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Matthew Daniel's List: Science magazine special issue

Technology and Informal Education

Increase of technology and visual media in society (i.e. tv and videogames) has had both significant benefits and costs. Increases in visual-spatial intelligence, but negative effects on abstract vocab, mindfulness, relfection, inductive problem solving, critical thinking and imagination.

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on 2009-04-11
- Rising IQ performance is attributableto multiple factors: increased levels of formal education, urbanization,societal complexity, improved nutrition, smaller family size,and technological development
- The changing balance of media technologies has led to lossesas well as gains. For example, as verbal IQ has risen, verbalSATs have fallen. Paradoxically, omnipresent television maybe responsible for the spread of the basic vocabulary (11) thatdrives verbal IQ scores, while simultaneously the decline inrecreational reading may have led to the loss of the more abstractvocabulary driving verbal SAT scores
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- - Technology and Visual Intelligence
  - The understanding of pictures or icons develops at an earlierage than the ability to read words (
  - Technology and Multitasking: Benefits and Costs
  - Implications for Education and Training
  - Violent Games: Are the Costs Worth the Benefits?
  - reflection, inductiveanalysis, critical thinking, mindful thought, and imagination.We start with reflection and inductive analysis
  - Over a 6-week period,an experimental reduction in television watching in a groupof 6-year-olds decreased intellectual impulsivity, increasedreflection, and increased time spent reading (50).
  - Reading is also key to the development of critical thinking.The amount of out-of-class reading done during the college yearsis a statistically significant predictor of critical thinkingskills (51). One reason for this may be that books are perceivedas a "hard" medium, requiring mental effort (52).
  - Here there is evidencethat visual technology inhibits imaginative response. In controlledexperimental studies, the audiovisual (television) presentationof stories, as compared with audio or print presentation ofthe same stories, led to better story recall and inferences
Immersive Interfaces for Engagement and Learning

Author argues and provides evidence that immersion through digit environments enhances education in three ways: allowing multiple perspectives, situated learning, and transfer.

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on 2009-04-11
- A major advantage of egocentric perspectives is that they enableparticipants' actional immersion and motivation through embodied,concrete learning, whereas exocentric perspectives foster moreabstract, symbolic insights gained from distancing oneself fromthe context (seeing the forest rather than the trees). Bicentricexperiences that alternate these views combine these strengths.
- mmersive interfaces can foster educational experiences thatdraw on a powerful pedagogy: situated learning. Situated learningrequires authentic contexts, activities, and assessment coupledwith guidance from expert modeling, mentoring, and "legitimateperipheral participation"
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- - Our research results from River City show that a broader rangeof students gain substantial knowledge and skills in scientificinquiry through immersive simulation than through conventionalinstruction or equivalent learning experiences delivered viaa board game. Our findings indicate that students are deeplyengaged by this curriculum through actional and symbolic immersionand are developing sophisticated problem-finding skills (ina complex setting with many phenomena, problems must be identifiedand formulated before they can be solved). Compared with a similar,paper-based curriculum that included laboratory experiences,students overall (regardless of factors such as gender, ethnicity,or English language proficiency) were more engaged in the immersiveinterface and learned as much or more (11, 12).
  - Many academically low-performing students do as well as theirhigh-performing peers in River City, especially on performance-basedmeasures (such as a letter to River City's mayor describingan intervention to help reduce illness and providing evidenceto support this claim). Digital immersion allows these studentsto build confidence in their academic abilities by steppingout of their real-world identity of poor performer academically,which shifts their frame of self-reference to successful scientistin the virtual context. This suggests that immersive media mayhave the potential to release trapped intelligence and engagementin many learners, if we can understand how best to design instructionusing this type of immersive, simulated experience.
  - Immersion may enhance transfer through simulation of the realworld.
  - Researchers differentiate between two ways of measuring transfer:sequestered problem-solving and preparations for future learning
  - "learn how to learn
  - One of the major criticisms of instruction today is the lowrate of far-transfer generated by presentational instruction.
  - As the students move around a physical location, such as theirschool playground or sports fields (Fig. 3B), a map on theirhandheld displays digital objects and virtual people who existin a simulated world superimposed on real space (Fig. 4). Whenstudents come close to these digital artifacts, the augmentedreality and GPS software triggers video-, audio-, and text files,which provide narrative, navigation and collaboration cues,as well as academic challenges to build math and literacy skills(SOM Text 3).
Algebra Tutor

Program guides students through algebra problems, success key is that is notices and corrects problems through the students work progress through each problem. Makes a lot a sense for a sequential skill and exercise like this.

