EDUC 463 Digital Portfolios

Hey all,

Great digital portfolios today by all! Would it be possible for everyone to post the link of your portfolio here?

On "Object Lessons..."

media and identity

Before writing my take on the Buckingham reading, I want to say that I enjoyed reading your comments on the topic of the gap between young people’s worlds outside the school and their experiences in the classroom, and also using technology to have fun and being kids.

OK. I am going to look at Buckingham’s article from the perspective of “media and identity”, as I am passionate about the notion of self/identity! As Buckingham says media production provides a space for young people to explore their identities and take on new positions. This is exactly what I like about media productions. I see media productions as a “mirror” that reflects different images to people of who they already are. This is the “reflective” aspect of media productions as a mirror. In addition, they can give young people information and images of who they can ‘become’. This is the “constitutive” aspect of media productions as mirrors.

While I know the identities that people try and can take on through media are not deep—whether it is an online environment trying different persona via having different avatars, or it is a space exploring and voicing unspeakable needs and desires via blogging, youtubing, etc.—they are definitely useful in helping people understand different aspects of their self, and see themselves in different roles and dispositions, especially the positions that are restricted or unpopular because of the norms of the society or school, … . Such taking new roles can be useful when the mirroring is positive, I must say. However, reflecting negative or oppressive images to people can be harmful. Therefore, as Buckingham says “a form of critical discourse in which to describe and analyze what is taking place” is needed. I do believe so, too. “Mirroring” and identity exploration in media productions are important to examine and question, and as teachers, we need to educate our students on that.

Media Educator:Let's have fun again with the kids

I think Buckingham has set a higher standard for myself as a teacher after reading this article. I have been subjected to too many teachers who believe that technology does not have a place in the classroom and that students should fit into a traditional model of a student. It is hard to go against the grain sometimes, but as the teacher would had the students working with horror stories proves that we have access to learn differently because of media.  It is like when a child has his first ice cream; the taste is something he wants to continue to enjoy.   When I have had a taste of a new genre of multimedia or software, it is hard to go back to an old way of thinking.   And why do I enjoy it so much? Because it is FUN! That is what we should be teaching our children: to be kids.  In western society it is a shame that kids can no longer play outside by themselves, or have to come home to an empty house after school.   If school is the only place I can let them be kids, then forget the class management and let us have fun learning. Let us use technology to achieve being kids because when they step outside that classroom they face a tough and challenging world .

Not to say we should completely disregard some fundamental educational practices, but if pioneers could easily identify the school system, then I believe that this has a lot of problems because it is evident that education is not changing.  If everything else around us has changed, then why is education so slow to transform?  One of the toughest things we must overcome in order to move forward is financial and economic difficult situation. Its funny that education, in my opinion, is the fundamental to a society, yet there is never enough money.  

I do agree that it is hard to have students working with websites when they, at home, do not have access to computers.  This would be discrimination if I asked the class to only hand in assignments typed.  Although, stats Canada come out with saying most Canadian students have one access to computers either a neighbour, at school, home, library ect.  So, I think it is safe to say that I can use technology as a means for education students. 

So, how do we move forward with technology?  Do we have to do it alone or can we find support?

Media Education Article Question

Reading the Media Education article byBuckingham, I am struck by one of the statements made. Buckingham discusses the changes in society in which children are growing up in; specifically a transformation in the social and cultural experiences of young people. With this shift in youth Buckingham expresses the fact that education has not changed greatly over this period of time; "classroom od today would be easily recognizable to the pioneers of public education of the mid-nineteenth century."

Due to this stability of education and the transformation of the environment youth encounter, Buckingham argues that there is a "widening gap between young people's worlds outside school and their experiences in the classroom."

Do you agree with this statement? Is it becoming more difficult to connect the classroom experiences to the real world?

Another Great Use of Wiki

Hey all,

Just read on the newspaper that there's this guy who defrauded quite a few people on eBay, and to track the seller down, they used pbWiki to encourage any victims to provide information, and then send that pbWiki page to the police. Here's the news article on ZDNet:

http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/business/soa/Sydney-man-arrested-for-eBay-fraud/0,139023166,339290454,00.htm?omnRef=http://www.google.ca/search?q=australian%20ebay%20fraud%20wiki

Object lessons...

