Using Technology to Enhance Student Learning:

Uses, Impact & Next Wave

General Thinking About the Use of Technology in Teaching

Technology, including, information technology (IT) has great potential to support improved student learning in STEM, but there is nothing inherent in the use of technology in teaching, by themselves, that would lead to improvement in student leaning.

Innovations in teaching that lead to improve student learning in STEM are possible without technology but the capabilities of IT make them easier, more practical, and perhaps more engaging for students.

Use of technology, including IT, is evolutionary rather than revolutionary.

From Enhancing Undergraduate Learning with Information Technology: A Workshop Summary (2002) -- Center for Education (CFE ) and Why People Learn

How is Technology to Enhance Student Learning?

Basic Skills Instruction Computer assisted instruction to drill Multi-media software - teach to a variety of learning styles Videodiscs - strengthen basic skills Video and audio technologies - bring material to life Distance learning - at least as effective as traditional methods

of instruction All forms - develop new skills related to use of technology

itself, necessary in workplace

http://www.nsba.org/sbot/toolkit/tiol.html

How is Technology Used to Enhance Student Learning?

Advanced Skills Instruction

Interactive educational technologies, including: ***Computer-generated simulations ***Videodiscs***Internet ***CD-ROM

Students learn to: organize complex information, recognize patterns, draw inferences, communicate findings

Learn better organizational and problem-solving skills

http://www.nsba.org/sbot/toolkit/tiol.html

How People Learn Chapter 9 on Technology and Learning summarizes how new technologies are used

Bringing exciting curricula based on real-world problems into the classroom;

Providing scaffolds and tools to enhance learning; Giving students and teachers more opportunities for

feedback, reflection, and revision; Building local and global communities that include teachers,

administrators, students, parents, practicing scientists, and other interested people; and

Expanding opportunities for teacher learning.

How Does Technology Impact Student Achievement, Attitudes, & Behaviors?

Quantitative (Achievement) Often modest increases in teacher given student’s grade Larger increases in test scores for low achieving students Increase student’s understanding of conceptsQualitative (Attitudes and Behaviors) Improved student attendance Motivation and Interest Attitude and Improved student retention Improve workforce skills Improve workforce placements. http://www.nsba.org/sbot/toolkit/tiol.htmlhttp://fermat.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=10270&page=13

http://www.nsba.org/sbot/toolkit/tiol.html

Podcasting Lectures http://educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/EQM0634.pdf

Concerns about evaluation of technology and learning

Technologies do not guarantee effective learning, however. Inappropriate uses of technology can hinder learning--for example, if students spend most of their time picking fonts and colors for multimedia reports instead of planning, writing, and revising their ideas. And everyone knows how much time students can waste surfing the Internet. (How People Learn)

The level of effectiveness of educational technology is influenced by the specific student population, the software design, the teacher’s role, how the students are grouped, and the level of student access to the technology. http://www.nsba.org/sbot/toolkit/tiol.html

Assessment methods are often traditional – fact recall, pencil and paper. http://fermat.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=10270&page=13

Uses of Web 2.0 – The New Wave of Innovation in Teaching and Learning

What is Web 2.0?

Web 2.0, a phrase coined by O'Reilly Media in 2004[1], refers to a supposed second generation of Internet-based services—such as social networking sites, wikis, communication tools, and folksonomies—that emphasize online collaboration and sharing among users. O'Reilly Media, in collaboration with MediaLive International, used the phrase as a title for a series of conferences and since 2004 it has become a popular (though ill-defined and often criticized) buzzword among technical and marketing communities.

What does folksonomy mean?

A folksonomy is an Internet-based information retrieval methodology consisting of collaboratively generated, open-ended labels that categorize content such as Web pages, online photographs, and Web links. A folksonomy is most notably contrasted from a taxonomy in that the authors of the labeling system are often the main users (and sometimes originators) of the content to which the labels are applied. The labels are commonly known as tags and the labeling process is called tagging

Podcasting

Podcast

A podcast is a multimedia file that is distributed by subscription (paid or unpaid) over the Internet using syndication feeds, for playback on mobile devices and personal computers[1]. Like 'radio', it can mean both the content and the method of broadcast. The latter may also be termed podcasting. The host or author of a podcast is often called a podcaster.Though podcasters' Web sites may also offer direct download or streaming of their content, a podcast is distinguished from other digital audio formats by its ability to be downloaded automatically using software capable of reading feed formats such as RSS or Atom.

What is a blog?

BLOG

A blog is a website where entries are made in journal style and displayed in a reverse chronological order.

Blogs often provide commentary or news on a particular subject, such as food, politics, or local news; some function as more personal online diaries. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, web pages, and other media related to its topic. Most blogs are primarily textual although some focus on photographs (photoblog), videos (vlog), or audio (podcasting), and are part of a wider network of social media.

