My gate to LST401

Blog # 10 Revolutionizing Learning in the Digital Age

2006-11-21T09:20:00.000-08:00

I believe that Mitchel Resnick presents a very clear and interconnected model of educational reform we need for our digital age. He says that we are now in an information age in which the learners should construct the knowledge around them through experimentation, exploration, discussion and reflection (2001). I believe that this idea is connected with the constructivist educational philosophy that we are trying to implement in the schools. Constructivism suggests that simulating real-world problems and situations, giving learners’ chance to manipulate their own ideas and organize the concepts in the way that they learn is one of the greatest benefits of using technology for teaching and learning (Cates, 2003). Resnick claims that the technology will be able to revolutionize the education if the students become digitally fluent. When the learners use technology as a tool to produce information, take an active role in constructing knowledge in a meaningful way, and use their creativity in producing new materials, then they will be getting the full advantage from the technology.

In relation to that Risnick gives computer clubhouses as an example to demonstrate how technology should be used for effective learning so that we can improve the students’ performances. In these computer clubhouses, students create amazing projects like generating videos, digital collages, graphical designs, computer games etc. I am amazed the works the students produce. Especially, Mike Lee’s success story impressed me a lot. Mike was a student who had drop out of high school. He finds freedom to develop his talent of drawing in computer clubhouses and soon he becomes competent in computer techniques. He develops a distinctive style as an artist and even exhibits his artworks in online gallery. I think that this indicates us that if we, educators, choose to use technology as a tool to develop students’ various skills as well as letting them to using their creativity, we can make the necessary educational reform real.

Consequently, I think Risnick’s argument of using technology as a tool to support learning parallels with David Jonassen’s idea of mind tools and fondness to use technology as a tool to learn with rather than learn from (1998). I strongly agree with their suggested applications of technology into learning and believe that perceiving technology as a powerful tool to learn with is the initial step of revolutionizing the education field.

References

Resnick, M. (2001). Revolutionizing learning in the digital age. Publications from the forum for the future of higher education. Boulder, CO: Educause.Available online at https://imp5.cc.lehigh.edu/services/go.php?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.educause.com%2Freources

Jonassen, David H. (1998). Computers as mindtools for Engaging Learners in critical thinking. TechTrends , 43, 24-32.

Cates, W.M. (2003). Constructivist Teaching/Learning. [PowerPoint Presentation for Lehigh University course EDT 471: Planning for Implementing Technology in School Settings]. Retrieved September 27, 2006 from
http://ci.lehigh.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab=courses&url=/bin/common/course.pl?course_id=_10261_1\

Blog #9 Rethinking Assessment

2006-11-13T20:01:00.000-08:00

The field of education is transforming itself according to the needs of our century. As far as I see, the shift to authentic assessment constitutes a big portion of this educational reform. Assessing student achievement is changing, because the students should gain the new knowledge and abilities of 21st century. In today’s global economy, students need to gain skills like critical thinking, analyzing information and making inferences on the information they have retrieved (Bond, 1995).

The new assessment model focuses on performance-based assessment which helps the educators to focus on higher order thinking skills of the learners. This assessment requires the learners to have a broad understanding of the subject and then perform more complex thinking skills like analyze the information given, synthesize that information and draw conclusions form their evaluation. The students of our current education have to perform these skill, because our current market seeking creative and free-thinking individuals who are not memorizing the information but processing the information that is presented to them.

Moreover, the performance-based assessment helps students to understand real life tasks, since they learn how to apply the knowledge into real life situations. Unlike traditional assessment types like fill in the blanks, multiple choice answer questions in a quiz, the authentic-based assessment gives students a chance to relate the information that they have learned into the real life examples (Wiggins, 2002). Involving in projects, doing research assignments, making presentations are all examples of authentic-assessment, which familiarizes the learners with the real life projects and presentations. The students of our era definitely need to learn how to do projects, search and collect data in order to get ready to enter the world of business.

