The WISE model - A quick and nasty guide to evaluating classroom ICT use.

I’m fortunate to be able to visit every classroom in our school. Like most schools, we have invested heavily in ICT. Are we getting value for money? Is the investment really improving educational outcomes? In some classrooms I could answer “Yes” - but in some the answer would have to be a disappointing “No”.

It is not necessary to have an in-depth formal instrument or formal testing to get a sense of how well ICT is being used in classrooms.     

The first “rule of thumb” indicator I have is a simple one - are the students CREATING product ...or CONSUMING product... or both?  If the students are simply consuming product, i.e. using “drill and practice” programs or merely absorbing content from the ‘net, then ICT use in the classroom is likely to be making only a limited contribution to student learning. However, if students are CREATING product then there is a good chance that ICT is being put to good use.

If students are creating learning artefacts then a simple acronym provides another lens through which I can quickly evaluate the significance of the classroom program. That acronym is  WISE.

WISE stands for...

W hy? (or WHAT). Why is ICT being used? Could similar artifacts be produced via traditional means? A hand drawn poster is as valid as a Publisher document for example.   What are the teacher’s  SPECIFIC objectives, what are the SPECIFIC curriculum links? What can students achieve  using computers in this context that could not be achieved otherwise?   

I mportant (or interesting) Is the project / experience both IMPORTANT and INTERESTING to the student? (Tasks need to be important or interesting to the student - not just ”fun”.)  If not, then the chances are that the task is electronic “busy work”.

S haring.   How are the students sharing both their end product and the process of creation?  How are they sharing their artifact with the educational community beyond the classroom? If they are not sharing the artifact...why are they producing it in the first place?  If it only has worth inside the context of the classroom then why would students value it? If it has wider significance why is it not being shared?

E valuation.  How do the students demonstrate their learning? Is the artifact itself significant outside of the classroom environment?  What skills need students display / include? Do they know this? How can a development of skills be demonstrated?

This acronym is hardly cutting edge. (I could dignify it beyond it’s worth and call it “The WISE model”.) However, it does provide me with a lens through which to quickly get a sense of how well ICT is being used in a classroom.   As with all technology, classroom ICT is neutral - it is how well it is being used that is important. And to assist with that we all need to be a little WISE when it comes to classroom use of ICT.

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Credits:
Image = Google images
http://blog.lib.umn.edu/tel/blog/Computers-TwoKdgStudents.jpg

The online student – not even a face in the crowd?

I wish I had never seen the video posted below.

Prior to seeing it my academic world was a comfortable place. As a secondee working at university as an associate lecturer in education life was great – after decades of working in schools to be in a place that genuinely respected learning was hugely refreshing. Learning was valued. Resources were plentiful – certainly compared to the schools in which I had taught. The technology available to use to present tutorials was far in advance of anything available in schools. Dealing with adult learners, most of whom were keen to learn, was such a joy after trying to coax disengaged high school students into anything resembling academic activity. I was free to explore the possibilities open to the connected educator. The crippling load of marking was the only negative – and compared to my previous workload in schools it was manageable. Teaching was great again.

My load was a mixture of face to face work and online work. I was comfortable with this. The technology made life easier for students and there was research to support the notion that online learning was at least as effective as face to face learning. This meant that, although I didn’t actually see my students, I was comfortable that “the process” was a valid one for them. (For further reading in this area see this USA Department of Education report “Evaluation of Evidence-Based Practices in Online Learning “ , September 2010.) http://www2.ed.gov/rschstat/eval/tech/evidence-based-practices/finalreport.pdf

It seemed that all over the globe students were voting with their fingers and opting for online courses. In the USA double digit growth in the percentage of students studying online seemed to vouch for this fact – an estimated 4.6 MILLION students were studying online in America alone. http://chronicle.com/blogPost/Colleges-See-17-Percent-Inc/20820/

In Australia online studies were proving so popular that face to face classes in some universities were suffering a significant fall in numbers. One report suggested that up to 44% of students rarely see the inside of a university lecture room. http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/online-study-kills-uni-life-20110226-1b98l.html Surely,I thought, such a popular learning platform must be good for all concerned?

And then I saw this video.

The world changed.

The potentially crushing experience of students being alone with minimal genuine contact with teaching staff is made painfully clear in this very simple, very clever production.