The term "blog" is a portmanteau of "Web log." "Blog" can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog.

Next term --- WIKI Source Wikipedia

WIKI

A wiki (IPA: [ˈwɪ.kiː] <WICK-ee> or [ˈwiː.kiː] <WEE-kee>[1]) is a type of Web site that allows the visitors themselves to easily add, remove, and otherwise edit and change some available content, sometimes without the need for registration. This ease of interaction and operation makes a wiki an effective tool for collaborative authoring. The term wiki also can refer to the collaborative software itself (wiki engine) that facilitates the operation of such a Web site, or to certain specific wiki sites, including the computer science site (an original wiki), WikiWikiWeb, and on-line encyclopedias such as Wikipedia.

Next term – YASNS Source Wikipedia

YASNSAn acronym for the phrase "Yet Another Social Networking Service," referring to the wide range of social networking services such as Myspace and Friendster.With a lull following the much-unnoticed creation and disappearance of the original SixDegrees.com, the world wide web has been hit with a blizzard of social networking web sites, with Friendster rekindling the craze, and sites such as Orkut, Facebook, and hi5 following. The term YASNS, or Yet Another Social Networking Service, has been coined to refer to them collectively, in the long standing tradition of the phrase Yet Another

Next term --- MMORPG Source Wikipedia

MMORPG

A Massively-Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (MMORPG) is an online computer role-playing game (RPG) in which a large number of players interact with one another in a virtual world. As in all RPGs, players assume the role of a fictional character (most commonly in a fantasy setting) and take control over many of that character's actions. MMORPGs are distinguished from single-player or small multi-player RPGs by the number of players, and by the game's persistent world, usually hosted by the game's publisher, which continues to exist and evolve while the player is away from the game.

MMORPGs are very popular, with at least one commercial game, World of Warcraft, reporting millions of subscribers[1][2]. South Korea had a high early subscriber base with the national hit Lineage, but numbers have dropped drastically[3] -- though still impressive given the national population.

Next term --- Second Life Source Wikipedia

Second Life

Second Life (SL) is a privately owned, partly subscription-based 3-D virtual world, made publicly available in 2003 by San Francisco-based Linden Lab,[2] and founded by former RealNetworks CTO Philip Rosedale. The Second Life "world" resides in a large array of servers that are owned and maintained by Linden Lab, known collectively as "the grid".[3] The Second Life client program provides its users (referred to as Residents)[4] with tools to view and modify the SL world and participate in its virtual economy, which concurrently has begun to operate as a "real" market. At precisely 8:05:45 AM PDT, October 18th 2006, the population of Second Life hit 1 million Residents.[5]

What is RSS

RSS is a family of web feed formats used to publish frequently updated pages, such as blogs or news feeds. Consumers of RSS content use special browsers called aggregators to watch for new content in dozens or even hundreds of web feeds. The initials "RSS" are variously used to refer to the following standards:***Really Simple Syndication (RSS 2.0) ***Rich Site Summary (RSS 0.91, RSS 1.0) ***RDF Site Summary (RSS 0.9 and 1.0) RSS formats are specified in XML (a generic specification for data formats). RSS delivers its information as an XML file called an "RSS feed", "webfeed", "RSS stream", or "RSS channel". [citation needed]

Bottom Line on Use of Technology in Teaching

Student-Centered Teaching

Is it having a positive impact on student learning?

How Today’s Teenagers View Media

Never read a newspaperNever intend to own a land-line phoneLess interested in television than past generationsBelieve that everything will move to mobileExpect the Internet to be always availableCommunity at the center of Internet experienceWant to be active participantsWant to move content freely from platform to

platform“Surveying the Digital Future,” 2006 , USC Annenberg School for

Communications (Slide from Walter Baer)

Online References The Academic Culture and the IT Culture: The Effect on Scholarship and Teaching http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ERM0462.pdf Digital Rights http://www.educause.edu/issues/dmca.html http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/NET0303.pdf (2pages) Educause Teaching and Learning Resources http://www.educause.edu/Browse/645?PARENT_ID=107 Enhancing Undergraduate Learning with Information Technology: A Workshop

Summary (2002)Center for Education (CFE)

http://fermat.nap.edu/books/0309082781/html The Horizon Report http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/CSD4387.pdf Podcasting Lectures http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/EQM0634.pdf Social Software in Academia http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/EQM0627.pdf Technology’s Impact on Learning http://www.nsba.org/sbot/toolkit/tiol.html#Enhanced Technology to Support Learning http://newton.nap.edu/html/howpeople1/ch9.html Web 2.0: A New Wave of Innovation for Teaching and Leaning http://www.educause.edu/apps/er/erm06/erm0621.asp