I believe that technology can do a great contribution to education in this sense. Online resources for teachers provide lots of lesson plans that are filled with performance-based assessment activities. I believe that webquests, e-portfolios, wikis, concept mapping tools are only a few examples of how technology can help education in its process to move to performance-based assessment applications in schools. Through the use of these tools effectively, educational reform will be an easy process. By integrating technology into the classes and using authentic assessment, technology will become a tool that fosters students’ higher-order thinking skills, problem solving skills and creativity. As all of these web tools foster students to produce performance-based tasks, I believe that technology would be helpful to education in accomplishing its reform in assessment and therefore preparing our generations for the 21st century.

References

Bond, L.A. (1995). Critical issue: Rethinking assessment and its role in supporting educational reform. North Central Regional Educational Laboratory. Retrieved November 12, 2006 from http://www.ncrel.org/sdrs/areas/issues/methods/assment/as700.htm

Wiggins, Grant. (1993). Assessing student performance: Exploring the purpose and limits of testing. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass Inc. Publishers

Blog #8 Mastery Learning & Technology

2006-11-06T21:27:00.000-08:00

In this article, Bloom (1968) talks about the ways of promoting mastery learning. He argues that the educators should consider the individual differences in learning and try to promote the fullest development of the individual. I personally find his ideas and the stages in which he suggest the strategies on how to promote learning crucial. Here, I would like to focus on the section, Ability to Understand Instruction, where he talks about the need of varying instructional materials in teaching and learning.

Bloom argues that the learners first have to understand the task, procedures and the material that they will use in order to understand the instruction. Bloom suggests that the use of different mediums can help to reach different kinds of learners. He says that different textbooks can be used, rather than depending on a single textbook for one class. Workbooks and programmed instruction units can also help the learners who are having difficulty on learning the topic from the textbook. This idea reminds me Gardner’s theory on multiple intelligences. Gardner (1997) says that each individual differs in their learning. While some learners are visual, some are literary and some are kinesthetic learners etc. I agree with both of them and I believe that recognizing these differences is very important in teaching and learning.

Additionally, depending on how to address the multiple intelligences, Bloom (1968) suggests that some students learn best with audiovisual methods and academic games. I believe that in this point, technology can play a significant role in addressing the different kinds of learners’ needs. I believe that the technological tools like videos, concept maps, online conferences, simulations, computer games etc. can all be different kinds of mediums that helps learns to grasp the information easier and better.

Another advantage of using different materials in learning is that different instructional mediums can help learners to achieve high-levels of learning and help them identify and learn new ideas. For instance, Marks and Vitek (1996) argue that using remote sensing from satellites help the students to learn about Earth and can provide the learners greater global awareness. The learners can analyze and evaluate satellite images and the photographs and practice higher-order thinking skills. I believe that this is a very clear example of how technological tools can help not only understanding complex and abstract educational topics, but also can help the learners to interpret, analyze and evaluate the knowledge that is presented to them.

Consequently, I conclude that all of these researches support Kozma’s (1994) argument that the media will influence learning. I believe that his suggestion to use different mediums to help teaching and learning is a vital argument. I believe that technology will be one of the favorite tools of the educators to address the needs of the different kinds of learners.

References

Bloom, Benjamin S. (1968). Learning for Mastery. Evaluation Comment, 1(2), 1-11.

Kozma, R. B. (1994). Will media influence learning? Reframing the Debate. Educational Technology Research and Development, 42(2)

Marks, Steven K, Vitek, John D. (1996). Remote Sensing. The Science Teacher, 63 (3), 28-31.

Gardner, Howard. (1997). Multiple Intelligences as a partner in school improvement. [Special Issue]. Educational Leadership, 55(1), 14-19.

Blog#7 Computers as Mindtools

2006-10-31T00:35:00.000-08:00

This article focuses on the technology’s role on learning as knowledge construction tools. Jonassen (1998) argues that the technology should be used as a tool that the students learn with rather than students learn from. Computers as mindtools are very effective in helping students to foster skills like interpreting and organizing the knowledge that they learn. The students can demonstrate higher-order skills through these mindtools. He believes that instead of simply using the technology for instruction and seeing it as a source, we can see technology as a tool that the students can learn with by producing and designing materials. I agree with him about the effectiveness of mindtools very much, because I believe that mindtools have significant contribution to learning not only in construction of knowledge but also in the development of high- level of thinking skills of the learners.