Online learning requires a new repertoire of learning skills. It also requires new teaching skills. It requires a significant effort to ensure that the digital student is first and foremost a person. No technology, no matter how powerful, should ever be allowed to change that.

"Visions of Students Today" - Whose Education is it anyway?

If a picture is worth a thousand words ...how much is a video worth? These ones are priceless – for educators of post-compulsory students. To call the two videos featured in this post “thought provoking” is an understatement.
Both videos are created by Michael Wesch – with a lot of help from students at Kansas State University. The first, “A vision of students today”,is widely known and has been circulating around the internet since October of 2007 while the sequel, “Visions of Students Today”, was released in June, 2011. Both give a sense of what it is like to be a university level student today. I won’t elaborate specifically on the content of the videos – except to suggest that they should be compulsory viewing for all teachers, lecturers and professors.
Expressing concern about the “irrelevance” of education is nothing new. It was already an established theme back when I was a student – not long after the ark found dry land. However, even if we put aside the issue of the appropriateness or otherwise of the curriculum itself and just contemplate the educational experience itself, educators should be asking some serious questions. We know what modern life is like for our students. Why have our schools and universities not kept up? Why do we not use the technology and the equally important associated attitudes available to us? To some extent there will always be a lag period between technological innovation and educational practice – technology evolves faster than institutions do. But, as these videos show, when we use new approaches, or rather when we allow our students to use the technology that is already available to them, significant learning can occur.
So we have the situation where often the curriculum itself can be of little relevance or significance and the process by which students interact with their “education” is disconnected from their daily life with its heavy emphasis on modern technology. Is this really good enough? It begs the question – whose education is it anyway, the student’s or “the system’s”?

Anyone interested in more background in the creation of “Visions of Students Today” can follow this link to the associated blog pages.
Associated background story http://mediatedcultures.net/ksudigg/?p=303
http://mediatedcultures.net/ksudigg/

Visions of Students today link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrXpitAlva0

A vision of students today link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGCJ46vyR9o
Michae Wesch photo:
http://mediatedcultures.net/ksudigg/wp-content/uploads/2007/01/mike.jpg

Learning locally

I’m a fan of online learning and learning via the Internet. The treasury of knowledge that resides in “the cloud” magically captured and reproduced via a series of “1” and “0” is simply staggering. Despite a lifetime of reverence to the printed page I have become an enthusiastic user of electronic learning. If you know what you are looking for and know how to ask the right questions you can discover basically any thing you want on the Internet in less time than it takes for your coffee to cool.

I am an neophyte member of any number of electronic communities - some incredibly useful and which provide me with all sorts of useful information and educational techniques. I have a secret passion for mathematics education - and am able to access rich information from all around the planet. Such is my involvement in the online community that I considered letting my membership of my state mathematical association lapse - after all, I can access more information more easily on the web; why should I continue with an organisational structure with procedures older than me?

I decided to attend the annual conference and then retreat to my laptop for ideas when I need them. I made the trip to the state capital and was staying with relatives. I noticed that my relatives had the same brand of TV that I do - but that it was tuned differently. It did not have an annoying “beep” every time I pressed a button, nor did it show a host of “empty” channels. It took perhaps a minute for my relative to show me how to retune my TV to remove these features.

My point is that this learning, as simple as it was, is unlikely to have taken place online. I have been frustrated with the “beep” and empty channels for months - but I had been unable to find a solution (I had tried to find one via the manual with no success). Sometimes we can learn things of personal significance in the most unanticipated places...from people.

I was reminded of the infamous press conference by Donald Runsfeld in which he spoke about “unknown unknowns”. As tortured as his terminology was he made a sound point - sometimes you don’t know what you don’t know. The Internet is brilliant for discovering what you want to find out - or, as Runsfeld would put it, “known unknowns”. However, for that incidental knowledge, for those happy productive coincidences, it seems that we need to remember the “social” in “social constructivist” learning.

It’s been said better before by environmental group Greenpeace - “Think global - act local.”

(And yes, the conference had some gems too - I’ll be continuing my membership.)

Learning the game - James Paul Gee

James Gee is a professor of literacy at Arizona State University - from his job description you would expect him to be a fan of dusty texts and heavy leather bound tomes.  You’d be wrong.  Gee has some really interesting things to say about the relevance of video games to education - all the more interesting as Gee is a few generations away from the tee-shirt wearing pierced-eyebrow type who you would normally associate with this view point.

