Monthly Archives: May 2020

INF530 Part B – Critical Reflection

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It has been an interesting time to be studying digital technology and its impact on education. Since we started INF530 late last year, worldwide disruptions to education as a result of Covid-19 have dominated the news.  Much has been written in the meantime about the affordances of digital technology in education, but current circumstances make it clear that relatively few actually benefit from the ability to connect, learn, and share information ushered in by the 4th Industrial Revolution.

Unlike our technology rich IB World School, a recent a study of digital learning in the 27 European Union countries by the Center for European Policy Studies ranked Germany, the richest country in the EU, last in e-learning. This really brought home the extent of the digital divide. Despite a widespread perception that exposure to digital technology automatically produces “digital natives” (Prensky, 2001), the reality is that digital fluency and equity are real issues (Educause, 2019).

The recent move to online learning has shown that we need to rethink the training and support needs of both students and educators in terms of new technology and its implementation in the short term. In the long term, effective and targeted professional development on an ongoing basis is key in ensuring that we educators are equipped for the swiftly changing digital learning environment and for our role as learning facilitators and knowledge curators.

I found myself reflecting on the issues that will inevitably influence education policy: the trend toward student-centered, personalised learning and the use of data analytics to determine content and measure learning and how this will be influenced by the Edutech industry. Concerns and problems arising from the implementation of such initiatives and the implications for education will most certainly occupy our thoughts for quite some time.

My particular passion is the Makerspace and this dictated my choice of Stager & Martinez’ Invent to Learn for my scholarly book review. I have come to understand that true digital learning does not mean the indiscriminate use of digital devices in the place of traditional learning methods.  It is more about creating a learning environment in which students can learn to think critically, engage in problem-solving and actively collaborate with their peers using both physical and digital tools. Helping students to become life-long learners will equip them with the curiosity, creativity and flexibility they will need for their future careers.

My personal experience in online education is being mirrored by many thousands of students around the world – I am learning by doing. My entry into the Blogosphere as a complete novice has meant coming to grips with the technical intricacies of Thinkspace/Wordpress blogs. Nevertheless, I have become a true convert, gradually developing my visual literacy skills, discovering the world of hyperlinked writing and understanding the benefits of online participation and collaboration, so much so that it dictated my choice of subject for the digital essay.

INF 530 has introduced me to the world of social media as a source of professional collaboration and networking.  I have overcome my reluctance to post my opinions and resources online, I have joined a STEM/Makerspace group on Facebook that is both collaborative and informative and have taken to following advocates of connected learning, makerspaces and digital learning on Twitter. I particularly love Silvia Rosenthal Tolisano’s Langwitches – Globally Connected Learning. The next step is to make the leap to active tweeting so that I can exploit professional learning networks for educators.

INF530 has put me on the path to understanding the power of connectivity and the importance of keeping abreast of the constantly evolving digital landscape.

 

 

References

Educause. (2017, May 22). How Can We Help Students Be More Successful? [Video file]. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/sttyTSb6cKQ

Educause. (2019). Educause Horizon Report 2019 Higher Education Edition. Retrieved from https://library.educause.edu/resources/2019/4/2019-horizon-report.

Martinez, S.L., Stager, G. S. (2019). Invent to Learn: Making, Tinkering & Engineering in the Classroom 2nd edition. Torrance: CMK Press.

Prensky, M. (2001). Digital natives, digital immigrants. marcprensky.com/writing/Prensky%20-%20Digital%20Natives,%20Digital%20Immigrants%20-%20Part1.pdf

Schwab, K. (2016). The Fourth Industrial Revolution: what it means, how to respond. World Economic Forum. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/01/the-fourth-industrial-revolution-what-it-means-and-how-to-respond/

Wexler, N. (2019). How classroom technology is holding students back. MIT Technology Review. https://www.technologyreview.com/2019/12/19/131155/classroom-technology-holding-students-back-edtech-kids-education/

World Economic Forum. (2016, April 13). The fourth industrial revolution. [Video file]. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/khjY5LWF3tg

 

INF530 Concepts and Practices for a Digital Age – Scholarly Book Review

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Martinez, S.L., Stager, G. S. (2019). Invent to Learn: Making, Tinkering & Engineering in the Classroom 2nd edition. Torrance: CMK Press.

Throughout the world, makerspaces are becoming increasingly common in both school libraries, classrooms and in dedicated spaces.  Both teachers and administrators are required to ask critical questions about the promise of makerspaces for education and validate the cost/benefit of facilitating educational making. In light of ever-evolving trends in making, professional development and practical training for educators is a major consideration if making in education is to reach its full potential (Pye Tait, 2017).

First published in 2013, Martinez and Stager’s completely revised and updated second edition of Invent to Learn: Making, Tinkering, and Engineering in the Classroom is both an accessible, practical guide for stakeholders in education and an impassioned rationale for transforming learning through making. The book’s purpose is to advocate for “tinkering and making because they are powerful ways to learn”,  to act as inspiration to “teachers (who) hold the key to liberating the learner” (Martinez & Stager p.34) and to guide those aspiring to change the current and much criticized standardized-test based system to a constructivist/constructivist learning philosophy which has its roots in a long tradition of making.

Co-authors Sylvia Martinez and Gary Stager are highly regarded, much published experts in the field of digital technology in education.  Dr. Gary Stager is a journalist, teacher educator, consultant, professor, software developer, publisher, and school administrator who has spent his career influencing the politics of education and helping teachers embrace technology as way of redefining the way children learn. As principal advisor to the Stanford University FabLearn Fellows and an advocate for student-centered, hands-on, minds-on learning, Sylvia Libow Martinez is much in demand as a speaker on the topics ranging from the maker movement in education, project-based and inquiry-based learning and digital citizenship, to gender issues in STEM education. Gary Staber is the founder of the Constructing Modern Knowledge institute for educators. CMK Press is run by Gary Stager and Sylvia Martinez and is part of CMK Futures, creating teaching resources and providing professional development for educators. Both are evangelical proponents of the use of computers to change education. Whilst there are numerous resources currently available for educators on the role of making in education, few have the credentials of the authors of Invent to Learn: Making, Tinkering & Engineering in the Classroom.