Concept mapping is one his example of a mindtool that fosters students’ organization and analyzing and interpreting skills. As Plotnick argues concept mapping is a effective tool as it has many advantages like helping the learners easily and quickly recognize concepts, understand hierarchical connections between concepts, freeing the mind and fostering creativity thorough brainstorming activities etc... I personally can say that I used concept mapping during my student-teaching and find it very useful in eliciting ideas from the students. In the brainstorming activities we have had, concept mapping helped students to think broadly on a specific topic and organize their thoughts and create connections among their ideas. They also enjoyed concept mapping activities very much. So, concept mapping is definitely a very useful mindtool that promote learners’ thinking skills.

Another mindtool that takes my attention is visualization tools. Jonassens’s description of the visualization tools remind me Kozma’s example on the use of different mediums when teaching Newtonian physics. Kozma (1994) suggest that abstract concepts that are difficult to visualize and understand through traditional teaching techniques can be taught easily by using technology. Similarly, Jonassen (1998)says that chemical bounding is a difficult subject to understand, because it is an abstract topic. Through the use of MacSpartan, a visualization tool, the learners can comprehend this chemistry subject easily. I believe that the visualization tools can provide us the mental images that we need to create to understand the conceptual information.

As a result, I believe that most of the research show how useful technology can be in learning and teaching if it is used effectively. Many researchers like Jonassen has already started answering Kozma’s question on what ways can we use the capabilities of media to influence in learning. I think the positive results of mindtools on learning are enough to prove that Kozma’s question is a major point to look at for the improvement of teaching and learning.

References

Jonassen, David H. (1998). Computers as mindtools for Engaging Learners in critical thinking. TechTrends , 43, 24-32.

Plotnick, Eric. (1997). Concept Mapping: a graphical system for understanding the relationship between concepts. Syracuse, NY: Clearinghouse on Information and Technology. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No: ED407938)

Kozma, R. B. (1994). Will media influence learning? Reframing the Debate. Educational Technology Research and Development, 42(2)

Blog#6 Seymour Papert on Learning

2006-10-23T22:39:00.000-07:00

Seymour Papert in The Children’s Machine (1993) talks about how human beings learn words. He gives real examples from his life and explains how he has learned the names of different kinds of flowers. He says that cognitive processing is essential for learning, because thinking is the most valuable part of learning. He criticizes the schools according to this view and says that the learners are expected to only know about grammar, numbers etc. He believes that the schools do not foster students’ thinking skills. I agree with him to some extend, since teachers at some schools rely on memorization in teaching and learning rather than the cognitive process of the information on the learners’ mind.

His basic focus as a whole is that learning occurs when the learner makes certain kinds of connections. These connections can be visual, lexical etc. His visit to botanic garden to recognize each kind of flower with its name is a good example of a visual connection that can be used for learning. I believe that visual connections are very effective in learning any subject. I think that trips to museums, historical places, going to art exhibitions have always been powerful activities for learning. In terms of technology’s contribution, I can say that websites that have good visuals such as pictures, graphics or videos are more likely to appeal the learners’ interest and make learning much easier and interesting. Now, we have even online museum tours in Internet that the students can reach visually and visit these museums even if they cannot go because of distance, time or any other reason.

The lexical connection that he makes to learn the different kinds of flowers is another good example for how to learn. As an ESL teacher, I must admit that we use this technique very often in teaching new vocabulary items. For instance, we provide words that belong to the same lexical family and help the students to relate their prior knowledge on those specific words. The students can guess the meaning of these new words by looking at the roots of them or to the words that they already know. Making lexical connections really helps the learners to process the new information and learn quickly, since they think and engage in their learning actively.

Therefore, I believe that making connections is a necessary element of effective teaching and learning. There is also a correlation between this method and the educational philosophy, constructivism which stresses the importance of cognitive processing and higher thinking skills for learning (Cates, 2003). I think, many schools are trying to implement constructivism, because the success of these teaching methods is obvious.

References

Papert, S. (1993). The Children’s Machine: Rethinking School in the Age of the Computer. New York: Basic Books.

