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The Committed Sardine

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3 Ways to Integrate Students’ Love for Gaming in the Classroom

Written By Becky Koza

info_savvy21_gamingWhen I entered my first classroom, I was taken aback. Not because I was excited to make the classroom mine, not because I was anxious to rearrange furniture, and not because I was overwhelmed with the amount of work that needed to be done. I was taken aback because in the technology-centered year of 2012, there was an overhead projector in my classroom!

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Gen Z: Growing and Learning with Mobile (Infographic)

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Posted By Ian Jukes

While educators have been busy trying to understand and teach to Millennials and Generation Y over the past several years, a new generation of mobile natives has been growing in the background.

Generation Z, which includes those born after 1995, now fills our K-12 classrooms, and they’ve brought their mobile habits with them.

To give you a better understanding of these students, including the role mobile devices play in their home and school lives, we’ve put together an infographic, titled Generation Z: Growing and Learning with Mobile.

Mobile Trends Around the World

Studies show that, by the year 2017, the percentage of smartphone users in the US will reach 80 percent – triple the percentage of users we saw in 2011. In the UK, this number is set to reach slightly more than 80 percent, while in China and India, the percentages are set to rise at a slower rate.

Globally, mobile learning is growing at a rate of 18.2 percent per year, suggesting that learning organizations will need to adopt appropriate technologies in order to keep up with growing demand.

Mobile in the Classroom

Today’s middle schoolers use mobile devices for everything from checking grades to writing papers. Of those students using mobile devices:

  • 78 percent use devices to check grades
  • 69 percent to take notes
  • 56 percent to access text books
  • 64 percent to write papers

Teachers are also on the move, with 35 percent using a tablet or e-reader in class in 2013, up 20 percent from 2012.

Impact on Student Achievement

Studies show that standardized test results are higher in classes where students have access to mobile devices.

In one case, test scores of low-income students climbed as much as 30 percent after being given access to smartphones – an increase attributed to the fact that students were able to keep connected with teachers and classmates, even while at home.

 

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Finland schools: Subjects Are Out & ‘topics’ Are In As Country Reforms Its Education System

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Posted By Sherwen Mohan

For years, Finland has been the by-word for a successful education system, perched at the top of international league tables for literacy and numeracy.

Only far eastern countries such as Singapore and China outperform the Nordic nation in the influential Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) rankings. Politicians and education experts from around the world – including the UK – have made pilgrimages to Helsinki in the hope of identifying and replicating the secret of its success.

Which makes it all the more remarkable that Finland is about to embark on one of the most radical education reform programmes ever undertaken by a nation state – scrapping traditional “teaching by subject” in favour of “teaching by topic”.

 

“This is going to be a big change in education in Finland that we’re just beginning,” said Liisa Pohjolainen, who is in charge of youth and adult education in Helsinki – the capital city at the forefront of the reform programme.

Pasi Silander, the city’s development manager, explained: “What we need now is a different kind of education to prepare people for working life.

“Young people use quite advanced computers. In the past the banks had lots of  bank clerks totting up figures but now that has totally changed.

“We therefore have to make the changes in education that are necessary for industry and modern society.”

Subject-specific lessons – an hour of history in the morning, an hour of geography in the afternoon – are already being phased out for 16-year-olds in the city’s upper schools. They are being replaced by what the Finns call “phenomenon” teaching – or teaching by topic. For instance, a teenager studying a vocational course might take “cafeteria services” lessons, which would include elements of maths, languages (to help serve foreign customers), writing skills and communication skills.

More academic pupils would be taught cross-subject topics such as the European Union – which would merge elements of economics, history (of the countries involved), languages and geography.

There are other changes too, not least to the traditional format that sees rows of pupils sitting passively in front of their teacher, listening to lessons or waiting to be questioned. Instead there will be a more collaborative approach, with pupils working in smaller groups to solve problems while improving their communication skills.

