Equal Access to the Digital World??

Can teachers provide equal access to the digital world to all students? My first thought is that no, teachers cannot provide equal access to all students to the digital world. Students in public school come from all walks of life and all socioeconomic levels, which allows for different levels of obtaining technology at home. However, as technology evolves and becomes less expensive, more people are able to obtain and access technology. I have been working as a volunteer at an organization that provides after school programming to low income and at risk students and I have been amazed at the level of technology that many of these students are able to access at home. Generally speaking, though, these students have just recently (within the last 6-12 months) been able to obtain a computer at home. From my personal experience, almost all the "middle class" students I came in contact with as a paraprofessional and as a mom had home computers 10 to 15 years ago. That is a 10 -15 year gap between what more affluent families can provide vs. what lower income families can provide! Assuming that dropping technology costs will solve the problem is not the answer. Also, even if there is a computer at home, what type of internet access is available? There is a huge difference between dial-up and broadband, which will significantly affect what students are able to do at home.

I think teachers have to be very careful about assuming that students have access to the digital world at home. I have heard teachers say that students without home access can just use the library. While that may be technically true, using technology at the library can be difficult to access if parents are unable to get the child to the library. Once at the library, students may face waiting for an available computer, as well as time limits on their use.

I think one thing teachers can do is to make sure that any assignments requiring access to the digital world can be done during the school day with access to school technology. As long as issues with teacher contracts don't prohibit it, teachers can provide after school access to technology as well. Students should be graded on what all students can access, not what a few or most can access. In other words, if some students can create a YouTube video at home, and some cannot, the gist of the grading or assessment should not be based on the video, but on what the students actually learned from the assignment.

Short of physically providing a computer or laptop to each and every student, teachers cannot provide equal access to the digital world. They can try to provide a more level playing field as far as assignments and expectations of digital literacy go. At some point in the future, perhaps access to the digital world will be considered a fundamental right and be provided by society. Until then, teachers can try to provide as much access at school as possible, along with education about the digital world.

K12 Online Conference - Thriving in a Collaborative Web 2.0 Classroom: The "Great Debate" and "Student News Action Network"

Just got done watching Tom Daccord's December 16, 2009 K12 Online Conference presentation, Thriving in a Collaborative Web 2.0 Classsroom: "The Great Debate" and "Student News Action Network". It was really interesting. Daccord points out that youth are "online all the time", that "kids are immersed in technology at an earlier and earlier age", and that their goals are to be part of a social and participatory culture. They also expect a "low threshold to express themselves artistically" and cites YouTube as an example. He also points out that since 2005, youth are writing more online than offline.

Daccord states that for students to be engaged in their learning, the work must be meaningful to them, authentic (having a wider audience than just their teacher), and has to have a social aspect. He used an assignment called "The Great Debate of 2008" to engage students in the issues of the 2008 Presidential Election through the use of a Wiki and Ning. He viewed his role as ensuring quality and keeping bias out of the content. Daccord also pointed out that 21 out of 23 conversations on Ning were student initiated, that students spontaneously inserted videos on Ning, and that students were asking to write more than they were assigned for the Wiki.

Daccord's students also participate in the "Student News Action Network", which is entirely student produced by students in at least 5 different countries. As with the above assignment, all of the work looked professionally produced, which speaks to the students' abilities to artistically express themselves. This project again illustrates that when students have ownership over the content, have opportunities to be social and connected, and have an authentic assignment, they are capable of learning a great deal and producing high quality work. He also suggests that by co-opting the social networks for academic reasons, teachers are able to meet their students where they are in a way that is relevant to them.

He finally points out that in order for teachers to overcome the isolation they often work in and to practice what they are trying to impart to their students, teachers might consider joining or forming an academic community.

Tom Daccord's style was engaging and interesting. His knowledge of youth and what motivates them was impressive, as was his knowledge and application of what is available on the read-write web. It is a bit daunting to think of myself setting up Wiki's, Ning, Voicethread, etc. for my students. I better get this stuff if I want to engage students.

What Can We Gain by Collaboration?

This question is a tough one to answer because I think that we have almost everything to gain, and very little, if anything to lose, by collaboration. Collaboration allows everyone involved to test ideas, to build on others' ideas, and to create at a geometric rate instead of a linear rate. Use of technology allows global collaboration and increased exposure to other perspectives.

According to Tom Daccord, a contributor to the 2009 K12 Online Conference, for teachers and students, collaboration using the read-write web provides authentic, meaningful, and social opportunities for learning. These three attributes are important to engage contemporary students in learning. Daccord also points out that since teachers traditionally prepare lessons in isolation, joining an academic community online can help teachers to break out of isolation, get comfortable with the technology, and to test their ideas and learn from colleagues around the globe.