... yes, as teachers, we do need to look at the software and technology we use in our classrooms critically. Technology has the potential to be used for constructing knowledge and global collaboration (Karon), rather than just passing a test, for example (Simon) or drill (Charlene). As you all said we do also need to educate our students in terms of what they are using and how they are using. They need to be educated to choose the websites, for example, they want to use critically, and be able to ‘question’ the content. As Bryon, Ian, Adam, and others said, our business is to educate minds, and we need to consider the human factor required in education, and capture and inspire the students’ hearts and minds. Technology, like many other things in our life, is there. But we need to see its power as well as the social practices and customs it can produce. Technology should be used for production, exploration, and invention in a way that “nurtures” the students’ minds and supports their subjectivity and agency.

To me, the most important thing in using technology is to know why I am using it, and always giving the recognition or misrecognition for using that to the ‘person’ who is using that technology and the mind behind it (both the user and the creator)- rather than giving the recognition or misrecognition to the technology. An online space can be used for the purpose of collaboration and learning, though, the same online environment can be used for bullying, for example. Or as Jodi said, it can make people/students less interactive with other human beings and more individualized. Yes, technology has the potential to bring “individuation” (again, Foucault’s term!). Such social issues around technology- digital bullying, individuation, etc.- is a result of misusing technology and its power to misrecognize ourselves or others and take away or decrease one’s agency. We need to educate our students in our classrooms to how to use technology, discuss the social issues around misusing technology, as well as the effective ways these powerful tools can help their learning and subjectivity. And as teachers, we need to practice what we believe in, and be perfect examples of what we speak about by using technology towards ‘recognition’—recognizing students’ minds, humanity, and their potential to innovate, learn, and produce.

(Charlene, I am glad the problem is fixed and you can now post your comments).

The commerical market of education

Building upon ideas expressed in other posts and the article, I have to post the question: Is there a commerical market within education?

In the article the authors state, "Another respect in which these celebrated educational technologies are similar ['integrated learning systems' and 'e-learning environments'] is their high cost and re-location from the sphere of education research and development to the high-stakes corporate environment of e-business."

With this statement I have to reflect on me personal and viewed experiences with education supplies and resources. All I can think is how is the realm of technology identifying the field of education as a market any different than other realm's doing so as well. Anyone who has been to a teacher store knows that "teacher" supplies and resources cost a lot of money. From assessment strategy books to posters and stamps; as soon as the term education is attached the price goes up. Moving from the teacher directly to the schools and school boards, programs for math and literacy are numerous and expensive. I will not use any names, but there has been a shift in schools to a math program that is very expensive and now with the BC IRPs changing, the schools are forced to purchase the costly upgrades to stay relevant. And I should add this is not a product that schools have had for many years, some schools purchased it within the last two years and now have to come up with additional funding to make it not obsolete. In this case we could go into arguements of early adaptors gain the most for their money and late adaptors will have to upgrade faster. But if with look at the article, the authors go so far as to cheer for the luddits.

One thing that the article does well and even if education is an economic market, teachers need to be aware of is understanding of why they are using the tools they are using in class. Specifically the article states, that teachers have an "obligation to have a thoughful and informed understanding of how one's educational purposes are best served, and by means of what cultural tools." I think that with any approach, method or tool, teachers' need to understand the theory and purpose within them. A good teacher knows why they are doing what they are doing and as such they will implement technologies that go along with their education philosophies.

Moving beyond this positive point in the article, the authors next transition back to the commerical components of technologies in education, arguing that is is "irresponsible" for education community (teachers, administrators, school districts) to "support what is now a burgeoning corporate involvement in education software design and development." This is an interesting idea and the authors work in their own research and software design that they say is on a smaller scale. Would they give their software away for free to schools so that is does not become part of the corporate world? I think that we can be aware of the commerical hipe and impact, without ignoring techonologies in the classroom.

My Thoughts So Far...

