education & tech

We've been writing on education for more than eighteen months now and every once in a while had mentioned Stephen Downes posts. Since he has many posts and we aren't capable to read them all on a daily basis, we have to filter all that information on a weekly basis. Today, we just accomplished it that's how this post came up to be presented.

What's the Future of the Web?

Technology Review (need registration) asked technology innovators and luminaries, what the Web might be into next ten years. Thirteen visions were collected by Kristina Grifantini and they range from the pessimistic 'total end of privacy' to the optimistic 'developer empowerment'. The most common theme is the 'mobile web' and perhaps the most unlikely is 'we will all have chips in our brains', summarize Downes.

Who Are the New Philosophers of the Web 2.0.?

With so many people speaking and writing on education it's hard to follow the conversations when you have other activities more than be online checking feed subscriptions and getting the screen radiations from your computer. The Twain Blog writes on why not all teachers can catch up with all stuff the new philosophers of the Web 2.0. (Upper echelon of education technologists and bloggers ) are working on and are very much familiar.

The gap is evident and expanding, particularly between core teachers and these generation of online experts. This instructional technology educator, make a list of six wishes, in order to keep "connectivity with the teachers [he] work with."

After all, his wishes will stay on hold because, he can’t accomplish them. He has to work!

Misuse of Words in Learning

We need to simply stop defining learning as work, homework, lessons, classes, lectures and redefine these as aspirational activities; sessions, challenges, projects and clubs, writes Donald Clark. He says we have seven bad language habits we should avoid while learning(not teaching) and he suggests, in place of teaching we must promote a language of learning with words that instill positive values. These words include: trust, respect, quality, responsibility, unity, peace, thoughtfulness, happiness, patience, care, appreciation, honesty, understanding, love, friendship, humility, hope, simplicity, tolerance, courage, cooperation and freedom.

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Mike anticipated this document before I have. He not only cited to the Downes's Speech in Spain (Internet in the Classroom), but has also translated part of his speech. Job we were pending with gabinetedeinformatica.net However, to fill Fernando Santamaría's expectations, here we present our work based on Esperanza Román's blog [es], she writes:


I agree with all those who praise Downes' figure, because of his genuine and indisputable commitment to the education world (although some prefer to concentrate solely on the most folkloric of his so evocative edupunk speech, also too eduhippie atrezzo and his digital shop much edupop ). Also, like Diego [es] said, I don't think Downes simply took neither a good nor a bad impression of the audience by the questions that were done to him. Nor do I believe that Downes is aware of how strange some of his answers sounded, in interpreter's mouth (I haven't had time able to hear the original audio) or how difficult it can be for many teachers and professionals to follow his advice on how to steal time to the clock.

That is why I applaud from here that we talk and write about what it's been really thought of the affirmations, both, of Downes(certainly not to radical at this time) and any other person of the stature of this educator. As many have said, some of the ideas presented by Downes are anything but innovation (which does not mean that they are not valid). Others may be debatable and others, improved after some restatement. But the most important ideas, in my personal opinion, are:

- Think about all of them.
- Look for the applicability it has in our immediate surroundings.
- Try to answer all by ourselves, those questions that provoked certain strange in Downes, like the assuption that in the conference room where he pronounced his speech, there weren't more laptops among the audience.
- Recognize with no shame that our standard of "connectivity" is lower than the U.S. but even so, we have many ideas on how we work and collaborate in the web, even facing immense technological limitations from our countries in general and our work environments in particular.
- Follow up the conversations, so that all the voices are listened, not only those in agreement with the majority or with the state-of-the-art fashions.

These are the reasons why I've committed, voluntarily and in a altruistic way, to the Conectivistas [es] group (Connectivism). We sincerely believe that the most appropriate way of advancing knowledge in this field is collaboration and dialogue among people interested in improving education, maximize technology, analyse the influence it has on society and, commit to these benefits, so they can be enjoyed by all sectors of the population.

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All people interested in education weren't present at the NECC 2008, that's why, still after two weeks we keep reading notes and trying to pick what it's interesting for us. We will pick a post from Bud Hunt from Colorado, where he speaks about the Day of Teacher Play and we've found one of his paragraphs quite not only interesting but philosophical:

Our students need to see us struggle and reach and grow and try and explore and learn and fail and stand back up at the end and say, 'Wow. What’d I learn here?' That’s probably the best motivation for them to get their hands dirty. And we’ve never any credibility if we ask kids to do something that we won’t do.

