Of all our readings for this particular week the one that struck me most was When the Future Finally Arrives: Web 2.0 Becomes Web 3.0 by Matt Crosslin. Trying to imagine what the internet will be 10 years down the road is an intriguing prospect. The author is wondering how Web 3.0, the semantic web, and 3D web will change the classroom of the future. It is hard to say precisely since much of what has come to pass with Web 2.0 is not necessarily what was expected. Who could have predicted the creation and popularity of Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, or Instagram 10 or 15 years ago? Technology changes so rapidly it is difficult to know if what we invest in today will be viable several years down the road. That makes it even more difficult to decide what to invest in in terms of education.
Before we can really speculate about how new technological advances will effect education another more basic issue must be resolved: the digital divide. We have already discussed this topic, but it bears repeating due to the impact it has on education. Last week I posted an article from the Washington Post addressing the gap in internet access between rich and poor. Even while technology and the internet are becoming essential in the modern classroom there is still disparity in access. The Pew Research Center, which conducted the survey, found that "92% of teacher said that the internet has a 'major impact' on the their ability to access content, resources, and materials for teaching." The survey also found that the "teachers of the lowest income students are more than twice as likely as teachers of the highest income students (56% v. 21%) to say that students' lack of access to digital technologies is a 'major challenge' to incorporating more digital tools into their teaching." Even as we speed along incorporating new technological innovations into teaching we may be further adding to the gap between rich and poor by not moving quickly enough to close the digital divide.
From How Teachers Are Using Technology at Home and in Their Classrooms
Of course throwing technology and the internet into the mix does not necessarily mean that the students are receiving a better education. Technology used without any real purpose other than just to have the latest gadget does not equal quality learning. In fact sometime technology can have a negative impact. While the teachers surveyed mostly agreed that technology has had a positive impact 76% did "strongly agree" that search engines have "conditioned students to expect to be able to find information quickly and easily." Also 60% agreed that “today’s digital technologies make it harder for students to find and use credible sources of information” While we should worry about students' ability to determine what a credible source is, should we worry about their dependence on Google and other search engines? I think yes, because they should learn that not every problem has a clear and quickly found answer. They also need to learn that not everything can be found online even though it may seem that way.
I will leave you this week with a recently added TedTalk by Sugata Mitra titled Build a School in the Cloud. It is about creating a learning lab in India, where children can explore and learn from each other -- using resources and mentoring from the cloud. This is an innovative idea that combines self organized learning and technology to create a new kind of learning environment, one where the children teach themselves.This could could be part of the future of technology and education. As he says "it is not about making learning happen, it is about letting it happen."
"Survey Finds gap in Internet access between rich, poor students," Cecilia Kang, Washington Post 27 Feb 2013.
"How Teachers are Using Technology at Home and in Their Classrooms," Purcell et al. Pew Internet and American Life Project, 28 Feb 2013.
"Build a School in the Cloud," Sugata Mitra, TedTalk, Feb. 2013.
Before we can really speculate about how new technological advances will effect education another more basic issue must be resolved: the digital divide. We have already discussed this topic, but it bears repeating due to the impact it has on education. Last week I posted an article from the Washington Post addressing the gap in internet access between rich and poor. Even while technology and the internet are becoming essential in the modern classroom there is still disparity in access. The Pew Research Center, which conducted the survey, found that "92% of teacher said that the internet has a 'major impact' on the their ability to access content, resources, and materials for teaching." The survey also found that the "teachers of the lowest income students are more than twice as likely as teachers of the highest income students (56% v. 21%) to say that students' lack of access to digital technologies is a 'major challenge' to incorporating more digital tools into their teaching." Even as we speed along incorporating new technological innovations into teaching we may be further adding to the gap between rich and poor by not moving quickly enough to close the digital divide.
Of course throwing technology and the internet into the mix does not necessarily mean that the students are receiving a better education. Technology used without any real purpose other than just to have the latest gadget does not equal quality learning. In fact sometime technology can have a negative impact. While the teachers surveyed mostly agreed that technology has had a positive impact 76% did "strongly agree" that search engines have "conditioned students to expect to be able to find information quickly and easily." Also 60% agreed that “today’s digital technologies make it harder for students to find and use credible sources of information” While we should worry about students' ability to determine what a credible source is, should we worry about their dependence on Google and other search engines? I think yes, because they should learn that not every problem has a clear and quickly found answer. They also need to learn that not everything can be found online even though it may seem that way.
I will leave you this week with a recently added TedTalk by Sugata Mitra titled Build a School in the Cloud. It is about creating a learning lab in India, where children can explore and learn from each other -- using resources and mentoring from the cloud. This is an innovative idea that combines self organized learning and technology to create a new kind of learning environment, one where the children teach themselves.This could could be part of the future of technology and education. As he says "it is not about making learning happen, it is about letting it happen."
Sources:
"How Teachers are Using Technology at Home and in Their Classrooms," Purcell et al. Pew Internet and American Life Project, 28 Feb 2013.
"Build a School in the Cloud," Sugata Mitra, TedTalk, Feb. 2013.
I think you have made some very valid points in your post. Some key ideas I take away from our discussions on education informatics is the idea that the digital divide plays an extremely large role. I think not only the lack of technology but the lack of digital literacy affects the education of many students. Like you said, just having the latest gadget is not going to help a student's education level. We need to focus on closing the digital divide in terms of access and in terms of literacy.
ReplyDeleteMargaret. This time I thought, "Ha! I am not going to lose my comment because I a going to fill in the "Comment as: . . ." field first. Well, that did not work, so again when I hit publish, my comment was deleted and no amount of going forward and back and signing in would change that.
ReplyDeleteYour post reminded me of one of the Health Informatics articles we read about the 3D technology for remote viewing. In education there may be plenty of technology out there, but like you said it doesn't matter if it is not used correctly. The hospital administrators (like education administrators) are not the ones who use the technology, but they will see there hospital's (or school's) status rise just by having the capabilities, regardless of its use.
Margaret,
ReplyDeleteThanks for your post. You really reinforced some of the things that I am working through in my own understanding of many of these topics, and that is that access to a technology is not equal to an understanding of how to use that technology effectively. In fact, this is one of the reasons that I decided to go to library school in the first place: information is available in a way that it's never been available before thanks to the internet, but just because it's out there does not mean that students have the knowledge or understanding to interpret that information. I think that, in the case of education, it's important to remember that the old tenets (scholarly communication, citations, etc.) still exists as the framework, and that it's our job to teach students how to fill in technology within that framework.