The Horizon Report is an annual research paper describing what is on the horizon for technology and its effect on education. As an Education Technology Specialist it is important to stay ahead of the technology. It can take a couple of years to successfully integrate and transform a lesson or a classroom with technology. Read through the report and gives your opinions through the lens of the below focusing questions.
How can the availability of resources online change education?
People are learning whenever and wherever they are, what role does this create for a school?
Technology fostered collaboration is turning up in business and education. How does this collaboration change the classroom?
How can we integrate new media assessments like videos, blogs, podcasts and online publication in our curriculum?
How do we teach digital literacy to today's students?
Games based learning is listed as one of the trends to watch. Read the NY Times Magazine story "Learning by Playing: Video Games in the Classroom". How can we integrate gaming into the math and science classroom?
WOW...this article shows that the oldest teachers are not always limited in this digital age. I think that this quest to learn program shows a new opportunity for students to work together in a classroom environment. This curriculum is designed to foster students working with the newest technology to teach them subject matter that may be dull within the typical classroom. These students are constantly "plugged" into the technological world and they show up to school and are asked to shut down. Each students should be embracing and improving their digital literacy. These changes will help each student learn to the best of their ability. I have integrated a similar game into the classroom this year. There is a simulation that I show the students and I have them watch it a few times. Then I allow students to split into groups to use laptops to manipulate the simulation so that they can learn somethings about the movement of glacial ice. This allow each student to explore and work in groups to learn information on a given topic. I love this idea and I wish I had other applications that I can use in my classroom.
ReplyDeleteAs taken from the horizon report “People expect to be able to work, learn, and study whenever and wherever they want… Mobiles contribute to this trend, where increased availability of the Internet feeds the expectation of access.”
ReplyDeleteThe idea of a school/classroom is going to change completely. The need for students to come in to school will be less likely. Students can learn from home and report to their teacher in that sense, schools (the physical building) will not be the main place where students are learning. I don’t think schools will become completely obsolete because I feel that students will still need to have some social time as well as human to human contact. The ideas of Podcasts, blogs, etc. really are just medium for people to have an online classroom. Currently I am doing work for my grad class in my living room while reading this article and Elmo is on in the background. Thus the whole idea of where technology is taking us.
I also feel that the gaming aspect of learning is a road that is worth going down. I think that it’s a great way for students to learn. Its combining something they enjoy with something they need to do. There is a fine balance of how much the students should do this but I do think it may be the direction education is going!
Finally, I’m not sure we can teach digital literacy to our students, in fact I feel maybe they should be teaching it to us. I think it’s something you have to immerse yourself in and get your hands dirty. I think that the students of tomorrow will be in a completely different classroom than the classroom of today.
With the availability of resources online it will not only change how people teach but it will allow students and teachers to learn through researching different topics and also by trial and error. With the digital age so much information is at your fingertips. That also makes it easier than searching through a book for the right information. With the availability of so much information from anywhere that has an internet, schools should find ways in order to incorporate that as a form of teaching and learning scenario. Technology fostered collaboration in the classrooms might allow students to be creative on a different level, rather than the collaboration in a classroom without the use of technology. Schools need to integrate new media assessments in the near future in order to gain the attention of many students. By allowing students to learn with the use of technology will defiantly be the future but it has to be designed so that students enjoy learning through the use of technology instead of the old style book reading. In a way it is almost the same, playing games to learn and reading books to learn only thing is in today’s world you would need digital technology in order to get through to young people. By designing games that allow students to learn it will allow students eager to learn because they enjoy playing videos games and hopefully that will also allow them to enjoy learning.
ReplyDeleteThe availability of resources online can change education by leaps and bounds. There is so much information and extra help online that an informed student has many resources to draw from. It also changes the role of the teacher from the primary "expert" on a subject to merely another resource of information to draw from. The fact that people can learn wherever they are lends itself to the same idea - if people can receive content via online sources anytime and anywhere, the role of school and the teacher must change. Technology based collaboration with businesses and classrooms can be a wonderful resource for students and provide hands-on real world experiences which are so important to gaining a deeper understanding of content, especially at the secondary level. While collaboration with industry can be a boon to schools, care should be taken to keep learning neutral to corporate interests. I think with some effort, we can change our assessment critieria to include new media like videos and podcasts in our curriculum. My school is in its second year of using Haiku, a learning management system that includes digital assessment tools for immediate feedback to students. Although its use in HS math is still evolving, it certainly represents the wave of the future and the idea of digital and/or alternative assessments is on the horizon. Although as Alanna mentioned, teaching digital literacy to our students is complicated by the fact that they are more literate than us in some respects, including aspects of digital literacy in our curriculum is a valid concern. From personal experience, something as simple as teaching appropriate etiquette when emailing teachers or administrators may be necessary. The digital literacy that is appropriate among friends does not necessarily apply to the school and later the professional environment.
ReplyDeleteWe have discussed Quest to Learn in a previous course. I think it is such an interesting way to teach students. It is how I invision our future classrooms to look like. I like that it is student-centered based learning. Very similar to project-based learning. Another plus about the Quest to Learn schooling is the idea of not have a Math, Science, Social Studies, ELA class. It is all intertwined for example CODEWORLDS is a mix of Math and ELA. In everyday life we do not understand things to be just Math based there is alway a mix of Math/Science or Math/Social Studies. Video games are of high interest in today's society, so taking the concept of observing a game and then producing your own is key in assessing and interest. Technology is all around us and its a growing field. Instead of hiding and running from it we need to embrace it and use it. This is what keeps kids interested, instead of being in front of the Wii Console they get inside the game and take it on from another view. It has been proven to help with peripheral vision and the ability to focus attention. Game-related learning can be more affective in boys than girls. Games can be tweeked so that the game can satisfy the individual player. Just like Gardners learning styles. We teach based on the students learning style, we can easy have the students create the games based on their individual learning styles.
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