K12 Online Conference 2006-Blog if You Love Learning

I just got finished watching the K-12 Online Conference 2006 Basic/Advanced Training presentation, "Blog if You Love Learning: An Introduction to Weblogs in Education (Basic)", by Mark Wagner. I found the first and last third of the presentation to be informative and engaging, but I guess that I should have known that if the presentation was in the training category, there would be, well, training in it. The training part of the presentation consisted mostly of the how-to of setting up your own blog. Since we just did this in class, in a much more interactive way, this part of the presentation was pretty tedious. If a person had never set up a blog, it might have been interesting, but I don't think the format of the presentation supported this type of instruction. Mr. Wagner suggested that the viewer create a blog while watching him set one up, but I don't think the average person looking at a basic training video would be able to manage doing that. In spite of the limitations of this section, I did find the pointers about password protection, discussion options, permanent links, and future dating of posts to be useful.

The first part of the presentation gave a brief history of the web moving from a one way stream of information to a read/write web, where the consumer can now easily become the creator. I thought that a very interesting observation was made that the web, before it became a two way means of creation, or web 2.0, was very much like our educational system for the last 100 years or so. This made me think about our classroom discussion regarding resistance to technology among some educators and wonder if our model of traditional education is one reason for that resistance to integrate technology. As Mr. Wagner points out later in the presentation, when students are creating and communicating with each other about their creations, it can be easy for the teacher to lose control of the process and content of the lesson.

After this brief history lesson, Mr. Wagner pointed out that students are blogging anyway, and educators have the choice of just letting them blog outside of class with no input, or we can show them how to blog responsibly, safely, and for academic purposes. Mr. Wagner followed with some uses for educational blogs, which was interesting, but a bit of a rehash of our discussion in class last week.

The last part of the presentation was devoted to answering the question, "Why Blog?" and cautions about blogging. Some of the answers about why teachers should embrace blogging reminded me of our classroom discussion and blogging assignment about why we should integrate technology in general into lessons and the purpose of doing so. Mr. Wagner believes that by blogging, students create for an authentic audience which can include peers and professionals which is different from creating for just the teacher, and it can encourage reflection and is a dynamic process if students are getting feedback and editing. He also believes that blogging and technology in general can be used to individualize learning and the inquiry process, as well a being a tool of the 21st century workplace and a modality that students are already familiar and comfortable with.

Mr. Wagner closes with cautions about blogging, but argues that the advantages of blogging outweigh the potential dangers of offensive content, fraud and identity theft, and predators and stalkers. He suggests that education about information literacy, appropriate/inappropriate sharing of personal information, and academic honesty and intellectual property can significantly reduce the likelihood of bad outcomes due to these dangers. While I agree with him for the most part, I do think that educators must be very vigilant about what their students are posting in response to assignments and that it is imperative that parents are aware of what students will be asked to do.

I think this was a worthwhile presentation, especially if the viewer was completely new to the concept of blogging. Even with it being somewhat repetitive of our classroom discussion and assignment, it did give me some food for thought and helped convince me even more that educators must embrace technology or risk losing many of our students.

Why Should We Integrate Technology Into Lessons?/What is the Purpose of Integrating Technology Into Learning?

I think that the answers to the questions above are interrelated and intertwined. One answer to why we should integrate technology into lessons is that technology is embraced and used extensively by many, if not most, of our students today. Students are comfortable with it and do not see the relevance of using "old fashioned" ways of doing things - whether it is writing their spelling word three times each, math worksheets for rote memorization, or looking words up in a regular dictionary. If students think that the work they are asked to do has little to no relevance for them, their motivation will not be as high as it should be. One purpose therefore of integrating technology into learning is to make the learning more relevant and easier to access for students who prefer that method of learning.

Another reason to integrate technology into lessons is that the world is becoming more and more dependent on technology - if students are not taught to use technology in constructive and creative ways in their schools, they will be left mostly on their own to figure it out for themselves. While they are very able to figure out "how" to use technology, many students may struggle with how to evaluate the value of what they find in using technology. A corresponding purpose of integrating technology into learning is to help students evaluate sources and methods of research, along with giving them critical thinking skills about evaluating their own creations.

I also believe that for students who do not have access to technology at home, integrating it into their school experience is a matter of equity. Even basic jobs require the use of some levels of technology, and this trend will only grow. Students need to be comfortable with learning new technologies if they are to be competitive in the work place, and if they do not have access at home, they will be at a disadvantage if they are not able to use it in school.

Integrating technology into lessons also can make them more individualized, self-paced, engaging, and creative, because a teacher can pull from many different technological resources (if he/she has the skills) to individualize students' learning.

Integrating technology into lessons and learning also opens up much more available information to students than relying on print media. Many textbooks are obsolete before or shortly after they are published. The same applies to reference materials. Technology, judiciously used, allows teachers and students to access the most current information as well as archive and historical material that would be nearly impossible to recreate in the classroom/library with strictly print material.

I think that it is obvious that technology will be with us and growing in scope well into the future. If teachers are not integrating technology into their students lessons and learning, a growing part of everyday life will be largely ignored in the classroom - resulting in more students feeling disengaged from learning and school.