The world really has changed. The young people coming into your classroom are connected, they expect information and interaction quickly. They like video, it engages them (you may not like it, but it is true). They bully each other over digital networks (at least about 35% of the kids in middle school do). They support Read More
Category: Teaching & Learning
Context and Curriculum
For 20th century purposes, de-contextualized curriculum created independent from students’ interests and experiences that has been stripped of complicating factors and designed to create products and performances for teachers alone may have been sufficient. Advocates of flat classrooms are among those who argued that more complex and sophisticated problems were appropriate for student tasks, especially Read More
On Portfolios
The central feature of every portfolio are the artifacts which are those examples and fragments of work that illustrate the learners’ skills, knowledge, and habits. It is important to note that with some exceptions, artifacts are fragments of work. Rather than including the entire paper, one will include only the abstract or the conclusion, or Read More
Emerging Digital Literacy
Literacy is a term with strong resonance for many educators. Those who enter education with an interest in literacy recognize the importance of reading for all learners and all citizens in society. The work is perhaps the most important in the school. Educators do recognize, however, that digital literacy is a skill that is increasingly Read More
Interaction in Virtual Classrooms
In my work with teachers as they begin teaching in virtual spaces, a common reaction from those whose first experiences were disappointing is “they just post silly stuff,” and they contend that students do not engage in academic discussions when online. When pressed to define silly stuff, they suggest using text abbreviations, deviating from the Read More
Barriers to #edtech Efficacy
If information technology is to be used to realize the strategic goal of allowing students to fully participate in the digital world, then it must be appropriately used, properly configured, and reasonably supported. Deficiencies in any of these aspects of technology management are a serious threat to the overall efficacy of the IT managers. To Read More
A Rationale for Interaction in Online Courses
Human brains are “wired” to learn in social situations. While the word “wired” may seem inappropriate when describing human physiology, it is illustrative. Human brains comprise long and thin neurons; electrical and chemical activity in those cells cretes cognition. The survival of the human species has been attributed to the cooperation among members of a Read More
Leverage IT for Education
The idea of using new technology for cognitive tasks has been well-received by some and ill-received by others, and that has been true throughout human history, especially at transitions when one dominant technology was being replaced by another. Using computers to support human cognition was a central theme of information theorist Vannevar Bush’s seminal article Read More
Multimedia Learning
When computer technology (hardware and software) advanced to the point where graphic user interfaces and network connectivity became standard components of personal computers (about the mid-1990’s), they also advanced to the point where they could display multimedia content (high-resolution graphics, and audio, video and animations) as well. From the second decade of the 21st century, Read More
Instructional Engineering versus Sociocultural Instruction Design
Educational researchers Scott Garbiner, Cary Aplin, and Gitanjali Ponnappa-Brenner (2007) contrast engineering instruction for well-defined and measurable outcomes with designing instruction for sociocultural environments. Those who engineer instruction seek plans that lead students to meet goals (alternatively they select prescribed instruction plans that are intended to produce the desired outcome), and if the goal is Read More