447 Matching Annotations
  1. Dec 2023
  2. Nov 2023
    1. https://docdrop.org/

      Can be used to create optical character recognition on .pdf documents and return documents with selectable/machine readable text.

  3. Oct 2023
    1. Thirty years ago, the physicist and teacher Banesh Hoffmann wrote a book, ''The Tyranny of Testing,'' which was attacked by the test-making industry and ignored by educationists. It showed how multiple-choice questions, by their form and substance, work against the aim of teaching.
    2. But to the best of my knowledge the central feature of modern schooling has never been taken up: the multiple-choice test.

      Barzun places the multiple-choice test as the central feature of modern schooling. This has a bit of a hyperbolic feel, but it's certainly a modern invention which aims to evaluate a low level of learning while still making it simple for teachers to quickly grade student's work.

      Because of it's incredibly low-level function, these multiple-choice tests should be used only for the lowest level functionality as well.

  4. Sep 2023
    1. facilitated by having selected passages typewritten anddistributed to the class in mimeographed sheets.

      Not sure I knew that typewritters and mimeograph machines were so prevalent by 1910. (typewriters yes, but mimeo?)

  5. Aug 2023
    1. Mills, Anna, Maha Bali, and Lance Eaton. “How Do We Respond to Generative AI in Education? Open Educational Practices Give Us a Framework for an Ongoing Process.” Journal of Applied Learning and Teaching 6, no. 1 (June 11, 2023): 16–30. https://doi.org/10.37074/jalt.2023.6.1.34.

      Annotation url: urn:x-pdf:bb16e6f65a326e4089ed46b15987c1e7

      Search: https://jonudell.info/h/facet/?user=chrisaldrich&max=100&exactTagSearch=true&expanded=true&addQuoteContext=true&url=urn%3Ax-pdf%3Abb16e6f65a326e4089ed46b15987c1e7

    2. ignoring AI altogether–not because they don’t wantto navigate it but because it all feels too much or cyclicalenough that something else in another two years will upendeverything again

      Might generative AI worries follow the track of the MOOC scare? (Many felt that creating courseware was going to put educators out of business...)

    3. Our first response to educational shocks should be to checkin with our values.
  6. Jul 2023
  7. Jun 2023
    1. I want to point out that it’s disappointingly rare for UX studies to assess the quality of the work produced with the tool that’s being studied. Output is, after all, the goal of much computer use, and the quality of this output is an essential element in judging the user interface.

      Agreed, much of user testing focuses on the experience of the user when using the tool and depends upon users speaking to voluntarily making the quality of output part of their evaluation of the tool.

      A possible counter: UX research professionals are not subject matter experts in the work deliverables generated in using the tool and not equipped to assess the quality of those deliverables. But that doesn't address the need the author calls out. Solving this will depend on the domain in which the tool is used and connecting with SMEs that can evaluate output in that domain.

      In educational technology, we measure the quality of output by measuring the growth in students' mastery against state standards as they use the tool. This is why reporting has become the key feature for EdTech products.

    1. Tipps for purchasing a Dictation Device

      reply to Sascha at https://forum.zettelkasten.de/discussion/2583/tipps-for-purchasing-a-dictation-device#latest:

      I've got an older Livescribe Pulse pen I love with a small pocket notebook or Post-It Notes. It has an optical character reader and special paper but also records audio and links it to the written text (either before or after the fact). I primarily use it for longer lectures where I'll take scant notes, but have the ability to add to them based on the recorded audio later. They've also got some 3rd party OCR solutions that will take your handwriting and convert it to digital text later. While they do larger sized notebooks and a variety of other papers as well (including printing your own), the small pocket size and ease of use has been fantastic. I've owned one version or another for more than a decade and really love them for this sort of audio on-the-go functionality. Since it's a digital pen, it's also unobtrusive in meetings. The added ability to share pdf documents with embedded audio after the fact isn't bad for classmates or meeting attendees.

  8. May 2023
  9. Mar 2023
  10. Feb 2023
  11. Jan 2023
    1. reply to u/rl4215 at https://www.reddit.com/r/ObsidianMD/comments/10jhlr2/using_obsidian_in_academia_a_demotutorial_vault/

      This is an awesome start.

      Some additional resources I often recommend for folks: Obsidian has a discord with a chat room specific to #academia where folks can ask questions. https://discord.com/channels/686053708261228577/@home

      Historian and professor u/DanAllosso has some great YouTube Videos on Obsidian with respect to both his own work as well as discussion on using it to teach: https://www.youtube.com/@MakingHistory2022/search?query=obsidian Because he's into Open Educational Resources, he's naturally got a great book on note taking and writing: https://boffosocko.com/2022/08/02/how-to-make-notes-and-write-a-handbook-by-dan-allosso-and-s-f-allosso/. His YouTube channel has a series of videos in which he reads the entire book making it an audio book of sorts as well. If you dig around you'll see that he's got a book club with a shared Obsidian vault that multiple can contribute to in a wiki-like manner.

      Kathleen Fitzgerald, Director of Digital Humanities has a fairly significant Obsidian practice and has some fun material on task tracking: https://kfitz.info/tasks-matter/. It looks like you've got a good start on some of this in the example vault already.

      Archaeologist Shawn Graham has a class he's teaching with Obsidian that has some great resources some may appreciate: https://mastodon.social/@electricarchaeo@scholar.social/109509678170907504. See also: https://shawngraham.github.io/hist1900/

      I haven't run into anyone in the Library Carpentries space with Obsidian resources, but I suspect they'll show up sooner or later.

      We definitely need more of these resources to share and learn from collectively.

      Thanks again!

    1. Woit does provide problems, but they are all at the back of the book. It would have been better to see them between chapters. That provides a natural break in the material and gives the student a quick check on his understanding.

      Homework problems are pedagogical devices and many (most) authors place them in the text near where they would be profitably be done. They also provide a useful break in the text to prompt more novice students to actually perform them at the end of a section.

      More advanced students, however, should have caught on eventually at the need to work out examples for themselves which are presented in a textbook, but they should also be seeking out additional problems where ever they appear in the text, not to mention seeing out any outside additional problems, making up their own, and exploring any additional questions these pose.

      In mathematics textbooks this working of problems, expanding on them and seeking out new ones is often a large part of what is lurking behind the sometimes nebulous sounding idea of "mathematical sophistication". The rest of that equation typically includes experience with the various methods and means of proofs and some basic background in logic.

    1. One even better plan is to get regular library index cards and, afterthe lecture is fairly well learned, transfer the points underlined to them, onecard to a lecture. These cards can be carried about and studied at oddmoments. One is enabled by their use to get the perspective view of thelecture which brings out the sense of values which one loses when onestudies the notes in their mass of detail only. With the skeleton in mindone has little difficulty in recalling the details .

      Here again he comes close to some of the methods and ideas of having flashcards for spaced repetition, but isn't explicitly aware of the words or techniques. Note that he also doesn't use the word flashcard. When was the word first used?

