Reflections on My Personal Learning Theory in Light of Bridging Learning Theory, Instruction, and Technology

At the beginning of the Bridging Learning Theory, Instruction, and Technology course, I characterized my personal theory of learning as “a synthesis of theories supported by research and my own experience both as a teacher and as a learner.” Throughout this course, my understanding of learning theory, pedagogy, and the technologies available for their implementation has grown, and this growth is reflected in my approach to facilitating student learning in the classroom.

This course has reinforced my belief in the wisdom of learner-centered pedagogy. Behaviorist, cognitivist, constructivist, constructionist, and social constructionist learning theory remain foundations of my own teaching philosophy, and these theories support my understanding that lasting and relevant learning occurs when the student is actively involved in building meaning (Laureate Education, Inc., 2009; Lever-Duffy & McDonald, 2008). This course has added to my understanding of this principle by developing my knowledge of how technology can support pedagogical approaches that reflect modern, student-centered, learning theories.

Our second week in this course focused on behaviorism. Like many thinkers in education, I had begun to consider behaviorism less relevant in modern education than more cognition-centered learning theories. But revisiting behaviorist learning theory through our course readings reminded me of its lasting significance and applicability in concert with other learning theories in modern schooling (Pitler, Hubbell, Kuhn, & Malenoski, 2007; Smith, 1999). Like all worthy theories of learning, behaviorism addresses the importance of relevance in learner motivation.

Our third week focused on cognitive learning theory which, unlike behaviorism, attempts to explain the processes through which new information is incorporated by learners into their existing understanding of the world (Novak & Cañas, 2008). Through our readings, I gained a greater understanding of how cognitive learning theory can be applied in the classroom, adding to my repertoire of technologies that support strategies such as cues, questions, advance organizers, summary, and note taking. Although I have employed these strategies throughout my teaching career, I gained a greater understanding of why they work and what resources have recently become available for their application. We learned how several technology tools can support cognitive learning in practice. Some—like concept mapping, Word features, presentation tools, and online communication and collaboration tools—I immediately applied and will continue to use in student-centered learning contexts.

In week four we explored constructivist and constructionist learning theory, which suggests that meaningful learning occurs when learners construct meaning for themselves through active experience (Laureate Education, Inc., 2009). For me, this is the most exciting of the learning theories we have investigated, and offers the most promise for changing the way I teach. As an English teacher, I have always engaged my students in constructivist and constructionist learning experiences. Traditional reading and writing assignments reflect these principles, as learners must construct meaning for themselves in transactions with the text and other readers, and writers must develop understanding of their topics as they construct written artifacts of their thinking. New media, however, offer me the opportunity to employ constructivist and constructionist learning theory in exciting new ways. Students can use computer and Internet technologies to engage in authentic problem-based and project-based learning experiences that make new learning relevant and immediately applicable in authentic contexts to aid in motivation and retention (Pitler et al., 2007). Already, I am applying these ideas in class projects where students are building their own understanding, not only of new content, but of how to learn and apply new knowledge independently and collaboratively to solve real-world problems and create valuable resources. My AP Language and Composition students are currently building a wiki-based study guide for the AP test and SAT vocabulary presentations they will use to prepare their peers for college entrance examinations and coursework. Their study guide and its development incorporate many skills, technologies and tools besides the host wiki, including summary, organizers, concept maps, tables, illustrative images, and rubrics. The skills my students develop for learning and applying content knowledge will be at least as important to them as the content knowledge itself.

Week five of this course introduced connectivism and social learning, examining how people learn with and from others. From the connectivist perspective, students in social learning situations apply their diverse perspectives, experience, and prior knowledge to actively construct meaning, creating connections to interpret seemingly unrelated events and ideas (Davis, Edmunds, & Kelly-Bateman, 2001). Cooperative learning, in particular, is an effective instructional strategy that reflects social learning theories by enabling students to work together to actively construct knowledge and transform it in ways that aid comprehension for group members (Palmer, Peters, & Streetman, 2007; Pitler et al., 2007). I am particularly excited by the potential of Web 2.0 collaboration and social networking tools to aid and enhance cooperative learning by helping groups of students work collaboratively with individual accountability to construct and share group products. My greater understanding of how to structure and manage cooperative learning experiences for my students, and technologies to serve that effort, will certainly be reflected in my classroom practice.

In week six, we focused on synergizing learning theories, strategies, and technologies (Laureate Education, Inc., 2009; Muniandy, Mohammad, & Fong, 2007). We examined nine proven categories of learning strategy (identifying similarities and differences, summarizing, providing recognition and reinforcement of effort, assigning meaningful homework and practice, using nonlinguistic representation, facilitating cooperative learning, setting clear objectives and providing feedback, generating and testing hypotheses, and providing cues and advance organizers) and found ways to apply them to realize learning theory in our classroom practice (Laureate Education, Inc., 2001). I found that I already apply many of these strategies in my teaching, but also found that I can improve my exploitation of those strategies I already use while developing my repertoire of pedagogical techniques in other areas.

In the long term, I hope to more consciously connect learning theory to pedagogical practice, and to use technology more as a learning tool rather than for instruction. The lesson I developed in week seven reflects a synthesis of much of what I learned throughout this course. This lesson reflects both the immediate adjustments I have made to my instructional practice, like the use of Web 2.0 collaboration tools to facilitate cooperative learning, and long-term changes I will make regarding the integration of technology into my practice. I have already incorporated new learning technologies, like wikis, Google Docs, and concept mapping software, into my daily instruction. I have also developed new ways of using technologies I once used mainly for instruction (such as PowerPoint) as learning tools, by putting them in the hands of students. As my students build their animated PowerPoint “movie” versions of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, I will step away from the front of the classroom to take on a more powerful role as facilitator for a social constructionist learning experience. This lesson is just one example of many to come that will combine cognitivist, constructivist, constructionist, and social learning theories with classroom strategies and supportive technologies to provide my students with meaningful, learner-centered, active learning experiences through which they will develop the skills they will need to adapt to the constant technological change that will define their careers.

In the future, I intend to continue to adapt new technologies to facilitate the application of learning theory and best pedagogical practices to student learning. There are many technologies I hope to employ in applying best pedagogical practices and learning theory, but I am particularly interested in making the most of new presentation tools, such as interactive whiteboards, and Web 2.0 collaboration and publication tools for social constructivist and constructionist learning. Our school has recently received four interactive whiteboards. Already, teachers are preparing lessons to use them for instruction. I am thinking of ways they can be used in a more learner-centered context. As a result of pressure and persuasion on the part of teachers in my system who have been frustrated with impediments to using Web 2.0 technologies in the classroom, our technology department has announced a plan to certify teachers, through an online course, to override the school’s prohibitive Internet filter at their own discretion. I intend to take this course and make the most of the long overdue privileges this certification will confer. With access to image search engines, wikis, weblogs, and the endless variety of Web-based learning tools this will make available, my students will enjoy much greater opportunities to take control of their own education through authentic, meaningful learning experiences. It will be wonderful to have more of these tools at my disposal, but I must remember to always employ them in the execution of proven pedagogical strategies based on sound learning theory.

References

Davis, C., Edmunds, E., & Kelly-Bateman, V. (2001). Connectivism. In M. Orey (Ed.), Emerging perspectives on learning, teaching, and technology. Retrieved November 27, 2009, from http://projects.coe.uga.edu/epltt/

Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2009). Bridging learning theory, instruction, and technology. Baltimore: Author.

Lever-Duffy, J. and McDonald, J. (2008). Theoretical Foundations. In Teaching and Learning with Technology (3rd ed. pp. 2–35 ). Boston: Pearson.

