The Obama administration announced they want every student to have an e-textbook by 2017. In an effort to speed up the process and reach the 5-year goal, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski and Education Secretary Arne Duncan want states to modify their textbook adoption process by allowing K-12 schools to use taxpayer funding to purchase iPads, Kindles, and other e-readers, as well as software, according to USA Today.
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Many educators and authors are anxious to see if Apple’s new iBook2 will be the technology that revolutionizes the way a new generation learns. The iBook2 is a free app for the iPad that allows anyone to author a textbook and hopes to make textbooks more available to students with the maximum textbook price set at $14.99.
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Yesterday, I wrote on finding a balance between digital and traditional teaching. There were also two articles I came across touching on the same subject, one debating whether handwriting is still a necessary skill to teach in the 21st century classroom, and the other debating whether blogging should replace writing a formal research paper.
As more schools embrace technology, many are experimenting with finding the balance between digital and traditional instruction. A group of charter schools in the Bay Area, Rocketship Education, requires two 50-minute technology sessions daily for all students, known as the Learning Lab. In the Learning Lab, students complete exercises in math and reading that are similar to “short video games,” according to the article “Combing Computer Games with Classroom Teaching.”
Today, Apple unveiled the latest apps for iPads that hope to revolutionize the textbook. One app, iBook Author, will allow authors to create and publish textbooks on an iPad, the other app, iBooks 2, will allow students to access their textbook on their iPad, as well as take notes, view 3D models, videos, and images, make flashcards, and look up words in the dictionary, according to The Huffington Post.
Most people don’t need a study to tell them that students today have different academic and personal lives than students did even 10 years ago due to advances in technology. If you were to interview or even observe students, you would see that they are involved in creating, discovering, and connecting digital information on their own time as well as at school. However, a new study by the Pew Research Center goes beyond showing the obvious, and discusses the implications of the changing way students receive and create information.
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As more students are required to own a laptop, iPad, Kindle and other electronic devices for school, a debate has opened between educators and parents on whether technology in the classroom is harming or enhancing the learning environment. On one hand, parents and educators are concerned with possible long-term side effects, like vision problems and neck strain from leaning over devices. On the other hand, parents and educators support the use of integrating technology into the lesson plan to give students computer skills they will need in the working world.
In yesterday’s post, “New College Grads Create Their Own Jobs in Bad Economy,” we discussed the rising trend of young, digital-minded graduates becoming entrepreneurs in a competitive workforce. The next working generation, and those that follow, are at an advantage because they are — in Anthony Salcito, vice president of Microsoft Education’s words — “digital natives.” They are wired to create new jobs with virtual creativity, work on a virtual team, communicate through online networks, and send and receive information at top speed.
When parents want to get involved in the student’s life, technology can be seen as a barrier from allowing that to happen. Just like any other tool used in the classroom, technology has a time and place. Use computers to teach basic computer skills, like word-processing, research and email. Prepare a lesson using hands-on materials, like paper or props and enhance it with a video or other digital media. Parents and educators shouldn’t feel threatened by technology in a student’s education. Technology is the tool to keep students current and prepared with skills for higher education, career and life.
- Read the referenced article “The Great Parenting Debate: Should School Kids Rely on Computers?” at foxnews.com
Technology is deeply embedded in a student’s personal and academic life. For most students in middle school through graduate school, it’s not a question of whether or not technology will be used but rather what kind and how much. You would be hard pressed to find yourself in a college course that didn’t require your assignment be typed before handing it in for a grade. Or one that didn’t require all cell phones be silenced and threaten a grade deduction for texting, Googling, or gaming under the desk. A recent study performed at Ball State University found 99.8% of their student population owned a cell phone, of which the majority were smartphones.
Some make the assumption that because this “online generation” is comfortable with technology that they are also technologically savvy. A study by the Nielson Norman Group found college-aged students spend as little time as possible on a site and leave quickly when they are confronted with a new interface style. They also found teenagers and college-aged students preferred sites that were image heavy over text heavy. Students resorted to the search engine as a tool to get them out of a foreign design, but if one wasn’t available on the site they weren’t willing to sacrifice their time by learning how to navigate or read through the content to find their way. The older generations are correct in believing the “online generation” is comfortable with technology. But they are comfortable creatures of habit who prefer to keep their navigation to clean and familiar sites and are not to be confused with computer engineers.