      Rewriting things as flashcards also tends to be a part of the spaced repetition itself.

      By cutting the notes up he's specifically decontextualizing them so as to make one's memory be better tested in coming up with the solutions/answers as they are more likely to appear on a test, decontextualized from the original lecture.

    2. it maybe well to take the notes directly in the text book, either on the margins,between the leaves, or on insert-leaves which book-shops sell for that pu

      "insert-eaves" !!

      I've heard of interleaved books, but was unaware of the practice of book shops selling "insert-leaves" being specifically sold for the purpose of inserting notes into books.

  12. Nov 2022
  13. Oct 2022
    1. Émile flew offthe shelves in 18th-century Paris. In fact, booksellers found it more profitable torent it out by the hour than to sell it. Ultimately the excitement got too much forthe authorities and Émile was banned in Paris and burned in Geneva

      Émile: or On Education was so popular that it was rented out by the hour for additional profit instead of being sold outright. [summary]


      When did book rental in education spaces become a business model? What has it looked like historically?

    1. Rotzel, Grace. “Card File.” The English Journal 6, no. 10 (December 1917): 691–691. https://doi.org/10.2307/801092.

      Follow up note to prior article indicating some sorter term benefits of filing student work and taking notes on it for helping to create improvement over time.

    1. Breitenbach, H. P. “The Card Index for Teachers.” The School Review 20, no. 4 (1912): 271–72.


      Apparently in 1912, the card index was little known to teachers... this isn't the sort of use case I was expecting here...

      The general gist of this short note is an encouraging one to suggest that instead of traditional grade books, which are still used heavily in 2022, teachers should use rolodex like cards for keeping attendance and notes on a student's progress.

      Presumably this never caught on. While some elementary teachers still use older paper gradebooks, many others have transferred to digital LMS platforms.

  14. Sep 2022
  15. Aug 2022
    1. The potential for digital technology to support learners in this process was highlighted in the studies reviewed, but commonly learners lacked the competence to use digital technologies for educational purposes. Learners often required support, especially with the planning and reviewing aspects of self-directed learning, as well as guidance regarding how digital technologies can be used effectively for educational purposes. Importantly, studies that focus on understanding the facilitation of self-directed learning in childhood education are seldom. Further studies on self-directed learning in childhood education are vital – given that this is a fundamental competence for preparing our youth to deal with work and life in our rapidly changing world.

      Learners often required support, especially with the planning and reviewing aspects of self-directed learning, as well as guidance regarding how digital technologies can be used effectively for educational purposes. Importantly, studies that ..

  16. Jul 2022
    1. Unfortunately, many corporate software programsaim to level or standardise the differences betweenindividual workers. In supporting knowledgeworkers, we should be careful to provide tools whichenable diversification of individuals’ outputs.Word-processors satisfi this criterion; tools whichembed a model of a knowledge worker’s task in thesoftware do not.

      Tools which allow for flexibility and creativity are better for knowledge workers than those which attempt to crystalize their tasks into ruts. This may tend to force the outputs in a programmatic way and thereby dramatically decrease the potential for innovative outputs. If the tools force the automation of thought without a concurrent increase in creativity then one may as well rely on manual labor for their thinking.


      This may be one of the major flaws of tools for thought in the educational technology space. They often attempt to facilitate the delivery of education in an automated way which dramatically decreases the creativity of the students and the value of the overall outputs. While attempting to automate education may suit the needs of institutions which are delivering the education, particularly with respect to the overall cost of delivery, the automation itself is dramatically at odds with the desire to expand upon ideas and continue innovation for all participants involved. Students also require diverse modes of input (seen/heard) as well as internal processing followed by subsequent outputs (written/drawn/sculpted/painted, spoken/sung, movement/dance). Many teachers don't excel at providing all of these neurodiverse modes and most educational technology tools are even less flexible, thus requiring an even larger panoply of them (often not interoperable because of corporate siloing for competitive reasons) to provide reasonable replacements. Given their ultimate costs, providing a variety of these tools may only serve to increase the overall costs of delivering education or risk diminishing the overall quality. Educators and institutions not watching out for these traps will tend to serve only a small portion of their intended audiences, and even those may be served poorly as they only receive a limited variety of modalities of inputs and outputs. As an example Western cultures' overreliance on primary literacy modes is their Achilles' heel.


      Tools for thought should actively attempt to increase the potential solution spaces available to their users, while later still allowing for focusing of attention. How can we better allow for the divergence of ideas and later convergence? Better, how might we allow for regular and repeated cycles of divergence and convergence? Advanced zettelkasten note taking techniques (which also allow for drawing, visual, auditory and other modalities beyond just basic literacy) seem to allow for this sort of practice over long periods of time, particularly when coupled with outputs which are then published for public consumption and divergence/convergence cycles by others.

      This may also point out some of the stagnation allowed by social media whose primary modes is neither convergence nor divergence. While they allow for the transmission/communication portion, they primarily don't actively encourage their users to closely evaluate the transmitted ideas, internalize them, or ultimately expand upon them. Their primary mode is for maximizing on time of attention (including base emotions including excitement and fear) and the lowest levels of interaction and engagement (likes, retweets, short gut reaction commentary).

  17. Jun 2022
    1. Open educational resources (OERs) are fungible functional units used in education by both educators and students

      OERs on Ethereum

    1. Higher education leaders and decision makers use the annual Issues, Technologies, and Trends resources—the Top IT Issues, Trend Watch report, and the Horizon Reports—to know what's important and where to focus in their IT planning and management activities. When viewed together these resources provide more complete and nuanced guidance on institutional IT priorities. EDUCAUSE Horizon Report is a registered trademark of EDUCAUSE.

      Issues and Technologies and Trends report has been used by many institutions to make technology budget decisions.

    1. https://hybridpedagogy.org/ethical-online-learning/

      An interesting perspective on ethical and supportive online learning. More questions and explorations than answers, but then framing is a majority of the battle.

      I'm generally in agreement with much of the discussion here.

      This was a fabulous piece for "thinking against". Thanks Sean Michael Morris, and Lora Taub.

      I definitely got far more out of it by reading and annotating than I ever would in its original keynote presentation version.

    2. We become convinced, because the LMS doesn’t measure for such things, that online there are no pregnant pauses, no under-the-breath chuckling, no eye rolls.

      phatic communication is important in the social interaction components of education

      How can this be put into edtech?

    3. granting pedagogical privilege to an edtech that convinces us the pedagogical arc of the universe bends towards analytics, assessment, and grading—these silence student voices by omitting them.
    4. Maxine Greene for example, begins by writing that “We are convinced that the movement towards educational technology is irreversible and that our obligation as educators is to learn how to deal with it,” but then she turns that resignation into resistance by adding, “how, if you like, to live with it as fully conscious human beings working to enable other human beings to become conscious, to become responsible, to learn.”

      If it's true that the movement toward technology is inevitable, how might we deal with it?

      Compare this with the solution(s) that nomadic hunter-gatherers had to face when changing from a lifestyle built on movement to one of settling down to a life of agriculture. Instead of attaching their knowledge and memories to their landscape as before, they built structures (like Stonehenge) to form these functions.