Muniandy, B., Mohammad, R., & Fong, S. (2007, September). Synergizing pedagogy, learning theory and technology in instruction: How can it be done?. US-China Education Review, 4(9), 46–53. Retrieved from Education Research Complete database. Document ID: 31626898

Novak, J. D. & Cañas, A. J. (2008). The theory underlying concept maps and how to construct and use them, Technical Report IHMC CmapTools 2006-01 Rev 01-2008. Retrieved from the Institute for Human and Machine Cognition Web site: http://cmap.ihmc.us/Publications/ResearchPapers/TheoryUnderlyingConceptMaps.pdf

Pitler, H., Hubbell, E., Kuhn, M., & Malenoski, K. (2007). Using technology with classroom instruction that works. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

Smith, M. K. (1999) The behaviourist orientation to learning. The Encyclopedia of Informal Education, Retrieved November 11, 2009, from www.infed.org/biblio/learning-behavourist.htm

A VoiceThread on Impediments to Using Digital Learning Technology in Our School

Follow this link:  http://voicethread.com/share/777235/

This is a VoiceThread about impediments to using Web based and computer learning tools in my school.  It talks about the Bess "SMARTFILTER" Internet filter, the lack of access to computers, our inability to install learning software on the computers without administrative privileges (which nobody in the building has), and the general lack of faith in teachers' ability to make pedagogical decisions regarding the Internet.  This is a work in progress, as is our school system's technology policy.  No doubt, both will evolve over time.

Connectivism and Social Learning in Practice

Social learning can take many forms, but the essence of social learning theory is the idea that people learn with and from others (Laureate, 2001). From the connectivist perspective of Davis, Edmunds, and Kelly-Bateman (2001), students in social learning situations bring the flexibility enabled by their diverse experience to bear in social learning situations where they combine and share prior knowledge, experience, perceptions, and comprehension to actively construct meaning by creating connections and interpreting seemingly unrelated events and ideas. Cooperative learning is an instructional strategy that reflects social learning theories by enabling students to work together to actively construct knowledge and transform it in ways that aid comprehension for group members (Pitler, Hubbell, Kuhn, & Malenoski, 2007; Palmer, Peters, & Streetman, 2007). The ability to work collaboratively with peers to build knowledge needed to accomplish a shared task will be the essential career skill of this century (Davis, Edmunds, & Kelly-Bateman, 2001; Leavy & Murnane, 2006). Web 2.0 social networking and collaboration tools can facilitate and enhance the effectiveness of cooperative learning by providing media in which groups of students can work collaboratively and with individual accountability to create and share group products.

Collaborative learning can be used to apply social learning theory by aiding students in constructing their own understanding of the world. According to Kim Beaumie’s (2001) interpretation of social constructivist learning theory, reality is “constructed through human activity” in a process through which people “invent the properties of the world” together (p. 1). In this model of learning, human knowledge is actively socially constructed and reflects the shared understandings, interests, and assumptions of groups. Beaumie (2001) recommends that formal learning experiences include reciprocal teaching, peer collaboration, cognitive apprenticeship, problem-based instruction, webquests, anchored instruction, and other activities designed to support the shared construction of knowledge.

These strategies can be supported by Web 2.0 and other digital communication and presentation tools. Students can construct presentations using PowerPoint, concept mapping, VoiceThread, or other computer and Internet applications to support reciprocal teaching. Collaboration tools such as wikis and Google Docs can aid student groups in collaboratively developing meaningful artifacts of their learning. One particularly helpful feature of these applications is that they keep records of the history of site or document development and contributors’ asynchronous discussions in order to ensure the individual accountability required by cooperative learning strategy (Palmer, Peters, & Streetman, 2007). Social networking tools like MySpace and Facebook also provide a medium for both social interaction and artifact construction, as does the rich virtual environment of Second Life. These digital collaboration and communication tools can also help to convert what Jean Lave described as inert knowledge, knowledge that is not immediately applied by the learner and is unlikely to be applied in future experience, into active knowledge that is, and can be, put to use (Laureate, 2009). Students can consult with experts and community members in fields they are studying through weblogs, email, and chat applications to support a cognitive apprenticeship model or to help answer questions in a problem-based instruction task. Problem-based and collaborative instruction can also be supported through the ready availability of online research tools such as search engines, online libraries, and databases.

As the Web closes the distance that once separated individuals and communities, it offers greater potential for the realization of meaningful and diverse application of social learning theory. But the shrinking or “flattening” of the world through digital information and communication technology also increases the importance of developing in our students the skill of self-directed learning (Davis, et al., 2001; Laureate, 2009; Pitler, et al., 2007). These tools help students collaboratively convert the unprecedented abundance of information now available into useful knowledge that can be practically applied to make sense of the present and make predictions and prescriptions for the future (Davis, et al., 2001; Laureate, 2009). In an increasingly competitive, and cooperative, world, these are more than just classroom strategies; they are long-term survival skills.

References

Beaumie, K. (2001). Social constructivism. In M. Orey (Ed.), Emerging perspectives on learning, teaching, and technology. Retrieved November 27, 2009, from http://projects.coe.uga.edu/epltt/

Davis, C., Edmunds, E., & Kelly-Bateman, V. (2001). Connectivism. In M. Orey (Ed.), Emerging perspectives on learning, teaching, and technology. Retrieved November 27, 2009, from http://projects.coe.uga.edu/epltt/

Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2009). Bridging learning theory, instruction, and technology. Baltimore: Author.

Levy, F., & Murnane, R. (2006). Why the changing American economy calls for twenty-first century learning: Answers to educators' questions. New Directions for Youth Development, 2006(110), 53–62.

Palmer, G. Peters, R., & Streetman, R. Cooperative learning. In M. Orey (Ed.), Emerging perspectives on learning, teaching, and technology. Retrieved November 27, 2009, from http://projects.coe.uga.edu/epltt/

Pitler, H., Hubbell, E., Kuhn, M., & Malenoski, K. (2007). Using technology with classroom instruction that works. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

Constructivism in Practice

Constructivist and constructionist learning theories are rooted in the principle that real learning occurs when learners actively construct meaning for themselves through active experience (Laureate, 2009). Constructionist learning theory suggests that this experience should result in the building of an external artifact (Laureate, 2009; Han & Bhattacharya, 2001). Although the validity of these theories has long been accepted, practical impediments have traditionally interfered with their widespread implementation. Now, digital information, communication, and collaboration tools are facilitating teachers’ ability to realize these principles in classroom instruction.


There are many ways to use computer technology to implement constructivist and constructionist learning theory in practice. Dr. Michael Orey suggests that PowerPoint can be used to create the final artifact of a project-based, constructivist lesson (Laureate, 2001). Students are given a challenging topic to address in their presentation and encounter, through their preparation, situations that create disequilibration, a state that occurs when existing schemata do not account for unexpected situations or new information. Students must then either assimilate new information into an existing schema, or create a new schema to accommodate it. Either way, because they immediately apply new knowledge or skills to the completion of a meaningful task, they are more likely to be fully engaged in the learning experience and to retain new knowledge and skills. This process is fundamental to all constructionist learning situations.

In Emerging Perspectives on Learning, Teaching, and Technology, Han and Bhattacharya (2001) describe a workshop on effective Web-based instruction in which the facilitator uses a constructionist learning model. She begins by eliciting background information about participants and their goals for the workshop. She previews activities and opens the floor for questions, asks for ideas about the topic to tap participants’ prior knowledge (which she records on a flip-chart), highlights common themes and significant points in their responses, and integrates them into a PowerPoint presentation representing the collective knowledge of the group. The then presents the PowerPoint to the group with illustrating anecdotes before introducing participants to Web-based instruction examples. When they have examined these models, she records the group’s reflections on their experiences, which they share in a whole-group debriefing. With these experiences, participants individually construct their own Web-based instruction with lists of required components to guide them. These components are learner analysis, timeframe, interface metaphor, multiple presentation modes, assessment strategies, a variety of learning tasks, and a learner centered environment. They then form groups that discuss and select plans for presentation. Presentations are followed by comments and questions from the audience and reflective discussion. The workshop is followed by ongoing online communication through participant facilitated chat sessions. Final individual projects are shared and critiqued online. This process illustrates constructionist learning theory by holding to the principle that “instruction is only effective when the learners can relate personally and take something away from it” (Han & Bhattacharya, 2001, p.2). It moves through planning, implementing, and processing phases with active participant involvement at every stage. The activity is learner-oriented, interactive, based on understanding of learners and their contexts, centers on construction of an artifact, and uses multiple presentation methods (Han & Bhattacharya, 2001).