After reading everyone's posts and comments about the article, here are my thoughts so far, bringing in some of the things I have learned from another course called Foundations in Education Technology (on a second thought, should it have been called Educational Foundations in Technology???):

Charlene mentioned earlier about having sort of a revolutionized learning environment if technology were to shape our learning. Roger Schank (an engineer researching in the field of artificial intelligence) wrote in his book in 1995 that we have to start changing the way school is run: instead of pouring a wide variety of knowledge into children's head, we have to let them decide what to learn. What motivates them to learn is the acutal need of using the knowledge. For example, if I don't need to use geometry to solve my everyday problem, then why bother learning it? It will just be another concept that I need to memorize in order to pass some math test. On the other hand, I will be much more motivated to learn the topic (and much easier for me to remember) if I am designing something and I need to know about geometry.

What Schank suggested means that as teachers we need to cater the individual needs of our students. This is really impossible to do time-wise. Therefore, we can use technology to help us. Schank and his team at the Institute of Learning Sciences (yes, a different ILS) developed a set of goal-based learning software that specializes in different topics (such as business consulting and examining art pieces to determine their authenticity), and students learn by being put into similuated cases where a problem must be solved in some way.

I believe that Schank's use of technology really takes into account the educational aspect of it, rather than simply producing a miracle tool that aims to sell for money. In this ideal learning environment, students are engaged because they can choose to learn what they like. Rather than learning for the sake of passing a test, they learn for their own sake because they need the knowledge to be successful.

Just my $0.02, although it can open up to quite a debate....

Thoughts on "Object Lessons: Towards and Educational Theroy of Technology"

The paper: Object Lessons: Towards an Educational Theory of Technology provides some insight into the motivations and agendas of the “education” software creators and why we have the problem today of implementing such technology in our classes.

Castell, Bryson, and Jenson initially state:
“New ‘partnerships’ of designers and developers committed to technology for its own sake now create products for the ‘education marketplace’ with little or no experience of, or interest in, underlying educational goals…”

I couldn’t agree more with this statement when one considers what we had before such technology was available, and still have, textbooks. Very frequently authors of new textbooks would jockey for position to be first published and produce educational atrocities of literature with little regard to the readers, curriculum, and teachers. How many expensive textbooks sit on shelves never opened and never used. The focus of these authors and publishers is money and notoriety rather than educational content. Little did they realize that their name quickly became synonymous with poor work and shallow insight. These textbooks were filled with educational jargon and produced without due diligence on content or pedagogy.

Technology and textbooks created in this manner of “boiler plate” templates will never work as useful and efficient tools to education, but as students and teachers we seemed to be destined to suffer these administrative burdens to find the real diamonds in the rough, the real tools that not only work but are useable by all.

Technology in schools seem to be a Trojan horse where students and staff must endure the hidden agendas of technological introduced in education. “Universities are not simply undergoing a technological transformation. Beneath that change and camouflaged by it, lies another: the commercialization of higher education. For here as elsewhere technology is but a vehicle and a disarming disguise.”

Arguably technology is resourceful, motivating, and stimulating but it also must be intuitive to encourage students and teachers to effectively apply. So why is it that many teachers do not use technology to its maximum ability? Castell, Bryson, and Jenson consider a users comfort, familiarity, time and resources as reasons why and provide examples of “integrated learning systems” (ILS) and “E-Learning environments” as tools to support teachers.

I feel ILS is cold without the human factor required in education. It seems more of a means to ensure quality control and standardization neither of which have much to do with effective education; however, I do agree that standardization has a place as long as it does not hinder creativity and the teachable moment. Quality control on the other hand is an industrial method to fabricate and produce identical units for public consumption. Human beings cannot be measure on such scale.

E-Learning is also limited in the ability of face-to-face contact. My experience with WebCT is horrible. I found it a completely non-user friendly program and full of technical inadequacies that are counter-intuitive to the user. I would also argue that with programs such as WebCT there is another agenda that has nothing to do with educational content. Castell, et all, state that “WebCT has partnered with major textbook publishers to create online versions of high-use texts, eliminating in one easy and seductive step the need for any faculty involvement in designing university based courses.” I would tend to believe that the Publisher definition of “high-use texts” is solely based on sales, and nothing to do with content or effective education.

It does seem that public schools have become a “charitable arm of technology industries” and “like all technologies, they (technologies) are ultimately developed in the interests of industrial and corporate profits, and seldom in the name of greater community participation or creative autonomy.”

Caste, et all, offer an interesting point of view that I do hold much of the same opinion. I would like to consider further their “Computers for Lunch” process further to determine if what they have “created” really works.

