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We are already using adaptive learning technologies to help students learn materials and concentrate on those areas that they understand the least. This will continue to be refined and come with tools to evaluate the effectiveness of using these technologies. The data acquisition piece on these new technologies will be viewed favorably by educational institutions that are more and more becoming data driven rather than driven by anecdotal evidence.
As a leader in a rapidly changing field, I think Clay Shirky's words are very appropriate. He stated that "our principle challenge is not deciding where we want to go, but rather in staying upright as we go there (Shirky, 2009). New technologies will continue to emerge, some will be very good and some will not be quite as good. Providing an environment that allows for innovation and yet protects against jumping on the bandwagon of every new gimmick will create an environment that allows individuals to grow and yet protects the organization from the destabilizing effects that come when technologies are never mastered. If new technologies are introduced, they need to provide some value to those using the technology or they will be viewed as a waste of time (Shirky, 2009). I personally like to learn new technologies that will help my students or help me, but get very annoyed if I have to learn something that I do not see any value in for either my students or myself.
Education is in a very exciting period in time. The entire process of education and learning is being re-considered. What do you imagine the future holds?
Reference
Shirky, C. (2009). Here comes everybody: The power
of organizing without organizations (Kindle edition ed.). New York, NY:
Penguin Books.
Julie,
ReplyDeleteI do agree that no one wants to spend too much time on boring things but I propose that with technology how do know what’s boring. I recently discovered that teachers are expected to teach students about web 2.0 but yet there are not that many programs that teach web 2.0 for dummies. If you are teaching a course online outside of this class and you are not technically savvy how you do teach students how to use these blogs, chats or whatever if you are not comfortable with them yourself. Dr. Whitwood has helped me understand why we have conducted this class in such a different way. I see it. I understand it and I have a new understanding for the need to teach more technology classes.
Eric
Eric -
DeleteI think I will defer to Caer's thoughts a bit here. I think that at times leaders jump onto the latest and greatest technology with no thought as to how it might be connected to mission and values.
I like your point about going to places where we are uncomfortable. This class has pushed me outside my comfort zone as well, but in a good way. I think it really reminds me of the importance of pushing my students this way as well. Thanks for your comments!
Glad my rationale came through, Eric!
Delete... and I have been called many things, but "Whitwood"? :-)
Wendy -
ReplyDeleteI am curious to see if personalization will equal relevancy. Students really want to know how things relate to what they will eventually do. With buzzwords such as contextualization floating around along with the competency-based instruction, the relevancy factor may increase. Will this increase learning? I'm anxious to see....
Julie, neat post! I agree that education - both K12 and higher ed - are at an exciting time ... and the crystal ball seems fuzzier than ever. I concur with you that both relevancy and personalization are converging. Here at VCU, our first year students take the expected Composition and Rhetoric courses ... but each student determines the topic about which they will write. In a class of 20 students, the faculty help 20 ideas surface, with nothing standard about what the topic is. Keeps it relevant for the students and both interesting and a challenge for the faculty.
ReplyDeleteThat sounds great for students and faculty! We just re-did our General Education block and I was asked to teach a capstone course. The course is essentially their end of community college project to help them tie all of their general education courses to their knowledge area - much like a senior project at a four-year institution. Every student will have a different project and every student will perceive their education differently, so it should be fascinating. As a biology teacher, this is going to stretch me as well. I hope to learn new ways to help my students in my other classes connect to their biology coursework in a personal way because of this experience.
DeleteHello Julie – I love your quote from Shirky (2008); it is very appropriate for this week’s topic. One of the training programs that we use to have at work was called Wii-FM (what’s in it for me). I too do not like to waste time on training programs I do not see any value in. My workplace introduced this program that allows the trainee to learn what they are going to get from the training to make them more interested. Sometimes this worked, but the trainee is only going to get out of the training what they feel is important. Today we do not use it because almost all the training's are tutorials.
ReplyDeleteI am excited to see what the future holds in all disciplines. Reviewing the list of emerging technologies has me hopeful to how the future is unfolding. I saw flying cars on the list, yes! If you could have one technology change in education, what would you want it to be?
Reference:
Shirky, C. (2008). Here comes everybody: The power of organizing without organization. New York: Penguin Press.
That's a great question....and a hard one! The one that hasn't caught on yet at my campus, but that is a newer technology is an interactive and adaptive textbook. These textbooks contain videos about the materials in the books. They also contain quizzes that are adaptive - this means that if a student misses a question, the quiz will add other questions to help the student conquer that competency in the textbook.
DeleteJulie,
ReplyDeleteI agree with many of the elements of your analysis of the future of technology in education. However. I think you post hits upon a critical mistake that many school systems make with regard to their limitation of technology.
You rightly point out that we only have a limited scope of time to provide proper instructional programming for our students. Learning software that has no practical use for the advancement of our students’ learning is so counterproductive. However, a teacher frequently needs to learn the software before they find whether or not it can be of benefit in the instruction of their students.
The literature and news reports are replete with stories of school systems spending millions of dollars and countless hours trying to implement instructional software that was eventually scrapped because of its ineffectiveness. The recent fiasco in Los Angeles (2014) is representative of so many issues like it over the past couple of decades.
I hope we find a way to navigate the temptations to throw more unproven technology at our students and teachers. This trial and error method of development is incredibly expensive and in some cases waste years of a student's potential intellectual development.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts on this leadership issue.
Reference
Beasley, M. (2014, June 29). Los Angeles school district revisits failed plan to give students iPads, this time without the iPads. Retrieved from http://9to5mac.com/2014/06/29/los-angeles-school-district-revisits-failed-plan-to-give-students-ipads-this-time-without-the-ipads/
Thank you for your reference to the LA school district article. I guess if it doesn't work the first time, you spend 40 million to try it again? I find it interesting that the article doesn't mention how the technology is planning to be leveraged. Maybe that is more the issue.....
ReplyDelete