Technology is both when out of balance. I read this excellent report for my class: DQ Global Standards Report 2019: Common Framework for Digital Literacy, Skills and Readiness. On page 15 you will see the 24 competencies DQ categorizes within three levels and eight areas. One competency is: Healthy Use of Technology. DQ defines that competency as "The ability to understand the benefits and harms of technology on one’s mental and physical health and to use technology use while prioritizing health and well-being." Technology without a doubt advances productivity and communications resulting in collaboration. The report says we are in the Fourth Industrial Revolution (see p5). On p4, Dr. Yuhyun Park, Founder of DQ Institute, introduces the topic of IQ, EQ and DQ with the question: What is a human being? It is a report that addresses the good and the bad and it is produced by a network of people defining this open framework on our digital life.

This reminds me of a webinar I attended on Inclusive Design Thinking with Ric Grefe in April 2020. Some of the phrases I heard at that webinar were:

• Creative collaboration
• observe how people observe
• encourage the design team to realize the diversity in the audience - don't do it just with your own thoughts
• make the people you're designing real for yourself.

My understanding:

"Do" UDL and inclusive design first. Then ask: Will technology make it better? more useful? will it improve the user experience?

Put the questions first. Ask What's wrong? What don't we know? Read about What's wrong in Inclusive Design and Design Justice: Strategies to Shape Our Classes and Communities

Visit Design Thinking at Williams College. Ric Grefe is the Design Thinker in Residence at Williams College at the time of the webinar.

I often understand what something is by understanding what it is not. When I think of design justice, I think of equality. If a student doesn't have internet access for homework and the school doesn't consider it, that student is at a disadvantage. There more not so obvious mistakes like this.

Another question might be What don't we know? That was explored in the Funds of knowledge: theorizing practice in households, communities, and classrooms. (Norma Gonzáles, Luis Moll, Cathy Amanti. Available as an eBook in the UMass Library.)

Gonzales was an ethnographer on the Tucson project. The educators visited the homes and communities of their students to learn and build Funds of Knowledge. I remember one of the stories was about a woman who was a seamstress. They watched her make patterns that involved advanced complex math skills. They would go back and the researchers and educators met to incorporate what they learned into their curriculum. This is an example of inclusive design.

In my annotation on What is Bloom's Taxonomy, I ask a similar question - could the benefits of equilibration (Piaget) be equaled with a digital app? (Piaget conducted a test with a child with marbles. Would an app with a marbles test offer equal learning?)

In Looking for an education life raft? Apps may not be the answer, they say: Whether free or paid, the takeaway is that apps in the marketplace generally scored 1s, suggesting they are often repetitive, distracting, not meaningful, and with little or no space for children and parents to play together.

And it says that apps like Bedtime Math and Math Talk "are among the outstanding apps in early STEM learning that meet all of the learning criteria." That the solution is for educators, developers and scientists work together.

In Theorising technology in education, an introduction, my question - about how theories of learning apply to 21st century learning and technology - is explored . It says: A particular challenge in theorising technology research is to articulate the relationship between person, tool and environment and, in particular, to say something about the opportunities for individual agency, without, as seen earlier, being excessively optimistic or pessimistic. This can be done by drawing on different disciplinary traditions – not only sociology, but also philosophy, linguistics or literary studies and so on. It also needs to be done by looking backwards by using past conceptual categories but adapting them for new contexts. Theorising balances past research with future possibilities (Hammond, 2018).

Theorising uses the example of IoToys (smart internet-connected toys); that the smart toys "advance at a greater pace than the preschool infrastructure."

(The summary to Theorising in education says it is a special issue "which showcases the application of a range of theories in the conceptualisation and analysis of educational technology.")

In this video on Bloom's Digital Taxonomy, they say to teachers: ask yourself: Which tools can help challenge student's higher-level thinking skills? This reminds me of an article about Serena Williams and also of Piaget's theory of equilibration.

In "Hanging with the Guys" Serena William's coach says: "But in order to become better, if you’re not challenged, you have no chance." Serena trained by finding the best players from the men's tour "to raise the intensity of her practices."

Similarly I wonder: Can you use an app that is clearly more than you know so that you can be challenged to grow to that higher-level thinking? I think so. This reminds me of Piaget's theory of equilibration that I read in The Learning Theory of Piaget and Inhelder.

Piaget explains equilibration with a marbles test. He puts one marble in one container and three in the other. Then asks children (4-5 years): Will the containers have equal amounts if I keep adding the same amounts to each container? They didn't get it right at first but some do eventually.

Piaget says children learn through discovery and invention. For me this means, "I see, touch and move the physical marbles."

How would Piaget evaluate digital apps using his theory of equilibration? Does a digital app give the same hands-on experience? The child is not feeling the marble. If the app involved the child using a physical marble along with the app, is that equally as challenging? I wonder.

In another article we read for this class, Putting Education in “Educational” Apps: Lessons From the Science of Learning it says that there are more than 500,000 apps for the iphone, ipad and ipod alone and that 80,000 are classified as education and learning-based.

Are educators and students lucky? Maybe - maybe not.

I remember a talk show I listened to. A guy talked about how when he used to buy jeans, there was only one kind. He said he went to buy jeans and was asked: Do you want slim-fit or relaxed fit. Do you want straight leg or boot cut? The questions went on and on, because there are now lots of jeans to choose from. He said although he ended up with the best fitting jeans, he walked out feeling worse. He wondered why and wrote a book about it. That guy is psychologist Barry Schwartz. Hear what Barry says in his Ted Talk The paradox of choice.

