Saturday, September 03, 2005

Windows on the Future

Even though this book was written four years ago, it expresses in a clear and concise manner what changes need to happen in our educational system and why. Ian Jukes and Ted McCain have laid out in their book a series of “windows” through which they look at the rationale for change in the educational system.

  • Window 1: The Power of Paradigm
  • Window 2: Mounting Paradigm Pressure
  • Window 3: Assessing Your Paradigm
  • Window 4: The Technology of Change
  • Window 5: Moore’s Law
  • Window 6: Looking at the Road Ahead
  • Window 7: It is Time for Education to Catch Up
  • Window 8: Education in the Future
  • Window 9: New Skills for Students
  • Window 10: New Roles for Educators
  • Window 11: The Need for Vision

Much of this writing is reflected in the writings of Ian Jukes and Ted McCain that I have blogged about here and here. Some other interesting points include:

  • They suggest that there are four major trends in technological developments:
    1. Global Digital Networks
    2. Technological Fusion
    3. Emerging Strategic Alliances
    4. Personal Computers for Everyone

    It’s not hard to see how these trends are acurate four years after this book was written. These trends are reality, a reality that will only continue to develop at an ever increasing rate.

  • Students will need to acquire new skills. And it will be our responsiblilty to provide them.

    1. Problem solving and critical thinking
    2. Communications skills (including speaking and listening)
    3. Technical reading and writing
    4. Applied technical reasoning skills
    5. Information literacy
    6. Technology as a tool
    7. New personal skills
    8. New mind-set skills
    9. A beef stew curriculum

     

  • Educators will need to change also:

    1. Educators as futurists
    2. Educators as process instructors
    3. Educators as guides
    4. Educators as knowledge experts
    5. Educators as models
    6. Educators as learners

They sum up the need for change nicely in the final chapter:

“The real issue is the paradigm paralysis of teachers, administrators, parents, and politicians, who have a rearview-mirror mentality when it comes to what schools should be. In the end, the issue is not just a hardware issue. More and more, it is a headware issue. It is about paradigm and the way we view the world. Those in education must learn to get comfortable with the inevitable and constantly coming change and use it to shape our vision of tomorrow and the tomorrows beyond tomorrow.”

I highly recommend this book. It is one of the clearest and most concise statements about effective educational change and how technology will be a catalyst. It leads us to the root causes we should be looking at, rather than merely symptoms.

Posted by Randy on 09/03 at 09:45 AM
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Friday, September 02, 2005

Big Ideas for Better Schools

This month’s back-to-school issue has a special insert called “Big Ideas for Better Schools.” Over the next year, each month’s publication will focus on one of these big issues. They are divided into 4 categories: Students, Teachers, Schools, and Community. I think they are all good ideas. I wonder what others thing, particularly teachers. I look forward to reading about each of these “big ideas.”

Students:

  • Engage: Project-Based Learning
  • Connect: Integrated Studies
  • Share: Cooperative Learning
  • Expand: Comprehensive Assessment

Teachers:

  • Coach: Intellectual and Emotional Guide
  • Teaching as Apprentiship

Schools:

  • Adopt: Technology
  • Reorganize: Resources

Community:

  • EInvolve: Parents
  • Include: Community Partnerst
Posted by Randy on 09/02 at 08:30 AM
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Tuesday, January 11, 2005

Research: Assessment and Evaluation

I am doing some reading for the Assessing Technology class I am going to take this semester. The book is Evaluating Educational Technology: Effective Research Designs for Improving Learning. It is a collection of ‘articles’ on research methods as applied to technology. Over the weekend I read the 3rd chapter: Achieving Local Relevance and Broader Influence. Did you ever read something and just come across so many statements that were true and relevant? Well, this was one of those readings - chock full of unbelievable quotes. The writers worked for something called the Center for Children and Technology. I looked for it on the web, but couldn’t find much. Wonder why… What I want to do is pull some of the things from the chapter that struck me, and then comment on them down the road in a later post. So here goes…

We have learned that when student learning does improve in schools that become technology rich, those gains are not caused solely by the presence of technology or by isolated technology - learner interactions. Rather, such changes are the result of an ecological shift and are grounded in a set of changes in the learning environment that prioritize and focus a district’s or school’s core educational objectives.

...technology enhances the communicative, expressive, analytic, and logistical capabilities of the teaching and learning environment.

Past research has made it clear that technologies by themselves have little scalable or sustained impact on learning in schools.

...to be effective, innovative and robust technological resources must be used to support systematic changes in educational environments. This equates to…administrative procedures, curricula, time and space constraints, school-community relationships, and a range of other logistical and social factors. Our approach to evaluation must respond to, rather than control, these complex aspects of schooling.

...numerous factors influence a school’s ability to use technology effectively for student learning: (1) leadership and vision; (2) expectations for the use of technology in the classroom; (3) school culture and climate; (4) teacher beliefs about students and their potential for learning; (5) professional development; (6) teachers’ prior experience with technology; (7) availability of resources (infrastructure and human).

And my favorite from the whole chapter: A set of beliefs about how learning occurs and about how technology can support learning: learning is understood broadly, as the ability to use one’s mind well in framing and solving open-ended problems in original ways and in coordinating complex activities with others. Collaboration among students is privileged; students help each other to learn, and they share data and knowledge in ways that model the work of real scientists and other communities of learners. Teachers play crucial roles in selecting goals and materials and act as guides and intellectual coaches to students. Teachers make broad subject-matter decisions, but students, who also play a role in determining performance criteria, make more local decisions. Technology’s role in this context is to serve as a catalyst and support for an extended classroom inquiry that is open ended and “messy,” involving guessing, debate, and multiple materials. It is integrated with other tools and media, as students learn using many different resources—including books, libraries, museums, videos, and adult experts—in the school and beyond.

Wow…much food for thought. Comments to follow in future posts.

 

Posted by Randy on 01/11 at 12:06 PM
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