Just because this generation has spent more time with their fingertips against a keyboard doesn’t mean they have learned the skills to navigate efficiently, understand how their chosen search engine uses search engine optimization (SEO), or how to decipher who is a credible and reliable source and what is an advertisement, scam or opinion. Even more, in the 18-24 age range that was used for this study, 40% will have literacy skills too low to read a website that uses anything more than basic sentence structure. Maybe we should support this generation to become the technology gurus we believe them to be and provide them with the skills to use the internet as a resource as well as an entertainment machine. How are some ways classes can use technology besides typing a paper or using a PowerPoint? Teaching students to navigate in unfamiliar territory will promote their critical thinking skills to find credible sources, and to turn on their brains and turn off auto-correct and predictive technology. It will also help them to understand when it is best to tune out the technology and connect interpersonally.
Read the study “College Students on the Web” at useit.com
Carol’s Summary:
New York City and several other school districts around the country are analyzing how to integrate technology to serve a variety of students in K-12. They are also looking at the ways in which teachers roles will change as technology becomes a bigger part of the teacher and learning mix.
The key to technology in the future is flexibility. Glencoe is launching a Get Ready for College program this spring which can be used independently by students or in conjunction with a counselor or a teacher. Many of the nations home-schooled students will have a chance to be exposed to the same concepts they might encounter in a typical high school. Others who might have learning issues, can go at a slower pace while those who need to be more challenged can have a more rigorous experience. Technology and teaching cooperatively will be the key to each child’s success in the future. The flexibility of content providers and the teachers themselves will be the determining factors in the educational, career and life success of the next wave of students.
Article: Blending Computers Into Classrooms
At P.S. 100 in the Bronx, fourth-graders look intently at their laptop computers, watching a cartoon character wearing big sneakers explain prime factors. Wearing headphones, the students listen to and see the multiple-choice questions on their screens and tap in their answers.
Suddenly, an instant message from their teacher pops up: “5 more minutes and then we’ll review.”
Read the full article at: wsj.com
Carol’s Summary:
A startup called Social Intelligence and its companion Social Intelligence Monitoring are the newest concepts influencing the hiring process and job security in the world of work. Social Intelligence scans through social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, LinkedIn and thousands of other sources, to find any hint of bad character in future and current employees.
The software can only use publicly shared information, however, if an employee gets tagged by their friend in a not-so-flattering picture from college, the boss who has Social Intelligence Monitoring will be notified by a text message containing a direct link. The employee’s social networking information will be evaluated using categories like “Poor Judgment,” “Gangs,” “Drugs and Drug Lingo,” and “Demonstrating Potentially Violent Behavior.”
If a company decides to use Social Intelligence they become liable if an employee comes to work displaying violent or threatening behavior because these character traits should have been caught in the scan. The company also cannot punish an employee for past behavior. The concept of the software is to get an idea of who the employee is, rather than punish them for what they have done.
Social Intelligence is only a piece of the predictive industry. Among the growing industry is a company called Recorded Future that uses software to predict traffic jams, public unrest, and stock performance and Google which is developing a search that can predict the probability of employee resignation.
In the future, employees can expect employers to use a combination of data taken from resumes, interviews, work history, etc. as well as from social networking scanners. With this combined data, the company will be able to predict if their employee is going to steal, quit, lie, among many other things, and will stop them before they have the chance to follow through.
Use your best judgment when creating social networking profiles and other online materials. Even though updating your friends on your social networking sites might be one of your favorite pastimes, your audience is the entire Web. Stay safe and don’t let your online personality become a roadblock in your career.
Article: ‘Pre-crime’ Comes to the HR Dept.
In the Steven Spielberg movie Minority Report, police belonging to a special Pre-crime unit arrest people for crimes they would do in the future. It’s science fiction, and it will probably never happen in our lifetimes.
Read the full article at: itmanagement.earthweb.com
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