Cates, W.M. (2003). Constructivist Teaching/Learning. [PowerPoint Presentation for Lehigh University course EDT 471: Planning for Implementing Technology in School Settings]. Retrieved September 27, 2006 from http://ci.lehigh.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab=courses&url=/bin/common/course.pl?course_id=_10261_1

Blog #5 High-Tech and Deep Thinking

2006-10-09T21:48:00.000-07:00

Tarlow and Spangler draw our attention to a very critical question about use of technology in education. In their article, (2001), they ask a controversial, yet greatly essential question “Will high-tech kids still think deeply?”. I agree with them that we need to be careful when integrating technology into education, because it may deprive students from high level thinking skills and some literacy skills. As educators, all of us should think thoroughly on this question and try to answer it while bearing in mind that the focus is on the learning of the students. Technology is a means to attain high level of student learning achievements and should never be an end itself.

The authors talk about the total replacement of the books and articles and say that this would be definitely wrong. I agree that it would create awful effect on education. The consequences of total replacement of books to videos would be dramatic, since the learner would be a lot less active in his or her cognitive process when listening videos rather than reading books. The learners would not be able to stop, think and reflect on the videos while watching it most of the time. When reading books, the learner can stop at any point of the book as much as they want and discuss those points with their peers, take notes or highlight the sentences they find important. We have some of these things in video, too, but it would be much more difficult stop anytime and go back to the section which you like in the video.

Brian Tobin, (1996) agrees that technology will not replace lectures, as he believes that the basic book-learning knowledge is necessary to have intellectual critique lectures. I believe that high-tech kids of the future cannot be learners who are just watching videos and not producing or reflecting any thoughts on the subjects that are presented to them. They should be able to critically assess the material they see and reflect their opinions on the video they have watched. In order to achieve higher order thinking skill goals, the educators may ask them to write journal entries or have class discussions after they watch the videos. Otherwise, desired learning would not take place, since the learners do not analyze, synthesize and evaluate the information they have just learned from the video.

Therefore, the total elimination of the books would bring a disaster into the education that we desire to change for the better. As Tarlow, Spangler and Tobin suggests, all the educators need to be aware of the advantages and disadvantages of the use of technology in educational instructions. Otherwise, we would be endangering our next generations’ need to obtain significant skills for the sake of using technology.

References

Tarlow, M., & Spangler, K.L. (2001). Now more than ever: Will high-tech kids still think deeply? The Education Digest, 67(3), 23-27.

Tobin, Brian. G. (1996). Making Technocrats. Proceedings of the Community College Humanities Association, 1-19.

Blog #4 Reeve on Cultural Sensitivity and Evaluation

2006-10-02T00:19:00.000-07:00

I think, Thomas C. Reeves touches on an exceptionally important topic in his article. Cultural sensitivity is a crucial element in evaluating instructional programs. I think that he presents two basic points in his article. Firstly, he argues (Reeve, 1997) that every instructional designer and evaluator should avoid cultural insensitivity by eliminating any cultural, historical, sexual biases, inaccuracies or subjectivities when creating educational materials. Secondly, he suggests that instructional materials should include unique values from various cultures. I strongly agree with him on both of these points, yet I would like to focus on the first one specifically.

I have had an unpleasant experience in relation to the reliability and cultural insensitivity of a book. When I was studying at Bilkent University in American Culture and Literature department in 1999, I had a course called American History. We were reading a textbook called Making America. There is a Middle East map in the book. In that map, current Iraq and the southern region of Turkish Republic is shown as Kurdistan which is historically and geographically wrong and biased. My classmates and I were severely annoyed to see such inaccurate and subjective information. We informed our instructor, Thomas Winter, about the wrong map and fake historical data, immediately. Dr. Winter, as an historian, justified the inaccuracy of the information and told us that he would call the publishers and ask for them to correct those specific pages of the book. I still do not know what the response of the publisher has been, but it was shocking for us to see such a mistake in the book. Professor Winter also said that this book was taught in history classes in some states of U.S. We were terrified to witness that even books can be far away from research ethics and can hold biases.

I think everyone tends to believe that the books are “the most reliable information sources”; since there are a lot of stages for books to go through before getting published. However, this experience has taught me that even the world map, a historical fact, can be changed and displayed incorrectly to the readers. As a learner, I must admit that I begin to question all the information that book holds, because the book has simply lost its reliability in my eyes.