After the initial chapters which deal with the “Big Ideas” – the history of making and learning (Constructivism and Constructionism), thinking, defining a good project and how to teach, the authors dedicate Chapters 7 – 11 to specific things teachers can do – digital making, programming, materials and equipment, and designing spaces for making, before concluding with chapters on equity, access and inclusion, the question of advocacy – getting students on board, advocating for making to administrators, funders and parents, and professional development and curriculum.

 „Children’s seminal learning experiences come through direct experiences with materials” (p.2).

 Educational pioneers such as Pestalozzi, Froebel, and Montessori and Dewey advocated an active rather than passive, hands-on, skills-based learning method (Martinez, 2014). Invent to Learn makes a strong case for the link between making and learning, calling on the educational research of Jean Piaget’s constructivist theory of “learning-by-discovery “and Seymour Papert’s constructionist or “learning-by-doing” theory (Halverson & Sheridan 2014).

„Papert built on Piaget’s theory of constructivism with a learning theory of his own: constructionism. It proposed that the best way to ensure that knowledge is built in the learner is through the active construction of something shareable – a poem, program, model or idea“ (Stager, 2016).

Martinez and Stager often refer to current-day pioneer of the maker movement, Dale Dougherty, founder of Make magazine, which since 2006 has moved making from the realm of geeks to the mainstream. Dougherty (2012) has described the early days of the computer industry, where makers “learned by making things and taking them apart and putting them back together again, and by trying many different things“ and in line with Papert’s principle of thinking and talking about ideas (Papert, 2000), went on to develop a community of like-minded tinkerers to collaborate with and share discoveries. The maker movement extolled in Invent to Learn now enjoys an infrastructure of community engagement that allows people „to socialize, read, share project details, watch videos, joke around, and engage in other forms of hanging out and geeking out“ (Ito et al., 2010). This real-life playing out of the connected learning model has been called “mentor matchmaking” (Ito, 2012) and enables everyone to participate in peer-to-peer and mentor-to-peer learning, eliminating the “capacity bottlenecks” (Ito, 2012) of the pre-Internet era in which students were restricted only to teachers and experts as sources of information and learning. Co-author of Invent to Learn, Dr. Gary Stager, has long been a proponent of cooperative learning to create, „a multi-age, interdisciplinary technology-rich learning environment to support the development of personally meaningful projects based on student interest, talent and experience “ (Stager, 2005).

In Invent to Learn, Martinez and Stager explore the evolution of the maker movement and pinpoint not only the benefits of making to learn but the challenges confronting the current education culture, a cultural change described in the paper, Shaping Future Schools with Digital Technology. Perspectives on Rethinking and Reforming Education, as, “a shift from didactic teaching towards student-centred, self-regulated learning. This shift does not herald the demise of teachers; to the contrary, it calls for imaginative and appropriate responses in teaching practice“ (Mason et al., 2019 p. 201). If schools want making in education to reach its full potential, they not only need digital tools and a community infrastructure, they need to adopt the “maker mindset” (Honey & Kanter, 2013 p.5) and develop, “a playful, asset- and growth-oriented, failurepositive and collaborative curriculum” (Martin, 2015 p.35).

First and foremost, however, is the adoption of a participatory culture in schools.  This shift is one that has been slow to emerge although it is at the heart of the maker mindset which fosters social skills developed through collaboration and networking (Jenkins, 2006).

Martinez and Stager discuss a range of makerspace issues ranging from the digital divide in schools, the gender bias common in the maker movement (Buechley, 2016), to the devaluation of craft in deference to high-tech making (Silva, 2020). Invent to Learn examines whether making has moved too far away from,‘‘to build or adapt objects by hand“ (Honey & Kanter, 2013; Sheridan et al.,2014), towards the use of digital technologies for manufacture or design (Martin, 2015) but postulate that “Computer as material” may be the “most powerful idea” their book contains (p.39).

“Digital tools are often seen as providing access points to powerful ideas about mathematics, logic, computational thinking, and scientific experimentation “(Martin, 2015)

“Design thinking” and “computational thinking” have become the new watchwords in education but Martinez and Stager argue that only by engaging in design activities and computer programming can students acquire these skills.  Faced with the rigid constraints of curriculum assessment criteria and lack of time, teachers fall back on the typically linear “design process” which forces students to conform to a pre-defined outcome and robs them of authorship (p.48).

Invent to Learn discusses the tendency of schools to fall back into old educational habits while paying lip service to new trends in education (Martinez & Stager p. 46). The authors confront the key question of whether educational institutions can deal with the mind-shift required or will there be a tendency to fit a square peg into a round hole or worse, fall into the trap of equipping spaces for making and not using them to their full potential, harking back to the era in which computers where introduced to the classroom and primarily used as word processors (Cuban, 2001; Doyle, 2004). As early as the 1980s, “procedural thinking” (Papert, 1980) and later, Jeannette Wing’s “universally applicable attitude and skill set” make it clear that “computational thinking is a way of solving problems, designing systems, and understanding human behavior, by drawing on the concepts fundamental to computer science“ (Wing, 2006 p.33).

