Curtis Bonk, professor emeritus at Indiana University, focuses on the idea of technology as a way to have multiple perspectives on international matters and analyze data at a deeper level for school pupils. This short video discusses some ideas for using technology in the classroom to enhance a students understanding of a concept at a deeper and a global level. Transcript below.
Robin Good: I am receiving this idea that those kids and those pioneers among us pushing the envelope will be the models of this emerging revolution, but the resistance from the existing educational system is very strong.
Also what I noticed is that these so-called digital natives are not as schooled as they are painted to be. They are cool because they have those tools as natural tools in front of them, but most of the time they are clueless on the best use of these tools on themselves, out of the very easy superficial social tools that they start to learn right away.
Digital natives do not seem to get what are the possibilities in front of them because they do not really have models inside their educational institutions that help them think critically about the opportunities available to them. The education system also makes them think in ways quite opposite in the way of forming them as humans that can have value inside society, that are kind of opposite to the once being offered by those very technologies. I am having some conflicts with all that. Curtis Bonk: Let’s think about the Flat Classrooms Project.
The Flat Classrooms Project is the only one discussed in my book, Thomas Friedman’s The World Is Flat book, Don Tapscott’s WIKINOMICS book and Growing Up Digital.
What they do in the flat classrooms, in Digiteen Project, they take a book like mine, or whatever book they might have, my blended book or whatever they have got, and they analyze the book. And in this case, these kids in secondary schools, work with other kids around the world to understand the technologies that make learning open. This semester they are using my book actually, The World is Open book. It is making them aware of what are the technologies for learning. Last year they looked at Growing Up Digital, the book from Don Tapscott, and they analyzed it across the world.
You are right, kids today have pretty savvy skills for their mobile devices, they can use them for chats and all this. But they are not for learning.
How do we transform the mobile devices or these synchronous conferencing tools?
In the Flat Classrooms Project they use Ning to form groups with other kids around the world, wikis to summarize the book across cultures, video conferencing like this to discuss what they have learned and do peer interaction. They use other kinds of tools like Twitter, microblogging and blogs. How can that one-off project become the norm?
How can those synchronous as well as asynchronous collaborative technologies push all through all schools? This is the power of technology I have been talking about since 1987. I think that video conference like this can let kids stand in each others shoes. They can see perspectives. That to me can change the whole teaching and learning arena. We have to pushing the global head, international head for perspective taking.
So I understand people in Italy better, which I do not admittedly, or people in Pakistan or some other places around the world. To me this is the most powerful way to use technology. It is to do cross-cultural collaboration like the ePals projectsand others, there is something called the IEARN Project. That will get kids in K-12 schools thinking about collaboration, teaming, these digital skills that you are talking about to critically analyze data. Not just accept what they see, but to analyze it with their peer groups. When they see a group in Italy critiquing a document that they thought was great, they will see that they really were not thinking about the credibility of the sources, the quality of the resources.
When I have done any international collaboration with my students, with my teachers, they see that once we go to Finland, Peru or Korea, those students are analyzing the data in a different way, and they are opened up to the fact that they are really not going as in-depth as they need to go. I really think that international collaboration pushes us up to ego-centric points of view to multiple perspectives. That is one way of using technology that can help with this digital teen issue.
What a simple concepts for using technology in a way that opens children up to the powerful way in which these technologies can be used for collaborative learning at a global level.
Recent articles in the press report that Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is looking at creating paperless classrooms by introducing digital textbooks. One report here.
Although budgets may be driving Mr Schwarzenegger’s current decision could this be the start of using technology to a greater extent in education? Can ebooks comfortably sit side by side with traditional media whether in the form of a textbook or fiction? Indeed, can using this technology enhance a student’s learning?
Forward thinking teachers will no doubt be exploring how technology can develop learning experiences for their pupils. They will know that learning is not transformed simply by the use of technology, but by how it is used creatively. This is where teachers can bring their greatest skills to the table, the application of the tools available to enhance learning. So whether it be ebooks or other media, students have a greater opportunity to learn when a variety of methods are employed to engage them.
As a student I am so excited about a article written two days ago on Econtentmag.com about Web 2.0 and ebooks in the classroom. Educators are taking notice the opportunity to not only save money from the rising costs of printing new and updated versions of textbooks each year but also the effects of green economics and more and more students looking for alternatives.
Bookshelf provides free software, allowing users to download, store, and manage etextbooks. With publishers such as McGraw-Hill, Elsevier, and John Wiley & Sons providing textbooks in the VitalBook format, users have the option of downloading directly from a publisher’s website or through VitalSource.
Just to give an example of the uses increase, last years NFP Read an eBook Week saw and catered to a small group of 1200 readers, however this year the group heard from and saw participation from some 30k users.
Jason Overby from the College of Charleston explains, new features are making the books more useful. “I’ve known about electronic books for quite a while, but I’ve never been a fan of what was available up until this point,”
The new options for not only download of textbooks, but to take notes and transfer chapters to mobile devices such as iPhone and Blackberry a student does not have to drag with him 5 textbooks, a laptop, and notebooks; the new student be more efficient and learn in a language that not only speaks his, but also is more likely to be read and studied. Since users are more comfortable with downloading content (thanks iTunes) it is now user friendly so use ebooks and etexts.
Like I said before, as a student this is a simple sell for me.
Education is defined as: The process of giving or receiving systematic information.
Now, I don’t know about you but that tells me nothing about learning. Learning is more than being able to babble off useless facts or being able to regurgitate them for testing. When your learn something it becomes a behavior, a part of your understanding.
A baby, for instance does not become educated on how to sit up, or crawl; they learn to do these things. The same with a 3rd grader who is forced to write multiplication tables repeatedly, in which case he only learns how to get them done.
The new age of education is by far the most interesting and available to all children and adults. We have more colleges online than ever before, high school is online, even the academic side of getting an RN can be done online. Professors and universities are using online black boards to get student updates and post information.
Smart-phones, like the iPhone have applications for all ages to help you learn; areas of vocabulary to medical academics. The use of technology is growing, changing and infiltrating the classroom. My third grader uses my iPhone to work on his math skills, and my 5 year old can play the games and draw.
Major differences are in place from 10 years ago, grandparents are raising their grandchildren, 95% of all american children from the age of 5-17 have a computer in their room (this replaced their tv). Education is becoming electronic, and some of the coolest things are becoming more and more available to those who would not have the resources to learn about them before.
Learning is transforming, and it is bringing with it some really clever tools!