      Part of moving forward may involve moving back historically to better understand these ideas and methods and regaining them so that we might then reattach them to a digital substrate. How can we leverage the modalities of the digital for art, song, dance, music, and even the voice into digital spaces (if we must?). All digital or only digital certainly isn't the encompassing answer, but if we're going to do it, why not leverage the ability to do this?

      As an example, Hypothes.is allows for annotating text to insert photos, emoji, audio (for music and voice), and even video. Videos might include dance and movement related cues that students might recreate physically. These could all be parts of creating digital songlines through digital spaces that students can more easily retrace to store their learnings for easier recall and to build upon in the future.

    5. If the rule of professional academics is “publish or perish,” the rule of online teachers might be “adapt or die.”
    1. there is clear evidence that explicitly teaching reading strategies to students improves their overall academic performance, such instruction is often limited to developmental reading or study skills courses (Saxby 2017, 37-38).

      Teaching reading strategies to students improves their overall academic performance, but this instruction is often limited to developmental reading or study skills courses.

      ref: Saxby, Lori Eggers. “Efficacy of a College Reading Strategy Course: Comparative Study.” Journal of Developmental Education 40, no. 3 (2017): 36-38.

      Using Hypothes.is as a tool in a variety of courses can help to teach reading strategies and thereby improve students' overall academic performance.

  18. May 2022
    1. Projects like the Open Journal System, Manifold or Scalar are based on a distributed model that allow anyone to download and deploy the software (Maxwell et al., 2019), offering an alternative to the commercial entities that dominate the scholarly communication ecosystem.

      Might Hypothes.is also be included with this list? Though it could go a bit further toward packaging and making it more easily available to self-hosters.

    1. One of its main features is “local only posting,” which gives users the option of not federating their posts.

      One of the main features of Darius Kazemi's Hometown, a fork of Mastodon from 2019, is that it allows "local only posting". This gives the users an option to post their content only with a small, limited group of people instead of spreading it widely outside of their social group. In addition to helping to tummel a smaller conversation this also prevents those who are more likely to suffer from context collapse of the groups social norms from engaging and potentially souring the conversation.

      This feature could also be well leveraged for small private classroom conversations between teachers and students without leaking their personal/private data or conversations that ought to be small as they learn.

      Could also be fun to limit the level of federation to the level of an academic department, academic discipline, or even a university. How might one define a group or groups of publics within Mastodon so that one could choose a level at which to share their content?

    1. https://community.reclaimhosting.com/t/mastodon-on-reclaim-cloud/3225

      For those interested in doing it for edtech/classroom settings, it might be worth looking at the Hometown fork of Mastodon: https://github.com/hometown-fork/hometown/wiki/Local-only-posting

      The link is to a special feature that most Mastodon instances don't have: local only posting which would allow students a level of privacy and separation from the rest of the federated timeline if they choose.

  19. Apr 2022
    1. https://www.idorecall.com/

      This was mentioned to me by Nate Maertens in our lunch discussion of edtech tools, spaced repetition, and Barbara Oakley from 2022-02-11.

      Nice layout and bullet pointed reasons for using it on a slick website, but it looks awfully expensive in comparison to Anki and Mnemosyne (free). Looks like they've got pre-existing content, but a quick scan doesn't center the value of creating your own cards.

    1. Students should be directly involved in campus conversations and decision-making about social reading technologies.

      Love this! It's hard to make happen, but learners voices are so often missing from EdTech conversations and may well be the most important voices to be heard. Given how tech decisions can have huge impacts on learner success and well-being, how can we ensure that they are a bigger part of the conversation?

    2. Teaching with social reading doesn’t mean peering over students’ shoulders. Rather, teaching with social reading should help students share and connect.

      So often learning technologies emphasize metrics of engagement that easily become metrics of surveillance. Maybe instead of focusing on "time on page" they might flower out to "connections made" to other people, texts, writing, and ideas.

    3. It begins by investing in people

      I wish every technology move would begin by investing in people. Yes, technologies can help us do wonderful things, but the most effective teaching and learning is in human connection.

  20. Mar 2022
    1. The tech industry's historical amnesia — the inability to learn about, to recognize, to remember what has come before — is deeply intertwined with the idea of "disruption" and its firm belief that new technologies are necessarily innovative and are always "progress." I like to cite, as an example, a New Yorker article from a few years ago, an interview with an Uber engineer who'd pleaded guilty to stealing Google's self-driving car technology. "The only thing that matters is the future," he told the magazine. "I don't even know why we study history. It's entertaining, I guess — the dinosaurs and the Neanderthals and the Industrial Revolution, and stuff like that. But what already happened doesn't really matter. You don't need to know that history to build on what they made. In technology, all that matters is tomorrow." (I could tie this attitude to the Italian Futurists and to fascism, but that’s a presentation for another day.)
    1. The ringing of the bell to signal the beginning and end of a class period, rather than just the beginning and end of the school day is often traced to William Wirt, who became superintendent of schools in Gary, Indiana in 1908.

      William Wirt, a student of John Dewey who became the superintendent of schools in Gary, Indiana in 1908, was one of the first educators to use a bell to signal the changes between classroom periods.

    1. Distance education by tele-mentoring, tele-lecturing, and computer mediated conferencing is gradually reshaping education, and is likely to accelerate as the technology becomes more widely available. Additional research and development is needed to ex plore how education can be reshaped in a 24-hour electronic environment in which the teacher shifts from being the "sage on the stage to the guide on the side." The web supports collaborative teaching methods in which students do more than surf the net - - they learn to make waves. Ambitious team projects can provide valuable services to clients who are outside the classroom. These authentic projects can be highly motivating to students as they learn business-oriented and personally enriching skills of communicating, critiquing, and collaborating (Shneiderman, 1998b).

      Example of techno-utopianism within the edtech space which largely hasn't come to fruition.

      Were there prior references to "sage on the stage to the guide on the side" that indicated the guide on the side not being a person, but the Internet or technology instead?

    2. Future tools will provide standard ized learning streams to help novices perform basic tasks and scaffolding that wraps the tool with guidance as users acquire expertise. Experts will be able to record their insights for others and make macros to speed common tasks by novices.

      We've been promised this for ages, but where is it? Shouldn't it be here by now if it were deliverable or actualizable?

      What are the problems in solving this?

      How might one automate the Markov monkey?

    3. Learning how to learn is often listed as a goal of education, but acquiring the goal-directed discipline, critical thinking skills, and cognitive self-awareness that support collection of knowledge is difficult. Advanced user interfaces may be able to help users better formulate their information needs, identify what information gaps impede them, and fabricate plans to satisfy their needs. Often as information is acquired, the users's knowledge shifts enough to require a reformulation of their plans. Information visualization interfaces and hypertext environments are a first step in supporting incidental learning, exploratory browsing, and then rapid reformulation of plans. As a refined theory of knowledge acquisition emerges, improved tools will f ollow.
  21. Feb 2022
  22. Nov 2021
  23. Oct 2021
    1. There’s a telling episode about a quarter of the way into Now You See It, Cathy N. Davidson’s impassioned manifesto on the way digital tools should transform how we learn and work.

