Cool New Education Event: WOW!

I have been working at a middle school for the past couple of years. We are having our final WOW Showcase on May 26, 2011 at the Vance Granville Community Center in Henderson, NC.

Technology Student Wants & Needs Versus Reality

These past couple of weeks, our discussion forums have looked at the discrepancies between what students want in terms of technology and what they're actually getting. Two weeks ago, Katysha led a forum on how parents thought their students were getting access to a lot of technology whereas students thought they weren't getting nearly enough. One main complaint were the filters placed on internet sites. Filtering is a definite challenge to schools. Some filters cut out too many things, leaving students incapable of accessing information easily, and others let too many things through, allowing for distraction and possibly even personal danger. In addition to filtering problems, we also discussed the benefits of educational games and their use inside the classroom as a motivator for students to learn. Brittany took the discussion one step further and used online educational games as the topic for last week's forum. As with the other article, students complained about not getting to use online games enough. An interesting "twist" was that parents and administrators thought there was enough gaming in schools and something that they did not want to emphasize. As a class, we came to the conclusion that this negative response to online games could be because of the stigma attached to games as something of a reward, a distraction, or something to eat up free time. While we didn't really discuss it in the forum, the thought occurred to me that students may also have this perception about educational games (although for them it's not so negative) and thus also fuel the stereotypes. What both of these articles has shown me is the need for student input in a classroom. I think this comes at a poignant time with our lab design projects. Ultimately we are still students designing the labs; however, we are also designing the labs from an educator's standpoint. For my lab, it has been especially challenging because I want my students to have the flexibility to do and create what they want within the lab, but I cannot foresee everything that they would think of to do for community service projects. I find myself asking a lot of my friends what they would do if they were in such a class and I get a lot of the answers that I've already come up with, but at the same time, I feel like there is so much more out there and that each new generation becomes more complex and inherently thinks of more creative things.

Corporate Funding in Schools

This past week, Brandon led a discussion about science and technology classes being introduced and funded in a school from a large corporation. The corporation was putting the classes in schools to recruit workers because their labor force was in decline and they needed more engineer-type people. A lot of people, myself included, were critical of this attitude towards schools and learning. But there were some who saw some constructive aspects, such as the added funding for schools and the option for networking and career counseling. I came from a technology and science magnet and we had businesses come in and talk to us, set up internships, and encourage different tracks in schools, but they encouraged learning different things and didn't take such a hard view about drumming up workers. They wanted to encourage general interest in their respective fields. It is interesting considering that we're getting to write these 'grant style' proposals for our lab designs. I hope in the real world that not everything is so attached to the bottom line.

Technology Immersion Program

A couple weeks ago, Will led a discussion on a technology immersion program which was run by Prentice Hall. The article had praise from the teachers and students about an improvement in test scores. In our discussion, everyone thought the program was pretty good, particularly because the teachers got adequate training on using the computer system. Once we got to class, Sarah challenged us and asked us to look at the website for Prentice Hall. It turns out their system emphasized data documentation and logging how long and how often a student is using the equipment. Teachers then would have to make decisions and plan classes based on that data. In class, we heard from those who were student teaching or taught classes and the difficulties of tracking students. The basic message: it takes time out of the day which could be spent actually teaching or lesson planning. After this discussion, it really makes you think, what is in these softwares and programs being marketed to teachers. As we move into the lab design, I will have to be more critical of technology immersion programs and software in general.

The Video in Class...from conferencing to social networking

Some weeks ago (around spring break time and then the week after) we had two discussions on video conferencing. The first discussion was led by Jeannie on an article about teachers using video conferencing to provide students with access to people and groups they would not otherwise see, such as students getting to see musicians from a Manhattan conservatory. It was an interesting debate in the world of field trips and what kind of connections are available to students. This type of networking led me to focus our next discussion on the social aspects of things like video conferencing and sites like Facebook and MySpace, particularly in terms of cyberbullying. We also looked at a school that took the culture of TV and the Internet to help their kids study for standardized tests. There was criticism that these schools were being innovative with their technology only because they had to be, but they wouldn't care otherwise. On the other hand, there was also debate about whether it gave schools with more resources the upper hand because they would have access to things that could make learning more interactive. After finishing this latest project on authoring using iMovie, I think that of all the uses for this type of technology, the most interesting and fruitful way to use it is to put it in the hands of kids and let them explore. I think with proper guidance not only in the technological aspects, but also social and cognitive aspects, students could surpass their teachers and parents in producing materials to enhance their learning and showcase it.

Copyright Issues in K-12 Education

A couple weeks ago, Raeanne led a discussion about the information available to students and the limits placed by copyright laws. Included in the article were suggestions for how to provide students access while still addressing copyright issues. A lot of people seemed to be in favor of K-12 schools partnering with colleges and universities to get access to their databases and other information sources. We also had a discussion about Wikimedia and the push for online textbooks that would take out the middleman of publishing companies and provide textbooks for free. As a former journalism major, I understand the desire for companies like publishers to be concerned about providing books for free, but as a student and someone who is thinking about teaching, I believe in the accessibility of information. The debate is certainly interesting because of the economics involved on both sides of the issue. It's a constant weighing of values, and it leads to the question "What is the price of information?" I think we are getting to a point in technology and society's needs where we are going to have to need a better answer to that question.

Online Curriculum

A couple weeks ago, Ashleigh Rhodes had us thinking about using an online curriculum, particularly the generation of "Curriki." Curriki is an website for teachers to share their lesson plans on various subjects from math to literature, etc. Looking at the website, it seemed pretty cool. What struck me about it was that the lessons posted on the website weren't particularly tech heavy, so the lessons could be accomplished in schools without computers. I think this is one of its great strengths. In the forum, we discussed the costs of an online curriculum and came to the conclusion that with updates and repairs, it could be just as costly. On the other side, we thought that integration between textbooks and technology was a good plan. We also looked at the accuracy of things like Curriki and editing. It proved an interesting discussion considering our transition into the authoring project. Probably if anything, technology and education, particularly when it comes to authoring, proves that people need to be more critical about the things they find and what they take in. Technology does inspire a spirit of learning because there's so much information out there and people have to evaluate it and make it meaningful for themselves, at least that's the ideal. I do hope people go through their evaluation processes...but only time will tell.