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on 2009-04-11
Korean Online Learning

Rising cost and popularity of extra-curricular tutoring and education has led to a national online tutor service that's free for students. They can access extra information, videos and multimedia, testing and recorded lectures. Allows for strong and struggling students alike to work at their own pace.

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on 2009-04-11
"Glow"

Scottish Intranet gov't system that connects all teachers, students, and parents. Provides a one-stop-shop for all in the district, teachers collaborate, post material, videos, articles, pics, etc. which the students can then browse through instead of blindly searching the web.

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on 2009-04-11
Writing Programs

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on 2009-04-11
Special Online Collection: Education and Technology

Special edition of Science magazine regarding technology in education

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education technology on 2009-04-10
Technology and Testing

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on 2009-04-11
- Innovative applications of technologyalso provide rich, authentic tasks that challenge the sortsof integrated knowledge, critical thinking, and problem solvingseldom well addressed in paper-based tests
- Online administrationeliminates costs for shipping, tracking, and collecting printbooklets while simultaneously introducing other logistical complexitiesrelated to equipment and security. Computer scoring providesrapid return of results and generation of reports tailored tomultiple audiences. Flexible administration times and localesshift annual, on-demand testing to interim and just-in-timechallenges
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- - Computerized adaptive testing (CAT) procedures, in which itemsare selected based on the examinee's prior response historyand an underlying measurement model of proficiency, have beendeveloped to reduce testing time and examinee burden. However,their use in high-stakes testing contexts has been confinedlargely to admission, professional certification, and credentialingexams. Despite requests to use CAT in state testing programs,regulations of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation haveprohibited their implementation for assessment of student academicachievement in reading, mathematics, and science.
  - Klein (8) recently reviewed the literature on automated scoringmethods and presented results from a study comparing hand andmachine scoring of college-level, open-ended items of the typefound on the Collegiate Learning Assessment. Findings acrossstudies using a variety of machine scoring methods consistentlyshow comparability of human and machine scoring ( $~$ 0.85 scorecorrespondence) at levels approximating the agreement betweentwo human scorers ( $~$ 0.86) and sufficient to warrant using computerizedscoring alone, or as an augmentation to human scoring.
  - Classroom instructional uses of assessments.
  - DIAGNOSER is an Internet-based tool that delivers continuousformative assessment and feedback to students and teachers (15,16). The online assessment identifies problematic "facets" ofstudents' thinking, then provides counterexamples and additionallessons.
  - Moreover, because simulations use multiplemodalities and representations, students with diverse learningstyles and language backgrounds may have better opportunitiesto demonstrate their knowledge than are possible in text-ladenprint tests.
  - A third important feature isgoing beyond annual, ondemand tests to multiple assessmentsdistributed over time combined with timely reporting that offersteachers the opportunity to tailor instruction.
Video games in Science in Math

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on 2009-04-12
Laptop Programs

Author gives evidence that 1:1 programs show an increase in participation, engagement, better behavior and interest and a weak correlation to writing and mathematics. However, it is noted that more is needed than issuing laptops, as test scores, critical thinking and understanding are not in direct correlation. Instructional methods needs to be improved and accurately designed for the use of technology: Research in many nations suggests that laptop programs will be most successful as part of balanced, comprehensive initiatives that address changes in education goals, curricula, teacher training, and assessment.