Ideally, a constructionist learning environment uses rubrics to establish expectations, discussion of and interpretation of assignment parameters, exploration of multiple strategies for the assignment, inquiry and learning during development, presentation of work, revision and development of the idea in the project, learner collaboration, collaboration with experts, and authentic tasks to provide a meaningful context (Han & Bhattacharya, 2001). A good example of problem-based instruction that reflects these standards is the Nikron example Glazer (2001) describes, in which a group of students collaborate with stakeholders in their community in an attempt to determine whether pollution from an important local industry is responsible for recent fish kills. Students are given a personally relevant, real world problem, they formulate research questions, assign questions to groups, evaluate available information resources, devise various forms of final products to present their findings, propose and negotiate projects with their teacher and media specialist, devise methods for research, conduct research, experiment, observe, share and compare research with other teams, analyze evidence, surmise the cause of the kill, return to the hypothesis and develop a presentation, present for whole-class review, and finish with a mock trial as a final assessment of their efforts and findings. This illustrates Glazer's (2001) assertion that “learning is most meaningful and is enhanced when students face a situation in which the concept is immediately applied” (p. 2). Answers to the question come from the learners’ knowledge and experience, rather than from texts or curricula, and the learning community is an integral part of the mechanism of knowledge construction.

Glazer (2001) also suggests other types of problem-based learning projects, such as anchored instruction, in which the problem comes from a learning context such as a story, adventure, or other situation with a problem that students can resolve through inquiry. He recommends online resources such as Web quests and an online desert race simulation. In Web quests, the design includes a task or problem, a process description, resources, evaluation tools, and concluding summary and debriefing.

In Using Technology with Classroom Instruction that Works, Pitler, Hubbell, Kuhn, & Malenoski (2007) discuss technology enhanced activities in which students are called upon to generate and test hypotheses. In one activity, students are given a sum of money to invest. They use spreadsheet software to predict how various investment strategies will turn out over the course of thirty years. In other examples, students use probeware to examine the relationship between light and color in art, or to determine if the students’ community has acid rain. He also examines an online video game developed by a teacher that helps students discover the causes of World War II through a simulation. In each case, students are actively involved in solving a real problem or constructing an authentic product in a personally significant context.

Many online resources support and describe constructivist and constructionist learning. Edutopia: Project Learning offers several examples of project-based learning experiences. In “Immersing Students in Civic Education,” Richard Rapaport (2007) describes a project in which a class of students was called upon to propose tile designs for a real renovation project for the San Francisco Port Commission. A valuable part of their learning experience was rejection by their evaluator, urban designer Dan Hodapp. This feedback, although painful, drove home the reality of the project and communicated higher expectations than would be expected in ordinary school projects. Students revised their designs to reflect a more focused theme and eventually won approval. This first step led to the difficult discovery process of learning how to actually produce the tiles. Despite many episodes of discomfort, disequilibration, and struggle in their zones of proximal development, the team ultimately prevailed. Now every student on that team can see and show an authentic artifact of their learning experience at the city’s renovated Pier 14.

Apple Learning Interchange offers several examples of online project-based learning activities (Apple, Inc., 2008). In “March of the Monarchs,” students track the northerly migration of monarch butterflies in a project entitled Journey North, funded by the Annenberg/CPB project. Students in states visited annually by the butterflies create a digital map marking sightings to document their migration. In this complex, interdisciplinary collaborative project, student groups measure the growth of plants on which the butterflies feed, calculate the growth time of larvae, analyze weather conditions that affect the migration, observe interrelated species, explore cultural references to monarchs, study other states they pass through, explore and document their life-cycle, take and post photographs, and explore every conceivable aspect of this insect’s life. While they become experts on the monarch, they also develop expertise in many other learning disciplines, all while working collaboratively to address a locally relevant, real-world issue and create an authentic product for a wide audience.

Another interesting project on Apple Learning Interchange is the International Education and Resource Network's (iEARN) First People's Project, which involves indigenous students around the world in creating and sharing artifacts of their local cultures with the global community (Apple, Inc., 2008). Students present stories, interviews, digital photographs, poems, and artwork representing their indigenous cultures, often creating the only widely available information sources on their communities’ ways of life. They share packages with other indigenous participants around the world, providing the genuinely valuable service of preserving and sharing their cultural traditions while developing their own skills and understanding of their heritage.

Problem-based, project-based, and inquiry-based learning experiences put constructivist and constructionist learning theories into practice in ways that engage students and produce cognitive and concrete results, and digital information, communication, and collaboration tools have made these projects more accessible and practical than ever before. Making use of these opportunities, teachers can help their students develop the confidence and abilities they will need to compete, and triumph, in the twenty-first century global marketplace.



REFERENCES


Apple, Inc. (2008). Online project-based learning. Apple learning interchange. Retrieved November 24, 2009, from http://edcommunity.apple.com/ali/story.php?itemID=598&version=341&page=2

Glazer, E. (2001). Problem based instruction. In M. Orey (Ed.), Emerging perspectives on learning, teaching, and technology. Retrieved , from http://projects.coe.uga.edu/epltt/


Han, S., and Bhattacharya, K. (2001). Constructionism, Learning by Design, and Project Based Learning. In M. Orey (Ed.), Emerging perspectives on learning, teaching, and technology. Retrieved , from http://projects.coe.uga.edu/epltt/

Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2009). Bridging learning theory, instruction, and technology. Baltimore: Author.

Lever-Duffy, J. and McDonald, J. (2008). Theoretical Foundations. In Teaching and Learning with Technology (3rd ed. pp. 2–35 ). Boston: Pearson.

Pitler, H., Hubbell, E., Kuhn, M., & Malenoski, K. (2007). Using technology with classroom instruction that works. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

Rapaport, R. (2007). Immersing students in civic education. Edutopia. Retrieved November 24, 2009, from http://www.edutopia.org/intelligent-design

My Concept Map of a William Shakespeare Virtual Field Trip

Cognitivism in Practice

Cognitive learning theory attempts to explain the processes through which new information is incorporated by learners into their existing understanding of the world (Novak & Cañas, 2008). The goal of formal education is to create experiences that facilitate this assimilation. Instructional strategies and technologies that support this purpose take many forms, but should reflect deliberate application of relevant learning theories. In Using Technology with Classroom Instruction that Works, Pitler, Hubbell, Kuhn, and Malenoski (2007) discuss two instructional strategies that reflect cognitive learning theory and technologies that support them.

Chapter four of Pitler et al.’s (2007) book, “Cues, Questions, and Advance Organizers” examines strategies that help learners “retrieve, use, and organize information about a topic” (p. 73). Cues and questions offer reminders that help students recall prior knowledge in order to prepare them to connect that prior knowledge to new information in an imminent learning experience. This strategy employs Ausubel et al.’s notion that authentic learning occurs when new ideas are assimilated into the learner’s existing cognitive structure (Novak & Cañas, 2008). According to Pitler et al. (2007), Ausubel developed advance organizers to help students organize and comprehend new information, particularly when it is presented in a poorly organized context. These organizers can take many forms (expository organizers, narrative organizers, graphic organizers, cues, inferential questions, analytic questions, questions and organizers produced by skimming ahead), as long as they provide some structure to guide subsequent ordering and interpretation of content (Pitler et al., 2007). Different types of organizers are appropriate for different purposes and may reflect different learning styles or intelligences, but all should be designed to focus on important content. Organizers produce more meaningful understanding if they focus on higher-order cognitive processes—those on the upper levels of Bloom’s taxonomy such as application, analysis, evaluation, and creation—rather than lower-level thinking such as factual recall (Pitler et al., 2007). Spreadsheets, concept maps, KWL charts, and even pre-reading background development through media experiences such as film clips and virtual field trips can provide advance scaffolding for learning experiences. Concept mapping tools such as CmapTools and Inspiration are particularly well suited to help students connect prior knowledge to existing cognitive structures because of their visual representation of connections among ideas. Learners may begin constructing a concept map by recording prior knowledge about a topic and showing how ideas are interrelated, then expand the map during and after the new learning experience. This application of constructivist learning theory can be further augmented when learners work collaboratively, either locally or through the Internet. Working collaboratively, learners may augment peers’ learning experiences by providing timely assistance when in what Vygotsky called the zone of proximal development (Novak & Cañas, 2008). As learners apply newly acquired information from their short term memory to the task of constructing the concept map, it moves into their working memory and, through the experience of visually representing interrelationships among ideas, becomes connected to prior knowledge and permanently established in long-term memory (Novak & Cañas, 2008). Multimedia tools can be used in similar ways to represent relationships between prior knowledge and new information in ways that appeal to various learning styles and intelligences. Use of images in multimedia organizers, presentations, and virtual field trips using computer technology takes advantage of the benefits of combining text and images Allen Paivio referred to as dual coding (Laureate, 2009). Students can use these technologies to incorporate new information into artifacts that represent episodic, archaic, or iconic associations (Novak & Cañas, 2008). And many of the same technologies that facilitate advance organization of new information are applicable to summarizing and note-taking.

