למידה, אינטרנט ... ומה שביניהם

There is reason to believe that digital technologies will in the long run have as much impact on learning and literacy as the printing press had.

I argued at the time that Cuban was seriously misreading technological, social, economic, and educational trends, and that computers or some other form of digital media would inevitably become ubiquitous in their presence and use in schools.

... with new machines appearing on the market and in schools annually, particularly, hand-held devices, I have seen in my research in schools a clear trend line of increasing teacher and student use of new technologies in classrooms. The growth of online schooling and rise of blended learning options have contributed greatly to that trend as well.

I can hardly think of two more important uses of technology than (1) writing/revising papers, and (2) planning and carrying out research that involves gathering, analyzing, and using information from the Internet. Why have students do what is “imaginative” rather than what is pedagogically sound?

Students are using digital devices on a regular basis. They are using them a lot and will use them much more in the future. And some of the uses he portrays as most “traditional” are simply revolutionary compared to what could be done when he and I were children and they are among the most important.

The best (and most recent) gift to the hardware and software industry has been the Common Core standards and assessments. At a time of fiscal retrenchment in school districts across the country when schools are being closed and teachers are let go, many districts have found the funds to go on shopping sprees to get ready for the Common Core.

And here is the point that I want to make. The old reasons for buying technology have been shunted aside for a sparkling new one....

With Common Core standards adopted, the rationale for getting devices has shifted. No longer does it matter whether there is sufficient evidence to make huge expenditures on new technologies. Now, what matters are the practical problems of being technologically ready for the new standards and tests in 2014-2015: getting more hardware, software, additional bandwidth, technical assistance, professional development for teachers, and time in the school day to let students practice taking tests.

Each of these companies creates a product (or products) which circle around helping students to learn basic skills. Now, before everyone jumps on me, I understand that basic skills are important. I believe that students need to read and write at higher levels at this point in history than they ever have in the past. What worries me is that the grand majority of new products and investment money in education is not going to companies looking at the “big picture” of education. Again, with the exception of Coursera, none of the companies in my small list are concerned with connecting students in new or better ways. None of them are helping students to become more engaged with the important problems that our society faces. None of them are helping students to become more passionate learners. None of them are focused on creativity. Instead, millions of dollars is being invested in companies who are offering products to help students learn old skills more efficiently.

We talk about changes in education. We talk about a renewed, responsive and changing industry to meet the needs of a globalized, diverse society; but where are the millions of dollars headed in educational technology? To better A, B, Cs and 1, 2, 3s.

It is incredibly disingenuous and misleading (to choose tactful words) for Economist authors to portray NCLB and RTTT as supporting innovative uses of educational technology in U.S. classrooms, when they have done EXACTLY THE OPPOSITE.

Articles like these from the Economist are part and parcel of an ongoing campaign by many “corporate education reformers” in the United States whose true objective is NOT improving learning opportunities for students, but rather destroying our public schools and our system of public education which continues to be a critical part of our representative democracy.

The quality and breadth of the tools available in Google apps is undeniable. School districts save millions of dollars by signing up for this program. But what are the other costs of using this single suite of tools? What is the morality of enrolling our students in an advanced twenty first century surveillance program? By having our students sign up for a simple Google account, we enroll our students in the world’s most advanced surveillance – corporate ecosystem. This isn’t a possibility or a vague theory. It’s a proven fact.

Is that worth it?

Learning Analytics: A Friday Night Rant

Imagine every student has a tireless personal tutor, an artificially intelligent and inexhaustible companion that magically knows everything, knows the student, and helps her learn what she needs to know.

The question our machine is trying to answer is, of all of the content that’s available to me in the system, what’s the best thing to teach you next that maximizes the probability of you understanding the big things that you need to know? What’s best next?

It’s not just what you should learn next, but how you should learn it. Depending on your learning style, it might be best to introduce linear equations through a visual, geometric approach, where you plot the lines and show the intersection. For others, they might respond better to an algebraic introduction.

But here’s the vision. Within five or 10 years, the paper textbook and mimeographed worksheet will be dead. Classroom exercises and homework—text, audio, video, games—will have shifted entirely to the iPad or equivalent. And adaptive learning will help each user find the exact right piece of content needed, in the exact right format, at the exact right time, based on previous patterns of use.