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on 2009-04-12
- Research in many nationssuggests that laptop programs will be most successful as partof balanced, comprehensive initiatives that address changesin education goals, curricula, teacher training, and assessment.
- The reasons given by policy-makers for investing in these programsvary. There are economic arguments, based on improving students'technology skills, creating a better educated work force, andattracting new jobs; equity concerns, to support students fromlow-income families whose access to technology and informationis otherwise restricted; and education reform issues, as policy-makerstry to make schools more effective and provide students an educationthat prepares them for life in the 21st century.
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- - For example, using a word processor has been shown to help studentslearn to write (13); certain drill-and-practice applicationsassist students in learning facts and skills (14); some sciencelaboratory simulations can be more effective learning toolsthan actual laboratory equipment
  - Teachers routinely makeuse of computer software called ExamView that provides instantfeedback about how students have responded to assessment questions,and teachers may then assign students to groups on the basisof that information.
  - Several times each year the teachers studyassessment data, gathered using ExamView, to find out how wellstudents are performing on education standards. The school'salignment of educational goals, instructional materials, studentassignments, teacher practices, and assessment techniques illustratesthat computers will be most effective when used as part of athoughtfully coordinated, systemic approach
  - A study underway in Texas is unusual because it is a 4-yearlongitudinal study, costs millions of dollars, and includesnot only more than 20 experimental schools that use laptopsbut also a matched comparison group of schools that do not (12).After 3 years, the researchers found positive impacts of laptopson technology use and proficiency, increased interest amongteachers in student-centered instruction, reduced student disciplinaryactions, and greater teacher collaboration. However, there wasgenerally no significant impact on students' test scores inreading and writing and only a weak impact in mathematics.
  - It is clear is that simply providing computers to schools isnot enough to increase student achievement or change the natureof instruction. At a minimum, learning goals, curricula, teachingstrategies, and assessments must change as well.
  - Regardless of the price of technology, the investments in creatingeffective laptop programs are large. The Australian governmenthas recently committed Au$1.2 billion for its school technologyprogram. In the U.S., one national program alone, the E-Rateprogram, has spent about US$20 billion since 1998 to help connectnearly all schools to the Internet
  - Yet the cost of laptop programs consists of much more than theprice of buying computers and connecting them to networks. Schoolsshould consider the total cost of ownership (TCO), includingtraining of teachers and administrators, technical support,software, replacement costs of aging equipment, and other items
  - Computers are different than other technologies used in schoolsbecause they are all-purpose machines. They can be used as alibrary, a way to model invisible phenomena, a communicationdevice, a link to other tools (such as telescopes or onlinedatabases), a device students use to create knowledge artifactsin many media, and so forth
  - Computers' flexibility makes themuniquely powerful educational tools but also means that qualityeducational interventions or treatments cannot be realized simplyby providing more computers.
  - However, if the goal of laptop programsis to change educational goals; to improve patterns of teaching,learning, and assessment; and to help transform schools intomore effective institutions; more needs to be done than acquirelaptops and a corresponding technical infrastructure. Curriculaneed to be revised, better assessments developed, teachers mustlearn new approaches, and schools have to support teachers asthey learn to teach in new ways
OER

Open Educational Resources is a movement expanding the available information and resources for students and teachers alike. Having a commonwealth of knowledge has it's obvious benefits but what about intellectual property and the problems with economics and maintaining an infrastructure?

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on 2009-04-12
- Students everywhere, enrolled or not,have free access to content and interactive instruction, aswell as to networks of people with similar interests, enablingthem to collaborate in the construction of knowledge and tolearn at their own pace.
- Open high-qualitycontent and instruction can set standards of practice and, becauseof their quality, transparency, and availability, help improvethe practice of teaching and learning throughout the world.
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- - OER advocates believe that it will become a vibrant part ofthe educational and social fabric of the world. Lawrence Lessig,a professor of law at Stanford University, argues for the Webto be an open commons; if some people are restricted from knowledgewhile others are not, creativity will be constrained and inequalitiesheightened
  - The Internet will change dramatically over the next decade asit incorporates such emerging technologies as geo- and semanticmapping, speech recognition, artificial intelligence (AI), datamining, and techniques that immerse learners in virtual worldsthat engage multiple senses. The opportunities for influencinglearning and teaching will expand dramatically. The power ofOER to increase access and to allow use and reuse should bothenhance and be enhanced by these innovations.

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Matthew Daniel

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Updated on 2009-04-12
Created on 2009-04-11

Category: Schools & Education

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Matthew Daniel's List: Science magazine special issue

Technology and Informal Education

Immersive Interfaces for Engagement and Learning

Algebra Tutor

Korean Online Learning

"Glow"

Writing Programs

Special Online Collection: Education and Technology

Technology and Testing

Video games in Science in Math

Laptop Programs

OER

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