(Novak &Cañas, 2008)

Pitler et al. (2007) define summary and notetaking skills as the “ability to synthesize information and distill it into a concise new form” (p. 119). Learners summarize by eliminating extraneous and redundant data, replacing lists of specifics with set categories, and finding or generating topic sentences (Pitler et al., 2007). Computers can facilitate this process through word processing, concept mapping, presentation, information retrieval, communication, and collaboration applications. Microsoft Word is a particularly versatile tool. Students can use the auto summarize feature to condense content produced by others (perhaps to compare with their own summaries) or to check their own writing to see if their meaning is evident. Word can also be used for brainstorming, through its bullet feature, or to produce advance organizers representing various organizational frames using drawing or table generating tools. Concept mapping programs can be used to assimilate new ideas, but maps can also be exported in outline form to facilitate summarization and presentation of organized notes. Presentation tools, like PowerPoint, are a great medium for producing and sharing combination notes, especially for their capacity to integrate a variety of media (Pitler et al., 2007). Small groups collaborating on such a project may divide responsibilities for this production based on individual intelligences and learning preferences. Easy access to information, images, narratives, audio, and video resources through Internet search engines and databases can help students focus on developing and incorporating, rather than searching for, content. Communication and collaboration tools, such as blogs and wikis, allow learners to engage in reciprocal teaching, or share and collaboratively build learning artifacts based on their summaries and notes on shared learning experiences (Pitler et al., 2007).

Although the application of computer technology does not, in itself, guarantee effective learning, information and communication technologies can be used to implement cognitive learning theories to facilitate meaningful student learning.

References

Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2009). Bridging learning theory, instruction, and technology. Baltimore: Author.

Novak, J. D. & Cañas, A. J. (2008). The theory underlying concept maps and how to construct and use them, Technical Report IHMC CmapTools 2006-01 Rev 01-2008. Retrieved from the Institute for Human and Machine Cognition Web site: http://cmap.ihmc.us/Publications/ResearchPapers/TheoryUnderlyingConceptMaps.pdf

Pitler, H., Hubbell, E., Kuhn, M., & Malenoski, K. (2007). Using technology with classroom instruction that works. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

Behaviorism in Practice

Although behaviorist learning theory may be unfashionable in a time when constructivism, learning styles, and multiple intelligences share the spotlight, behaviorism remains a staple of learning practice in and out of the classroom. The recognition that one cannot live on bread alone does not, after all, imply that bread should be removed from one’s diet entirely. Behaviorism, appropriately applied, is an indispensable part of educational practice because students learn when effective learning behavior is reinforced. Certain technologies can support effective operant conditioning to reinforce student effort, homework, and practice (Pitler, Hubbell, Kuhn, & Malenoski, 2007).


Most teachers know that students often fail to recognize the connection between effort and performance. I have frequently heard students attributing bad grades to their teachers' personal opinions of them. Only when pressed, might they admit that the reason their teachers didn’t like them was their lack of effort in class. This faulty perception of cause and effect is often deep-seated, even comforting, as it excuses the student from taking responsibility for failure. But this misconception can be remedied, if the student is confronted with undeniable evidence of the true cause and effect relationship between effort and performance. Pitler, Hubbell, Kuhn, and Malenoski (2007) recommend that students use rubrics and spreadsheet software to document their efforts in class. A rubric describing levels of effort in different categories allows students to quantify their behaviors so that they may be recorded on a spreadsheet. Students can then record their performance on assessments and use the software’s graphing functions to compare their effort with their performance. This method can be effective in many curricular areas and in interdisciplinary projects. Pitler et al. argue that through “consistent and systematic exposure to teaching strategies like this one” students can “really grasp the impact that effort can have on their achievement” (p. 159). They also recommend that students use data collection tools to examine statistical evidence of this correlation on a larger scale, so that they can generalize their understanding beyond a particular classroom situation. By allowing students to clearly see the consequences of their efforts, such a system reinforces behaviors that contribute to learning and academic success.

Homework and practice are also important learning behaviors that are often undervalued by students. Again, the positive consequences of effort expended on homework and practice can be so remote that they are not immediately evident to learners. Some educational technologies, including “word processing applications, spreadsheet applications, multimedia, web resources, and communication software,” can provide the sort of programmed instruction that makes effective use of behaviorist learning theory (Laureate Education, Inc., 2009; Pitler et al., 2007, p. 189). For example, Pilter et al. (2009) point out that Microsoft Word offers students immediate feedback on their writing, amounting to a reward for students who are keeping score, with a Flesch-Kincaid grade level rating feature, and can assist them with immediately improving their “score” by offering a thesaurus feature (p. 190). This is perfectly in keeping with Skinner’s programmed instruction model (Laureate, 2009; Smith, 1999).

Pilter, et al. (2009) also describe constructivist learning projects, such as PowerPoint games, that provide immediate intrinsic rewards for their creators’ and users’ success at applying curricular knowledge and skills. Here we see that there can be synergy, rather than conflict, between behaviorism and other learning theories.

The authors recommend a number of sites that provide behaviorism-based and other learning applications:

• EDDIE Awards: www.computedgazette.com/page3.html

• BESSIE Awards: www.computedgazette.com/page11.html

• Technology & Learning’s Awards of Excellence/Readers’ Choice Awards: http://www.technlearning.com/  

• eSchoolNews Readers’ Choice Awards: www.eschoolnews.com/resources/surveys/editorial/rca/

• CodIE Awards: www.siia.net/codies  

• Discovery Education’s The Parent Channel: http://school.discovery.com/parents/reviewcorner/software/

• BattleGraph: http://sarah.lodick.com/edit/powerpoint_game/battlegraph/battlegraph.ppt

• BBC Skillswise: www.bbc.co.uk/skillswise

• National Library of Virtual Manipulatives: http://nlvm.usu.edu/en/nav/vlibrary.html

• ExploreLearning: http://www.explorelearning.com/

• BrainPOP: http://www.brainpop.com/

• IKnowthat.com: http://www.iknowthat.com/

• Wizards & Pigs: www.cogcon.org/gamegoo/games/wiznpigs/wiznpigs.html

• Flashcard Exchange: http://www.flashcardexchange.com/

• Mousercise: www.3street.org/mouse

• Lever Tutorial: www.elizrosshubbell.com/levertutorial

• Kitchen Chemistry: http://pbskids.org/zoom/games/kitchenchemistry/virtual-start.html

• Hurricane Strike!: http://meted.ucar.edu/hurrican/strike/index.htm

• Stellarium: http://www.stellarium.org/

• Instant Projects: http://instantprojects.org/  (Pitler, et al., 2007, pp. 193- 198)

REFERENCES

Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2009). Bridging learning theory, instruction, and technology. Baltimore: Author.

Pitler, H., Hubbell, E., Kuhn, M., & Malenoski, K. (2007). Using technology with classroom instruction that works. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.


