Friday, June 8, 2007

Is it about technology?

Is it okay to waste some time learning technology?  Is it okay to experiment with technology and not have it work?
 
These are good questions and should be asked about any activity that involves teaching students.  
 
Waste is inflammatory, but catches attention.  Student learning is at the center.  There are many things that provide non-ideal situations for learning.  (Planning to have students do a science journal by drawing their learning and typing a sentence on the computer... only to have the power go out without saving or printing.)
 
Well I would ask the question - did the students learn?  Yes, they did.  They accomplished their journal, they did the reflection and learned to save when working with technology.
 
While computers have been in schools for 25 (ish) years, there are still students that could graduate without being Information and Media Literate.  Students don’t have to be using a computer 5 hours per day, not even 1 hour per day.
 
Students need to be using technology as it increases their current and future learning.
 
There are times that technology is not the right answer.
 
I remember doing a project 5 years ago with laptops.  We were studying the Yanomami of the Amazon.  Students were to create a persuasive video for why they (as UN field workers) should help this indigenous people.
 
After about a week we had some partially done on laptops and some video footage, but the connection with the content had already been achieved.  I scrapped the post-production and completion.  They had already done the learning - cooperatively planning, scripting with curriculum connections, acting, practicing and taping.  
 
When it became about using a laptop and making a movie, it was no longer about learning.
 
I learned and so did my students.  While their was some disappointment, the students learned that their learning was the focus .

Thursday, June 7, 2007

Student IML Learning Capacity - Think Critically

Everyone today is bombarded with information.  What information is real?
 
This is hard to know.  I don’t believe it really matters if you know for sure; you need to have thought about it critically and made a choice for yourself.  I know what I believe.  I know what I measure new information against.  When I come in contact with information that doesn’t fit my belief system, what do I do?
 
I need to Think Critically.  I remember growing up knowing that the Encyclopedia at our school and in our basement was the Gospel truth.  While the Gospel hasn’t changed, many of the truths in those books have.  
 
I grew up believing that what was written in books was right, and what teachers said was also right.
 
Times have changed.  Just because something is in print in physical or electronic form does not make it right.  Just because a teacher says it, does not make it right.  (I remember teaching that Pluto was a planet. Now I know that I was wrong and some students should get extra marks.)
 
To be Information and Media Literate in today’s society one has to be able to take in (read, see, or hear) information and be a critical thinker.  There is too much information and too much BAD information to just accept it.
 
We can teach students to think critically.  They need to evaluate information for bias, and for errors.  They need to be able to validate information through multiple primary and secondary sources.  They need to be self-directed in building understanding from the resources available (both correct and incorrect).
 
How are students going to get these skills?
    They won’t if we block websites; they will if we teach them to think critically about any kind of information or media.

Saturday, June 2, 2007

Should students learn socially?

Last week an article discussing Facebook and how some jurisdictions are responding was published.
http://www.timminspress.com/webapp/sitepages/content.asp?contentid=537122&catname=Editorial&classif= The article raises some interesting points.  First some background...



Facebook is a social networking site.  Social Networking sites connect people.  In this case, you must accept anyone you want to associate with or be associated with as a Friend.  If they are not a friend, you don’t see what they are up to and they don’t see you.  You can customize how you are seen and how you interact on the site.



There are distinct advantages to this site and the way it is set up.  First with Nexopia and MySpace, students can publish and anyone sees them.  You can set up networks, but they are not private.



Since Facebook is such a part of the culture, is it not important that students know how to act safely?   The Simon Fraser University network has 19 000 members (including me).  When our students graduate, should they not know how to interact safely with the other students at their potential university?  The Vancouver network has 253 000 members (including me again).  



I am not naive enough to believe that Facebook is perfect.  I do believe that social networking is something that we should be teaching and harnessing for educational potential.  Just this week, they released an add-on to share your Del.icio.us tags through Facebook.  



The world that we live in and our students belong to is different than it was 30 years ago.  We were all taught how to cross the street safely, how to read traffic lights, and what side of the stairs to walk up on.  These seem just natural.  For Digital Natives, social network is already natural.



Join Facebook and try it out.  I have enjoyed touching base with old friends and current friends.  Life is so busy sometimes we forget to reflect on where we have been in life.  This has given me some perspective