I came across this insightful video this morning about Digital Learners and why technology is important to incorporate when teaching students.
This is not a new idea, but one that is dear to me. Use this video anytime you have a room full of teachers and you’re trying to help them see why technology is important. Not just to help them teach, but to engage the students and help them learn.
On a sidenote, there was an article a couple of days ago on CNN: “Study: No benefit going high-tech for math and reading.“ The article reviews an attempt to incorporate “software products” in elementary and secondary reading and math classes. Three things strike me about this study:
- The title suggests that technology is not helping in the classroom. Although I’m not sure what ‘software products’ means, I would certainly guess it is not something akin to podcasts, blogs, cell phones, social networks and other technology that is exciting to elementary and secondary students.
- I am still disturbed by the constant need to gauge success in the classroom by scores. The article mentions nothing about the student reaction to the change in the classroom. Are the students excited to come to class? Are the students engaged in class? Is there a change in the drop out rate for students using technology in the classroom and those that aren’t? Do students that use technology in the classroom go on to higher paid, professional jobs?
- Although the study didn’t produce higher standardized test results,
when teachers were asked if they would use the products again nearly
ALL indicated they would. The teachers in the classroom obviously see the importance of the technology. It may be because it makes their jobs easier, but I think teachers can also see that more students are engaged and more students are willing to learn.
Just my 2 cents this morning…
7 Comments
I’d love to see a version of this that integrates real examples into the dialog. Show educators what this looks like and make it even more real. Show them that others are doing this and while it might take a bit of work that the rewards are worth the trouble.
Thanks for sharing this!
John
That is a great point John. These are all great ideas because we are familiar with all of them. Teachers that are getting into this need concrete examples.
Nice message, nice music, nice Web 1.0 video. How can you change it to align with your web 2.0 message? I got bored after the 3 slide – maybe I’m just becoming like those digital natives…
Great point Durff… It is really 1.0 isn’t it? I didn’t think about that. I personally didn’t make the video, I just liked it and thought some others might find it useful too so I posted it up here.
So are you offering the remake?
Unlike Durff, I loved the perfect fit between word animation and music. But the text message remains terroristically pushy in spite of the music coating. If I were a teacher hesitating about using the tools advocated in the video, the browbeating through stats and imperative verbs would certainly put me off.
In fact, it strongly reminded me of a conference in 1995 where sociolizing zealots of the internet were munching McLuhanoid mantras about it. I left muttering “The expense of bullsh*t in a waste of sham” and never went near a modem for the next 3 years.
Then in 1998 the people at the vocational teachers’ training institute asked if I would do translations for an “ICT in education” project. My line as a translator was literary essays, but I needed the money, so I said yes if you tell me what ICT means and let me ask as many other questions as I need”.
And THAT was interesting. The project was about bringing distance training possibilities to isolated Alpine valleys. They were using a “learning platform” that looked like a village. I wanted to use one too, because my students were corresponding with a class in another part of the country, but I was teaching in middle school and that platform was for vocational schools only. So the other teacher and I opened an MSN community instead.
That was Web 0.9 – 1.0 time. But the point remains the same. If you tell folks they are a criminally backwards inefficient bunch, they’ll crawl back into their shells, If you show them something that’s close enough to what they need, they’ll get interested.
Great insights! I hadn’t even thought of any of these comments. Claude, you make a great point. It is exciting to me because I am doing these things… but to someone not doing it, they could get offended. Thanks for the insight Claude!
Perhaps this is a better example of how powerful simple multimedia is and that users with a sound understanding of a concept can produce media that conveys that understanding and incites heated discussion (teachable moments).
I think I will tag it in del.icio.us so this video and the conversation it generated can be used when we run our next workshop on video in education.