Smith, M. K. (1999) The behaviourist orientation to learning. The Encyclopedia of Informal Education, Retrieved November 11, 2009, from www.infed.org/biblio/learning-behavourist.htm

Reflections on Understanding the Impact of Technology on Education, Work, and Society

Over the past thirteen years, I have attended hundreds of professional development sessions and courses. Unfortunately, few have had practical significance in my daily teaching. When I hopefully signed up for educational technology courses, I inevitably ended up receiving primers on PowerPoint, Google search, and other applications with which I was already well versed. While I occasionally learned useful shortcuts or interesting uses for familiar programs, I seldom learned anything that would radically change my teaching. Because of its focus on Web 2.0 applications and connecting tools, practice, and theory, taking the Understanding the Impact of Technology on Education, Work, and Society course has been exceptional.

Before this course began, I primarily used digital information and communication technology for planning, presentation, and research. I used daily PowerPoints to combine diverse media into appealing, smoothly flowing presentations, reducing down-time in the classroom. I used interactive hypertext and audio versions of literature to augment in-class reading. Still, this could be classified as doing the same old things—posting text on the board, playing recorded texts, showing films and still images, recording class notes—in a new way (Thornburg, 2004). I found ways to use the computer linked LCD projector and PowerPoint to do different things, but the technologies I was using were more appropriate for teacher-centered instruction and had limited potential to facilitate the sort of project-based, student-centered, constructivist learning that best prepares students for the twenty-first century workplace (Laureate, 2008).

The Web 2.0 technology introduced in this course is much better suited for creating a constructivist learning environment where students take charge of their own learning through authentic, project-based assignments that reach a larger audience beyond the classroom (Chao & Parker, 2007; Kuriloff, 2000; Richardson, 2006 ). Traditional class writing assignments often feel artificial and lack the appeal of publishing to a wider audience. Blogs allow students to break through classroom walls and enter the real world of online publishing, where anyone might notice, read, and respond to their work. Similarly, wikis allow students to reach a wider audience, but they have the added benefit of fostering collaborative creation (Friedman & Heafner, 2008; Richardson, 2006). Students can simultaneously contribute to and edit a group wiki, seeing the updates and changes on their site in real time. Teachers can see the History, Discussion, and Recent Changes to a wiki in order to assess individual involvement in the wiki’s creation. The applications for these sites are limited only by the imaginations of the users, which means that, for student users, the applications are simply endless. Another powerful web publishing tool we used in this course is podcasting. The technology for recording, editing, and posting audio online has given amateur, and some professional, broadcasters the opportunity to reach broad and niche audiences that may be ignored or inadequately served by mainstream broadcast media. Would be musicians, DJs, dramatists, talk-show hosts, reporters, and authors, many of whom are our students, can produce their own “radio shows” in a medium that is sophisticated, user friendly, and compatible with most popular digital devices. The skills involved in English class assignments requiring students to build blogs, wikis, and podcasts are in keeping with the recommendations of school curriculum, The Partnership for 21st Century Skills (n.d.), the National Council of Teachers of English (2009), and the International Society for Technology in Education (2008) (MSDE, 2009).

Another powerful web tool for the classroom is the use of Real Simple Syndication (RSS) aggregators, which allow scholars, teachers, and everyone else to subscribe to Web content from trusted sources and sites that interest them without having to manually visit these sites to check for updates (Richardson, 2006). This is like having a research assistant who tirelessly combs through websites looking for content you might want to read—a real windfall for scholars of every sort. I will certainly incorporate an RSS tutorial into future research lessons. Some of the best tutorials can be found on YouTube, a site that allows users to post their own videos. My students have enjoyed YouTube videos based on the literature they are reading that were created by students in other schools. I hope that I will soon have access to the resources to allow my students to produce and post their own.

These technologies have already affected my classroom instruction in other exciting ways. My AP English Language and Composition class has begun work on their class wiki. Unfortunately, as of today, the site we were using, wikispaces.com, has been blocked by our school system. Nevertheless, my students are gamely developing content for the site using traditional word processing, which I suppose must be posted by those who have access at home, while I continue to petition the school system to change their filtration policy. Fortunately, there is ample evidence to support the argument that wikis and other Web 2.0 applications are valuable classroom resources. Kevin R. Parker and Joseph T. Chao (2007), for example, point out that “wikis in particular actively involve learners in their own construction of knowledge” (p. 57). Peshe Kuriloff, director of the Mellon Writing Project even goes so far as to say, “If John Dewey were alive today, he’d be a webhead” (p. 1).

Although these Web 2.0 technologies are exciting and can potentially revolutionize my teaching practice in the short term, a more lasting and significant effect of this course derives from its emphasis on constructivist and project-based learning (Laureate, 2008). Rather than presenting these Web tools as ends unto themselves, the course demonstrates how these tools are a means to help teachers facilitate the sort of active learning described by Dewey and Vygotsky (Laureate, 2008).

This shift from traditional, teacher-centered instruction to student-centered, constructivist learning was previously inhibited by the limited information, collaboration, and publishing resources available in the traditional classroom. With the advent of the Internet, and “Read/Write” web tools in particular, teachers have the opportunity to become facilitators of students’ self-directed learning (Friedman & Heafner, 2008; Kuriloff, 2000; Richardson, 2006; Chao & Parker, 2007). Instead of focusing on rote learning of isolated facts, teachers can better prepare students for the workplace of the future by giving them tools and training to expertly take charge of their own learning. Because of the variety, and varying credibility, of online sources that are published by online authors, often with little or no editorial intervention, students are forced to develop the evaluative skills that they will need to make informed decisions throughout their lives. No longer can students simply trust the printed word. They must now develop the cognitive skills necessary to discriminate between trash and treasure, making them better citizens, and better consumers of information and the products promoted by the ubiquitous advertisements that bombard them every day. This course provides guidance for teachers to convert their classrooms into the sort of “Learning Societies” Bernie Trilling (2005) expects will define the twenty-first century workplace (p. 1).

I have two strategies to ensure that I continue to grow and adapt to the changing technology that defines the workplace. First, I must always maintain my focus on the timeless core competencies that will allow me and my students to successfully adapt to the perpetual change that defines our time. The Partnership for 21st Century Skills’ A Report and Mile Guide for 21st Century Skills suggests that teaching students to build on prior knowledge, incorporate it into and modify existing conceptual frameworks, and conduct self-analysis to guide self-teaching, can prepare them to adapt to technological and other changes. This is also the fundamental strategy that teachers must use to guide their own professional development. This is what I do when I try to understand a new device or application. Much of my professional development in this vein has not been deliberately aimed at improving as a teacher. I learned many of the computer skills I use in the classroom by upgrading my computer hardware and software to play the latest video games. The key is to stay curious and embrace change. The second strategy I can use to maintain the currency of my repertoire of learning, teaching, and leadership skills is to continue my formal professional development through courses like this one. As a lifelong student, I am conditioned to learn well under the pressure of a class commitment. This course took me out of my comfort zone, into my zone of proximal development, providing the support necessary to help me develop new skills and understandings. I find this combination of motivation and support very helpful. Continued coursework also keeps me aware of current theory, and research supporting or questioning established theory, regarding best practices, and reminds me of the practices that work for me as a learner, while helping me maintain empathy with my students. Being a student as well as a teacher helps me practice what I preach.

My goals for transforming my classroom environment are manifold, but two important goals are emphasized by this course. The first is technological. I would like to have at least one computer, online, with reasonably unrestricted Internet access, for every two students in each class. Computer and Internet access are essential if I am to take advantage of the Web 2.0 tools that are making the realization of my second goal more possible than it has heretofore been. My second goal is the reason for my first. I would like to use these digital information and communication tools, along with a variety of other strategies, to create a classroom environment and curriculum that truly supports collaborative and pragmatic constructivist learning, where I set up experiences through which my students can work together to build their own understanding (Sutinen, 2008).