Isn't that a jewel! How many colleagues are thinking of this. It's human nature to be scared of failing but teachers are humans and then, they are also entitled to fail. Nothing wrong with failing, teachers fail, students fail. The fact of the matter is, we wouldn't the knowledge accumulated today, if scientists were always correct.

I was trying to find a related post in Technorati about Geoff Powell session, What Effective Computer-Using Educators Know about Teaching: An International Perspective and unfortunately we couldn't find any. While focusing on increasing their technical fluency, we run the risk of assuming that all teachers understand foundational learning theory and child-centered classroom practice.

The only record I've found is the liveblogging made by Bud the Teacher. (Bud Hunt).

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We've already posted on Edublogs but, this weekend while we set aside some time to read our subscriptions, we've found Edublogs joins in to the big leagues in provinding video hosting (TeacherTube, YouTube, Blip.tv). This is really useful beacuse teachers need their very own channel.

The next screenshot, shows the progress of Edublogs.tv from Wednesday night to Saturday after noon:

The ideant of 'transforming teaching, learning and leadership through the strategic application of technology", Miguel Guhlin shares his experiences using the brand new service and he still looks for some answers: a) How many video/audio files can be stored in an account? How much space? I'm looking for a replacement for Podomatic.com, on which I'm about to reach the 500 meg limit for my podcasts; b) When will Creative Commons integration -great question Derekeb tweeted- be added to this? c)Can we change "My Music" to "My Podcasts?" d) Could you make the description box a bit bigger? It would be nice to paste in URLs to the text that goes with it; e) Is it possible to embed images in the podcast description? and, f) How about adding recently uploaded audio/podcasts to the front page, in addition to the list of videos there?

James Farmer was paying attention to Edublogs.tv buzz and he already aswered some of Mike questions in a comment posted in Around the Corner, administrated by Guhlin.

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Credit: Budtheteacher
You've probably ran across three criteria for web futures and I did step over this collection of tools presented by Vicki Davis at the EduBloggerCon08 . I am also investigating on Open Education Resources (OER -If any of you can help me with this, it will be rewarding). Why? Because, with so many free tools out there that help us to collaborate, share, learn, chat, talk and teach, at this moment; it's difficult to choose from, how should we decide? And which tools are proper for us? Which are for our classrooms? Why bother creating new resources, as OER, if we already have enough in the spectrum.

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Some Not So-Good News About U.S. Education - Survey shows tendency from fair to poor

I am pretty sure this is not science and shows only an statistical inference but, obviously, something is happening,( no just now) with the U.S. Education. How come half of Americans may think, educational system is doing only a fair to poor job of preparing students for college and the workplace, even though education ranks behind only the economy and gas prices as a top issue for Americans.

The other half? They think education system is falling behind that of other countries, and six in 10 said the quality of American schools has declined in the past 20 years.

Science or Technology...?.

It seems extrange we still have to discuss these things today. At the same time, it's impossible to just skip it and just...move on.

Help David to complete his post and help educational community to clarify such a philosophical dilema: "I am not certain that Computing can ever be a science in that it does not have a body of fundamental knowledge independent of other sciences. It is a very important technology, perhaps the most important at the present time and thus deserves academic study."

It was seen at deanstalk.net but since they just moved the post I have to link to the orirginal source which is teachingtips blog and written by Laura Miilligan.

'Before you can toss out the textbook and replace it with technology tools, you’ll need to understand how your students — whatever their age — respond to and work with technology', Milligan points out.

And she list 100 assessments you should watch for, of which we've included only the very first ones.

1. Assessing What Students Learn in Technology-Based Learning Environments: Read this report to understand what students gain from technology tools in the classroom.
2. GT Prof: Students Learn Better Via iPod Versus Lecture: This article from Campus Technology cites a Georgia Tech professor who believes that iPods are more effective teaching tools for some students.
3. Critical Issue: Using Technology to Improve Student Achievement: Chapters in this report include "Technology and Youth: Wired Schools and Wired Lives," and "Inclusion: Reaching All Students."
4. Effects of Technology on Classrooms and Students: From change in student and teacher roles to more collaboration with peers, this report argues for using technology in the classroom.
5. Students’ Evolving Use of Technology: This article considers a study of how college students use and benefit from information technology systems.
6. Kids Outsmart Web Filters: Sometimes, teachers are faced with students who know way more about technology than they do. Learn how to prepare yourself by reading this article.
7. In Class, I Have to Power Down: This article questions "why are schools lagging so far behind" their students when it comes to using and understanding technology.
8. Better Students Through Technology!: This guide helps teachers in their plan to implement technology-rich lesson plans and environments.
9. College Students Score Higher in Classes That Incorporate Instructional Technology Than in Traditional Classes: ScienceDaily reports that technology in higher education classes is very beneficial to older students.
10. Regular Computer Use for Work, But Not Play, Aids Student Test Performance: Find out how computer practice helps students perform on standardized tests.