Despite efforts such as the U.K. Department of Education’s Computing At School

(http:// www.computingatschool.org.uk/), a national curriculum for computing in K-12 schools consisting of: computer science (CS), information technology (IT) and digital literacy (DL) (Kemp, Berry & Wong, 2017) and the Computer Science for All Initiative (http://1.usa.gov/21u4mxK)in the US, evidence provided by the Royal Society in their 2017 report, After the roboot: computing education in schools, shows that computing education in the UK is “patchy and fragile” and that “a majority of teachers are teaching an unfamiliar school subject without adequate support“ (Pye Tait, 2017 p. 7).

According to Martinez and Stager, a major impediment to the introduction of making as learning is the lack of professional development; teachers fear their training does not prepare them to successfully scaffold the learning process for their students (p. 71). The findings of Hira (2014) and Horton (2019) show that teachers are justified in their trepidation; considerable teacher training is required to develop IT competencies, to fully understand the new pedagogies and to become confident with new materials and challenges.  Similarly, teacher librarians require professional development in order to successfully collaborate in curriculum development and support (Purpur et al., 2016). Most critical is the need to convince teachers that making “has a place in the classroom beyond its origins as an after-school, enrichment activity” (Oliver, 2016a p. 163). According to Harlow et al.

The child learns first by encountering and then exploring an object or idea. Initially, the child tries to assimilate this new information into existing schema or thought structures. If the exploration of the object or idea does not match current schema, the child experiences cognitive disequilibrium and is motivated to mentally accommodate the new experience. Through the process of accommodation, a new schema is constructed into which the information can be assimilated and equilibrium can be temporarily reestablished. Disequilibrium reoccurs, however, each time the child encounters new experiences that cannot be assimilated. This is how construction of knowledge takes place (Harlow, 2006).

Chapter 15 – Making the case, discusses the broad topic of stakeholder advocacy – student, teacher, administration and parent. In an environment of high-stakes testing, it can be problematic to promote a project-based curriculum.  Martinez and Stager stress that, “the case for making, tinkering, or engineering should not be made based on achievement or higher test scores” (p.239) but rather stakeholders need convincing of the value of making through personal experience (Oliver, 2016a). High-ranking advocates of making include ex-President Barack Obama, who inaugurated the Educate To Innovate campaign to improve STEM education in 2009 (Schulman, 2013). Sustaining makerspaces in schools often requires parent volunteers, donations of materials and supplementary funding, all of which need strategies to be developed (Oliver, 2016b).

“The teachers learn through their own experiment that things don’t have to be as they seem, that their classrooms could be freer,” Stager https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/37236/how-to-turn-your-school-into-a-maker-haven

In the penultimate chapter of Invent to Learn, Martinez and Stager make a compelling plug for their Constructing Modern Knowledge (CMK) institute. CMK’s summer courses summer courses promise educators a perspective-changing professional learning experience which provides the same first-hand experience that works for their students. Participants model the collaborative and explorative nature of making to move from one project team to another, wherever inspiration takes them. The website for Invent to Learn and chapter 16 provide an extensive and detailed list of resources and there is a useful and informative bibliography.

Readers of Invent to Learn may feel overwhelmed by digital technology in the 21st century classroom and prefer to pursue a low-tech approach. Martinez and Staber do an excellent job of reassuring educators that makerspaces are doable on many different levels, and that making starts with a mindset rather than a set of tools.

 

References

Buechley, L. (2016). Stem is everywhere: Culture, stem education, & making. Retrieved from https://digitalcommons.montclair.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1084&context=eldc

Cuban, L. (2001). Oversold and underused: computers in the classroom. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Doyle, J. L. (2004). Oversold and underused: Computers in the classroom. The International Journal of Educational Management, 18(2), 205-206. https://doi.org/10.1108/09513540410527202

Grover, S., & Pea, R. (2013). Computational thinking in K–12: A review of the state of the field. Educational Researcher, 42(1), 38–43. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X12463051

Davee, S., Regalla, L., & Chang, S. (2015). Makerspaces: Highlights of select literature. Retrieved from http://makered.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Makerspace-Lit-Review-5B.pdf.

Dougherty, D. (2012). The Maker Movement. Innovations: Technology, governance, globalization, MIT Press. Retrieved from https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/INOV_a_00135

Dougherty, D. (2013). The maker mindset. In M. Honey, & D. E. Kanter (Eds.), Design. Make. Play. Growing the next generation of STEM innovators (pp. 7–16). New York, NY: Routledge.

Davis, V. (2014). How the maker movement is moving into classrooms. Edutopia. Retrieved from http://www.edutopia.org/blog/maker-movement-moving-into-classrooms-vicki-davis.

Dym, C. L., Agogino, A. M., Eris, O., Frey, D. D., & Leifer, L. J. (2005). Engineering design thinking, teaching, and learning. Journal of Engineering Education, 94(1), 103–120.  https://doi.org/10.1002/j.2168-9830.2005.tb00832.x

Grover, S., & Pea, R. (2013). Computational Thinking in K—12: A Review of the State of the Field. Educational Researcher, 42(1), 38-43. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X12463051

Halverson, E. R., & Sheridan, K. M. (2014). The maker movement in education. Harvard Educational Review, 84(4), 495-504,563,565. Retrieved from https://search-proquest-com.ezproxy.csu.edu.au/docview/1642662200?accountid=10344

Harlow, S., Cummings, R., & Aberasturi, S. M. (2006). Karl Popper and Jean Piaget: A rationale for constructivism. The Educational Forum, 71(1), 41-48. https://doi.org/10.1080/00131720608984566

Hira, A., & Joslyn, C. H. & Hynes, M. (2014). Classroom Makerspaces: Identifying the Opportunities and Challenges. Proceedings – Frontiers in Education Conference, FIE. DOI: 10.1109/FIE.2014.7044263

Honey, M., & Kanter, D. E. (2013). Design, make, play: Growing the next generation of science innovators. In M. Honey & D. E. Kanter (Eds.), Design. Make. Play. Growing the next generation of STEM innovators (pp. 1–6). New York, NY: Routledge.

