coming to a classroom near you.
Classroom Of The Future: What's New in Educational Tech
Smart Classroom
Smart Classroom
Students Today
Connected Teachers
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Wikis and Blogs? What role do they play in learning?
We held our weekly ScholarLab team meeting today. Most of our meetings are intended to make sense of the daily overload of information and noise in our very crowded
elearning industry. Today’s meeting was no exception. We chose to discuss the sometimes misunderstood role of wikis and blogs in online learning. This topic was chosen because one of my team members recently returned from a group discussion. The focus of the meeting was integrating wikis and blogs into the online learning environment. He mentioned that the well attended meeting lasted for about two hours with many ‘learning experts’ in attendance. Most of the attendees were adamant that wikis, blogs and other learning 2.0 tools are vital for today’s net generation learners. He questioned some members of the group about their organization’s learning culture, vision, strategy…What he observed was that many rightly saw these tools as a way for learners to collaborate with each other; however their use was not always linked to a specific organizational learning vision or objective.
I generally agree that the way we learn is rapidly changing and tools like wikis and blogs are helping to shape the way we learn. However, like all learning tools, the use of wikis and blogs in a learning environment should be clearly linked to learning objectives. For example, as part of a course, a blog or wiki can we used to complete a specific project, to brainstorm ideas throughout a course, as a reference point for research and documentation and much more. We should always keep in mind that wikis and blogs are merely tools to engage learners and to offer opportunities for creativity and free thinking. They are not in and of themselves the learning experience and therefore their use in an online learning environment should be linked to some form of learning objective.
elearning industry. Today’s meeting was no exception. We chose to discuss the sometimes misunderstood role of wikis and blogs in online learning. This topic was chosen because one of my team members recently returned from a group discussion. The focus of the meeting was integrating wikis and blogs into the online learning environment. He mentioned that the well attended meeting lasted for about two hours with many ‘learning experts’ in attendance. Most of the attendees were adamant that wikis, blogs and other learning 2.0 tools are vital for today’s net generation learners. He questioned some members of the group about their organization’s learning culture, vision, strategy…What he observed was that many rightly saw these tools as a way for learners to collaborate with each other; however their use was not always linked to a specific organizational learning vision or objective.
I generally agree that the way we learn is rapidly changing and tools like wikis and blogs are helping to shape the way we learn. However, like all learning tools, the use of wikis and blogs in a learning environment should be clearly linked to learning objectives. For example, as part of a course, a blog or wiki can we used to complete a specific project, to brainstorm ideas throughout a course, as a reference point for research and documentation and much more. We should always keep in mind that wikis and blogs are merely tools to engage learners and to offer opportunities for creativity and free thinking. They are not in and of themselves the learning experience and therefore their use in an online learning environment should be linked to some form of learning objective.
Monday, June 8, 2009
State of E-Learning in Canada
Ottawa, May 21, 2009 — A new Canadian Council on Learning (CCL) report offers a unique look at e-learning in Canada, affirming that it holds much promise to improve Canada’s economic competitiveness and prepare Canadians for the demands of the 21st century. However, several issues are constraining the country’s ability to take full advantage of e-learning’s potential.
Read the full report here:
http://www.ccl-cca.ca/CCL/Newsroom/Releases/20090514E-Learning.htm
Read the full report here:
http://www.ccl-cca.ca/CCL/Newsroom/Releases/20090514E-Learning.htm
No Future Left Behind
A few weeks ago, I came across a great video from ‘The Net Gen Education Challenge’ by Don Tapscott. He challenged learners to present their ideas on how we can change the learning experience and in doing so reinvent education for relevance and effectiveness in the 21st century.
This video was submitted by Suffern Middle School in Suffern, New York.
This is a must see!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kra_z9vMnHo
The ideas of the students speak to the need for learning to be more engaging, social, fun and inspiring. It also accurately captures the views of many learners and their need for more challenging learning experiences.
This video was submitted by Suffern Middle School in Suffern, New York.
This is a must see!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kra_z9vMnHo
The ideas of the students speak to the need for learning to be more engaging, social, fun and inspiring. It also accurately captures the views of many learners and their need for more challenging learning experiences.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
