Sep 29 2010

Firewall Content or Teach Digital Citizenship

So I tried to check out a couple of educational sites that would give me information about educational use of virtual worlds and this is what I got. I made the mistake of doing this from my workplace, an educational facility.

Virtual Pioneers, a site for collaborating educators, is classified as “dating, computing, social networking” and the URL is blocked by my school district.

Jokadia, a site to document the educational uses of a range of virtual worlds and games was classified as “games, reference material” and is also blocked.

This is what educators deal with daily in an attempt to be innovative and meaningful with the students they teach. The challenge of preparing students with 21st Century skills is daunting enough and made more difficult with the constant battle over what can be accessed.

On June 4, the Online Safety & Technology Working Group sent its 150-page report to Congress. Anne Collier co-chaired the committee and discussed the recommendations at the most recent ISTE Speaker Series on another blocked site, Second Life – I watched it from my home at 8PM. Anne discussed “a more intelligent approach”. She suggested an approach in which children are given opportunities to practice with social media under adult supervision. The participants at the ISTE event were educators from around the world and it was obvious that the ones from the United States were having the biggest struggles with the issue of filtering and blocking. We all agreed that privacy and safety features were essential but that teaching students about good citizenship in an environment where behavior occurs is essential for their futures. According to Ms. Collier the educational systems in Australia and in the United Kingdom promote helping students to use appropriate filters rather than enforcing strict filtering polices as we do in the United States. Teaching children to filter prepares them to deal with Internet safety and appropriate behavior, implementing a strict filtering policy does not.

There are some school districts who are more progressive and forward thinking, less fearful. A high school in New Jersey is taking advantage of social networking and using the technology to help students. A school in Oregon has documented improved student achievement after social networking was embraced. Teachers do get tired of “the fight” and just go back to an old-fashioned way of doing things. My suggestion is to keep doing what you know is right to help our students be prepared for a future we are uncertain of.

Sep 22 2010

Evidence vs Adult Intervention

Remember the clubhouse in the woods you built with your friends. It was your clubhouse. You and your friends thought of it, planned it, gathered materials, constructed it, fought about it, fought in it, plotted in it, pretended to be super-heros or knights in it, and then probably tore it down because it seemed like a good idea and it was yours to tear down. Remember the playhouse that the little girl down the street had. Her father built it for her. It was a beauty; A door with hinges and a door knob, heart-shaped shutters, flower-boxes, shingles, matching curtains and furnishings. She had a birthday party and everyone got to go into it but you couldn’t “mess it up”. Nobody really played there much, it collected spiderwebs. It sat forever – a monument to adult intervention.

As I listened to the ISTE Speaker Series on SL Tuesday night, Knowclue’s message was most profound. She said she is a stickler on students building and making their own environment in SL Teen Grid and now on Reaction Grid where she provides instruction. I sat in the audience and asked “what evidence do you have of student achievement?” My thoughts were focused on what so many educators are thinking about: test scores, numbers, Adequate Yearly Progress, achievement data, standards. Of course these are important quantifiable data points and so is the remarkable build that her students created.

A student build in a virtual world - minimal adult intervention.

The evidence is that children built a community based on a unit of study. The student Build required the use of communication, collaboration and problem solving (those 21st Century Skills). It required the use of mathematics and integration of an artistic sensibility. The students had to read/research and take notes, write, and compute. Knowclue has a clue and she also has evidence. The student product is the evidence. The students will be tested in the standards at the end of the year and those scores too will be reviewed – together they form the picture of evidence. My hunch is the students who build will demonstrate more learning gains than the students who have it built for them, look to the evidence.

Sep 17 2010

A Metaphor for Teaching Those We Don’t Understand

As I attempted to help a newcomer to SL and kept getting the response “I don’t see that.” “Not on my screen”. “Not there” “Don’t have that”, it hit me that teachers who are well-meaning but unprepared reach a level of frustration because their students “Don’t see that”.

The issue here was that I was using the OLD viewer, the viewer I am comfortable with and the newcomer was using the NEW viewer, the viewer available to newcomers to SL. I knew what this new av needed to do and gave very specific instructions. However, the newcomer, trying to follow every step, became increasingly frustrated at being given directions for a view she did not have. Then I became frustrated and the result was a complete lack of progress until I re-logged with the new viewer and figured out where the buttons were and how to find the functions I had been describing. It did take some time, I was out of my comfort level and went back to my old viewer immediately following the “lesson”. I never did find the “stop all animations”.

When a teacher is trying to teach students with a different view on life, a different culture, a different language background, a different perspective, a different comfort level – the same thing happens. The student gets frustrated and the teacher gets frustrated resulting in lack of progress. The solution is that the teacher acquires the necessary knowledge and skill set to be able to help the students being taught. A teacher needs to see what the student sees, even if it is a little uncomfortable at first, in order to effectively support learning.

Sep 15 2010

Advisory Panel to Offer Obama Ideas for Advancing STEM Education

Advisory Panel to Offer Obama Ideas for Advancing STEM Education.

Sep 14 2010

Gallery

Machinima in Education

Creating films for learning is not new in K-12 education nor has the strategy been limited to magnet programs or exclusive schools that offer high-level technology classes and/or broadcasting. Teachers have used filmmaking as a way to help students learn … Continue reading →

Sep 12 2010

Federal Virtual Worlds Challenge

An open challenge to create the most innovative and interactive solutions in virtual environments.

http://www.fvwc.army.mil/

$25,000 in prizes
Focus on AI
Open to everyone
Submission due date Dec 6 2010

Sep 6 2010

Social Learning in Immersive Environments

Much is discussed on the topic of Social Networking and the potential use of this technology in education. Research indicates that individuals benefit from a social approach to learning. L. Rendell et al. states that “Social learning (learning through observation or interactionwith other individuals) is widespread in nature and is centralto the remarkable success of humanity…” . Immersive environments have gained acceptance in post-secondary education for the past several years. VLearning: Is The Future Of Online Education A 3D Virtual Classroom? describes several studies that determined a positive correlation between the increased interaction among classmates and instructors in virtual classrooms and involvement in the course work and comprehension of material. It states, “… this to be particularly true for students who have a difficult time engaging in face-to-face discussions, but who will ask questions freely and contribute to live debates in a virtual classroom.”

In their book The New Social Learning Bingham and Connor devote a chapter to the topic of social learning in immersive environments, describing the successful uses in multiple corporate training programs. Social learning involves interaction, engagement and mutual exchange and benefit to participants.

The research on the successful use of immersive environments in professional development and post-secondary education are certainly reason to consider exploring these strategies in the K-12 sector.