Horton, J. (2019). “Continuing education and professional development of library staff involved with makerspaces”, Library Hi Tech, Vol. 37 No. 4, pp. 866-882. https://doi-org.ezproxy.csu.edu.au/10.1108/LHT-06-2018-0081

Ito, M., Baumer, S., Bittanti, M., Cody, R., Herr-Stephenson, B., Horst, H. A., Lange, P. G., Mahendran, D., Martı´nez, K. Z., Pascoe, C., (2010). Hanging out, messing around, and geeking out. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Ito, M. (2012). ‘Connected Learning: Everyone, everywhere, anytime’ [Video]. YouTube.| http://youtu.be/viHbdTC8a90)

Jenkins, H. (2006). Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century. Chicago: John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. See: http://fall2010compositions.pbworks.com/f/JENKINS_WHITE_PAPER.pdf

Kemp, P., Berry, M., & Wong, B. (2017). The new computing curriculum in English schools: a statistical analysis of student participation. Poster session presented at Special Interest Group on Computer Science Education, Baltimore, United States. https://doi.org/10.1145/3159450.3162257

Martin, L. (2015). The Promise of the Maker Movement for Education. Journal of Pre-College Engineering Education Research (J-PEER), 5(1), Article 4. https://doi.org/10.7771/2157-9288.1099

Martinez, S. (2014). The maker movement: standing on the shoulders of giants to own the future. Edutopia. Retrieved from http://www.edutopia.org/blog/maker-movement-shoulders-of-giants-sylvia-martinez.

Mason J., Shaw G., Zhang D. (2019). Shifting Pedagogies and Digital Technologies—Shaping Futures in Education. In: S. Yu, H. Niemi, J. Mason (Eds.) Shaping Future Schools with Digital Technology. Perspectives on Rethinking and Reforming Education. Singapore: Springer. DOI https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-9439-3_12

Moorefield-Lang, H. (2015). “Change in the making: Makerspaces and the ever changing landscape of libraries”, TechTrends, Vol. 59 No. 3, pp. 107-112. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11528-015-0860-z

Oliver, K.M. (2016a). “Professional development considerations for makerspace leaders, part one: addressing ‘what?’ and ‘why?’ ”, TechTrends, Vol. 60 No. 2, pp. 160-166. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11528-016-0028-5

Oliver, K.M. (2016b). “Professional development considerations for makerspace leaders, part two: addressing ‘how?’ ”, TechTrends, Vol. 60 No. 3, pp. 211-217. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11528-016-0050-7

Paganelli, Andrea, Cribbs, J.D., Huang, X., Pereira, N., Huss, J., Chandler. W & Paganelli, Anthony (2017). The makerspace experience and teacher professional development. Professional Development in Education, 43:2, 232-235, https://doi.org/10.1080/19415257.2016.1166448

Papert, S. (1993). Mindstorms : Children, Computers, and Powerful Ideas. New York: Perseus Publishing.

Papert, S. (2000). What’s the big idea? toward a pedagogy of idea power. IBM Systems Journal, 39(3-4), 720-729. Retrieved from https://search-proquest-com.ezproxy.csu.edu.au/docview/743779548?accountid=10344

Purpur, E., Radniecki, T., Colegrove, P. T., & Klenke, C. (2016). Refocusing mobile makerspace outreach efforts internally as professional development. Library Hi Tech, 34(1), 130-142. https://doi.org/10.1108/LHT-07-2015-0077

Quinn, H., & Bell, P. (2013). How designing, making, and playing relate to the learning goals of K-12 science education. In M. Honey & D. Kanter (Eds.), Design. Make. Play: Growing the next generation of STEM innovators (pp. 17–33). New York, NY: Routledge.

Pye Tait, (2017). After the Reboot: The State of Computing Education in UK Schools and Colleges. The Royal Society.

https://royalsociety.org/~/media/policy/projects/computing-education/computing-education-report.pdf

Schulman, K. (2013). White House Hangout: The Maker Movement. Retrieved from: https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/2013/03/27/white-house-hangout-maker-movement

Sheridan, K. M., Halverson, E. R., Litts, B. K., Brahms, L., Jacobs-Priebe, L., & Owens, T. (2014). Learning in the making: A comparative case study of three makerspaces. Harvard Educational Review, 84(4), 505–531. DOI: 10.17763/haer.84.4.brr34733723j648u

Silva, Adriana de Souza e., Glover-Rijkse, R. ed. (2020). Hybrid Play:Crossing Boundaries in Game Design, Players Identities and Play Spaces. London: Routledge

Stager, G. S. (2005). Papertian Constructionism and the Design of Productive Contexts for Learning. [Paper presentation] Plenary Session Paper – EuroLogo X, Warsaw, Poland. http://www.stager.org/articles/eurologo2005.pdf

Stager, G. S. (2016). Seymour Papert (1928-2016). Nature, 537(7620), 308. DOI:10.1038/537308a

Yokana, L. (2014). Capture the learning: crafting the maker mindset. Edutopia. Retrieved from http://www.edutopia.org/blog/capture-learning-crafting-maker-mindset-lisa-yokana.

Wing, Jeannette. (2006). “Computational Thinking.” Communications of the ACM, 49(3), 33–35. https://doi:10.1145/1118178.1118215.

