New Act Helps US Schools with Enhancing Education Through Technology

From eSchool News: New bill would revamp ed-tech funding - 'ATTAIN Act' seeks to target funds more effectively for schools in need

A newly introduced bill seeks Achivement Through Technology and Innovation (ATTAIN) and hopes to do so, in part, by Enhancing Educational Through Technology (EETT). The legislation would increase the size of grants (in the form of state block grants - half competive and half based on formulas, geared, in part, toward funding schools with the greatest need). Professional development for teachers would also be a focus of the funding and students' attainment of technology literacy (by 8th grade) would be assessed.

According to the quotes from lawmakers and proponents of the bill - there are a high-hopes for long-term pay-offs:

"When schools are properly equipped to meet the technology needs of students, and when they have properly trained teachers, students are engaged, eager to learn, and are ultimately better prepared to meet the challenges of the 21st century," Lucille Roybal-Allard (D) California

"One of the most effective ways we can sharpen America's competitive edge is by investing in technology in the classroom...This bill will further the technological prowess of our nation's schools and students and ultimately will increase our economic prosperity and capacity for innovation." Ruben Hinojosa (D) Texas

Learning from Leaders - The Game-Innovation cycle

Apple Computer co-creator, Steve Wozniak, speaks about the games he played, his involvement with the electronic gaming industry in the early days, and the influnce that his work in game design had on subsequent thoughts and ideas related to other inventions including the personal computer.

From Gamasutra: Woz Was Here - Steve Wozniak On His Gaming Past

"Drawing past the Dots"

From TechLEARNING e-Newsletter (May 22nd):
"We've been reading about some wonderful examples of teachers implementing new tools in their classrooms - using blogs, wikis, podcasts, and video - to make a difference in how and what students learn. Yet, as always, the number of examples is pretty small. The vast majority of educators aren't there yet. In this week's collection of blogs, we have two entries that point out some of the problems. Steve Dembo in When Students Have to Take their Learning Underground shows us an example of students who were engaged in learning being barred from doing so by the school. And David Jakes in 9 Dots talks about educators' comfort zone actually getting smaller when it should be getting bigger."

The first article "When Students Have to Take their Learning Underground" highlighted some of the challenges of balancing the use of new social networking and online publishing resources with the growing number of privacy concerns. Parents worried about student's use of sites that allowed them to post their photos on maps or use social networking sites like MySpace, but students countered that they were advanced enough in their understanding of the Internet to avoid online predators or do things that jeopardized their safety. As is usually the case, both sides' concerns were probably warranted to some extent.

The second article, "9 Dots," suggests that few educators are reaching out to new technologies to provide engaging and innovative learning opportunities for today's uber-wired students. The article pokes fun at a group of educators who laughed in response to a question about whether or not they taught MySpace. "It’s time to teach kids how to contribute content the right way, but that’s outside of the reality of what we're supposed to teach, isn't it?"

This article doubles as a call-to-arms for educators to scramble to the frontlines and start using technology to truly create 21st Century learning environments and experiences.

"The gap widens, the disconnect between reality and what happens in our schools continues to grow. Meanwhile, politicians ask potential voters to post videos to YouTube about what they can do to change America. And we miss the moment by not having every kid studying history or civics rise to meet that challenge. Mainstream media recognizes that the the voice of the citizen journalist is a valid voice, and appropriately asks everyone, anyone, with the tools and capability, and with the desire to participate, to contribute news content. And we miss the moment again by banning those very tools from our hallways and classrooms. Progressive companies like Google enable their engineers to to spend 20% of their workweek on ideas and projects not related to their job description (via Graham Wegner). Instead of pondering and pursuing what could be, what should be, American teachers grade worksheets and prepare students for high-stakes tests."

The Golden Age of Entrepreneurship

Has technology helped to create the "Golden Age of Entrepreneurship" for today's youth?