      These were written at a time when the tech industry generally had a rose colored view of their effects on the world. By 2021, we've now got a much more sober and nuanced view. Even Cathy Davidson says as much in her recent book The New Education.

      For more on this topic with respect to education, see specifically Audrey Watters.

  24. Sep 2021
    1. However, there’s no technological imperative that makes blogging more important than discussing books and our experiences in person with friends and colleagues.

      I'd like to unpack that idea of "technological imperative".

  25. Aug 2021
    1. We present a version of that syllabus statement here for reuse and/or remixing: Your personal data is valuable and important, which is why it is often collected by the digital tools you use in your educational activities. To better understand how and why your data is collected, the potential risks of this collection, and how to better protect your personal data, consider asking yourself the following questions: What types of personal data do you think are collected through your use of digital tools for educational activities? What value does your personal data have for different contexts and entities? Consider how your data might be valued by your instructor, the institution, yourself, and companies. Who owns your personal data, who can sell it, and who can use it? Do you have concerns about how your personal data can be used? If so, what are they? Are there aspects of your identity or life that you feel would put you in a place of special vulnerability if certain data were known about you or used against you? If after asking yourself these questions you have concerns, I invite you to reach out to me to discuss them. I may not have easy answers to the questions or concerns that you bring to me (often in these matters no one has these answers), but I will happily explore them further with you or find someone more knowledgeable who can help answer your questions.

      I'd rather see curriculum time dedicated to activities that actively engage and develop learner 'technical intuition' rather than a legalise terms-and-conditions style (lip service?) syllabus statement – enmesh it in the learning ecosystem.

      See: Alix (2018). Technical Intuition: Instincts in a Digital World

      There are four dimensions of technical intuition.

      To Imagine: An imagination equipped with the information and instincts to conceptualise (good and bad) and suggest (good) technical systems even without the skills of implementing the ideas

      To Inquire: An ability to formulate questions that can drive understanding and decision-making, and a clarity on how and where (to what experts) you would need to direct those questions

      To Decide: A clarity of how your politics and preferences (both personal and professional) connect to the decisions you can and should make about — and within — digital systems

      To Demand: An animated impulse of when to be opinionated, active, and targeted if a system is designed in ways that do not align with our politics and morality

      Looking for anyone interested in experimenting with this in their classes.

      It should really be a part of any future-focused inter/trans/cross disciplinary courses.

  26. Jul 2021
    1. teaching is a very special art, sharing with only two other arts-agriculture and medicine-an exceptionally im­portant characteristic.

      Note here that this analogy only goes so far. The sciences of medicine and agriculture have come leaps and bounds since the start of the industrial revolution and our outputs and expectations for both with respect to humanity have increased tremendously.

      Not so with education. While we have dramatically increased the amount of information, there still seems to be a limit to how much an individual can learn.

      César Hidalgo calls this limit the personbyte.

      The perennial question for education technology is how might we get around this limit?

      The only solution in some areas is new discoveries concatenating and compressing some of the knowledge by abstracting it to simpler spaces, as sometimes happens in physics, but generally this is relatively rare. (or is it? justify...)

    1. Platforms of the Facebook walled-factory type are unsuited to thework of building community, whether globally or locally, becausesuch platforms are unresponsive to their users, and unresponsive bydesign (design that is driven by a desire to be universal in scope). Itis virtually impossible to contact anyone at Google, Facebook,Twitter, or Instagram, and that is so that those platforms can trainus to do what they want us to do, rather than be accountable to ourdesires and needs

      This is one of the biggest underlying problems that centralized platforms often have. It's also a solid reason why EdTech platforms are pernicious as well.

    1. Against Canvas

      I love that he uses this print of Pablo Picasso's Don Quixote to visually underline this post in which he must feel as if he's "tilting at windmills".

    2. All humanities courses are second-class citizens in the ed-tech world.

      And worse, typically humans are third-class citizens in the ed-tech world.

  27. May 2021
    1. I like the idea of where Downes is going here in taking a book and turning it into a feed for a course.

      Could professors create a syllabus at the start of the semester and then add things to a main class feed slowly over time in combination with feeds from various students to unroll the course over time?

    2. Books and OER distributed by RSS. OPML lists creating collections for specific purposes - courses, discussion lists, whatever. RSS readers like gRSShopper using these OPML files to aggregate the contents and present them inside the student's own integrated learning environment. And then these - chapters, resources, comments, etc. - shared through the network among people taking the same course, working in the same community, or associated in any other way.

      This is roughly what I'd been thinking when reading Tonz' work on OPML recently as well. OPML could be used for quite a lot more and when paired with dumping things into a reader environment could be incredibly powerful.

  28. Apr 2021
    1. @7:40:

      We're aware that some students might actually revel in the gymnastics of a sophiscated writing and retrieval system like this. Now, we don't want to subordinate the material to the system, nor is the system merely being used to provide an alternative to a classroom experience. What we are striving for is to make a flexible system with lots of interesting material so that we may serve the needs of a genuinely contemporary student.

  29. Feb 2021
  30. Jan 2021
    1. Praxis intervention makes research, creative expression or technology development into a bottom-up process. It democratizes making of art, science, technology and critical conscience. The praxis intervention method aims at provoking members to unsettle their settled mindsets and to have a fresh look at the world around and intervene.
  31. Oct 2020
    1. 3 Cool Tech Tools to Consider for the Digital Classroom

      This article discusses methods of integrating technology in an online learning environment. It gives examples of using Adobe Spark, Quizlet, and Remind for an online instructor as well as reasons why the tools should be used. This comes from the Faculty Focus site which has short, to the point articles about current topics. It was easy to search for topics about technology integration though none of the articles are as content-heavy as journal articles. 8/10

    1. Factors Impacting University Instructors’ and Students’Perceptions of Course Effectiveness and TechnologyIntegration in the Age of Web 2.0

      Even though technology and Web 2.0 tools are widespread in education, using them does not guarantee that learning outcomes are accomplished. Blogs, wikis, podcasts, social networks have all received attention as tools that increase learning. This study examined student and faculty perception of the usefulness of such tools. The study results are useful to instructors designing content. Student responses showed that instructional strategies, not specific technology uses, influenced student perception of course effectiveness. Highly interesting reading from a peer-reviewed journal. 10/10

    1. America’s publicly funded adult education system serves only 5 percent of the 40 million U.S. adults who have low literacy skills.1 To stay competitive, adults need better access to education and training experiences that are high quality, afford­able, and adaptable. This includes math skills, which significantly affect employ­ability and career options.

      This article raises concerns with the workforce in America and how we are supporting adults who need access to a better education. With a better education adults can access higher paying jobs and contribute more. The article uses case studies and highlights to discuss different methods and best practice of adult learning.