 

 

 

INF 530 Digital Essay: The collaborative world of Blogging

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Digital essay rationale: Bringing blogs into the mainstream

There are many different types of blogs but those currently in use in the International Baccalaureate (IB) Middle Years Programme are so-called news blogs or informal writing tasks. Rarely are blogs used as a collaborative “student-to-student” tool intended to be shared and peer-edited. This post will firstly define and explore the learning benefits of educational blogs and secondly, suggest how Geocaching can be used as a learning tool which serves to integrate social and mobile technologies, provide access to a global Geocaching community and extend beyond the already considerable learning benefits of blogs to include collaborative and communicative learning.

What is the IB and how does blogging apply to its global context? 

Globalisation and increased mobility has resulted in diverse, multilingual school communities. Students attending international schools are particularly conscious that location and global mobility can result in a lack of connection, particularly now when the forced closure of schools due to Covid-19 has made cohesive social networks all the more important. (IB) schools develop internationally minded people and focus on developing inquiry from a number of perspectives.  The multimodal affordances of blogs allow students to utilise inquiry-based learning skills  in a digital environment to develop critical thinking and understanding across all subjects in the MYP curriculum.

Can blogs change the way we teach? 

Social and participatory media play a significant role in the lives of our students but in an educational context, the “network effect” is often poorly understood and utilised by teachers who may lack both the digital literacy skills and the pedagogical skills needed to make full use of new technologies (Conole, 2013). Teachers need to, “challenge hierarchies and traditional ways of producing knowledge” (Lunsford & Ede, 2012), revise their attitudes to informal learning and accept its place alongside the standardised format of academic writing.  Paper-based writing is often about formulaic writing which aims to tick the boxes of the marking rubric.  Informal writing does not necessarily equate with bad quality writing. Adding the element of peer-critique and an open web environment means that students may go the extra mile to craft well written and visually stimulating multimodal blogs that are a real asset to learning. Professor Andrea A. Lunsford, Professor of English at Stanford University and coauthor of Writing Together: Collaboration in Theory and Practice, says that teachers need to consider the disparity between “old literacy” and “new literacy” and decide what part of the old literacy is worth preserving.

In order to fully appreciate and benefit from Web 2.0 technologies, students need to share their work and collaborate with a global audience.  Collaborative learning facilitates socially constructed peer interaction and places the onus on the student to share knowledge in an authentic and meaningful way. This can occur on several levels, starting with the exchange of information for planning or monitoring purposes, to high level “pupil reflection on the learning process which includes elements of metacognition“ (Austin, 2010).

New learning literacies are not innate – they must be taught. Prensky’s “Digital Natives and Immigrants” theory, which presupposes the learning of digital skills at an early age, has been superseded by David White’s alternative model :”Visitors and Resident” which is “based on our motivation to engage”.

Much has been written about the need to keep students safe from the risks of open resource web environments and to this end, learning management systems (LMS) such as Moodle, often selected as a platform in schools, serving to “build a fence around the students in the classroom, dividing them both from the web users outside the course and from each other”(Rorabaugh, 2012). In The Public Necessity of Student Blogging, Travis Holland criticises LMSs as being unfit for blogging because they are not open, public or networked.  Despite fears that the use of digital technologies could expose students to risk, careful management and teacher support enables students to learn good practice in relation to privacy and e-safety in the real world (Waller, 2017, p. 227). In Blogs, wikis, podcasts and other powerful web tools for classrooms, author Will Richardson, together with teachers and students, make it clear that digital technology has changed the way we teach.

What is Blogging and why use blogs in an educational context?

This video provides a simple overview of blogs.

Blogging brings digital literacy into the classroom to support literacy learning across the curriculum, stimulate discussion and give students a voice Sawmiller (2010). Educators are now using digital technologies to establish interactive environments that facilitate the collaborative/interactive communication that typically takes place outside the classroom in the form of chats, Instagram or Youtube.  Howard Rheinhold states although students are highly proficient in social media skills, blogs help to develop interconnected social media literacies which enable students to “connect with their public voice” and “act with others in mind“.   When considering the affordances of blogs for digital literacy learning, there are several frequently asked questions.

Can blogs be used to across the curriculum to link literacy skills to non-language subjects?

Blogging encourages the development of reading and writing skills in all subject areas and these skills in turn encourage critical thinking, cognition and metacognition (Sawmiller, 2010).  Reading and writing in subjects, not typically associated with literacy skills, is often limited to a formal writing style in the form of lab reports and assessments.  Digital technologies offer students an opportunity to write about science, geography and math in an informal style.

Does blogging encourage reluctant writers?

Reluctant writers need meaningful and authentic writing tasks – writing to someone about something rather than completing an exercise to display comprehension or to satisfy the requirements of standardised testing.  Audience plays a big part in motivating the writer. If the teacher is the only one who reads what is written, or if the writing task is “rubric-driven”, the task becomes artificial and motivation suffers, thereby robbing students of the reflection and analytical thinking skills developed through writing (Magnifico, 2010). Inviting comments from readers stimulates collaboration and underlines the communicative purpose of blogging as well as developing writing skills (Lamb & Johnson, 2006).

Graham & Sandmel point out that despite efforts to scaffold the writing process, many students are still lacking in motivation. Teachers should take advantage of existing skillsets in the understanding of visual and multimodal digital literacies outside the classroom.  Multimodal writing, which has been defined as, “texts that engage verbal, visual, written, and other modes of meaning making” (Pandya, 2012 p. 181), motivates students in ways that traditional writing assignments do not.  Due to the increased level of authenticity, student ownership and relevance to a real-life situation, combining several mediums of student-generated communication, be they written, visual or verbal, motivates students to engage in writing (Darrington & Dousay, 2014). For teachers aiming to develop digital and traditional literacy skills conjointly, the advantages of writing in an electronic format are many. However, technical difficulties and the distractions of the digital multimodal environment may make some students take electronic writing tasks less seriously than conventional formats of submission, thereby defeating the purpose, which is to increase the motivation to write (Nair et al. 2013).