A Difference is a blog written by Mr. Kuropatwa and he uses a template we used to have for Education & Tech (B.P.L.E., before) which is nice and really, really bring us back when we started to blog and we're building our first steps into blogging life.

Mr. Kuropatwa reports on the Microsoft Innovative Teachers Conference that sadly we missed and offers a podcast of what Arnold Wasserman had said about his conceptions on Education Innovative. The enclosure of podcast belongs to his author and we reproduced it here under Creative Commons deed.

(Download File 14.8Mb, 61 min. 30 sec.)

I've delighted to read her letter-post and this is the very first time we quote Sheryl from 21st Century Learning, but today's post is a Open Letter and we want to share it with you, particularly some paragraphs we were really impressed about our takes on technology in the classroom:

...If you can be replaced by a computer then you probably should be! The truth is that technology will never replace teachers, however teachers who know how to use technology effectively to help their students connect and collaborate together online will replace those who do not.
[..]
Sylvia Martinez says we are trying to solve this 21st C PD issue in schools with 6% of the population (teachers) when 94% of the population (kids) are better positioned to help us learn what we need to know to be successful. Turn your classrooms into learning ecologies- learn with and from your students. Get rid of top down, expert driven instruction methods and nurture self-directed discovery- both your own and theirs. Turn your passions into classroom curriculum. Get excited and mentor your kids integrating your passions with core content and foundational knowledge. Help them develop a love and understanding for culture and our rich heritage. Advocate hard to get the metrics we are using to measure classroom effectiveness changed- for we teach what we measure. Leverage NCLB to push for personalization of curriculum in an effort to meet AYP and all the various needs of your subgroup populations.

Teachers wouldn't be replaced by computers(robots), rest assured that even when that's entirely possible, no machine can make intellectual work as teachers have to do it on a daily basis. We do agree, we teachers, have to learn a lot from students on technology knowledge and skills. The challenge is yours(ours), we can still keep peace with those eight years Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach talks about, educators can and they have to re-learn and act under a redefined concept of professional development!

I've missed her post lately for some reason but today I went to check my feed reader and what I've found is Jenny D. ( that's all I know) already made her Thesis's defense and she's being kind to share some of the pictures of this event. We've following her experiences while she wrote the thesis and want to congratulate for the hard work involved in her career as a researcher now.

It pays the effort and sharing experiences online using blogs. Congratulations again and good luck on your career. Read her latets post on Robert F. Kennedy about the hearings during 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act.

Beginning today, June 4th through Tuesday, June 10th edweek.org is hosting an Open House for an entire week so you can check out its new issue for free. The press release promotes this Report, The Diplomas Count 2008: School to College. This is the third annual report published by edweek. org, with support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

"The report explores the rapid growth of state-level P-16 councils and how they seek to create a more seamless schooling continuum that prepares students from preschool through college and beyond for life, work, and further education."




Results for the class of 2005, the most recent year available according to the Report, show a national graduation rate of 70.6 percent, an increase of about half a percentage point over the prior year. The EPE Research Center that made this study, estimates that 1.23 million high school students will fail to graduate in the class of 2008.

We should ask, why too many students drop out earlier than expected. Is it happening a the same peace among racial groups?

A group of aerospace engineering and computer science students gathers once a week in Atkinson Hall of the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2) to learn designing technology for the developing world. But their lecturer Derek Lomas never quite shows up in the classroom, at least not in person. He prefers to take classes of the popular ‘Design for Development’ course from his desktop in Mumbai — through videoconferencing that is.

They are using what sciencedaily.com calls  instructional technology.  "University of Houston Department of Health and Human Performance researcher finds that students in a "hybrid class" that incorporated instructional technology with in-class lectures scored a letter-grade higher on average than their counterparts who took the same class in a more traditional format"  they wrote in its Science News column, today.