    1. Multiplying Impact:Five Frameworks for Investment in EdTech for Adult Learners

      The report was funded through the U.S. Department of Education. It proposed that there are five areas of focus for educational technology in regards to adult learners. Focus areas include: supplement the instructor, design for learners' lives, engage the learner, build community, and connect content to learners' lives. The areas proposed are meant to improve adult education outcomes for adult learners not in a university setting. The report lists the issue or problem that each framework is meant to address and how the framework can improve teacher and student experience. This gives concrete examples for implementing technology and discusses what can be implemented easily today versus what would take more time and funding. 9/10

    1. A spokeswoman for Summit said in an e-mail, “We only use information for educational purposes. There are no exceptions to this.” She added, “Facebook plays no role in the Summit Learning Program and has no access to any student data.”

      As if Facebook needed it. The fact that this statement is made sort of goes to papering over the idea that Summit itself wouldn't necessarily do something as nefarious or worse with it than Facebook might.

    2. Teachers at Orlo Avenue Elementary said that, while they supported their principal’s decision to adopt Chromebook-based personalized learning, it had undoubtedly created a lot more work, with no accompanying pay raise.

      This is a major issue. And shouldn't all the ed-tech involved actually be lowering this sort of cost and not dramatically increasing it? Isn't that half the point?!

    3. Yet the academic and policy research behind it is thin.

      And sadly this doesn't seem to have prevented a huge swath of schools to switching over to the idea. Isn't the purpose of a pilot program to do just that--pilot it to see if the data show it's a good idea to spread to other schools?!

    4. Other personalized-learning advocates told me that execution is everything.

      And isn't this the same case as in traditional teaching?!

    5. Personalized learning, though premised on differentiating one student from another, has seemed to work best when it attends, first and foremost, to the needs of teachers as a group. If tech is, indeed, merely a tool of personalized learning, then what does that make the teacher?
    6. Personalized learning argues that the entrepreneurial nature of the knowledge economy and the gaping need, diversity, and unmanageable size of a typical public-school classroom are ill-served by the usual arrangement of a teacher lecturing at a blackboard.
    1. I mean, what does an alternative to ed-tech as data-extraction, control, surveillance, privatization, and profiteering look like? What does resistance to the buzzwords and the bullshit look like? I don’t have an answer. (There isn’t an answer.) But I think we can see a glimmer of possibility in the Indie Web Movement. It’s enough of a glimmer that I’m calling it a trend.

      For Audrey Watters to indicate even a glimmer of hope is rare! This ranks as a glowing recommendation as a result.

    2. Here’s what I wrote last year when I chose “the Indie Web” as one of the “Top Ed-Tech Trends of 2014”:

      I want to go back and read this too.

    3. The Indie Web posits itself as an alternative to the corporate Web, but it is a powerful alternative to much of ed-tech as well, which as this series has once again highlighted, is quite committed to controlling and monetizing students’ and teachers’ connections, content, and data.
    1. "We learn by engaging and sharing with others, and a digital environment enables you to do that in a much more effective way."

      An interesting pedagogical point, but then the question becomes: "Should we necessarily do it within your company's specific siloed domain?"

    1. us ed tech folks will recognize some of the themes – individualized learning, learner choice, self-direction, – to name a few.

      Aren't these all just Montessori principles under a different name?

    1. Our experience is that many of today’s technology leaders genuinely venerate Engelbart, Kay, and their colleagues. Many even feel that computers have huge potential as tools for improving human thinking. But they don’t see how to build good businesses around developing new tools for thought. And without such business opportunities, work languishes.

      Some of these ideas in this section tangentially touch on the broader problems of EdTech. Technology isn't necessarily the answer.

      They're onto something, but I feel like they're missing a huge grounding in areas of pedagogy, teaching, EdTech history, and even memory and memory research.

    1. There are still some wrinkles to be ironed out in getting the various platforms we use today to play well with Webmentions, but it’s a real step toward the goal of that decentralized, distributed, interconnected future for scholarly communication.

      The fun, secret part is that Kathleen hasn't (yet?) discovered IndieAuth so that she can authenticate/authorize micropub clients like Quill to publish content to her own site from various clients by means of a potential micropub endpoint.

      I'll suspect she'll be even more impressed when she realizes that there's a forthcoming wave of feed readers [1] [2] that will allow her to read others' content in a reader which has an integrated micropub client in it so that she can reply to posts directly in her feed reader, then the responses get posted directly to her own website which then, in turn, send webmentions to the site's she's responding to so that the conversational loop can be completely closed.

      She and Lee will also be glad to know that work has already started on private posts and conversations and posting to limited audiences as well. Eventually there will be no functionality that a social web site/silo can do that a distributed set of independent sites can't. There's certainly work to be done to round off the edges, but we're getting closer and closer every day.

      I know how it all works, but even I'm impressed at the apparent magic that allows round-trip conversations between her website and Twitter and Micro.blog. And she hasn't really delved into website to website conversations yet. I suppose we'll have to help IndieWebify some of her colleague's web presences to make that portion easier. Suddenly "academic Twitter" will be the "academic blogosphere" she misses from not too many years ago. :)

      If there are academics out thee who are interested in what Kathleen has done, but may need a little technical help, I'm happy to set up some tools for them to get them started.

    1. Given technological advances and a trend to promote digital annotation by students in school, empirical findings are mixed regarding the evidence-based benefits of handwritten annotation for learning.

      There are also now digital tools like Anki, Mnemosyne, and even Amazon's notebook tools that allow highlights and annotations in books to be transferred into digital flashcards to be used for spaced reviews of knowledge and information. I suspect that even students that heavily highlight their textbooks are rarely reviewing over those highlights after-the-fact, and have generally found this to be the case when asking those I see actively doing so.

    2. Annotation Studio
    3. The Task Annotation Project in Science (TAPS) provides K-12 educators with annotated assessment tasks, aligned to the Next Generation Science Standards, that help guide teachers in more equitably monitoring their students’ learning.37 Osmosis is a repository of open educational resources (OER) created to crowdsource the future of medical education.38 Undergraduate and graduate medical students have access to thousands of digital resources, and they have also used annotation - through comments, feedback forms, and ratings - to improve the quality of these learning materials.39 The National Science Digital Library (NSDL), created in 2000, is an archive of open access teaching and learning resources for learners of all ages across science, technology, engineering, and mathematics disciplines.40 Annotation has been used to tag the NSDL’s resources and improve information accessibility, support student interaction with multimedia content through a digital notebook, and educators have annotated NSDL resources to design online learning activities for their students.41 And research about the digital annotation tool Perusall.d-undefined, .lh-undefined { background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2) !important; }.d-undefined, .lh-undefined { background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.5) !important; }3Troy Hicks, Nate Angell, Jeremy Dean, often used in conjunction with science textbooks, has shown that college students’ pre-reading and annotation practices can subsequently improve exam performance.
    4. Paul Allison, who administers the online annotation platform Now Comment.d-undefined, .lh-undefined { background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2) !important; }.d-undefined, .lh-undefined { background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.5) !important; }1Chris Aldrich that is popular among some K-12 educators and their students.
    1. Scholars who are also members of marginalized groups disproportionately take up this kind of engaged scholarship, often without commensurate credit from university administrators or colleagues (Ellison and Eatmen 2008; Park 1996; Stanley 2006; Taylor and Raeburn 1995; Turner et al 2008; Villalpando and Bernal 2002).
    2. Academic capitalism promotes engaged academics as an empirical measure of a university’s reputational currency. Academic capitalism refers to the ways in which knowledge production increasingly embeds universities in the new economy (Berman 2011; Rhoades and Slaughter 2010).
    1. In ed tech, schools are the customers, but students are the users.