REFERENCES

Chao, J. & Parker, K. (2007). Wiki as a teaching tool. Interdisciplinary Journal of Knowledge and Learning objects, 3, 57-72. Retrieved October 29, 2009 from http://web.ebscohost.com.ezp.waldenulibrary.org/ehost/pdf?vid=6&hid=4&sid=5bc9ae1c-58ba-46f7-a52b-957df6fdb4a1%40sessionmgr11

Friedman, A. & Heafner, T. (2008) Wikis and constructivism in secondary social studies: Fostering a deeper understanding. Computers in the Schools, 25 (3/4), 288-302. Retrieved from http://web.ebscohost.com.ezp.waldenulibrary.org/ehost/pdf?vid=10&hid=9&sid=ccdcbe30-77be-4dd2-b1ae-3a0252c8855a%40sessionmgr4

International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE). (2008). NETS for teachers 2008. Retrieved October 20, 2009 from http://www.iste.org/Content/NavigationMenu/NETS/ForTeachers/2008Standards/NETS_for_Teachers_2008.htm

Kuriloff, P, (2000). If John Dewey were alive today, he'd be a webhead. Chronicle of Higher Education, 46 (34). Retrieved from http://web.ebscohost.com.ezp.waldenulibrary.org/ehost/detail?vid=3&hid=4&sid=5bc9ae1c-58ba-46f7-a52b-957df6fdb4a1%40sessionmgr11&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#db=ehh&AN=3017343

Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2008). Understanding the impact of technology on education, work, and society. Baltimore: Author.

Maryland State Department of Education (MSDE). (2009). CLG toolkit: English. School Improvement in Maryland. Retrieved October 15, 2009 from http://www.bcpss.org/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp

National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE). (2009). NCTE / IRA standards for the English language arts. National Council of Teachers of English. Retrieved September 16, 2009, from http://www.ncte.org/standards

Partnership for 21st Century Skills. (n.d.). A report and mile guide for 21st century skills. Washington DC: Author. Retrieved from http://www.21stcenturyskills.org/images/stories/otherdocs/p21up_Report.pdf

Richardson, W. (2006). Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful web tools for classrooms (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin

Sutinen, Ari. (2008). Constructivism and education: Education and an interpretive transformational process. Studies in Philosophy & Education. 27 (1), 1-14. Retrieved October 29, 2009 from http://web.ebscohost.com.ezp.waldenulibrary.org/ehost/pdf?vid=6&hid=4&sid=5bc9ae1c-58ba-46f7-a52b-957df6fdb4a1%40sessionmgr11

Thornburg, D. (2004). Technology and education: Expectations, not options. (Executive Briefing No. 401). Retrieved from http://www.tcpdpodcast.org/briefings/expectations.pdf

Trilling, B. (2005). Towards learning societies and the global challenges for learning with ICT. TechForum. Retrieved from http://www.techlearning.com/techlearning/pdf/events/techforum/ny05/Toward_Learning_Societies.pdf

New Podcast: Digital Abilities and Digital Learning Styles in a Baltimore City Public School

In which Douglas Gauld shares the results of a survey of 40 Baltimore City public school students about their technology use, access, and ability, and interviews four students about the way they use digital communication technology to inform the debate on digital learning styles.  http://gauldenglish.podbean.com/2009/10/08/gauld-digital-abilities-and-digital-learning-styles-in-a-baltimore-city-public-school/

Digital Abilities and Digital Learning Styles in a Baltimore City Public School

A Report and Mile Guide for 21st Century Skills

http://www.21stcenturyskills.org/images/stories/otherdocs/p21up_Report.pdf

A Report and Mile Guide for 21st Century Skills released by The Partnership for 21st Century Skills (a public-private organization with members and partners including Apple, Dell, Cisco, Microsoft, the National Education Association, and the United States Department of Education) presents the outline of a plan “to help schools fully address the educational needs of the twenty-first century” (p. 4). The organization hopes to raise public awareness of the changing needs of America’s future workforce, to provide researched information on changes in the twenty-first century workplace, and to recommend strategies to prepare students for an uncertain future.


The report proposes six key elements of twenty-first century learning: an emphasis on core subjects, an emphasis on learning skills, using twenty-first century tools to develop learning skills, teaching and learning in a twenty-first century context, teaching and learning twenty-first century content, and using twenty-first century assessments to measure twenty-first century skills (p. 4). This combines the strengths of traditional core curricula with a variety of new tools and skills of emerging importance in this century so that students are prepared to use core knowledge to develop tactical, strategic, and problem solving skills that will aid them in adapting to changing conditions in the world of work. The report suggests that by teaching students to build on prior knowledge, incorporate it into and modify existing conceptual frameworks, and conduct self-analysis to guide self-teaching, we can prepare them to prepare themselves for change. It describes information and communication technology (ICT) literacy as resulting from the synthesis of core learning skills (thinking and problem solving, information and communication skills, and interpersonal and self-direction skills) and twenty-first century tools designed to aid in the application of these skills. The site charges teachers with ensuring that their teaching is relevant in both content and delivery, and with incorporating into their curriculum teaching of global awareness, fiscal literacy, and civic literacy.

The findings and recommendations of this report seem sensible and are easy to corroborate (Bates & Phelan, 2002; Leavy & Murnane, 2006; Miners & Pascopella, 2007). I agree with most of what this report suggests, but I cannot say that I find its predictions comforting. Although my profession, teaching, falls into the still local-human dominated category of “complex communication”( Leavy & Murnane, 2006, p. 58), I fear that the administration of my school system will be more of an impediment than and aid in my efforts to ensure that the content I am communicating is relevant to my students’ current modes of learning and future educational needs. In short, I feel that my job specifications will render my work increasingly irrelevant, regardless of my ability. For this reason, I support this organization’s public awareness campaign.

I am not certain, of course, that I agree with every finding of the report. For example, it recommends “high quality standardized testing for accountability purposes and classroom assessments for improved teaching and learning in the classroom” (p. 7). I often get uncomfortable when the term “assessment” comes into the conversation, since it so often translates to massive multiple choice tests. I really feel that this sort of assessment consistently fails to adequately recognize and measure the learning skills that the report recommends emphasizing. Furthermore, I find the idea of standardizing of education as sensible as monoculture in farming; we may turn out a consistent product, but we miss out on variety and leave ourselves vulnerable to competition. If we only grow one kind of potato, a plague or consumer disinterest can wipe out the entire bland species. Standardized education may not promote the divergent thinking that will allow our future workforce, and our economy as a whole, to nimbly innovate in response to changes in the global market.

But I do agree with the importance of ongoing assessment to inform instruction and to measure its effectiveness. I just believe that this work should not be standardized. Rather, assessment of learning requires the sort of careful observation and nuanced expert thinking that only humans (not computers) can adequately accomplish.

The implications for my students and me will depend on how our society, governments, school administrations, and other stakeholders react (if at all) to these observations, predictions, and recommendations. American society and schools tend to be conservative in adopting new thinking, and I predict a certain amount of foot-dragging on the part of school leadership in providing tools, access, and curricular directives to facilitate adoption of these recommendations. I fear that schools may become less and less relevant to the true education of America’s future workforce. By implementing this report’s “Nine Steps to Build Momentum” (p. 8), we can help to spur the process, but there is a good chance that only students who already possess the resources and initiative, by virtue of their home environment, to take charge of their own education will have a fair chance to adapt.

REFERENCES

Bates, R., & Phelan, K. (2002). Characteristics of a globally competitive workforce. Advances in Developing Human Resources, 4(2), 121.

Miners, Z., & Pascopella, A. (2007). The new literacies. District Administration, 43(10), 26–34.

Levy, F., & Murnane, R. (2006). Why the changing American economy calls for twenty-first century learning: Answers to educators' questions. New Directions for Youth Development, 2006(110), 53–62.

Partnership for 21st Century Skills. (n.d.). A report and mile guide for 21st century skills. Washington DC: Author. Retrieved from http://www.21stcenturyskills.org/images/stories/otherdocs/p21up_Report.pdf

Scientists say...

http://www.zapatopi.net/

This is a great site for teaching your students the hazards of careless research, or just for a few laughs.  Assign a research report on the "Metric Time" movement, the "Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus," or the "Republic of Cascadia."  Give the page for this website as a starting point, but be sure to warn your students not to rely on a single source. 

Blogging in the English Classroom

The potential for using weblogs in the English classroom is well established, but not yet fully explored. I teach Senior English and Advanced Placement Language and Composition in a city high school. Weblogs are perfectly suited to helping teachers and students meet the standards set forth by the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE, 2009). Although blogging can help us meet all of these standards in one way or another, the interactive nature of the technology is particularly appropriate for a few. In particular:

• “3. Students apply a wide range of strategies to comprehend, interpret, evaluate, and appreciate texts. They draw on their prior experience, their interactions with other readers and writers, their knowledge of word meaning and of other texts, their word identification strategies, and their understanding of textual features (e.g., sound-letter correspondence, sentence structure, context, graphics).”