I think, what we can conclude from my experience is very simple. As educators, we should be very careful in creating instructional materials. We should check our works’ objectivity, academic morality as well as accuracy before we give it to the hands of the learners. Moreover, as Reeve argues, we should question the cultural appropriateness of our instructional materials with respect to the values of specific cultures that will be using them. I guess, none of us would want to create educational materials that would affect the learners as Making America has affected me!

References

Berkin, Carol. (1997). Making America: a history of the United States. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin

Reeve, T. C. (1997). An evaluator looks at cultural diversity. Educational Technology, 37(2), 27-31.

Blog Post #3 Reflection on McLuhan’s Tetrad Wikki Task

2006-09-25T10:49:00.000-07:00

I guess Marshal McLuhan had a good foresight about what technology would bring into our life. Before we even think about what the new technologies are, he achieves to examine carefully how different technological innovations alter our world with their positive and negative consequences. I have to admit that his tetrad has helped me a lot in questioning the advantages and disadvantages of today’s innovations.

After having completed the wikki task, one point has caught my attention. When we apply McLuhan’s tetrad questions to the innovations of Horizon Report, mobile phones, social computing, educational gaming, personal broadcasting…, I have noticed that almost in all of them, “what does it make obsolete?” question gets the same answer. The answer is that all of these innovations make the actual personal interaction obsolete. The real social interaction between people shifted to virtual interactions by the use of phones, broadcasts, web discussions... Face to face conversations are becoming less and less popular and I believe that, unfortunately, this would lead to an increase in misunderstandings as well as causing distances in personal relationships. Instead of maintaining the warmness of actual meetings, we are getting ourselves stuck in a chair, looking at a screen for many hours and trying to create a warm dialog from an artificial one. I believe that we should realize the importance of actual social relationships, understand how badly the virtual communication can affect the socialization of human beings. It becomes very scary to me when I imagine that our next generations would not experience the real social gatherings or friendships that we have, today. Thus, we should prevent over-using these innovations. For instance, if we live close to our friends, we should find time to meet our friends in a café, rather than just simply calling them on the phone or always meeting them online. This would keep our relations much more healthy.

I must also add that the over-use of innovations such as TV, computer games or internet… prevent us from spending our time to more beneficial things. Larry Press (1995), in “McLuhan Meets the Net”, suggests that the more we spend time with these innovations, the less time we have for our families, neighbors, colleagues. I believe that if we over-use these tools, they can capture us and direct us and in a sense shape us as McLuhan says. Therefore, everyone should question the innovations and figure out the negative consequences of them, before letting them to shape us.

References

Horizon Report (2006, May). Retrieved September 24, 2006, from http://ci.lehigh.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab=courses&url=/bin/common/course.pl?course_id=_9590_1

Press, Larry. (1995). McLuhan meets the Net. [Electronic version]. Association for Computing Machinery of the ACM, 38(7), 15-20.

The Medium is the Massage (2006, May). Retrieved September 20, 2006, from http://ci.lehigh.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab=courses&url=/bin/common/course.pl?course_id=_9590_1

Blog Post #2 Clark / Kozma debate

2006-09-11T18:53:00.000-07:00

Richard E. Clark and Robert B. Kozma are two researchers who have completely opposite points on whether media influences our learning. I found each of them in the corners. While Clark bases his argument to lack of evidence on media’s influence on learning most of the time, Kozma can be very optimistic about the future immense applications of technology into learning, yet eventually I agreed with Kozma’s propositions on media’s influence on learning.

Before I read the articles in detail, initially I was closer to the Clark’s proposition. At first, I thought that he might be right when he said “I challenge Kozma to find evidence of any instance of a medium or media attributes that are not replaceable by a different set of media to achieve similar learning results.”(1994) However, after I critically assess his arguments, I found that he demonstrates examples from one angle which justifies his perspective. For instance, he compares the mathematics students who are drilling and practicing on the computer to the students who are doing the same process with the teacher. The success of the different groups is the same and he believes that this justifies his replaceability theory. I think that the students’ achievement would have been different if they were not drilling or practicing. In his example, learners are in practice level and in practice level learning success may not depend on the medium. However, I believe that when the new content is introduced, the medium is much more important, since there might be a big difference between learning the content from the teacher and learning it from the computer. Learning the contents from the teacher may yield better results, since students can ask their own specific questions and get answers from the source.