Marjo Kyllonen, Helsinki’s education manager – who will be presenting her blueprint for change to the council at the end of this month, said: “It is not only Helsinki but the whole of Finland who will be embracing change.

“We really need a rethinking of education and a redesigning of our system, so it prepares our children for the future with the skills that are needed for today and tomorrow.

 

  Pupils at Siltamaki primary school perform a rap as part of their cross-subject learning (Jussi Helttunen)
  Pupils at Siltamaki primary school perform a rap as part of their cross-subject learning (Jussi Helttunen)

“There are schools that are teaching in the old fashioned way which was of benefit in the beginnings of the 1900s – but the needs are not the same and we need something fit for the 21st century.”

The reforms reflect growing calls in the UK – not least from the Confederation of British Industry and Labour’s Shadow Education Secretary Tristram Hunt – for education to  promote character, resilience and communication skills, rather than just pushing children through “exam factories”.

But there would currently be little appetite in the UK for going as far as ditching traditional subjects.

Even in Finland, the reforms have met objections from teachers and heads – many of whom have spent their lives focusing on a particular subject only to be told to change their approach.

Ms Kyllonen has been advocating a “co-teaching” approach to lesson planning, with input from more than one subject specialist. Teachers who embrace this new system can receive a small top-up in salary.

About 70 per cent of the city’s high school teachers have now been trained in adopting the new approach, according to Mr Silander.

“We have really changed the mindset,” he said. “It is quite difficult to get teachers to start and take the first step… but teachers who have taken to the new approach say they can’t go back.”

Read more:
Finland to remove cursive handwriting from education curriculum
This is what school lunches look like around the world

Early data shows that students are benefiting too. In the two years since the new teaching methods first began being introduced, pupil “outcomes” – they prefer that word to standards – have improved.

Finnish schools are obliged to introduce a period of “phenomenon-based teaching” at least once a year. These projects can last several weeks. In Helsinki, they are pushing the reforms at a faster pace with schools encouraged to set aside two periods during the year for adopting the new approach. Ms Kyllonen’s blueprint, to be published later this month, envisages the reforms will be in place across all Finnish schools by 2020.

Meanwhile, the pre-school sector is also embracing change through an innovative project, the Playful Learning Centre, which is engaged in discussions with the computer games industry about how it could help introduce a more “playful” learning approach to younger children.

“We would like to make Finland the leading country in terms of playful solutions to children’s learning,” said Olavi Mentanen, director of the PLC project,

The eyes of the education world will be upon Finland as it opts for change: will it be able to retain or improve its showing in the PISA league tables published by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

If it does, how will the rest of the education world react?

Case study: Finnish approach

It is an English lesson, but there is a map of continental Europe on the whiteboard. The children must combine weather conditions with the different countries displayed on the board. For instance, today it is sunny in Finland and foggy in Denmark. This means the pupils combine the learning of English with geography.

Welcome to Siltamaki primary school in Helsinki – a school with 240 seven- to 12-year-olds – which has embraced Finland’s new learning style. Its principal, Anne-Mari Jaatinen, explains the school’s philosophy: “We want the pupils to learn in a safe, happy, relaxed and inspired atmosphere.”

We come across children playing chess in a corridor and a game being played whereby children rush around the corridors collecting information about different parts of Africa. Ms Jaatinen describes what is going on as “joyful learning”. She wants more collaboration and communication between pupils to allow them to develop their creative thinking skills.

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10 Team-Building Games That Promote Critical Thinking

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Posted By Ian Jukes

One of education’s primary goals is to groom the next generation of little humans to succeed in the “real world.”

Yes, there are mounds of curricula they must master in a wide breadth of subjects, but education does not begin and end with a textbook or test. Other skills must be honed, too, not the least of which is how to get along with their peers and work well with others. This is not something that can be cultivated through rote memorization or with strategically placed posters.

Students must be engaged and cooperation must be practiced, and often. The following team-building games can promote cooperation and communication, help establish a positive classroom environment and — most importantly — provide a fun, much-needed reprieve from routine.