Teachers must be experiencing this paradox. Not only do they have to pick the right app for the right goal according to Bloom's taxonomy and other standards, they have to choose from those 500,000+ apps.

Barry Schwartz in his Ted Talk says that it used to be you go to the doctor and the doctor tells you about your choices for treatment. So you ask the doctor, what would you do. The doctor repeats the choices. The patient asks again: If you were me, what would you do? The doctor repeats the choices. His point: It used to be written in stone. Now it's do-it-yourself.

Teachers are in a similar situation - hit with teaching remotely and an overwhelming number of choices of ed-based apps. Thankfully sites like blogs.umass.edu/onlinetools are helping teachers by doing evaluations of apps that teachers may refer to in the decision-making process.

The K-12 Cybersecurity Resource Center site. Both are good resources.

The K12 center has a free newsletter. Their About page says: it's "...devoted solely to reporting news and information related to school cybersecurity and privacy issues. It is maintained as a free, independent resource for the K-12 community in partnership with the K12 Security Information Exchange."

Knowledge is power. The more I know, the more equipped I am. I attended a presentation on cybersecurity in 2019.At the presentation I learned about cisa.gov and methods of hackers. Cisa.gov is mentioned in the references in this article. That site has guides and alerts and much more.

I need to keep informed. What sites or media do you rely on to stay updated or learn?

I think of Bruner’s three systems of representation that we studied In Theories of Learning. They are enactive, iconic and symbolic.

Bruner references the necessity of integration as an important piece of learning; integration of action, imagery and language; of experiences learned from the past to the present to the future. In technology, if a student does not have a means of representation or one that isn’t good enough, he/she is at a big disadvantage to learn.

In this article, UDL Principle: Representation, it references these points: “Also learning, and transfer of learning, occurs when multiple representations are used, because it allows students to make connections within, as well as between, concepts.”

It has inspired me. I had the opportunity to sit with a visually impaired co-worker. I asked her if she would review a site I created while I watched her navigate it with her screen reader. I learned alot that day. It put me on the path of becoming an advocate for web accessibility. I would often convey info to another web designer or editor about accessibility and say something like: If you leave out the image alt text then our co-worker Mary won't be able to read it. Making it personal brought the point home. I read 5 most annoying website features I face as a blind person every single day that gives me the perspective of users like Mary.

In Theories of Learning, I studied Vygotsky's Mind in Society: The Development of Higher Psychological Processes. The editors write about his theory of the Zone of Proximal Development which relates to social learning experiences:

“It is in connection to this social emphasis that Vygotsky proposed the well-known concept of the Zone of Proximal Development (ZOPD), the contrast between what a child can do independently, representing his or her actual level of development, and what a child can do with the assistance of others, which represents the proximal level of development.” (p260)

In my own words this means that I increase my changes of learning when I'm with others who know more than me about what I'm learning. It's like a mentor / mentee or teacher / student interaction but with full hands-on participation from both that growth occurs.

Another valuable way to evaluate a tool or app is to use watch the user(s) use it. This would be a good way to consider how easy/hard the tool is to use when tested with those who may know the tool already and those who don't (and in-between).

See How to Conduct User Observation used often in web design planning.

I also like U of Washington Lesson on Conducting a Usability Test.

This rubric is a great evaluation tool. I like that it breaks it down into eight categories (functionality, accessibility, technical, mobile design, privacy, data protection & rights, social presence, teaching presence and cognitive presence) to evaluate Emphasis on these eight categories in itself is helpful.

The eLearning Toolkit from Western U Canada at (in our resources from class) uses this rubric.

The rubric and the eLearning toolkit together give me examples of how to apply the rubric. Plus the eLearning Toolkit has a long list of tools they've applied this rubric to. It also states when they haven't evaluated a particular category in the rubric for a tool. For example see eLearning's assessment of TurnitIn.

Another great rubric is UMass Amherst's Online Tools for Teaching and Learning blog. Their rubric categorizes tool groups that include Assessment Tools, Community Tools, Knowledge and Learner-Centered tools. For example, see the Answer Garden Tool Snapshot assessment rubric.

Communities of practice (COP) are another space to add to our PLN. I belong to virtual Drupal COPs which I find valuable in learning, in developing my identity as a professional drupal developer and in contributing. Reading Lave & Wenger helped me see the value of COPs.

In Theories of Learning (EDUC692K) with Dr. Sullivan, we studied Lave & Wenger's Situated Learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. In the chapter on Midwives, Tailors, Quartermasters, Butchers, Nondrinking Alcoholics, Lave talks about apprenticeships and how the learning or failure to learn in the examples given of apprenticeship “may be accounted for by underlying relations of legitimate peripheral participation.” p62-63

Lave says: “The need for such analysis motivates our focus on communities of practice and their insistence that learners must be legitimate peripheral participants in ongoing practice in order for learning identities to be engaged and develop into full participation.” (p64)

Lave explores the master-apprentice relationship and the apprentice's experience. Some "masters" do a good job of really engaging the apprentice who themself becomes a master. Other masters don't do a good job and may even exploit the apprentice (over-work, not having the opportunity to learn a new skill, controlling).

I am reminded of a quote in an article about Serena Williams, her coach said:

"But in order to become better, if you're not challenged, you have no chance." NY Times 1/18/2019, Hanging with the Guys. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/17/sports/serena-williams-australian-open.html

Engaging in COPs and PLNs give us that chance.