„There is evidence that user‐created content software in particular encourages deeper engagement with learning through the act of authoring, simply because the awareness of an audience, no matter how virtual or tentative, encourages more thoughtful construction of writing” (Jacobs, 2003) as illustrated by the diagram below.

Figure 1: Reasons given for submission or non-submission of online blog journal assignments (Nair et al. 2013).

Does blogging encourage reluctant readers?

Communication is not the only benefit of blogging. Building on foundational literacies, the new online literacies combine reading and writing skills and promote high order thinking skills such as analysis, synthesis and evaluation. Unlike printed text comprehension, an open information system presents the reader with hypertext, the electronic linking of text common on the Internet. The ability to constantly click from one subject to another presents the reader with additional challenges that require a process of self-directed text construction (Corio & Dobler, 2007) and puts the reader in control.  This greater sense of agency explains why reading electronic text is so attractive to readers. Readers are required to develop new reading strategies which enable them to navigate a hypertext reading situation, in which the reader engages in active interaction with the text, by creating their own understanding of the material.  One way to help students understand the complexities of hypertext is to write it themselves (Patterson, 2000).  John Slatin (Slatin, 1992) identified three different types of hypertext readers: the browser, the user, and the coauthor.  Coauthors use digital technology to contribute their own response to electronic text.  Blogging allows students to become „reader as collaborator “(Patterson, 2000). In 2009, Wes Fryer blogged about The Ethic of the Link, Hyperlinked Writing and Mainstream Media Link Hangups, and it would seem that hyperlinked writing is currently underused in IB writing tasks, this represents a lost opportunity to connect students to the plethora of information available online.

Can blogging be assessed? 

Blogging can be an exercise in free expression or, using a weblog assessment index (WAI), can be part of the formal assessment process.   Self or peer-assessment in the form of blogging and commenting rubrics provide an effective structure.

 

Which platform to choose?

A change in pedagogic practice toward more autonomous, diverse, open and connected learning is the philosophy behind the Personal Learning Environment (PLE). In Envisioning the Post-LMS Era: The Open Learning Network , Jonathan Mott describes an “open learning network” (OLN) which combines the best of LMS and PLE to include social networking sites, microblogging tools, and other Web 2.0 tools which offer flexibility, openness and adaptability and security. Edublogs is the number one site for education blogs and lets you create and manage teacher and student websites. Powered by WordPress,  Edublogs is a free, easily-customised, open source platform for teaching digital citizenship in an authentic context.

What is Geocaching and how can it be applied to education?

The official Geocache video shows you why this GPS-guided treasure hunt has become a global pastime for millions of Geocache players.

Originally a recreational activity, Geocaching has become a learning tool that combines the affordances of mobile and Web 2.0 technologies to develop creativity, collaboration and critical thinking and problem-solving. Unlike structured, formal learning environments, Geocaching lends itself to both planned, non-formal learning which includes self-motivated, multiple learning outcomes and to learning activities where no explicit learning outcomes are involved. Unconscious or incidental learning takes place during the process of deciphering clues or exploring the environment. An element of gamification is introduced with levelling (difficulty of clues, locations) and reward motivation.  Geocache blogs enable students to construct an interactive, collaborative personal learning environment by combining physical and virtual resources.  In addition, the authentic engagement in public writing to a diverse audience allows students to share information, knowledge and interests  while developing cross-curricular literacy skills.

Conclusion

Given that 85% of children’s waking hours are spent outside the school classroom, educators should consider how informal learning experiences can directly contribute to learning outcomes in school.  Geocaching and blogs offer many benefits for education.  Combining the thrill of the chase, healthy competition and natural curiosity with digital technology and student-generated content results in educational applications spanning all areas of the curriculum. Together, they promote sustained, interactive, collaborative and autonomous learning which motivates students to become better readers and writers and give students a voice in the global community.

 

 

References

Austin, R., Smyth, J., Rickard, A., Quirk‐Bolt, N. & Metcalfe, N. (2010). Collaborative digital learning in schools: Teacher perceptions of purpose and effectiveness. Technology, Pedagogy and Education, 19(3), 327-343. https://doi-org.ezproxy.csu.edu.au/10.1080/1475939X.2010.513765

Brown, K. B., Hughes, A. J., Crowder, I. G., & Brown, P. M. (2015). Hunting for treasures through learning: Using geocaching to motivate young adolescent learners. Gifted Child Today, 38(2), 95-102. https://doi.org/10.1177/1076217514568558

Buchem, I. and Pérez-Sanagustín, M. (2013). Personal Learning Environments in Smart Cities: Current Approaches and Future Scenarios. In I. Buchem (Ed.). Learning and Diversity in the Cities of the Future (pp.144-145). Logos Verlag. Retrieved from https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/CSUAU/detail.action?docID=5231137

Clough, Gill. (2010). Geolearners: Location-based informal learning with mobile and social technologies. IEEE Transactions on Learning Technologies, 3,(1). https://doi.org/10.1109/TLT.2009.39

Coiro, J., & Dobler, E. (2007). Exploring the online reading comprehension strategies used by sixth-grade skilled readers to search for and locate information on the internet. Reading Research Quarterly, 42(2), 214-257. Retrieved from https://ezproxy.csu.edu.au/login?url=https://search-proquest-com.ezproxy.csu.edu.au/docview/212125018?accountid=10344

Conole, G. (2012). Designing for learning in an open world. Retrieved from  https://www.slideshare.net/grainne/conole-dehub-paperapril

Darrington, B., & Dousay, T. (2014). Using multimodal writing to motivate struggling students to write. TechTrends, 59(6), 29-34. https://doi-org.ezproxy.csu.edu.au/10.1007/s11528-015-0901-7

Department of Education. (2020). Inquiry-based learning. Retrieved from https://www.education.gov.au/national-stem-education-resources-toolkit/inquiry-based-learning

Edublogs. (2014, May 19). What is a Blog? [Video file]. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/oDxg5ODEXEQ

Erenli, K. (2013). Gamify your teaching – Using location-based games for educational purposes. International Journal of Advanced Corporate Learning (iJAC), 6(2), 22-27. Kassel University Press. https://www.learntechlib.org/p/130287/.