In this short video Gee makes some interesting observations - some new, some not so new, but all worth thinking about.  Gee reminds us that testing drives teaching and that we won’t get genuine reform of teaching until we have genuine reform of our testing - not new but none-the-less worthy.  Gee also says that traditional education systems now have rival - 24/7 teaching delivered on line and tailored to your learning style and lifestyle.   Although in its embryonic stages Gee says that the new form of education is outperforming traditional schools.

This is where Gee’s video gets really interesting – he draws a parallel between education and video games.  Video games are challenging and require sustained effort and concentration to master. But children will play them for hours. They will even pay significant amounts of money for the privilege of doing so.   One of the characteristics of effective games is that they build in feedback at regular intervals DURING the game. In order to master the game players have to absorb the feedback and apply it.  That is the only way that they can be effective.  Players also EXPECT to get the feedback through the process – a game that doesn’t in effect teach you how to play it would not last long in the market place.  Gee states that it would not make sense to test players at the end of the game to see if they had learnt the required skills – they simply cannot finish the game unless they have learnt them.  Finishing the game is itself evidence that the skills have been acquired. Yet in schools we test at the end of units of work – often too late to provide useful performance feedback to students.  Gee’s point is that if our feedback followed the model offered by video games then school reform might be one step closer.

Rather than summarise the video further I’d simply recommend that you watch it. Gee is a softly spoken character – this video is well worth viewing more than once as he delivers great insight in such a gentle manner that the significance of what he has said can slip past.

Games and Education Scholar James Paul Gee on Video Games, Learning, and Literacy from DML Research Hub on Vimeo.

Perhaps the old adage is right – “It’s not winning or losing that matters – it’s how you play the game”.

Credits:
Original prompt for this blog =  http://henryjenkins.org/2011/03/how_learners_can_be_on_top_of.html
Video - details contained on video

The future of schooling? Holograms, robots and “the algorithm” …

There’s not much of a future in making predictions. According to Greek mythology the prophetess Cassandra was cursed by Apollo so that no-one would believe her predictions - despite their unfailing accuracy. For mere mortals without her gift of foresight making predictions is a haphazard business indeed. Hence, I am not making a prediction; I am merely speculating on some apparently unrelated snippets from the recent web.

Item one. A crowd of concert goers in Japan attend a live performance by Miku Hatsune. So?
Miku Hatsune doesn’t exist - “she” is actually a hologram, although her backing band is real and performing on stage. People are going to a concert to see an artist that does not exist perform “live” in front of them. Judging from the concert footage they seem to be enjoying it.

Item two. A South Korean school is trialling the use of a robot teacher aide to teach students English. The article claims that the cost is one half the cost of employing a real life teacher.

Item 3. In America a boy with a severe illness now attends school via robot. This gives him some much needed “social” interaction as well as access to an education.

Item 4. In New York the “School of One” has significantly redesigned education - largely by using technology to take over the planning of student work. “The algorithm”, aka a computer, assesses student performance each day, discerns the extent of their progress and then creates a unique learning program for the following day - complete with access to off-site subject expert tutors and computer assisted learning. This video of the principal of the school, Dominick D’Angelo, giving a speech includes interview footage with teachers and students from the school.

It is undeniably fascinating material.

My question is simply - what happens if (when?) these items combine?

What might a school of the future look like once these technologies become commonplace?

Photo credit = http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcS-7lbpDE4prfyulaMCm_hVqSmp43SgCS9I3z_9W2aWCXZRKZiZeoECGA

Prof David Crystal - Text & tweets - myths and realities

Prof David Crystal’s work is well known to most people with an interest in the English language.   As either author or editor of over one hundred books relating to the language he is perhaps the ultimate authority in the field. In the interview featured below Crystal’s relaxed style and unassuming manner are at the forefront as he discusses the impact of texts and tweets on written language use.

Crystal is actually quite positive about their impact and discusses findings relating the number of texts a student sends and their attainment in formal testing – contrary to conventional wisdom texting is actually positively related to school achievement.   He also discusses the use of abbreviation in electronic texts with a benign smile – and why not, if, as he says, Queen Victoria used to write “c u later”,  what’s all the fuss about?

At 30 minutes in duration this is not a short session – but it is well worth grabbing a coffee and listening to an expert with research to support his statements.