Educational Technology & Digital Learning

EDU626 Integrating Educational Technology Spring 2013

What is Technology? . . . technology is about more than gadgets

and gizmos – Technology concerns itself with

understanding how knowledge is creatively applied to organised tasks involving people and machines that meet sustainable goals.• What is technology?

By: Professor Andy Lane (The Open University)14 September 2006

2

What about Media? What do you mean, media?

– Not mediums (that’s spiritualism)!– Nor:

• When the media ask him [George W. Bush] a question, he answers, ‘Can I use a lifeline?’ ~ Robin Williams

– 2media 1 : a medium of cultivation, conveyance, or expression; especially : MEDIUM 2b1me·di·um 2 : a means of effecting or conveying something: b plural usually media (1) : a channel or system of communication, information, or entertainment

3

Is there a connection?

Media are for communication Therefore, technology applications in media apply

knowledge to me sustainable communication goals– In developing this site, we, the students of the

Vancouver Film School-Multimedia, first had to define what the term media involved. It was our belief that the word itself implies the notion of communication. Therefore, anything that was once used to relay a message would be applicable.• The Dead Media Project

http://student.vfs.com/~deadmedia/dedmedia.html

4

Dead Media?– “. . . some media do, in fact, perish. Such as: the

phenakistoscope. The teleharmonium. The Edison wax cylinder. The stereopticon. The Panorama. Early 20th century electric searchlight spectacles. Morton Heilig's early virtual reality. Telefon Hirmondo. The various species of magic lantern. The pneumatic transfer tubes that once riddled the underground of Chicago. Was the Antikythera Device a medium? How about the Big Character Poster Democracy Wall in Peking in the early 80s?

– Never heard of any of these? Well, that's the problem. • Bruce Sterling Dead Media Manifesto

5

What is Educational Technology? Educational technology is

– the application of technology in education– or, ways in which “knowledge is creatively

applied to organised tasks [in education] involving people and machines that meet sustainable goals [for example, in teaching].”

– Thus, chalk and a blackboard, pen and paper, textbooks and even the big ol’ pointer are allforms of educational technology!

6

A broad concept7

An evolving concept8

Computing History

http://ei.cs.vt.edu/~history/

http://www.thocp.net/

9

http://www.computerhistory.org/

Internet History

http://www.pbs.org/opb/nerds2.0.1/

http://www.archive.org/

http://www.archive.org/web/web.php

http://www.walthowe.com/navnet/history.html

10

Media in Schools

Stone tablets?

• Wax tablets?

• Slate tablets?

• Silicon tablets?

11

Applications of media & technology

What are the applications of various types of media and technology in the classroom or the school library?– Tablets– Paper-based media– Electronic media– Multimedia– Etc.

12

Also assistive technology13

Technology includes Web 2.0 Blogs and podcasts, oh my!– Blogs and podcasts are changing the way we interact

with information on the Internet . . . These are part of a reinvention of the Internet, referred to as Web 2.0, which is focused on using Internet technologies to connect people and information.

– While the idea as a whole extends into social bookmarking, collaborative development, and other tools, Web 2.0 is firmly rooted in the basic ideas of blogs.

14

Read Harris’s blog Infomancy

The implications of web 2.0 The web effect: Clay Shirky’s

Here Comes Everybody (2009)

– One of the biggest shifts that Shirky outlines is emergence of the amateur over and above the expert. In many professions, it is now practically impossible to preserve occupational selectivity and authority.

• Mark Meynell in blog Quaerentia

15

16

November on participation From “Myths and Opportunities” video

– “One of the things I think is critical is, a kid needs to make a contribution . . . Well, what we did, I believe, over time—and the irony is, technology did this—because we invented all kinds of machinery, we don’t need kids working any more. And so, we’ve robbed them of their sense of making a contribution to community.”

– “I think one of the breakthrough ideas is to change the concept of the learner into some who becomes a contributor by doing their work. It means we have to redefine the work. That represents the shift of control from the teacher . . . to the network of children”

17

What is November’s proposal? Encourage

children to be:– Researchers– Reflectors– Writers– “Students

researching the kinds of assignments they would like to do, rather than the teacher coming up with the assignment.”

18

But how does that square with our definition of technology?

What is Technology?– Technology concerns itself with

understanding how knowledge is creatively applied to organised tasks involving people and machines that meet sustainable goals.• By: Professor Andy Lane (The Open University)

19

Digital Learning?

What is Digital Learning?21

Another definition

22

http://hechingerreport.org/content/qa-with-former-gov-bob-wise-what-will-a-digital-school-look-like-in-5-years_6127

/

Another definition23

http://www.digitallearningnow.com/education-in-the-digital-age/

Do we need a day for digital learning?

24