      This also reminds me of the market disconnect between students and their textbooks. Professors are the ones targeted for the "sale" or adoption when the actual purchasers are the students. This causes all kinds of problems in the way the textbook market works and tends to drive prices up--compared to a market in which the student directly chooses their textbook. (And the set up is not too dissimilar to how the healthcare industry works in which the patient (customer) is making a purchase of health care coverage and not actually the health care itself.

  32. Sep 2020
    1. What is particularly interesting to me is this criticism of technology, especially in the midst of an intense focus on learning new tools—Zoom, Panopto, Slack, Google Meetings, etc—in order to be in closer contact with my students.

      Who do technologies include, and who do they leave out? When we choose a technology, what biases (preferences) are we exposing?

  33. May 2020
  34. Apr 2020
    1. Getting Started

      If you would like to start by integrating Hypothesis into your learning management system (LMS) instead, reach out to us at Hypothesis.

    2. It is free

      Hypothesis offers and will continue to offer free annotation capabilities for people to use across the web.

      To sustain our project, Hypothesis arranges paid partnerships with institutions looking to use annotation at scale and with integration into their learning management systems for single sign-on, automatic private groups, dedicated support, service -level agreements, dashboards on usage at the class and institutional levels, participation in the AnnotatED community, and more.

      In response to the current COVID-19 crisis, Hypothesis has waived all institutional costs for at least 2020.

  35. Mar 2020
    1. A great website of 3 accessible steps to supporting K-12 professional learning. The steps include differentiation, follow up, and accountability. Though this is found in an EdTech resource it doesn't focus solely on educational technology tools so it is applicable to a low/no tech environment.

  36. Jan 2020
    1. That would enable all students to grapple with the same information. But he suggests then assigning them different tasks depending on their abilities.

      Using both approaches is vald. Varying reading levels based on English proficiency or even just plain reading ability is okay as long as it is paired with specific, actionable instruction from the teacher to the student.

      Modifying the task allows for high cognitive engagement from all at the appropriate level.

    2. “What are teachers trying to do, and how do we help them do those things?”

      We need to be asking questions for context and then working toward solving those specific instructional goals.

    3. The content is random—clouds one day, zebras the next—and in any event, it’s considered relatively unimportant.

      The Smekens training runs opposite this trend. She makes specific points about how and why to connect texts, even if they seem unrelated.

    4. Technology is primarily used as a delivery system. Maybe it can deliver instruction better than a human being in some circumstances. But if the material it’s delivering is flawed or inadequate, or presented in an illogical order, it won’t provide much benefit.

      Retrieving information is one thing. Making sense of information is completely different, but impossible to uncouple from retrieval.

      As teachers, how do we drive students to open information while still providing structure and context for interpretation?

      Conversely, are we stifling chances for students to do independent research?

    5. One personalized-learning skeptic has observed, “If allowed to choose my own content in elementary school, I would have become an expert in princesses and dogs.”

      Part of the responsibility of the teacher is to expose students to subjects and topics they might not otherwise choose for themselves. The device can help provide those resources, but again - school and course design is highly influential.

    6. like those in the Rocketship network, where one or two minimally trained supervisors oversee as many as 90 students during “Learning Lab” time.

      This is just plain poor design.

    7. there’s a greater chance he would have been interested in trying to do it.

      How are we preparing and coaching colleagues to use the iPad with students? Is it simply an attention tool? Or are teachers actively engaging students?

      What kinds of assignments make that active engagement more likely?

    8. “Virtual” charter schools—which offer online classes and generally produce dismal results—often enroll struggling students.

      Indiana charters have never posted passing school evaluation scores, yet they continue to operate. Why?

    9. instructional software and online tutorials and games can help narrow the massive test-score gap

      Have we clearly defined goals for iPads in the classroom? Have your kids' schools?

    10. According to other studies, college students in the US who used laptops or digital devices in their classes did worse on exams. Eighth graders who took Algebra I online did much worse than those who took the course in person. And fourth graders who used tablets in all or almost all their classes had, on average, reading scores 14 points lower than those who never used them—a differential equivalent to an entire grade level.

      What were the tests measuring? How were they administered? What other preparation did students have?

      This seems like causation attributed to correlation without supporting evidence.

  37. Dec 2019
    1. They are processed into existence using the pulp of what already exists, rising like swamp things from the compost of the past. The mulch is turned and tended by many layers of editors who scrub it of anything possibly objectionable before it is fed into a government-run "adoption" system that provides mediocre material to students of all ages.

      textbooks

    1. What do we mean by ‘pedagogy’ in ‘pedagogy first’? Towards a Digital Pedagog

      Excellent webinar on technology and pedagogy

  38. Nov 2019
    1. Integrating Technology with Bloom’s Taxonomy

      This article was published by a team member of the ASU Online Instructional Design and New Media (IDNM) team at Arizona State University. This team shares instructional design methods and resources on the TeachOnline site for online learning. "Integrating Technology with Bloom's Taxonomy" describes practices for implementing 6 principles of Bloom's Digital Taxonomy in online learning. These principles include Creating, Evaluating, Analyzing, Applying, Understanding, and Remembering. The purpose of implementing this model is to create more meaningful and effective experiences for online learners. The author guides instructors in the selection of digital tools that drive higher-order thinking, active engagmenent, and relevancy. Rating 9/10

    1. Training and Development Policy Wiki

      This webpage, under the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) .gov site, provides an extensive list of technology resources that can be and have been implemented into a variety of employee deveolpment programs. These tools allow for more personalized learning, active participation, collaboration, and communication.In the first section of the site, examples of Web 2.0 tools are listed that can promote collaboration and constructive learning. You can also find technologies that are used in specific sectors, such as the Federal Government and the Private Sector. Clicking on the links redirects you to additional resources on the tech tools, including how to use them effectively and professionally for employee training. Rating 10/10

    1. Using Technology to Enhance Teaching & Learning

      This website provides technology teaching resources as part of the Southern Methodist University (SMU) Center for Teaching Excellence. Users can find informational links to various technology tools that can be used for enhancing teaching and learning in online, hybrid, or face-to-face courses. On the right of the page under "Technology," users can click on the tech tools for additional resources/research on their implementation. Examples of these technologies include Blackboard LMS, PowerPoint presentation software, Google Suite products, blogs, and social media sites. Rating 8/10

