I had the chance to talk with some really diverse and great teachers, moms, and directors this weekend and here part one of the what they are saying about online learning for kids.

First Jamie Miles a  Kindergarten Teacher of 3 years at a private school in Oklahoma City said:

NIL: What do you think about ebooks for enhancing kids learning:

Jamie: I personally have never used ebooks, We don’t use books as a center in my classroom. Usually centers are a learning game, puzzles, art…etc.Each child reads with me during centers but it is not a center activity. Our kids go to Computer Lab twice a week and usually do some sort of reading in that class

NIL: Do you think that kids can learn using technology if it is not a replacement for traditional reading?

Jamie: of course, technology is a great tool

NIL: in most classes do children have access to computers at home, and do you see that parents encourage kids to learn how to use them?

Jamie: well it depends on the school. In my school I would say most kids have access to a comp at home. But some schools especially poor districts will have kids that can’t afford it at home. As far as the kids is my class I know for a fact their parents encourage learning on a computer

I believe that online books and the option to read online is such a growing and maybe a little awesome opportunity to teach kids and get them involved in technology. The main problem is getting the tools in the schools and in the homes of those students that are missing this opportunity. All children need to have access to this tool if they have the hope of competing in the world to come.

Tomorrow Director extraordinaire!

In most elementary schools the utilization of computers is a fast growing tool to teach and introduce not only a different medium to children, but to aide in the learning of a technology that they will need for the rest of their education careers.

Technology use in schools is more than just learning how to access the Internet or typing skills it’s an understanding of the control of information children see, hear and learn. An understanding between the teacher, student and parents. Most children come into kindergarten with some knowledge of computers, even if it’s just observance of their parents using them. They know what they are and what they are used for. Being the little curious sponges that they are, when offered the chance to get to use them and behave like those they have seen use computers, it is an experience in of itself.

In Collected Research using computers with Kindergartners can be useful as well as frustrating; maintaining these guidelines can help your classroom, living room, or homeschooling environment become more relaxed and learning can take place.

1. Keep the lesson short and sweet. Something interactive, colorful or with music with help hold their attention.
2. Having programs that are open-ended and can be done as the student controls, with the  pace being set by the student.
3. Computers are used within the classroom, not set in another room or area. Something like “Centers” or “destinations” can be more accepted by the class.
4. The ability for audio to be used, so that those still working on letters and sounds can participate as well.
5. The use of media, such as a web cam or video camera to add to the picture or program they are using. This way they become part of the exercise.
6. After creating something the option to print it out and further color or bring home to share with others.
7. Programs that offer recognition and sound technology to emphasize sounds of letters or word phrases that can be followed along with.
8. Some of the greatest use of technology in the classroom is the option to have stories read through headphones as well as being able to follow along on a computer. A bonus would be to use story time that can be changed along with the flow of the story by the child listening and clicking on different points to enhance their story.
9. A subscription to a site like Wizz-e would provide another resource for online learning and reading.
10. A must is teaching children at a very young age what is and what is not safe behavior online. What to look at for and what to do in case they are asked funny questions online, who they can talk to about it and the understanding that some people are not good friends online.

I don’t know about you but I LOVE history and finding anything I can about the early 20th century. By sheer coincidence I stumbled upon a 1925 Fashion Book - an eBook. I was thrilled, not only because it was vintage art/fashion picture book from the twenties, but it was an eBook! The fact that I could (for 8.95) instantly download a book that usually take hours scouring Ebay. 

This is the future of research. Being able to look up a book on popular sites such as WorldCat, GoogleBooks, or even just the local library,  then being able to download a chapter, the bibliography or the whole book. Faster research means faster results. In a world where the day-to-day seems to have less time to get things done, the ability to use ebooks for research is key. 

 

Olaf Ernst says “the reason behind the popularity of ebooks in research compared with other types of books is simple: ‘Researchers already do their day-to-day work online. In consumer markets you really have to convince them of a different way of reading books,’ he explained.

James Gray, CEO & president of Ingram Digital Group, which has the e-book platform MyiLibrary, agreed. ‘Universities and corporate research libraries are moving to a preference for e-books. They are very familiar with digital content,’ he observed. ‘STM content is very much ahead at the moment but we are starting to see these trends with social-science and humanities books too.’ (Research Information)

 

The trend is expanding, from scientific researchers to libraries, students and textbooks. This great “new” market has some of the worlds leading journals behind it as well. From Ebsco Host you can search all the ejournals online and therefore all the articles within them. Most students have free access to this service and researchers as well.

The fact children have access to this technology, even for a simple story of Red Riding Hood will pave the road for them to carry out the excitement of learning throughout their school careers. 

According to the Sloan Consortium, the nation’s largest association of institutions and organizations committed to quality online education, more than one million students (k-12) are now taking classes online.   This is a 47 percent increase in only two years.