From CNet: Teenager today, tech exec tomorrow

The successes of several young entrepreneurs are highlighted in this short article. It provides a nice balance to all the media accounts of how lazy and undriven today's youth are - and does a good job of quickly pointing out that today's youth have all the tools needed to start successful businesses in today's high tech world - and they know how to use those tools a lot better than most adults.

"A handful of enterprising teens have a message for parents and the media: the Net is not all MySpace or Facebook horror stories."

Innovative ways to find and use video for instructional purposes

This past year I worked on study of teachers' use of video for instructional purposes and we found many teachers in the study using video in very conventional ways - teachers were still inclined to show entire programs (sometimes up to two hour feature-length movies) even when a short clip would suffice to address the intended learning objectives. As part of our study we provided a DVD set for the program we were studying along with a complete index that provided descriptions of each program segment and how to jump right to those segments. There were also several teachers in the study who had access to streaming video services that offered shorter clips as well as full length programs. Access to, and use of these digital resources seemed to support teachers using video in new ways (e.g. a short clip-based approach rather than screening an entire program). It therefore stands to reason that teachers could capitalize on a site like YouTube that offers a wide variety of video programming.

The following article comes to many of the same conclusions about good and poor uses of video for instructional purposes - and specifically talks about using YouTube to provide unique and quality learning experiences.

From Education World/Brenda's Blog: Using YouTube in the Classroom

"Herding a class of students down to the computer lab to watch a few catchy videos has no more learning benefit than turning a class of students onto the Internet for a half hour of random surfing. The power of YouTube only is activated when the teacher has a clear idea of how a specific video clip can be used to introduce a concept or theme, instigate a discussion, or serve as a writing prompt."

Video Game helps ADHD children with attentional skills

From the Chiago Tribune: Giving a child a better mind Published May 22, 2007

"A home-based computer program is helping children with attention deficits sharpen their working memory, thereby improving problem-solving skills and academic performance...Cogmed Working Memory Training, developed by Swedish brain researcher Dr. Torkel Klingberg, features video game software on an engaging robot interface. The research-validated program has been successful in Europe, and now is being offered in the United States."

The program trains children 30-45 minutes a day, five days a week for five weeks. Parents or personal coaches provide encouragement and help to implement a reward system. "The computer exercises involve recalling number and letter patterns. For example, on the robot's chest may be a grid of 25 red lights. The lights blink in a certain order. The child has to replicate the order, with the number of lights blinking increasing over time."

The findings are impressive - though the exact meaning of "significant improvement" is not defined in this article: "More than 1,400 children and adults have completed the training in Europe, with 80 percent achieving significant improvement in attention, impulse control, problem-solving skills and academic performance."

Proving that educational technology works...or at least trying to

A great collection of resources and articles that suggest the power of technology to positively influence learning:

From eSchool News: eSchools Work! - Discovering the positive power of educational technology

Delivering an authentic 21st century learning experience

From the Boston Globe: Contest helps boost math, science skills

As part of "GlobalChallenge, a Vermont-based contest aimed at improving American high school students' math and science skills...58 teams of American students coupled with students from China, India and Japan tackled technological solutions to global warming. They chatted online, divided jobs based on skill, consulted with advisers, and in the final grueling weeks, wrote a professional business plan."

Students learned the challenges associated with collaborating across distances - but also seemed to benefit from opportunities to work collectively to generate creative solutions to scientific and mathematics problems.

Scientists on-board with game-based instruction

<>From the NSTA: Video Gaming in Schools-Can students use video games to learn math and science?

"Yes" according to the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) (based on a one-year study of whether video games might improve education in the nation’s schools). Among the reasons given rae the appeal of repeatable and student-paced lessons, compelling visual elements, engaging/complex plot structures. According to the report these elements help to "engage the player in strategic thinking, multitasking, and problem-solving. These skills are not only desired by U.S. employers, but are crucial in a global workforce."