    1. Empowering Education: A New Model for In-service Training of Nursing Staff

      This research article explores an andragogical method of learning for the in-service training of nurses. In a study of a training period for 35 nurses, research found an empowering model of education that was characterized by self-directed learning and practical learning. This model suggests active participation, motivation, and problem-solving as key indicators of effective training for nurses. Rating 8/10

    1. Digital Literacy Initiatives

      This website outlines digital literacy initiatives provided by the Literacy Information and Communication System (LINCS). The U.S. Department of Education, Office of Career, Technical, and Adult Education (OCTAE) implements these intitatives to aid adult learners in the successful use of technology in their education and careers. Students have free access to learning material on different subjects under the "LINCS Learner Center" tab. Teachers and tutors also have access to resoruces on implementing educational technology for professional development and effective instruction. Rating 8/10

    1. 1Engaging Adults Learners with TechnologyThrough

      Instruction Librarians from the Twin Cities Campus Library created this instructional gudie as a workshop for implementing technology for adult learning. First, the authors describe key characteristics of adult learners as identified in the theory of andragogy. Examples of these characteristics include the need to know, learner responsibility, past experiences, and motivation to learn. The authors then suggest instructional practices and activities to meet the needs of adult learners, Finally, they provide examples of technology tools for effectively engaging adult learners. Rating 10/10

    1. ISTE Standards Transform learning and teaching.

      This resource is the website for the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE), which serves educators and professionals in the implementation of technology in education. The site provides open access readings, learning guides, and membership material for educators' development with technology. You can also find ISTE Standards for teachers, students, technology coaches, and educational leaders/administrators. These standards serve as the skills and knowledge each group should obtain for effective teaching and learning with technology.

    1. This article, developed by faculty members at NAU, provides research behind and practices for technology-infused professional development (PD) programs. The authors first emphasize the importance of designing professional development for teachers around how they and their students learn best. Many approaches to PD have taken a one-size-fits-all approach in which learners take a more passive role in absorbing standardized information. The authors in this article suggest the need for a more effective model, one in which teachers play an active role in learning in ways that they find most effective for them and their students. Technology can support this PD through interactive and learner-centered instruction. Rating: 9/10

    1. Advantages of Online Professional Development

      This chapter, "Advantages of Online Professional Development" describes the benefits of online teacher professional development (OTPD), which implements technology to deliver training and learning in an online environment. OTPD allows teachers to participate in a flexible, self-directed, and collaborative learning community. They can interact with other teachers synchronously and asynchronously, or take professional development courses at their own schedule.

    1. Training for Transformation: Teachers, Technology, and the Third Millennium

      This article emphasizes the importance of preparing educators for the effective implementation of technology in a rapidly advancing digital society. Institutions have taken measures to ensure that students are prepared to use educational technology and how that can supplement and enhance learning. However, it is also just as important to ensure that teachers are prepared and to consider how these tools impact their practices. This article outlines examples of training programs and models that teachers can use for technology implementation professional development. Rating: 9/10

    1. Section 1.5 Online Learner Characteristics, Technology and Skill Requirements

      This website outlines Section 1.5 of Angelo State University's guide to instructional design and online teaching. Section 1.5 describes key characteristics of online learners, as well as the technology and computer skills that research has identified as being important for online learners. Successful online learners are described as self-directed, motivated, well-organized, and dedicated to their education. The article also notes that online learners should understand how to use technology such as multimedia tools, email, internet browsers. and LMS systems. This resource serves as a guide to effective online teaching. Rating 10/10

    1. E-Learning Theory (Mayer, Sweller, Moreno)

      This website outlines key principles of the E-Learning Theory developed by Mayer, Sweller, and Moreno. E-Learning Theory describes how the implementation of educational technology can be combined with key principles of how we learn for better outcomes. This site describes those principles as a guide of more effective instructional design. Users can also find other learning theories under the "Categories" link at the top of the page. Examples include Constructivist theories, Media & Technology theories, and Social Learning theories. Rating: 8/10

    1. Learning Domains

      This website provides several examples of domains adults may learn in or engage with. By clicking on each type, you are redirected to a detailed description of the domain. Descriptions include, but are not limited to, definitions, theories and research behind the topic, and real-world examples. You can also find references used in the description, which can be helpful for further exploration. This InstructionalDesign.org website also provides extensive lists of learning concepts (i.e. motivation, personalized learning, storyboard, etc.) and theories (i.e. Adult Learning Theory, Social Learning, Constructivism, etc.). Each learning theory link provides a theoretical definition, applications, examples, key principles, references, and related websites. Rating 10/10.

    1. Tech Literacy Resources

      This website is the "Resources" archive for the IgniteED Labs at Arizona State University's Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College. The IgniteED Labs allow students, staff, and faculty to explore innovative and emerging learning technology such as virtual reality (VR), artifical intelligence (AI), 3-D printing, and robotics. The left side of this site provides several resources on understanding and effectively using various technologies available in the IgniteED labs. Each resources directs you to external websites, such as product tutorials on Youtube, setup guides, and the products' websites. The right column, "Tech Literacy Resources," contains a variety of guides on how students can effectively and strategically use different technologies. Resources include "how-to" user guides, online academic integrity policies, and technology support services. Rating: 9/10

    1. We did a study, many many years ago in education, about the importance and the role of technology in the classroom, how can it help with the education process. The result of this education research we did was that the students who succeed are the ones who are most engaged, which is really simple. 

      This ‘graph might be the key to something rather deep about Apple in education. And about Old School EdTech.

      People are focusing on Schiller’s comment about Chromebooks, yet this reference to an old study is perhaps more revealing.

    1. Using Technology to Help First-Gen Students

      This article highlights the need for and benefits of implementing more technology tools to support first-generation college students' learning, engagement, and success. For many first-gen students, especially those from low-income backgrounds, the transition to college can be challenging; this leads to lower retention rates, performance, and confidence. The authors, drawing off of research, suggest mobile devices and Web 2.0 technologies to prevent these challenges. Example of such tools include dictionary and annotation apps that are readily-accessible and aid in students' understanding of material. Fist-gen students can also use social media apps (Twitter, Facebook, etc.) to maintain supportive connections with family, peers, and mentors. Rating: 8/10

    1. In the text "10 Current and Emerging Trends in Adult Education," ten current trends are briefly reviewed. Among these are the emphasis on effort, growth, and social-emotional learning. In terms of technology, real-life simulations and AI are being used to better prepare learners for their professional encounters and responsibilities. In terms of what is on the horizon for adult learning, one can expect mastery to be emphasized rather than degrees. As a result of the information economy, it is expected that income inequality will grow and thus advocacy for adult learners and continued opportunities for working adults to grow will mitigate the negative consequences. Rating: 7/10

  39. www-chronicle-com.libproxy.nau.edu www-chronicle-com.libproxy.nau.edu
    1. Technology