On the other hand, Kozma’s example on the use of different mediums when teaching Newtonian mechanics helped me to understand that the medium is interactive with learning, which Clark denies. He argues that if there is a necessity for technology to explain complicated course material, the assistance of the medium would yield better learning results. Kozma demonstrates that complex side of the Newtonian physics can be taught to learners through computers, since computers may help learners to visualize the subject better and have them grab that information. Tom Cobb, a researcher, shares a similar idea with Kozma and diverges from Clark by focusing on his “Cognitive Efficiency” theory. Cobb (1997) says “If it is accepted that one type of efficiency is cognitive efficiency, then it follows that media choices are often about cognition and learning and can profit from an understanding of cognitive processes.” I agree with Cobb’s argument that if cognitive efficiency is our goal, the media which enables it best would be educator’s priority. This indicates that media and learning can be connected in some ways. Therefore, I agree with Kozma’s last question when he says (1994) we should move to the question of “In what ways can we use the capabilities of media to influence learning for particular students and tasks? “

References

Clark, R.E. (1994). Media will never influence learning. Educational Technology Research and Development, 42(2), 21-29.

Cobb, Tom. (1997). Cognitive efficiency: Towards a revised theory of media. Educational Technology Research and Development, 45(4), 6-21

Kozma, R. B. (1994). Will media influence learning? Reframing the Debate. Educational Technology Research and Development, 42(2), 7-19

Blog 1# History of Technology’s Use in Education

2006-09-05T08:04:00.000-07:00

In our first class, we had a broad look of how technology is integrated into education throughout history. After discussing history of technology’s use in education, I gave a second thought on which technological tools (radios, televisions, computer…) have been revolutionary in its aid to education field and which technological tool has been successful to what extend in accomplishing our learning goals.

Using television in classes, having films or documentaries in learning was very exciting at the first stage. I remember as a student, when the teacher have set up the TV and brought us a film version of a novel; we were very exhilarated since we thought that the lesson would be more enjoyable. Films made the course interesting, since TV is a technological device that has both visual and auditory sides. In fact, I have to admit that using TV for educational purposes, such as training in various business sectors was a brilliant idea in the beginning of 1900s. Thomas Edison was right, when he argued “it is possible to teach every branch of human knowledge with the motion picture” (Reiser, 3), however he overestimated TV’s future in educational technology.

If we consider the place of computers in our modern education environment, I believe that computers are in a better position for forcing learners to be more active in their own learning process. I can count two reasons for this. One of them is that the computer gives chance for students to use different interaction patterns in their learning process unlike TV. In TV, learner is alone and cannot ask any questions or get any answers. There is no mutual communication between the learner and the device. On the other hand, computers enable learners to interact with their peers, teachers, friends… The learners can ask questions and get answers when they face with difficulty in understanding any point in their learning processes. Moore and Reiser focus on the communication aspect of computers and say “use of e-mails, chartrooms, bulletin boards, the internet as a means of having learners interact with their instructors and with other learners” (Reiser, 7) I agree that this interaction makes learning more natural and easier.

Second reason is that computers definitely urge learners to use their brains while they are doing research in internet, reading or writing in text editor. In relation to this, Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple Computer and Pixar, says “You watch television to turn your brain off and you work on your computer when you want to turn your brain on” in Macworld Magazine, February 2004. I guess he is right in his idea, since learners are more likely to spend more effort when working on the computer rather that watching a program on TV. I believe that TV does not require students to keep both their mind and body active all the time. I think, it even triggers students to sit passively. Therefore, it may not be a good device for facilitating learning, if we would like to achieve a learning process in which students are mostly active.

I know that although TV and computer are totally different innovations in terms of their capabilities, yet we should not forget that each of them are counted extremely interesting innovations in their own time. What I am suggesting is that the computer’s use in education can be very promising for future if its advantages are put into classes through well-educated teachers.

References

Jobs, Steve.(2004, February) Macworld Magazine

Moore, M.G (1989, April)Three modes of interaction. In issues in instructional interactivity. Forum conducted at the meeting of the National University Continuing Education Association, Salt Lake City, UT

Reiser, R.A. (2001). A history of instructional design and technology: Part 1: A history of Instructional Media. Educational Technology Research and Development, 49(1), 53-63