Further supporting their claim, the NAS gives the following real-world example: "in a study consisting of 12 surgeons and 21 surgical residents, Dr. James Rosser, Jr., and colleagues at the Beth Israel Medical Center in New York correlated video game skill with laparoscopic surgery skill as assessed during a simulated surgery skills course. 'Surgeons who had played video games in the past for more than three hours per week made 37% fewer errors during the assessment, were 27% faster, and scored 42% better overall than surgeons who never played video games,' the study’s authors said. Research has also shown that playing video games can improve eye-hand coordination and visual attention."

The following links are also included in the NSTA article:

More Video Games, Fewer Books at Schools?
Reuters

Federation of American Scientists Supports “Edu-Gaming” in Schools
NSTA Reports

Study: Video Game Skills May Help Surgeons
Science Daily

Action-Packed Video Games a Site for Sore Eyes
Scientific American

Opinion: Why Moms Give in to Video Games
Christian Science Monitor

What you can't live without...

From Techlearning: Here is an offer you can't refuse

In a techlearning blog post by Cheryl Oakes, re: technologies that people (in this specific instance, education doctoral students) can't live without:

"All of the doctoral students mentioned that they could not live without blogs, podcasts, wikis, chat, and that these technologies opened the doors to conversations with others teaching similar topics, in their own fields, somewhere outside of their buildings.I asked them what they struggled with while learning all about these new tools. All mentioned the following as adversities: never enough time to do it all, kids noticing and asking for more, a steep learning curve, maintaining a level of confidence while all this new learning takes place. But the following advantages really pushed the educators to continue, librarians who have been helpful, talking to other teachers outside of their buildings, the biggest advantage was that by taking a look at the outside world and finally by focusing on what kids need to be productive citizens in the 21st Century makes all the learning worthwhile."

Evaluation reform on the horizon for federally funded Math and Science programs?

When I saw this article I couldn't help but wonder what it might mean in terms of programatic reform - esp. where evaluation was concerned. Being an evaluator (past, present, and hopefully future) of several NSF grants I was particularly interested...

From Education Week:Few Federal Math and Science Programs Deemed Effective

"The report does not single out weak programs that should be carved out of the federal budget. The goal was to study how such programs are being evaluated and to recommend a better process"
...
"Federal programs place too little emphasis, the report says, on outcomes, or measurable results, from math and science spending. Improved test scores in math and science under the No Child Left Behind Act is a clearer method for judging results, it argues.

The council recommends that agencies establish a way of conducting “rigorous, independent” evaluations of programs, and make funding for them contingent on those reviews."

Webconferencing

Sure these links will come in handy...

I'm a big fan of Videoconferencing/Video Chat (iChat and Skype, to a more limited extent) but there is lots of functionality made possible by the Internet beyond merely talking...

From Technology and Learning's "IT Guy": Webconferencing

Text Clip - just in case the link goes away:

"The most well-known system is WebEx, which has been around a number of years. It uses phone conferencing for the audio. A newer system is Adobe Acrobat Connect Professional, which features voice and video built in. An education-specific system is Elluminate, which has a free system for hosting up to four people at a time called vRoom. (Their goal is to get you hooked so you'll buy the full system!) They have voice included.

The main drawback of most of these systems is that they are very costly. I have been using a service called GoToMeeting which is the most affordable I've seen yet. I actually did a presentation last year when a family emergency prevented me from traveling to the conference. I sat in my office and shared my PowerPoint remotely through GoToMeeting, using Skype to narrate the slides. It was easy, and I received many positive comments from the participants!"

a persuasive argument for hands-on learning

Milton Chen shares an example from Roger Nichols about trying to learn to play basketball with a textbook - it is quite humorous to imagine children trying to learn to play a new sport merely by reading, but it is also quite sad to think that many hands-on opportunities are going the way of the dodo in today's schools due to budget cuts and safety/liability concerns related to off-site travel.

From Edutopia: A Modest Curriculum Proposal

Evaluating Second Life as and Educational Environment

In a post made on 5/14/07 at: http://clarkaldrich.blogspot.com the author talks about some of the shortcomings of Second Life from an educational point of view (especially with regards to educational simulations). Admittedly, I'm probalby not as "up" on the concepts and terms related to educational simulation...but the critiques seem pretty straight forward. Later comments suggest that it was his goal to seek out information from those with differing opinions so that he could come to better understand the strengths of Second Life as an educational environment.