Weblogs not only work as a resource for comprehending texts, through access to other readers’ literary analysis, but also offer a powerful opportunity to interact with other readers, not only within a class, but throughout the global community.

• “4. Students adjust their use of spoken, written, and visual language (e.g., conventions, style, vocabulary) to communicate effectively with a variety of audiences and for different purposes.”

Too often, students write only for their teachers or classmates. This hardly qualifies as a real “variety of audiences.” Blogging offers the opportunity to write with genuine purpose to a larger and more diverse readership.

• “5. Students employ a wide range of strategies as they write and use different writing process elements appropriately to communicate with different audiences for a variety of purposes.

Blogging motivates students to use a writing process including careful revision to improve the quality of their work for the larger audience the Internet provides. Moreover, blogging can radically change the writing process students use by giving them more powerful research tools and a community of peers to help them refine their thinking and writing.

• “6. Students apply knowledge of language structure, language conventions (e.g., spelling and punctuation), media techniques, figurative language, and genre to create, critique, and discuss print and non-print texts.”

This standard seems to have been written with blogging in mind. Not only are students more careful writers when they know they have an authentic audience, they are encouraged to actively participate in complex discussions of literature by posting in their own and others’ blogs. Needless to say, the “media techniques” standard is a natural fit.

• “7. Students conduct research on issues and interests by generating ideas and questions, and by posing problems. They gather, evaluate, and synthesize data from a variety of sources (e.g., print and non-print texts, artifacts, people) to communicate their discoveries in ways that suit their purpose and audience.”

Blogging and RSS feeds have already changed the way many of us do research. Students can use these technologies to simplify and broaden their research, and can gain access to sources (perhaps the authors of the books they are reading in class) that may not have been available in the past.

• “8. Students use a variety of technological and information resources (e.g., libraries, databases, computer networks, video) to gather and synthesize information and to create and communicate knowledge.”

Little explanation is required to demonstrate the propriety of blogging for meeting this standard.

• “11. Students participate as knowledgeable, reflective, creative, and critical members of a variety of literacy communities.”

This standard was very difficult to genuinely meet before the advent of the Read/Write Web. Blogging allows for easy access to “a variety of literacy communities.”

I have spoken with the Executive Director of my school system to discuss the problem of blogging in our system. As it stands, the Bess Internet filter blocks all access to personal pages and blogs in our school system. Fortunately, the forward thinking authors of our English IV curriculum included a class blog as a required assignment for Senior English. I hope to get Blogger.com and other blog sites unblocked so that my students can build their own class blogs where they can meet these NCTE standards.

In the future, I would also like to have each of my students use blogging to build online portfolios of their writing so that they may have a permanent archive of their own work. Here, they could revisit and revise their writing throughout their lives.

Another application I envision for blogging is inspired by the film Freedom Writers. My students have, in the past, put together class anthologies of students’ poetry, essays, and short stories. Blogging would allow us to generate these anthologies online and instantly publish them to an unlimited audience.

I also hope that blogging will one day allow my students to conduct research using RSS aggregators to gather information on their topics and deliver it to my students for review, selection, and synthesis (Richardson, 2006).

Just the class blog alone will give my students a place to showcase their work, interact with other writers, share critical analyses of literature, and find a genuine purpose in project-based social learning.

REFERENCES

National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE). (2009).  NCTE / IRA standards for the English language arts.  National Council of Teachers of English.  Retrieved September 16, 2009, from http://www.ncte.org/standards
Richardson, W. (2006). Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful web tools for classrooms (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

Environmental Change and Adaptation

Technological and social change have catalyzed one another throughout recorded history. It is unnecessary, if not wholly impossible, to determine which was the prime cause that began the cycle of innovation that defines the human experience. Just as sociological change drives technological development, so emergent technologies permit social innovation. The invention of moveable type and consequent inexpensive printing, for example, led to widespread literacy which, in turn, fostered democratization of learning and opportunity that inevitably resulted in the development of new technologies. Alvin Toffler’s book The Third Wave breaks the history of technological and societal innovation into three distinct stages catalyzed by technological revolutions: the agricultural age, the industrial age, and the information age (Laureate, 2009). Dr. David Thornburg suggests that a fourth wave, which he calls “the communication age,” has once again transformed our society (Laureate, 2009). Each of these technological-sociological revolutions catalyzes an adaptation of educational practice. Unfortunately, that adaptation is too often tardy.

The dawn of the agricultural age allowed for the accumulation of wealth that enabled specialization, social stratification, and leisure. Hunter-gatherers were stratified only according to their strength and skill, but they were not specialized. All were generalists. And their wealth, a fresh kill, perhaps, or a mound of fruit, was so transitory as to have little lasting social significance, particularly if one were injured, fell ill, or weakened with age. Knowledge of wild plants and animals was passed down by observation and, with the invention of language (an educational revolution), by word of mouth.

In an agrarian society, particularly one based on grains, wealth (the fruits of the harvest) can be stored and accumulated. This allowed some members of the society to specialize, producing goods and services to barter for the food surplus of others. A successful farmer, for example, could choose to concentrate on producing food, spending some portion of the produce to purchase other needs, like shoes from the village cobbler or protection from the village warlord. These new specialists radically transformed society, leading to social stratification. The barter system also necessitated new technologies in transportation, counting, measurement, and, eventually, currency. Large scale trade required complex record-keeping, which led to the invention of numerals and early writing systems. During the early agricultural period, most young people would learn their trades from their own parents, or be apprenticed to specialists in other fields. But new social specialties required new educational models. Religious, governmental, and military organizations began training privileged pupils in schools very much in the modern model, with specialists teaching large groups of students. Specialized education, particularly in mathematics and literacy, became an avenue to wealth. But it wasn’t until the industrial age that this model became the standard for the general population.

Educational advances and specialization enabled by the agricultural revolution led to an explosion of technological innovation. Eventually, new technologies made mechanized production possible, ushering in the industrial age. The formal schooling enjoyed by a few during the agricultural age, in which students were educated en masse by specialist teachers, was a perfect fit for the mass-production industrial model. Students could be schooled in basic skills (literacy, mathematics, civics, science) in an efficient “one size fits all” system. Thornburg points out that this system of “dividing the students up by age group and by content area” is “very much like an assembly line” (Laureate, 2009). From these schools, some would go on to higher education, as did the beneficiaries of professional training during the agricultural era, while others would receive on-the-job training once they joined the workforce. This model satisfied the needs of industry and the majority of the workforce throughout the industrial era, and has been the basic model of schooling until today.

The information age ushered in a time of independent education and creation as electronic technology facilitated speedy and inexpensive information retrieval, and the computer in particular facilitated new advances in personal creativity. Information resources that were once geographically isolated became universally available through broadcast media and the Internet. The implications for learning were profound, as scholars were able to retrieve data from vast and various sources around the globe almost instantaneously. While most formal schooling continued to follow the agrarian-industrial broadcast model, independent minded learners had the opportunity to easily investigate topics that interested them, no matter how esoteric or obscure, and synthesize their discoveries into original products. Dr. David Thornburg notes that this technology had the potential to facilitate a type of learning Piaget referred to as “cognitive constructivism” (Laureate, 2009). Now, as many traditional schools are slowly recognizing and beginning to explore the potential of information age technology, a new era Thornburg calls “the communication age” once again challenges educators to rethink teaching and learning.

What distinguishes Web 2.0 (Read/Write Web) technology from earlier technology is its potential to facilitate collaboration and instantaneous communication among a community of shared interest (Richardson, 2006). This is particularly important for educators because of the potential of this collaboration and information sharing to facilitate realization of Vygotsky's social constructivist vision of learning (Laureate, 2009). The ability to post and share ideas through weblogs, wikis, podcasts, video sharing, and social networking websites can be used to bring about the type of social learning educators have long dreamed about, if teachers, administrators, and society in general can recognize and exploit this potential (Richardson, 2006). Unfortunately, there are already indications that formal educational institutions will once again be slow to adapt.