Eshach, H. (2007). Bridging in-school and out-of-school learning: Formal, non-formal, and informal education. J Sci Educ Technol 16, 171–190. https://doi-org.ezproxy.csu.edu.au/10.1007/s10956-006-9027-1

Evans. D. (2017). How to leverage the time children spend out of school for learning. World Bank Blogs. https://blogs.worldbank.org/impactevaluations/how-leverage-time-children-spend-out-school-learning

Fryer, W. (2009). The Ethic of the link, hyperlinked writing, and mainstream media link hangups. Moving at the speed of creativity. http://www.speedofcreativity.org/2009/09/28/the-ethic-of-the-link-hyperlinked-writing-and-mainstream-media-link-hangups/

Geocache.com (2017, October 18). What is Geocaching? [Video file]. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/vuFiLhhCNww

Godwin-Jones, R. (2003). Emerging technologies: blogs and wikis: environments for on-line collaboration. Language, Learning and Technology, 7, 12–16.

Graham, S., & Sandmel, K. (2011). The process writing approach: A meta-analysis. Journal of Educational Research, 104(6), 396-407. https://doi-org.ezproxy.csu.edu.au/10.1080/00220671.2010.488703

Hacking, E. B., Blackmore, C., Bullock, K., Bunnell, T., Donnelly, M., & Martin, S. (2018). International Mindedness in Practice: The Evidence from International Baccalaureate Schools. Journal of Research in International Education, 17(1), 3–16. https://doi.org/10.1177/1475240918764722

Holland, T. (2018). The public necessity of student blogging. Hybrid Pedagogy. https://hybridpedagogy.org/public-necessity-student-blogging/

IBO. (2013). What is an IB education? Cardiff, Wales: International Baccalaureate Organization. https://www.ibo.org/globalassets/digital-toolkit/brochures/corporate-brochure-en.pdf

Jacobs, J. (2003, July). Communication over exposure: the rise of blogs as a product of cybervoyeurism. Conference paper for the Australian and New Zealand Communication Association Conference. Retrieved from http://joannejacobs.net/publications/

Kelly S.W. (2012). Incidental Learning. In N. M. Seel (Ed.), Encyclopedia of the Sciences of Learning. Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-1428-6_366

Lamb, A., & Johnson, L. (2006). Blogs and blogging, part I. School Library Media Activities Monthly, 22(8), 40-43. Retrieved from https://ezproxy.csu.edu.au/login?url=https://search-proquest-com.ezproxy.csu.edu.au/docview/237136149?accountid=10344

Lavin, R.S. & Tomei, J. (2008). Blogs, identity and engagement. In D. G. Harper (Ed.), Education for a digital world: Advice, guidelines, and effective practice from around the globe. (pp. 385-386). BCcampus and Commonwealth of Learning. http://www.colfinder.org/materials/Education_for_a_Digital_World/Education_for_a_Digital_World_part5.pdf

Leu, D.J., Forzani, E., & Kennedy, C. (2013). Providing classroom leadership in new literacies: Preparing students for their future. In S. B. Wepner, D. S. Strickland & D. Quatroche, (Eds.). The Administration and Supervision of Reading Programs, (5th ed., pp. 200-213). Teachers College Press. https://newliteracies.uconn.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/448/2014/07/Leu-D.J.ForzaniE.-Kennedy-C.-2013.pdf

Lunsford, A., & Ede, L. (2012). Together: Collaboration in Theory and Practice. Bedford/St. Martin’s.

Macdonald, S. (2015). A typical structure for an academic essay. Victoria University. Retrieved from https://www.vu.edu.au/sites/default/files/campuses-services/pdfs/asd-essay-structure.pdf

Magnifico, A. (2010). Writing for whom? Cognition, motivation, and a writer’s audience. Educational Psychologist, 45(3), 167-184. https://doi.org/10.1080/00461520.2010.493470

Morris, K. (2018, February 5). How to teach digital citizenship through blogging. The Edublogger. https://www.theedublogger.com/digital-citizenship-blogging/

Mott, J. (2010). Envisioning the post-LMS era: The open learning network. Educause Review. https://er.educause.edu/articles/2010/3/envisioning-the-postlms-era-the-open-learning-network

Nair, S., Tay, L., & Koh, J. (2013). Students’ motivation and teachers’ teaching practices towards the use of blogs for writing of online journals. Educational Media International, 50(2), 108-119.

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Patterson, N. G. (2015). Hypertext and the changing roles of readers.  AJIT-e Online Academic Journal of Information Technology, 65–76. http://homepages.gac.edu/~mkoomen/edu241/hypertext.pdf

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Rheingold, H. (2010, October 7). Attention, and other 21st-century social media literacies. Educause Review. https://er.educause.edu/articles/2010/10/attention-and-other-21stcentury-social-media-literacies 

Richardson, W. (2006). Blogs, wikis, podcasts and other powerful web tools for classrooms. Corwin Press.