It seems that the absence of AI or those with designated instructional or mentoring/supportive roles are among the highlighed problems along with a need for more refined/functional tasks and activities - but these things seem easy enough to fix (albeit - they'll never likely be part of the environment itself, but rather something that specific players bring to the environment if they so desire). The beauty of Second Life, in my opinion is the fact that it provides an opportunity for people to come together from remote locations and interact in much the same way they'd be able to interact in the real world - with a virtual-(physical) presence, with words or voice, and with an ability to act/behave in specific ways (even if they aren't infinte, we've already seen Second Life residents demonstrate their ability to act in creative ways).

Lights, Camera, Action!

This is a great example of a school that is doing extraordinary things with ordinary tools and a wonderful reminder that 21st century learning isn't all about the gizmos and gadgets, but rather, its about problem solving, creativity, and innovation - i.e., learning styles and strategies more so than specific learning tools.

From eSchool News: 21st-century school represents 'the will to change'
How one district turned an ordinary building into an extraordinary opportunity for students

New ARG - World Without Oil

I got a note that said this game had launched earlier this week and took a quick peek but still haven't had time to look around in more detail. I attended a GDC presentation given by Jane McGonigal, one of the game's creators and an ARG scholar. She announced that the WWO game would be forth-coming and also talked about her work on the I Love Bees ARG for Halo 2 ...and it turns out that she was a former Conference Associate.

Anyway - it was picked as today's cool site of the day, here's the blurb:

"Everyone knows that 'some day' the world may face an oil shortage.
What if that day was sooner than you thought? How would your life
change? Well, 'some day' is now. You are invited to enter a month-long
alternate reality game at: www.worldwithoutoil.org where an oil shock
is going on. Go to worldwithoutoil.org each day to see the latest
developments in the crisis. Take a moment to seriously imagine how
these developments impact you and then tell us. You can send e-mail,
link to your blog post, or call our 800-number and leave a message.
Tell your story by uploading video and photos of the crisis. Each
story is a bit of evidence that this issue is real. Become a Netizen
Hero. Play it � before you live it."

Dialing dilemmas

Educators in FL are looking for ways to block cell phone usage in schools but that made me wonder if there might be more potential educational applications of cell phone usage that are going untapped. If students can use cell phones to cheat, they could certainly use them to collaborate. If they can use them to capture and post video they could certainly use them to enhance their reporting or data gathering efforts. It seems sad to me that some schools might be squashing something merely because its easier to get rid of rather than studying and harnessing it for more productive purposes.

From the Lakeland FL Ledger: Student Cell Phones Ring in Debate in FL

Dance Dance Education

It makes complete sense that schools would turn to Dance Dance Revolution to spice up their PE programs. Many groups and organizations have already touted its ability to promote fitness and weight loss - and most students would readily agree that it is fun. That's a win, win for schools and kids.

From the NY Times: P.E. Classes Turn to Video Game That Works Legs

(post scripts: More than 10 years ago a good friend of mine was trying to think up games that promoted physical movement and subsequently physical fitness, I suspect that he'd be very proud of having that idea long before DDR took off...but probably also bummed that he didn't beat them to the punch. ...In another post script, students in another friend's grad class recently designed two games - both for the wii platform I believe - that promoted various forms of health and physical fitness. Having played a fair amount of wii now, and always being amazed at how realistic and active the games are, I suspect schools might soon be looking to expand their video game offerings to promote fitness.)

Its a small world afterall

New technology makes it quite possible for Chinese language tutors to work with students around the world from the comfort of the homes in China - for a relatively low cost (and the satisfaction of a stress-free/commute-less work-place):

From Infoworld: Skype your way to learning Chinese: VOIP technology brings tutors and students face to face, even halfway around the world

This kind of makes me want to take Chinese lessons. (So I can better understand episodes of Firefly, of course).