Education and the Internet have much in common; both are advocates for access.  Online learning serves a wide range of needs, from remedial to accelerated instruction, and four out of five school districts use more than one provider of online classes, including postsecondary institutions, virtual schools within a district’s home state, independent vendors, and education service agencies.  It is an incredibly exciting prospect.  Children in Wisconsin can learn Russian or an engineering student in Boston can take a class on Emily Dickinson.

Online learning is unlikely to replace the physical classroom just as e books are unlikely to replace hard backed just as hard backed books are unlikely to replace paperbacks; however, more options equal the ability to meet more information needs and curiosities.

For a full report, check out www.sloanconsortium.org

If the internet in its humble beginnings was a brain child of the military, can we (can we can we can we?!) possibly hope that flex screen color OLED displays could enter civilian life?  For those of you unfamiliar with OLED, it stands for Organic Light Emitting Diode.  Basically, it is the golden standard for display screens with its fast response times, wide viewing angles, fantastic color reproduction, incredible contrast levels, and high brightness.

“The device combines the significant energy savings of Universal Display’s phosphorescent OLED technology with the inherent benefits of a flexible OLED into an ultrathin display with a crisp beautiful picture, a wide viewing angle and a novel form  factor. In addition to military field communications, this device suggests a number of exciting possibilities for consumer-oriented products.” - Steven V. Abramson, President and Chief Executive Officer of Universal Display Corporation, as quoted at OLED Display.net (via TechMeme).”

The military is working on a four inch OLED screen prototype that may aid soldiers in communicating clearly, but the possibilities of such a display enhancing consumer gadgets like e books is both very exciting and very close.

The future’s looking more vivid already!  Full Story

Stephen Downes, an education research specialist, recently published an update of his eloquent and visionary essay, The Future of Online Learning.

I’m only attaching a few excerpts and commentary, courtesy of the P2P Foundation and the Hennistalk Blog, but I highly recommend the essay to anyone interested in the dramatic changes in store for the way we perceive and organize education.

Main argument

“Today, and for the last century, education has been practiced in segregated buildings by carefully regimented and standardized classes of students led and instructed by teachers working essentially alone.

Over the last ten years, this model has been seen in many quarters to be obsolete. We have seen the emergence of a new model, where education is practiced in the community as a whole, by individuals studying personal curricula at their own pace, guided and assisted by community facilitators, online instructors and experts around the world.

Though today we stand at the cusp of this new vision, the future will see institutions and traditional forms of education receding gradually, reluctantly, to a tide of self-directing and self-motivated learners. This will be the last generation in which education is the practice of authority, and the first where it becomes, as has always been intended by educators, an act of liberty.”

Schools and Learning in the Future

There is not a single school of the future. We are still in a classroom based paradigm, which will slowly erode, making place for a number of different schools and learning methods.

“As learning evolves slowly from a classroom-based and deliver-based type of instruction, and toward wide-ranging learning activities that are largely selected and managed by the students themselves, the dedication of space in schools to classroom instruction will be reduced. Instead, schools will be converted into meeting facilities, workrooms and laboratories, multimedia studios, and more.

The convergence of digital life with in-person life is not, therefore, a mere addition of a digital dimension to the in-person life we lead today. It transforms and reshapes that life, removing from it elements that could be done more efficiently (or more pleasantly) in a digital environment, and opening up opportunities for new and more types of in-person activities.

We should also look toward the development and deployment of learning facilities in traditional working environments. Students of all ages will be able to learn about law in learning facilities made available at courtrooms. Galleries at legislatures and town council meetings will be equipped with internet access (of course) and supported with installed facilities for learning and visualization (such as, say, a zoomable hologram of the city, allowing members and visitors along to see zoning changes and planned construction). Farms and greenhouses will employ student workers, who will study and catalogue plant and animal life as they work with it.”

Learning is a social activity, and happens within communities, where knowledge and skills are demonstrated, criticized, and merged: it is not merely the acquisition of new information and skills, but becoming educated in a discipline is..

“to learn the habits, patterns, ways of thinking and ways of thinking characteristic of that discipline.”

Downes proposes two distinct types of learning communities; communities of interest and peer-based, real-life communities. The value of a community lies in its diversity.

The role of the technology, or tool (such as a weblog, or Second Life), was

“to create a space – virtual or otherwise – in which people can communicate, and then the members built the rest.”

….

Online, for example, we would expect not only to find the instructor and any administrative services, but also resource libraries, other students, and digital tools or platforms on which distributed work may be performed. The online component of a person’s learning environment will tend to me more distributed, based on communications and connections of a cognitive nature.

Offline and locally, by contrast, we would expect to find not only coaches and facilitators but also one’s immediate friends and family. We would also expect to find local facilities, along with facility managers and other support staff. The offline component of a person’s learning environment will tend to be more localized and immediate, based on personal relationships, support and emotional attachment.

Typically, the role of the online environment would be to inform and assess, while the role of the local environment would be to reaffirm and to advocate.”