Practice of hybrid classes are growing so quickly and practicality for students and professors, at UH  and on campuses across the U.S., because of the advantages for students , in presentation of material as accessibility and flexibility. Brian McFarlin, was the researcher at UH and he can testify for example that an upper-level business law and ethics class in the UH Bauer College of Business reaches more than 1,000 students each academic year because of its flexible, hybrid offerings.

But what is the linking between those students at California Institute and the University of Houston?  No secrets. It's technology applied to the education. Same as Mumbai or Australia, students and teacher are able to learn or re-learn at the same time, even being so far away. In this case the use of the videoconferencing is vital and the good handling of PowerPoint files helps these students to obtain grades, on average a letter grade higher than those in the traditional format

Houston students attend class in classrooms, but students as far away as Australia also take and participate in classes. To date, there has been limited literature addressing the effectiveness of such classes.  McFarlin has comments on the advantages in timing of hybrid class: "That means two courses could be taught in a classroom that would normally be dedicated to one traditional lecture course [and] The key to success with instructional technology is to keep the focus on student-related outcomes and learning. This was my objective."

Findings were published in the journal "Advances in Physiology Education."

A networking space for not only teacher but students, as well. [Link] Get around, visit them and make some comments.

Ending of April of this year,  Do Reisinger wrote a interesting article about video games and its influence on the behavior of our kids.  As for my personal experience ( I"m father of a 10 years kid) , let me tell that sometimes I 've got scared about the conversations  my son and I,have about his games. He enjoys video games  violence and he says he cannot  find pleasure in a game that doesn't show violence and blood, he thinks that's funny!?

Now, my kid is a normal boy and  of course millions of kids worldwide are acting, thinking and saying the same stuff about video games. I don't care what Sociologists or Psychologists will tell me, I do know video games have a particular influence on these fragile minds and I let me  agree with .Dave Grossman, "Our kids are learning to kill and learning to like it. The most remarkable example is in Paducah, Kentucky the school killer fired eight shots, getting eight hits, on eight different milling, scrambling, screaming kids. Five of them were head shots (Grossman & DeGaetano, 1999)."

The author of this article published on  Cnet.com refers to  Dmitri Williams who is of the opinion that "some games don't lead to aggression, but I am saying the data are not there yet [and] until we have more long-term studies, I don't think we should make strong predictions about long-term effects"

Yeah Alright! Same as government oversees these problems, food and medicines are allowed until something wrong is found! Let's go ask the kids who grow up knowing nothing but poverty and violence in such extremes that becoming a suicide bomber seems like a viable option for them. Lets ask them about the impact of any video game on their life.

I thought education was running ok even on war times and in the presence of a globalization not only of the economies but inflation, as well. The dollar it's not the heavy currency that used to be and it seems is affecting not only the pockets of suv's drivers but schools and parents.

No matter if we have just a web we need education for everyone and at all levels (hem, does any of the presidential candidates has spoken about it). We cannot keep up with chart schools or even worst Schools for Poor. Definitely, the intentions of The loose-knit group, called the New Schools Collaborative, Piton Foundation, Donnell-Kay Foundation and the Daniels Fund, are well received for their work in urban education in Denver.

But society doesn't have to pool money to solve problems the government has to. The knowledge of this gropus will help jump-start the creation or replication of schools that have proved successful with students from low-income families. Please, I do agree with their work and intentions, what I disagree is the segregation of poor families, poor kids, whre is the money of No Child Left Behind?

Might be that I'm so ignorant or I'm right. We just need a single school for everyone!

Technorati: education, Denver, new+schools+collaborative

A Columbia university educator, addressing students at the University of California at Los Angeles, predicted that "by the year 2000, we won't send children to school until they are 10 years old." He said that "while they are young, we will keep them busy building healthy bodies in the fresh air". Evidently, he doesn't know the mammas. They want to get their children into school as early as possible. One of the reasons for the development of the kindergarten is to hasten the time when even devoted mothers can get a little freedom from the demands of their children. But the year 2000 is a long way in the future.

Post writen by Matt at Paleofuture.com

We've quoted more than once Stephen Downes, and today after reading over one hundred post that come from his feed, we are able to share with you the five most useful under our blog Philosophy. He's one of the most prominent bloggers among those writing on education and he deserves to be followed:

1. He wrote a post over The Teacher Appreciation Day, but he's thrown a big question.
Does Steve counts as a teacher? Michael Larsen, Mary M,and Anymouse had posted answers on this one. Our appreciation is Steve should be considered as a teacher and should say a Teacher's teacher. Reasoning my answer with the introduction I've just made on top.

