2008 Horizon Report

Greg Black's summary of emerging technologies interests me in two ways. As a summary of the emerging technologies, it shows its age and remains current. What I mean is, those emerging technologies are becoming ubiquitous in society circles of young people (so Greg was right), but still only beginning to gain a foothold in education circles, certainly in the primary/intermediate context where I work. I'll deal with each one in turn from this perspective.

Grassroots video popularised predominantly by Youtube is in my view consumed by a far greater majority than it is produced. Mark Treadwell argues that disappointingly few young people even know how to upload to Youtube (sorry, can't reference that, he said it on a recent PD day!). I think it will take more exposure to the medium both in terms of having more cameras in schools, and familiarising kids with uploading before the consumption/production ratio is more balanced. Teachers can accelerate this process by "owning" the technology themselves and uploading their own work or that of their students themselves - maybe to safer venues like teachertube.com

Collaborative Webs - I'm not sure I truly understand the term yet. If it's referring to Facebook style social network/ideas exchange then I'd be keen to see this one develop. Certainly in the UK there is a thriving forum section run by the TES in which ideas are exchanged. I have a feeling that what Greg is talking about is more complex than this - will need to look into this further!

Mobile Broadband - I agree with Greg in that the possibilities for this are mind-boggling. Rennaissance Education (Apple Suppliers) were talking about using iPod Touches in classrooms as a cheap but valuable portal to the web - you could get 5 of them for every single Macbook laptop which means 4 extra kids are online and able to type/interact in the virtual space. If you take this idea on to smart phones like the iPhone or Blackberry, or onto portable gaming devices like the PSP there are yet more applications. I do feel though that we then have to ensure that what students are doing in the virtual space is safe. What is clear is that portable devices have a strong future role to play not least as a way of optimizing the yearly spend on ICT hardware.

Mashups - just had to do a quick look-around to get my head around this one. The example I was directed to by google was Panoramio, the application that allows people to upload their images to the google Earth application so that they become geographically tagged. I'm also thinking that when you paste a google map into an email giving someone directions that's probably a mashup too - is it? I'm trying to think of other applications of this, particularly in a primary education setting - would love to hear if anyone knows of any in progress.

As an interesting footnote to all this, I see that the 2009 report has moved towards a more collaborative and connected set of emerging technologies - especially Collaborative Environments, Online COmmunication Tools and Cloud Computing. These are all aspects which I am really interested in pursuing both in the EDPROFST714 paper and in my own professional practice. Google Apps covers much of this, but I'm beginning to think that I'd like to widen my focus to include these ideas more - I just don't know if 3000 words is enough!

Terms related to NET, ICT and e-Learning

I thought I'd go for efficiency so I used the Holmes & Gardner* article to generate a list of words and definitions related to e-Learning. Credit to Beth for the idea to put it all into a wordle cloud (hope that's OK Beth!) - I've set mine out so that the larger ones are those which I'd like to explore further, or which I have less familiarity with. Click here to see a large version.

Incidentally, in the Holmes article they talk about communal constructivism. This is a new term to me and one which I really like (see my previous post on the absence of social constructivism in another reading). Here's the quote which caught my eye: "Giving people the opportunity to reinvest in learning environments is a form of communal constructivism (Holmes et al, 2001), a process in which learners put their learning back into the community to benefit others, which will promote an evolution of teaching and learning." (p. 17). This concept ties in well with the advent of web 2.0 and for me, gives a real sense of optimism to the future of e-learning.

* (see Chapter 2: "Enter e-learning." pp. 13-34, from Holmes, B., & Gardner, J. (2006). e-Learning: Concepts and practice, London: SAGE Publications.)

Response to Roblyer

I've just read the Roblyer and Edwards* article. I like the way they present the historical background of educational technologies and how they categorise them into media, instructional systems, vocational training and computers. I do feel though that the article shows its age already: media now takes place mostly in online contexts and computers are developing rapidly to a place where they will be conduits to the online environment without the need for native software or hard drives etc. The lines are blurring...

The idea of educational technology as a combination of processes and tools is useful to my environment (primary school) as I feel that there is currently a massive bias towards learning about the tools and not enough focus on the process - we are continually "blinded" by wonderful new gadgets without stopping to think about their true value to learning. Indeed, this is probably one of the "big issues" which I will need to confront along with other staff in my school. I think one way to do this would be to refer often to the table on page 11 about rationales for using technology as it goes well beyond the usual one - "it motivates my students".

As for other big issues, I am particularly interested to see that social-constructivism does not make an appearance in the article (probably because of its age): I think that web 2.0 and its implications for social interactions makes it an ideal technology for this approach to pedagogy. to its credit, the article advocates for more research on this issue.

But thing brings up the next and possibly biggest issue of all: the pace of change in technology which seems to be accelerating, means that longitudinal research is very difficult to do, that teacher PD will always struggle to keep up with the tools teachers are expected to use and that school infrastructure will continually be trying to catch up. There is also a "chicken and egg" quandary to tackle around this issue - my school has recently invested in equipment but now has no money for PD in how to use it but for the few self-starters on campus. So we are in danger of having up-to-date equipment languishing in cupboards because only a few know how to use it. There don't seem to be any straight-forward answers to the issues raised by this article.

(*see Roblyer, M. D., & Edwards, J. (2003). Integrating educational technology into teaching (2nd ed.). New Jersey, Ohio: Merrill, Prentice Hall)

The Rigours of Online Study

Well, I've taken a look at Uni of Illinois article about online study and had a think about how I'll be in the process. Mostly the style of study suits me. I do have reservations about security of information - no matter how sturdy the course architecture is. I think this is also an interesting topic which affects the students we teach in this way whether it is primary children making e-portfolios or older kids creating and maintaining their own blog. Anyhow, here's my response to Study Guide 1 as listed on the course website.

The Journey Begins

Greetings.

This blog will chart the journey taken during some intensive study on e-Learning and will catalogue the changes in the way I perceive of and use ICT in the classroom. As I said in my introduction to the group I have a strong conviction that ICTs should play an increasingly important role in education, starting at early childhood. The technologies we consider to be emerging now will be ubiquitous in these students' lives and they will therefore need to be fluent in their use, their application and in the ability to use discernment on the content they deliver. The reading by Hendron, J. G. (2008) sums this up quite well on page 13, "During their school years and beyond, students will engage in endless opportunities to learn on their own. Teaching students how to self-educate using the Read/Write web is an important new skill." In some ways, that quote could be interpreted to predict the overall demise of the human teacher but I believe that we educators will transform from deliverers of content to guides/co-discoverers of process. The Ray Kurzweil book The Singularity is Near makes predictions which also align with this idea. I hope it happens soon!