By watching as a student interacts with it, the platform extrapolates, for example, “If you learn concept No. 513 best in the morning between 8:20 and 9:35 with 80 percent text and 20 percent rich media and no more than 32 minutes at a time, well, then the odds are you’re going to learn every one of 12 highly correlated concepts best that same way.”

"According to your clickstream, we've decided you learn calculus best at 7am on Thursdays through an anal suppository"

"We've decided you'll learn quadratic equations best if you're strapped to this table and stimulated with a goose feather."

• קודם כל, אני חושש שרבים מדי מאיתנו בתחום התקשוב החינוכי ממשיכים לרדוף אחרי כלים חדשים בתקווה שהכלי הלימודי האולטימטיבי נמצא מעבר לפינה, או שאו-טו-טו מישהו ימציא אותו. קשה לעקור את התקווה הזאת, ואני חייב להודות שעל אף העובדה שאני מבקר אותה, במידה מסויימת אני גם שותף לה.
• שנית, תחום פיתוח הכלים החינוכיים הפך להיות זירת התגוששות של חברות טכנולוגיות (גם ותיקות וגם סטארט-אופים) שזיהו את החינוך כשוק פוטנציאלי עצום. לכן, אנחנו "זוכים" למבול של כלים שאולי נוצצים, אבל אינם תורמים משהו ייחודי ללמידה מעבר למה שכבר נמצא אצלנו.
• והסיבה האחרונה, ואולי הבעייתית יותר, הפיתוח של כלים "חינוכיים" דיגיטאליים היום איננו בכיוון של העצמת הלמידה, אלא בכיוון של איסוף נתונים ומעקב. אמנם מוסרים לנו שאיסוף נתונים על תהליך הלמידה (נדמה לי שנכון יותר לכתוב "על הפנמת החומר") של הלומד מסייע לשכלל את הלמידה של התלמיד, אבל למרבה הצער המציאות אחרת, והיום התקשוב משרת מגמה של ייעול ההוראה ואחידות בהישגים.

Online Education Will Be the Next 'Bubble' To Pop, Not Traditional University Learning

When Tamny is saying that online education is the next bubble he is of course not talking about the sort of online education that any of us working in the field of designing, teaching, or supporting online courses would recognize.

Tamny is talking about MOOCs.

What is certain is that the online learning communities focus over the past decade has been on just the sort of learning that Tamny sees as most valuable. That is learning that is built around the intense exchange and development of ideas between faculty and students. Online courses are hot beds of good pedagogical practices. All of the online programs that I have worked on have been collaborations between learning designers and subject matter experts, developed on strong theoretical foundations of how people learn.

... more to the point, I've been ambivalently interested in MOOCs, with more than a healthy degree of scepticism that the current form will persist in the future. On the other hand, I am interested, vitally so, in all the ways we can learn from one another online. So I'm uncomfortable with the "MOOC Major Player" sobriquet but flattered that my efforts over the last decade on behalf of digital modes of interactive and collaborative learning are being recognized here.

אוניברסיטה.com || גם האקדמיה בישראל מצטרפת לגל הלימודים המקוון

בעוד האקדמיה הישראלית עושה את צעדיה הראשונים בתחום, ברחבי העולם – ובעיקר בארה"ב – כבר הפכו הקורסים המקוונים לשחקן מרכזי במגרש ההשכלה הגבוהה.

I have a simple proposal.

Any reporter writing about online and education and MOOCs should understand the difference between the two.

Any reporter writing about online education should talk to people who have been designing and teaching online courses for the past few years. Any reporter writing about the benefits or faults of online learning should have to enroll in a quality online degree program.

And anyone that is writing about the pros and cons of residential vs. online education should experience a blended course.

This means that the debate about mass pedagogy has two aspects. One is whether the lecture format itself relays good information and well-supported professorial interpretations – this seems to not be a problem. The other is based in the very old argument over whether lecture/presentation itself is good pedagogy.

If you are focused on individual learning and individual evaluation of that learning, either for self-improvement or to be assessed for a grade/credit/degree, then the interaction and assessment elements of xMOOCs can be disappointing. Individualized learners are self-directed enough to do the work and learn well on their own given the presentation, but their efforts at deeper exploration are adversely affected by lack of professorial contact, feedback and input.

If you are focused on crowd-sourced learning and self-actualization through communication with others, xMOOCs may be disappointing for similar reasons. Presentation quality may be high, but presentation is secondary to exploration – it is just a jumping off point. With formulated discussions and automated assessments focused on absorbing that presentation content, there is less opportunity to extend exploration.