      This website explores technology news within the field of higher education. The site contains a wide variety of news articles on current issues, trends, and research surrounding the integration of technology in universities and colleges. This includes technology's prevalence in teaching and learning, institutional decisions, and societal trends of higher education. The articles are published by authors for "The Chronicle of Higher Education," a leading newspaper and website for higher education journalism. Rating: 7/10

    1. Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College

      This site is the homepage of the Tech Infusion program at Arizona State University (ASU). Housed within ASU's Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College, Tech Infusion is a technology integration curriculum for Pre-K-12 teacher candidates. Through coursework and hands-on practices, teacher candidates are prepared to use technology fluently and innovatively for teaching and learning. The program integrates research, ISTE Standards, and the TPACK (Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge) framework around effective technology integration. This website provides technology-infusion resources for course developers, instructors, and current and future educators. Examples include research articles, edtech tool tutorials, lesson plans, and outlines of the curriculum. Rating: 9/10

    1. Issues and Trends in Learning Technologies

      This website covers "Issues and Trends in Learning Technologies (ITLT)," a peer-reviewed open-access journal published by the University of Arizona's Learning Technology program. This online journal features articles that explore theories, practices, and research surrounding educational technology. This includes discourse around the application and assessment of various learning technologies in educational settings. The "Archives" tab at the top of the site each volume ITLT, which feature articles such as research, reviews, and graduate student work. As an online publication, each article is accessible in PDF and HTML format free of charge. "Rating: 10/10"

    1. Recognized by U.S. News & World Report as the country’s most innovative school, Arizona State University is where students and faculty work with NASA to develop, advance and lead innovations in space exploration.

      Arizona State University is one of the best university leaders nationally and around the world. They are known by providing successful online services for online learners. Educators and potential educators should explore their site for leads and their own innovation.

      Rating: 10/10

    1. The text "Adult Learners Come to Campus With Unique Technology Needs" illustrates the barriers to learning that surround a learner's experience with technology. Author David Hutchins suggests having inclusive discussions with diverse sets of technology users to best determine their needs, issues, and reasonable solutions for support. Multi-level support for multiple generations of learners includes the instructors, administration, and IT teams that work together to improve education via technology. Embedding links throughout the text re-direct the reader to valuable resources for further review. Rating: 7/10

  40. Sep 2019
    1. We must be sure that we do not confuse the technology tools themselves with the purpose of our work.

      This mantra should be forefront in all our thinking about #EdTech.

    2. offering a degree that not only provided skill value but also transformed our students' social capital and cultural capital

      And maybe this is the core of the tension around higher ed for jobs/skills vs "the value of a liberal arts education". To be an engine for social mobility, education needs to transfer not just skills, but social and cultural capital.

    3. As a result, our students now benefit from sharing courses, research projects, and databases and collaborating in the same way that they see faculty collaborating online and in face-to-face courses.

      Interesting: an outcome of the "EdTech 3.0" work at VCU was that the student experience evolved to become more like the faculty experience.

    4. the academic discipline gave us a systematic way to think about whether or not we were reproducing offline realities in our online learning spaces

      So inspiring to think about how each discipline might use its own practices to embed, interrogate and shape the #EdTech in use. "EdTech 3.0" is the meta we've been waiting for.

    5. Rachel Baker and her colleagues at the Stanford University Center for Education Policy Analysis (CEPA)

      Learn more about Dr Baker and CEPA.

    6. it doesn't matter whether or not a tool can do something; it matters whether or not students can make sense of what the tool is doing

      Yes! This is why digital literacies programs that focus on training for specific tools miss the point: students really need metaskills and literacies that they can then apply to specific tools.

    7. In this process, we found that we could not make any baseline assumptions about our students' ability to access, use, or make sense of edtech tools in their existing context.

      Yes! Thinking back to my note above about how the tech we may need to think about most or first may not even be "EdTech", but some of the more basics of network and hardware.

    8. what would it look like if education technology were embedded in the everyday practice of academic disciplines?

      Perhaps the core question of this article.

    9. So our learning technologies cannot continue to live solely in our administrative units; our academic units are where we are doing some of the more transformative work of learning.

      A direct call to locate #EdTech on the "academic side of the house" in EDUs.

    10. If these tools are going to survive into the phase of what we should do with education technology, I believe they must be embedded in the everyday practice of the higher education institution.

      Thinking here about the technologies that end up being used in everyday practices of teaching and learning, but live mostly outside the structure/sphere of influence of EDUs, for example, smart phones, ecommerce, or even the Internet itself. I'm thinking TMcC is also calling for thinking about how those are embedded in everyday practices of education and we should be thinking about what we should do with them as well.

    11. by Tressie McMillan Cottom

      If you don't already know Dr McMillan Cottom, you might check out her recent books, Lower Ed: The Troubling Rise of For-Profit Colleges in the New Economy and Thick, And Other Essays, tune in to her podcast with Roxane Gay, Hear to Slay, visit her website, or for more frequent updates, follow her on Twitter.

      Annotate here, or you can also join in the annotations on her post “Why Is Digital Sociology?

  41. Jul 2019
    1. Amanda Licastro, Bill Seitz, Bryan Alexander, Chris Lott, Gardner Campbell, Jeremy Dean, Joe Murphy, Jon Udell, Justin Cerenzia, Ken Bauer Favel, Laura Gibbs, Maha Bali, Michael Feldstein, Mike Caulfield, Phil Hill, Regina Gong, Remi Kalir, Sherri Spelic, Steel Wagstaff, Taylor Kendal, and Tiago Forte.

      A big question to me is why the edtech crowd is so driven by so few people very incestuous feeling, It's always the same old names Lack of critical mass? Lack of interest by peers? cocktail parties?

  42. Jun 2019
  43. educatorinnovator.org educatorinnovator.org
    1. socially rewarding feedbac

      I wonder about the degree to which CL acknowledges and addresses the harassment faced by different individuals and groups when they work in an online space. A related question: to what degree are CL practitioners investigating the technology itself? How might Ethical EdTech provide questions and tools to support CL?

  44. May 2019
    1. The first thing I would show our players at our first meeting was how to take a little extra time putting on their shoes and socks properly.

      Things like this are easy to forget or better said, it's easy to assume basics like socks/shoes are universally well-performed. I was reminded of this: it's the last month of school and I'm teaching individuals how to "control-click" on a google search page to open promising web pages worthy of more detailed examination.

    1. Students with access to a computer and the Internet are able to find the answers to not only simple questions, but also incredibly complex problems.

      This gives me concern about access in our schools.

  45. Apr 2019
    1. As teachers we often put our students into reading groups with a limited choice of books and then try to create artificial conversations. In contrast, the act of creating the book commercial together pushes students to have deep discussions as they negotiate creative decisions about what to include and how to communicate the strengths of the book.

      Artificial conversations are an issue I predict I'd face as a teacher, this activity seems to negate the issue by focusing on student interest and creation. What other activities deal with this issue in this sort of way?

    2. Now it’s time for an audience. My students watch each commercial and comment about what they liked, and then the creator tells us what they might do differently next time.

      This is an activity that sees writing as making. Students plan, make, and peer edit.