2. Just yesterday my wife's daughter was being called her attention for posting some of her personal pictures on Hi5. On this post he questions what is most dangerous posting information on blogs Hi5, Facebook or whatever or send your teenage kids to work evenings and weekends at McDonalds. Predators are everywhere, caution is always advisable.

3. Quoting Judy O'Conell, he raise concerns about what it'll be the roll of Yahoo for Teachers. How this new beta (look for invitations) will solve some problems for schools, or just create new ones. Education has a lot to be with theory, so as far as I am concerned, this will be another place for this business.

4. He abides by the Scientific Method and really, really calls for an stop of 'multiple choice surveys' being called research or worst scientific! I would like (same as the Stephen's link suggests) all educators (not only researchers read, Robert Nola & Howard Sankey's book Theories of Scientific Method
for a better understanding of what we talking about.

And the last one as for today and for myself,

5. A new issue (at least for me) is brought to the bench. Steve Downes says we shouldn't be paying much attention to the 'syndication' word, but (and this is news to me, again) the difference between (open) syndication networks, and (closed) federations. No comments here, I have to read more and deeper to understand more about what Jon Udell is into. Help my teacher!

Technorati: stephen+downes, netiquette, scientific+method, federations

Educators across the nation are finding that iPods and other MP3 players are more than just high-tech toys. Students are using the portable devices in classrooms and libraries to listen to books, watch documentaries and record podcasts, among other educational uses.

MP3 players have a range of benefits. Instead of sitting in a library cubicle to watch a video or listen to an audiotape for class, students can download content onto a portable MP3 player and watch or listen anywhere as many times as they need.

Some research even shows that listening to music on an MP3 player while taking a test or doing other schoolwork may help some students drown out distractions

(*)Tiffany Ray wrote this abstract and she is a staff writer for the Birmingham (Ala.) News.

Everyone who has been teaching temporarily or in a regular peace has confronted problems of discipline in the classroom ( or even in the surroundings of this room). Those experiences go from pre-K to universities and there is no book or standard procedures to get along with such a disgusting events for a teacher.

Beginning April, if you didn't have the chance to get familiar with this note, Laurence Thomas a respected professor teaching Philosophy at Syracuse University, left his class in order to correct a misbehaviour of one of his Cuban female students.

Comments, opinions, the e-mails form the same professor were all out in the Internet. Some agree with Thomas and some others disagree completely. Even when Thomas has recognized he's an old fashioned instructor, what is being debatable is whether the old fashioned teacher will adjust to the cyberculture era or his students must correlate to their old school of correcting disciplinary actions.

Gerald Amanda is quoted in the Inside Higher Ed post about this topic. She supports the old fashioned way to address this kind of situations saying: "There’s only one person in that room who has the bureaucratic, legal, and moral authority to establish discipline — and that’s the instructor". But youngsters more familiar with the cyberculture media do not agree with the Philosopher way of solve misbehaviors such as text-messaging in class. One of Thomas' students complains, "We the students are the customers, the consumers, the ones who make the choice every day to pay attention or not...Does he think that this is the first time this has happened on any college campus? Had he acted like nearly 100 percent of the other college professors in this country, he would have shrugged it off and continued with his lecture,..."


I am a teacher and a blogger and many teachers are working hard to get students into technology and the positive workarounds to it, how is it possible we are training our students to know how to use technology just to block them up there in the university? I am not in disagreement with professor Thomas, of course, he has the right to manage his classes whatever he wants but I am talking about our output product getting prepared just now. Shouldn't we pay attention to investigation of the cyberculture being headed by Kurt Reymers?

Rebecca James from The Post-Standard of Syracuse in a post by Newhouse News Service makes a chronicle of what's going on at College Campuses and quotes experiences coming from different professors. One of them is Reymers, assistant professor in the Morrisville State College he explains himself in about the use of laptops and cellphones in class, "What is normal for us may not be normal for the up-and-coming 'millennial' generation."

How are you coping with your rude students?

Technorati: schools, college, education, syracuse

Extract from DigiActive:

"The goal of the campaign is to draw attention to the persecution of the university, a particularly difficult task since the mainstream media in Russia is all state-controlled and is ignoring the issue. For this reason, members of the university community are using alternative media to raise awareness of the situation."

If you are to support these students, please head over to this Livejournal Community!