This was a refreshing read. Something for which I am glad to see that others have noticed what I have noticed and feel is a slow, subtle, poisonous, and dangerous involvement of corporate industrial influence in our public education.

Ian

Towards an Educational Theory of Technology

The article for this week makes some valuable arguments about the intellectual legitmacy (or lack thereof) of educational technology. I appreciate that the authors challenge developers, teachers and users to devise and discover new, more stimulating ways to use technology in an educational setting. However, I thought the article failed to acknowledge one very essential and undeniable trait of the classroom; that is, that every student is an individual with his/her very own individual learning needs and preferences. The authours make the sweeping claim that "technology-based education makes learning more active and interactive for each student." Anyone who has been in a classroom will agree that there is no method or material (including technology) that works perfectly for every student. While I agree that technology has the potential capability to provide access to a larger amount of information than any other resource, I do not agree that technology necessarily makes learning more active or interactive as the authours claim. In fact, I almost feel that it makes learning less active and interactive. I suppose it all depends on one's perception of "active" and "interactive." For me, active invovles physical engagement using as many of our senses as possible. Interactive, in its most simple definition, for me means interacting with others through dialogue, sharing or the likes. Technology-based education is often an individualized task. Even though this forum involves all of the members of our class, for example, I am still sitting here alone not really interacting with any of you. There is a whole other argument for keeping kids active while they are learning, and many would argue that technology has served to severely decrease the physical activity in kids' lives. Video games, television, computer games, cell phones and text messaging all make it so kids don't have to go outside to play with their friends or make a physical visit to their house.
Surely I can agree that technology "brings resources to the classroom that motivate, stimulate, and encourage students." However, we must keep in mind that these resources do not necessarily motivate, stimulate and encourage each and every one of our students. For many students, active learning such as actually going to a river to study it's features works much better than looking at the river on google earth.
I will close in agreement with the authours that "there is of course no obligation to use particular digital tools, but there is surely an obligation to have a thoughtful and informed understanding of how one's educational purposes are best served, and by means of what cultural tools." Part of being a thoughtful and informed teacher is to know what works best for your students. By providing a variety of learning materials and opporutnities, which should very well include digitial tools, we can ensure that all of our students have access to a rich educational experience.

Object Lesson - Toward an Educational Theory of Technology

Is canned technology good much like canned meat (aka spam - spiced ham) is good?

The use of "canned" software and digital technology that is being sold to us by industry is much like the use of a the "canned" lesson plan that can be purchased from teacher databases and then used in your own classroom. Surely, we are not to reinvent the wheel, but we need to look a the product in hand critically and determine whether we can "teach" with it or whether we are being lazy by adopting a preported technology that is being "given" to us by a nice industrial company. The goal of the company, not matter how altruistic is at the bottom line, money. Our use of their technology that is given freely is positioning ourselves into one direction or another and predisposing our students to jump at this good opportunity as well. Tying this article back to the Franklin article, I see this gift of technology as very prescriptive and the role of the teacher as holistic. The teacher is still the teacher and that role should never change. Technology, like the hammer, does not afford the student to build "a house" without understanding the function of the tool. Teachers and technology is about teaching the power of the tool. Technology is nothing more than a tool. Yes, the tools become very integrated in our lives and we become very dependent on them and that may not be a good thing, but we have to remember that our business is to educate minds, and minds are capable of much more that just using tools. Thinking beyond the technology starts with the teacher and school system being critical about the technology givers. I am thankful for the gifts of industry, but industry is not to be the sole educator of the young minds entrusted to our care. With the words of de Castlell, Bryson and Jenson I'll close:

"But knowledge and understanding come at a price we have this far been unwilling to pay: and what must be paid is our studious attention to these remarkable new tools and how we ourselves might invent, discover and devise their uses, even as we in so doing discover new purposes, new practices, new knowledge, new forms and conceptions of education."

What do you think should be the teachers role in deciding on technology integration and interpenetration into our curriculum?

