A little history of Technology – where were we? where are we heading?

We were taken through the history of educational technology by Rick Schwier in our EC&I 831 class this week. I too enjoyed Rick’s story about his science class that Travis shares in his blog and remember similar experiences in my own education where there was a meager attempt to incorporate a technology, but the philosophy of the teacher really hadn’t changed.

The chart Rick presented showing the major shift in epistemology from individual learning [objectivism (1975-programming/drill&practice), cognitivism (1980s-CBT), constructivism (1990s-IBT, 2000- elearning)] to group learning [collective constructivism/social learning (2003-social software & free and open content)] was really interesting. This is definitely a different way of looking at how our students learn today. This is extremely important for teachers, parents, and society in general, because teachers need to change their philosophy of teaching and receive adequate PD and support to do so. Parents need to understand and support these changes. Society needs to be aware of this also because the workplace will also see these changes in how people learn and work.

Traditional teachers may show some resistance to group learning because it will be noisier and in some cases more difficult to assess individual achievement and just as its predecessor (individual learning) did not suit all learners, neither will group learning. The level of comfort that the teacher has with technology will also determining the amount of resistance.

New technologies = new philosophy = new pedagogy = progress?

Social Networking Humour

A humourous look at Social Networking:

Demetri Martin Trendspotting – Social Networking

Enjoy!

The Bucket List

I found this neat post on Injenuity about the bucket list.  It is based on the movie which is about making a list of things you want to do before you “kick the bucket”.  Now this list would be FAR too long, as I hope I have a lot of life to live and many aspirations, so like Jen, I am going to shorten mine to things that I might reasonably be able to accomplish in 2008.  So here is my 2008 bucket list in no particular order:

• Learn about, become more comfortable with and use (hopefully on a daily basis) more of the technology tools that are out there – Twitter, this blog, GoogleReader, Voicethread, del.icio.us, wikis… and keep in touch with the network of people that develops
• Spend a lot of time with my son and husband – quality time and find that balance between work and “the really important things”
• Complete 3-4 grad classes (hopefully more with technology as the subject – maybe Alec is teaching some more online classes??)
• develop and implement a 360 feedback system at work (there is nothing in place) when I return
• complete our basement renos

Hope to see some other interesting “bucket lists” out there!

Frustrated Brainstorming

So I am very frustrated trying to brainstorm an idea for my final digital media project for my EC&I class. Unlike almost all of my classmates, I am neither a teacher in a traditional classroom (I do HR and training at a law firm), nor am I working during this class as I am on maternity leave. Our law firm has e-learning software that I thought might work, but after emailing back and forth with my boss, this just won’t work for several reasons, including: access to the e-learning software, access to our other programs, giving access to my professor to mark it, and several procedures and programs have changed since I have been on leave, so I am no longer familiar with them. Unfortunately, because of our confidential work place, this makes using anything from the firm very difficult.

Back to the brainstorming! This is turning out to be much more difficult than I had anticipated and I really like the tools that we are using and seeing in class, but I don’t have the audience for blogging, wikis, etc. or the work to present in Voicethread, Slideshare, etc. A lesson in frustration!

Growing up Online – what are our youth facing?

I watched the Frontline episode of “Growing up Online” that aired on Tuesday night (you can view it here) . I thought overall that the episode was pretty good. It was a bit of doom and gloom, however, it showed a pretty realistic view of what youth are experiencing as far as the social networking tools that they use so frequently and how it is affecting SOME of them. Hopefully these were not seen as generalizations because not all teens are committing suicide, putting up questionable photos of themselves, or searching for the best way to become anorexic. There are numerous positives to the technology and our youth using them.

My interactions with these social networking tools have been very similar to how Will Richardson described his own experience: “And I think that was the major point that was driven home to me, that as much as I look at these social tools and “properties” as learning opportunities, as much as they are a part of my life, I understand them only from the viewpoint of an adult, one that came to the Internet and blogs and live streaming television with a pretty healthy sense of who I am and a well-developed and tested decision making process that made navigating these spaces fairly straightforward. “

In saying that, these tools need to be considered from the perspective that teens are viewing them with, rather than how we might see them as adults and then plans can be made for teaching them appropriate uses.

The most disturbing part of the episode was the clip about the father of the boy who committed suicide who reached out to the friend of his son’s who also seemed to be toying with the idea of suicide and then talked to the father who did not know anything about computers and seemed unconcerned about what he was being told about his son. It would be nice for parents to know something about computers if they are equipping their children with these tools, however, at least they should be involved in their children’s lives and be able to have a discussion with them.

In Angie Balkwill’s blog about the episode, she included some key quotes that rang out for her. The one that I am quickly learning this semester through blogging, Twitter, email, Facebook… is “The Internet is always a willing listener.” How true!! Available 24/7 to anyone with a computer and an Internet connection, there is always someone you can “talk” to and it is an arena in which you will be heard – though as one of the other quotes infers, you are not always sure who it is that is listening.

A lot to consider…