Category: Tech 4 Learners

Met with Alex and Soren to talk about the final 2 minute video about our project. Coming along well…

Been working on the actual prototype as well:

Talked about what we have learned in this process of designing for a real person, and what we will have to present at the end of the quarter… wow… quarter is almost over!

Talked to Alex and Soren about our next steps for the presentation and final video.

Up to me to see how much of a high quality product I want to create…

NMC Horizon Reports are published every year about global issues, trends, and initiatives in education. I read the 2015 Higher Education paper: here’s a very broad summary of the findings.

CHALLENGES

Solvable

• Blending Formal and Informal Learning
• Improving Digital Literacy

Difficult

• Personalized Learning
• Teaching Complex Thinking

Wicked

• Competing Models of Education
• Rewards for Teaching

TRENDS

Short-term (1-2 yrs)

• Increasing Use of Blended Learning
• Redesigning Learning Spaces

Mid-term (3-4 yrs)

• Growing Focus on Measuring Learning
• Proliferation of Open Education Resources

Long-term (5+ yrs)

• Advancing Cultures of Change and Innovation
• Increasing Cross-Institution Collaboration

TECHNOLOGIES

Short-term (1-2 yrs)

• Bring Your Own Device (BYOD)
• Flipped Classroom

Mid-term (3-4 yrs)

• Makerspaces
• Wearable Technologies

Long-term (5+ yrs)

• Adaptive Learning Technologies
• The Internet of Things

Assignment: 

Choose one of the four NMC Horizon Reports for 2015 that is of interest to you.  Each one has a link to the wiki where the work was produced.  For your chosen report, explore the trends currently being discussed.  Post 2-3 paragraphs about what trend you think might have the biggest impact on learning.  Why?

Reading Notes: 

I started out reading the Higher Education Report… was halfway through when I realized we were supposed to read the trends on the Wiki instead!! Oh well – very interesting reading that some time I will go back to for sure.

New Reading Notes: Continuing the reading (correct one now)

Response: 

I chose to read the Higher Education report and thought that the trends that might have the biggest impact on learning can be categorized in 2 areas as I see it:

Teach Differently – look at new methods of teaching and how to use technology within the learning experiences.

Balancing Connected and Unconnected Lives
– We, as adults, teachers, and parents have trouble achieving this balance, therefore we should think about how might we teach the lessons learned to the younger generations.
– “Where we put our attention is not only how we decide what we learn, it is about how we show what we value.”

Integrating Technology in Teacher Education
– Without TPACK how can a teacher be effective with all the content and interactions available through technology their students use daily?
– Teachers must be able to understand technology and its implications to be able to use it effectively.
– “This challenge is exacerbated by the fact that digital literacy is less about tools and more about thinking, and thus skills and standards based on tools and platforms have proven to be somewhat ephemeral”
– “… teaching teachers to teach using up to date teaching pedagogies…”

Rethinking the Roles of Instructors
– Teachers become more of a guide and filter of content that a content delivery tool
– “We’re trying to get teachers to stop lecturing by lecturing to them”

Teach Different Things – look at what is being taught – is it useful or relevant, is it enough?

Creating Authentic Learning Opportunities
– Teach what you need to operate in the real world
– Teach about soft skills and well as core competencies
– “Practices such as these may help retain students in school and prepare them for further education, careers, and citizenship in a way that traditional practices are too often failing to do.”

Keeping Education Relevant
– Teach what the industry and the real world demands from students
– “The idea is to rethink the value of education as a means of reinforcing attitudes and skills learners will need to seek credible information, work effectively in teams, and persist in achieving their goals.”

Managing Knowledge Obsolescence
– How to deal with the every faster evolution of subject matters, findings, research, and beliefs.
– It’s a problem of change management – how to internalize constant external changes?
– “There is a greater need than ever for effective tools and filters for finding, interpreting, organizing, and retrieving the data that is important to us.”

Teaching Complex Thinking
– How to teach students to tackle complex problems, negotiate important matter and identify the validity of data sources.
– “The OECD report indicates the crucial need for learners to learn HOW to navigate digital texts, deal with issues of veracity and validity, and know ethical practices of using others’ work.”

To sum it up, I believe that the greatest impact in learning involve re-teaching our teachers to teach. At the same time I recognize that this is probably one of the hardest problems to resolve since it is not a matter of simply throwing money at the problem. It is about changing culture, changing daily routines, and ultimately working more, thinking harder, caring more, and valuing correctly the role of education in the world’s future.

Met up with Alex to talk about the next steps in terms of the high fidelity prototype and what we should put in our final 2 minute video presentation and report.

Prototype:

• Add your own words, phrases, pictures and videos
• Ability to chose section of video to play
• Ability to sequence videos into a story
• Create multiple rewards
• Record multiple prompts
• Record session
• Training Wheels section
• Audio mixer on recorded session playback
• Cut out background on Talking Tom character
• Ok button only shows up after Tom prompts for response
• Responses come every 10 seconds

App’s Main features:

• Scaffolded learning experience
• Protege effect
• Replay of narration – see the value of words
• Customizable – teacher can upload words, phrases, pictures and new videos

Presentation:

1. About ‘A’ and learning challenges
2. How Might We help ‘A’ generate more words
3. About the App 1
4. Video of the prototype 1
5. What we learned
6. Protege Effect
7. About the App 2
8. Video of prototype 2
9. What we learned
10. Vision – ‘A’ as a news reporter explaining a TED talk

Meeting Notes

As usual, a dynamic class. Looked at making learning easier.

Lots of ideas about A’s project – we were able to schedule a meeting with OMS tomorrow so had to run with building the prototype.

As usual, a dynamic class. Did a group exercise to talk within our groups and share what we thought of each other… celebrate something they did looking back. Looking forward, what constructive advice could you give?