Richtel, M. (2012, January 20). Blogs vs. term papers. The New York Times.  https://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/22/education/edlife/muscling-in-on-the-term-paper-tradition.html?referringSource=articleShare

Rorabaugh, P. (2012). Hack the LMS: Getting progressive. Hybrid Pedagogy.  https://hybridpedagogy.org/hack-the-lms-getting-progressive/

Sawmiller, A. (2010). Classroom blogging: What is the role in science learning? Clearing House: A Journal of Educational Strategies, Issues and Ideas, 83(2), 44-48. Retrieved from https://ezproxy.csu.edu.au/login?url=https://search-proquest-com.ezproxy.csu.edu.au/docview/61800258?accountid=10344

Schlatter, B. E., & Hurd, A. R. (2005). Geocaching: 21st-century hide-and-seek. Journal of Physical Education, Recreation & Dance (JOPERD), 76(7), 5-28.

Schmoller, S. (2006). Personal learning environments make a step forward. Fortnightly Mailing. https://fm.schmoller.net/2006/07/personal_learni.html

Slatin, J. (1992). Reading hypertext: Order and coherence in a new medium. In P. Delaney & G.P. Landow (Eds.), Hypermedia and Literary Studies (pp. 153–69). MIT Press.

Waller, M. (2017). The role of schools in children’s online safety. In J. Brown (Ed.), Online risk to children: Impact, protection and prevention (pp. 217-22). John Wiley & Sons.

White, D. (2014, March 10). Visitors and residents. [Video file]. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/sPOG3iThmRI

Zawilinski, Lisa. (2009). HOT blogging: A framework for blogging to promote higher order thinking. The Reading Teacher, 62(8), 650–661. https://www-jstor-org.ezproxy.csu.edu.au/stable/20486620

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Unboxing the potential for children’s media

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Richard Godwin, writing for the todays edition of The Times, introduced me to yet another conundrum for the digital age, the phenomenon of Unboxing:  YouTube: why kids become glued to inane amateur videos. Aside from horror stories of Youtube collecting data on children in violation of online privacy legislation, unsuitable material, how algorithms determine what children are watching, it refers specifically to toy unboxing. The first unboxing video appeared in 2006 and by January 2019, the term unboxing videos yielded over 144 million results. To illustrate just how influential unboxing has become, Nickelodeon has capitalised on the popularity of Youtube and Ryan ToysReview with an unboxing series starring YouTube mega-star Ryan Kaji, called Ryan’s Mystery Playdate.

You can see the evolution of Ryan’s World, from unsophisticated product unboxing to educational videos, to a live-action series on Nick Jr.

The current trend of Toy Unboxing, in which children watch other children unpacking new toys and showing the viewer how they work and if they work, has been referred to as  ‘toddler crack’ (Kollmeyer, 2015). Professors Stuart Cunningham and David Craid of the Queensland University of Technology defuse the panicked reaction to this push for consumerism in their article, Toy unboxing: It’s a thing; it’s lucrative but sensitive: research.

“Child advocates regard all unboxing, even non-branded videos, unequivocally as marketing and discount the possibility that these videos may also be instructional, educational or simply communicative, fostering peer-to-peer interactions between child creators and viewers” (Craig & Cunningham). This phenomenon is  hotly debated and has implications for digital literacy practices, particularly now that children are increasingly online. One explanation for the popularity of such videos is that successful children’s media is often relatively uncomplicated and presents “a familiar context with situations that they recognise, that happen close to their own home … that feature other toddlers and preschoolers” (Valkenburg & Piotrowski, p.57). The potential educational value of the youth-produced video phenomenon and “how children’s media use can play a role in predicting their development” is discussed in, Plugged in: how media attract and affect youth.

 

References:

Craig, D., & Cunningham, S. (2017). Toy unboxing: living in a(n unregulated) material world. Media International Australia, 163(1), 77–86. https://doi.org/10.1177/1329878X17693700

Kollmeyer, B. (2015).  Ready to be hypnotized by ‘toddler crack’? MediaWatch.com. Available at: http://www.marketwatch.com.ezproxy.csu.edu.au/story/ready-to-get-hypnotized-by-toddler-crack-2015-04-07 (accessed 29 July 2016).

Jackie Marsh, J. (2016) ‘Unboxing’ videos: co-construction of the child as cyberflâneur. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 37:3, 369-380, DOI: 10.1080/01596306.2015.1041457

Valkenburg, P. M. & Piotrowski, J. Taylor. (2017). Plugged in: how media attract and affect youth.  New Haven: Yale University Press.

Will Edutech influence education reform?

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Photo by Alex Knight on Pexels.com

Expanding on the topic of  “emergency remote teaching”, many schools have availed themselves of commercial software developed by the Edutech industry which is currently experiencing a considerable boom in business as a result of widespread school closures.

With over 1.2 billion children now participating in e-learning, the worldwide education market is currently glutted with options. Even before the current crisis, the overall market for online education was expected to reach $350 Billion by 2025.

Due to the abrupt switch to online teaching which has caught many schools and teachers off-guard, it is no wonder that quick solutions have been embraced with some alacrity. However, caution is advised if we don’t want to see what author, activist and journalist Naomi Klein calls disaster capitalism.  Concerns regarding the use commercial education software have been aired many times over the years and in this time of crisis, the use of untested, unvetted products is a real risk.  “Innovation grants”, often with contingent requirements,  offered by companies such as Salesforce, Netflix or Facebook could significantly influence how education policy is decided.

In her book Policy Patrons: Philanthropy, Education Reform and the Politics of Influence, Megan Tompkins-Stange takes an in-depth look at the concerns and problems of such initiatives and the implications for education. Have a listen :