It is important to notice that these transitions from one age to another are gradual and uncoordinated. This is especially significant in the realm of education, which is often slow to respond to technological and sociological change. Thornburg notes, for example, that industrial and communication age schools still retain the agricultural age accommodation of summer vacation, despite its current lack of pedagogical relevance (Laureate, 2009). Only now are many school systems abandoning this lopsided model for year-round schooling plans that substitute several smaller breaks between terms for this lengthy interruption. Similarly, many teachers and schools still insist on teaching only traditional print media research, failing to teach their students the skills they need to responsibly use the potential of Internet research to find information. Now, Internet applications make it possible for scholars to share and collaboratively construct knowledge as never before, yet many school systems not only fail to introduce their students to these applications, but actively prevent access.

Citing the real hazards of social networking and online publishing in general, many schools and systems attempt to shelter their students from exposure to the wild world of ideas where they will eventually live the rest of their lives. Rather than preparing our students to protect themselves and stake their claim in the untamed new territory of the communication age, many stakeholders in our students’ education seem to feel it is safer to lock them in towers of ignorance. But we do so at our children’s peril, because they will eventually enter that wilderness, whether we prepare them to survive or not. If we allow the world’s predators to adapt more nimbly than our students, we may doom those we would protect.

Laureate. (2009). EDUC 6710: The Third Wave. Retrieved from http://sylvan.live.ecollege.com/ec/crs/default.learn?CourseID=3642127&Survey=1&47=4979472&ClientNodeID=984650&coursenav=1&bhcp=1

Richardson, W. (2006). Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful web tools for classrooms (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

Willy-Nilly

Reading Godfrey Gauld's post on the significance of tense reminds me of the scene from Act II, scene 2 of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, in which devious Decius Brutus is trying to convince him to go to the senate so that they can publicly perforate the puissant potential potentate.

CAESAR
Decius, go tell them Caesar will not come.
DECIUS BRUTUS
Most mighty Caesar, let me know some cause,Lest I be laugh'd at when I tell them so.
CAESAR
The cause is in my will: I will not come;That is enough to satisfy the senate.

I like to point this passage out to my students because it inevitably leads to one of those satisfying moments of revelation where they understand a word they have always used in a new way. They tend to think of the word “will” as expressing a certain future. But they also understand it in the sense of a “last will and testament” or of “free will.” The cool part is when they put these definitions together and realize the implied uncertainty about the future built into our language.

Our standard form for writing daily objectives for the classroom begins with the stem “Students will…” I often reflect that this is a pretty tall order with some of my assignments.

As I was pondering a good title for this posting, I thought of “will ye, nill ye.” Can you believe I never associated this phrase with the common “willy-nilly” until I looked it up to confirm the spelling of “nill”? (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/willy-nilly ) How silly of me.

I am interested in other etymological curiosities and atrocities. Post ‘em if you’ve got ‘em.

(Note of Contrition: Please forgive the gratuitous alliteration. I confess that I am in bondage to sin and cannot free myself.)

No Excuses!

Here's something I love. Students can use this free and easy to use online calendar to make sure they never lose an assignment. Teachers who don't already have an online calendar will find this easy to learn and manage. You can copy and paste right out of your class documents, meaning keeping everyone on schedule, wherever they may roam, takes only a few minutes a day. http://assignaday.4teachers.org/

This is a great video for those who want to learn about RSS feeds. Yay!

http://www.commoncraft.com/rss_plain_english

Some thoughts on the significance of tense.

The following is letter to the editor from a philosopher who has greatly influenced my thinking.



Americans are not a people to whom things happen. We are a people who make things happen. We have a language, English, that is admirably suited to expressing and carrying out this attitude. English does not treat the future as events that are certain to happen. The future is dealt with as expectation of future events. Usually there is an indication of the reason for the expectation from which the reader or hearer can judge the likelihood of the event actually happening.

Some examples of how English deals with the future are, "I think it is going to rain," "I will marry you," "The contractor shall provide all labor and material," "The work must be completed by Friday," and "I hope you will go." These express present expectation, condition, or choice that may decide future events: not future events.

Language is the most useful tool mankind has. Mankind's understanding and control over his surroundings is almost entirely through language. It is the tool we use to think. A language can have a profound effect on attitudes. If a language deals with the future as fact the culture is likely to tend toward fatalism. Properly used, English encourages the notion of free will and the importance of the choices we make. Fatalists have no use for democracy.

Like any powerful tool the most effective use of a language must be learned by careful study or taught by competent teachers. The way English deals with the future is not taught and, in fact, seems to have been forgotten by most educational institutions. It seems that they endorse the idea that sticking the word "will" in a phrase creates a future tense without realizing that the word "will" has for hundreds of years been, and still is, extensively used to mean choice or decision. Apparently educators are content to have one word mean two very different things as in "He will go but not willingly."




Godfrey R. Gauld

Dear Students

Dear Students,
Welcome. Thanks for visiting my blog. I just wanted to give a few words of explanation. Much of what I am posting here is for other teachers and the general public, so it may not relate directly to your class. The video bar to the left is populated with videos from YouTube and Google that are automatically selected by search terms, like "Ovid" or "Rhetoric" or "Daphne and Apollo." They are not hand picked by me and I cannot vouch for their quality or propriety. Likewise, this blog is intended to be an open forum, and I cannot guarantee the quality and propriety of posts. I am new at this, and hope that I--with your help, contributions, and suggestions--can eventually make this into a valuable learning tool for everyone who visits.

Are we really protecting our students with Internet filters at school?

Reading "Do you have a library supervisor?" at Doug Johnson's Blue Skunk blog (http://doug-johnson.squarespace.com/blue-skunk-blog/2009/9/2/do-you-have-a-library-supervisor.html) , I was heartened to find that not every school system shares the attitude of the BCPSS.
Oh how I envy Guusje Moore!
I work in a Baltimore City public school. My students' innocence, and ignorance, are fiercely protected by the Bess Internet filter at its highest setting, meaning that neither teachers nor students can access Google Image search, free pages, blogs, Facebook, MySpace, YouTube or most commercial sites. I recognize the difficult situation school library supervisors are in, and applaud the bravery of those who choose to encourage guided exploration of the wide world of the World Wide Web rather than keeping them on intellectual lockdown during school hours. What they don't learn in school about the dangers of social networking and the Internet in general they must learn at great cost from unsupervised experimentation.

Positive Controversy

Too often classroom management techniques are focused on avoiding conflict altogether.  But academic controversy can be a powerful learning tool. According to Dr. David Johnson, “Conflict is normal,” and can be an enjoyable impetus for research (Laureate, 2008). Academic controversy has the value of authenticity because people are competitive and curious by nature, and when they disagree on an issue, they naturally want to prove their point.

For example, when my wife’s parents returned from a trip to China, they told me that they had learned that some Chinese companies were making soy sauce from human hair. I thought this story implausible and hoped to prove my point with research. Upon investigation, though, I learned that the story is fairly well corroborated.

I may not have won the argument, but I gained interesting and potentially useful knowledge. Giving students the training and opportunity to engage in authentic academic controversy can help them not only to learn and apply research, writing, and rhetorical skills, but to improve their ability to effectively resolve all sorts of conflicts in their daily lives.

Academic controversy is a natural part of the secondary English curriculum, and weblogs are a perfect environment for cultivating positive controversy.  Unfortunately, many in the public school system are so afraid of controversy, they prefer to blind and silence their students by preventing access to most Web 2.0 (Read/Write Web) applications. 
REFERENCES
Atwan, R. (2007). America now: Short readings from recent periodicals. New York: Bedford/Saint Martins.

Johnson, D. W. (1995). Reducing school violence through conflict resolution. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2008). Classroom Management to Promote Student Learning . Baltimore: Author.

Maryland State Department of Education (2008). School improvement in Maryland. Baltimore: Author. Retrieved March 27, 2009, from http://mdk12.org/instruction/curriculum/reading/clg_toolkit.html