Object Lessons: Towards an Educational Theory of Technology

Ya ha! I think it's going to work this time:) Unfortunately I haven't found anybody else's thoughts on this article so you get my reactions rather than my answer to your thoughts. I hope that is okay!
It seems Castell, Bryson and Jenson cover two main issues within their article: Miracle Workers and "Educational Technology" that isn't very educational. They touch on the example of the gender experiment (we read this article to prepare for the last in-class presentation), to support their thoughts and show how they have interacted with these ideas in their own life. I agree there is a huge (intimidating) push for teachers to incorporate technology into their classrooms and lessons. There is also an expectation that teachers should be technology savvy or at least have access to someone who will help them through any glitches or problems they might have. The "Tech Support" provided to schools is NOT necessarily "the someone" who will be able to help! I have heard complaints from many different schools regarding the incompetency of their support people. Often when they describe how school networks have been set up, my husband and his co-workers groan and feel deeply sorry for the students and teachers who COULD have more useful tools at their fingertips but don't due to someone's pride or lack of knowledge. This is almost as bad as the situations described in the article where "techology" has been brought in to be a miracle tool but is not properly supported, maintenanced or taught.
I have to agree that much of the educational software is not very useful except to provide a different environment for drill or experimenting IF the teacher can get the students to buy in. Often students are capable of much more than the software or course asks of them, but students are limited by their teacher's knowledge and fears. I took a "Business Information Mangagement" course when I was in grade 12, and was quite board to tears. I finished assignments WAY before everyone else, cause I could efficiently read the textbook and follow directions. I didn't learn anything from the course, but I was the top student and got a plaque for it at the end of the year. (Perhaps that was only because I made up an electronic field-trip form for one of the other teachers?) I haven't taken any online courses, math and music don't lend well to no teacher. But I HAVE taken a course that had a component of technology requirment. For my Music Theory 225 and 226 labs, we were expected to spend an alloted amount of time working with a program outside of class. The program acted as a classmate (who wouldn't have always been availiable) and an accountability system. With this program we were able to test and teach our ear training skills by listening to the computer play intervals and chords and then correctly naming or drawing the musical representation of what we had heard. I was not very thrilled when I compared my speaker sound to a real piano and wondered if I could have made more progress by spending my time with a real instrument. However the teacher was able to monitor the whole class' weekly progress, struggles and time investments as the program recorded our time, mistakes and achievements (there were levels to aspire to). Through this he was able to better direct his teaching to visible needs rather than plowing on according to the occasional test result. It worked because we were university students desiring to learn the material and understanding the need to train our ear. This software would probably not work in a highschool situation as most music students could care less and aren't planning to pursue music as a life-long study. (Teachers hope they will play and appreciate for life, but even that is only a hope.) All this said, I am not sure how one could set up a software that would be anything more than a theory tutor or holder of flashcards. A forum might be helpful if students were curious about their instruments and training. But when a teacher is struggling to convince kids to bring a pencil to music class, they probably aren't going to be spending time on-line extending their musical knowledge. This was evident in my last practicum where the teacher would post the music students were playing so that they could hear it and learn it quicker. However fewer than 10% ever went to the music department website to even look at this valuable tool.
If technology is going to be allowed/expected to shape and be central to education methods, environments and actions there will have to be a complete change in the traditional music program (if it continues to exist), student's motivations, and teacher expectations.

Frankin's idea on prescriptive technology and its relation to education.

When relating Fouclault's idea to 'technology and education' my first thoughts are of the intercom systems that are hooked up in every classroom.  At any point in time the administration can listen in on a class and 'observe' the teacher.  There is no way to know when they are listening and as a result I believe this type of technology can exercise control over the behavior of the teacher. 

And although I believe that this technology does have an important function in student safety, it can also hamper their learning.  If the teacher internalizes that power so much so that he/she is too afraid to address certain issues or topics, out of fear that they may be too controversial, or deemed such by an unknown, or even unwelcome eves-dropper.  I think teachers have a unique opportunity with students in that they can have such conversations with their students in a safe environment.  I believe that all too often adults try to protect their children by ignoring and not discussing the realities of our world.  Yet students remain aware of such issues and even more so intrigued by them by the very fact that certain information is 'kept secret'.  Is it just me or does this feel a little like censorship?

On another point, I would just like to say that I feel that prescriptive technologies are dehumanizing.  When the process is so broken down, you as the creator do not get to the point of satisfaction or completion.   By breaking down processes in this manner knowledge and power are spread so thinly that no one actually knows every step.  'Fordism' diminishes humanity and decreases individual power, therefore perpetuating the power structures that exist in our society.  

~Erin