10 Team-Building Games That Promote Collaborative Critical Thinking

1. If You Build it…

This team-building game is flexible. Simply divide students into teams and give them equal amounts of a certain material, like pipe cleaners, blocks, or even dried spaghetti and marshmallows. Then, give them something to construct. The challenge can be variable (think: Which team can build the tallest, structurally-sound castle? Which team can build a castle the fastest?).

You can recycle this activity throughout the year by adapting the challenge or materials to specific content areas.

Skills: Communication; problem-solving

2. Save the Egg

This activity can get messy and may be suitable for older children who can follow safety guidelines when working with raw eggs. Teams must work together to find a way to “save” the egg (Humpty Dumpty for elementary school students?) — in this case an egg dropped from a specific height. That could involve finding the perfect soft landing, or creating a device that guides the egg safely to the ground. Let their creativity work here.

Skills: Problem-solving, creative collaboration

3. Zoom

Zoom is a classic classroom cooperative game that never seems to go out of style. Simply form students into a circle and give each a unique picture of an object, animal or whatever else suits your fancy. You begin a story that incorporates whatever happens to be on your assigned photo. The next student continues the story, incorporating their photo, and so on.

Skills: Communication; creative collaboration

4. Minefield

Another classic team-building game. Arrange some sort of obstacle course and divide students into teams. Students take turns navigating the “mine field” while blindfolded, with only their teammates to guide them. You can also require students to only use certain words or clues to make it challenging or content-area specific.

Skills: Communication; trust

5. The Worst-Case Scenario

Fabricate a scenario in which students would need to work together and solve problems to succeed, like being stranded on a deserted island or getting lost at sea. Ask them to work together to concoct a solution that ensures everyone arrives safely. You might ask them to come up with a list of 10 must-have items that would help them most, or a creative passage to safety. Encourage them to vote — everyone must agree to the final solution.

Skills: Communication, problem-solving

6. A Shrinking Vessel

This game requires a good deal of strategy in addition to team work. Its rules are deceptively simple: The entire group must find a way to occupy a space that shrinks over time, until they are packed creatively like sardines. You can form the boundary with a rope, a tarp or blanket being folded over or small traffic cones. (Skills: Problem-solving; teamwork)

7. Go for Gold

This game is similar to the “If you build it” game: Teams have a common objective, but instead of each one having the same materials, they have access to a whole cache of materials. For instance, the goal might be to create a contraption with pipes, rubber tubing and pieces of cardboard that can carry a marble from point A to point B in a certain number of steps, using only gravity.

Creative collaboration; communication; problem-solving

8. It’s a Mystery

Many children (and grown-ups) enjoy a good mystery, so why not design one that must be solved cooperatively? Give each student a numbered clue. In order to solve the mystery — say, the case of the missing mascot — children must work together to solve the clues in order. The “case” might require them to move from one area of the room to the next, uncovering more clues.

Skills: Problem-solving, communication

9. 4-Way Tug-of-War 

That playground classic is still a hit — not to mention inexpensive and simple to execute. For a unique variation, set up a multi-directional game by tying ropes in such a way that three or four teams tug at once. Some teams might choose to work together to eliminate the other groups before going head-to-head.

Skills: Team work; sportsmanship

10. Keep it Real

This open-ended concept is simple and serves as an excellent segue into problem-based learning. Challenge students to identify and cooperatively solve a real problem in their schools or communities. You may set the parameters, including a time limit, materials and physical boundaries.

Skills: Problem-solving; communication

While education technology is a basic and crucial component of the 21st century classroom, educators must still ensure that students are engaging with each other in meaningful ways. Team-building exercises are a great way to do this, and because of this, they will never go out of style.

 

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Parents Struggle to Balance Screen Time Rules With Digital Homework | MindShift

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Posted By Sherwen Mohan

As technology becomes a more common feature of classrooms and computer-based testing becomes the norm, even the youngest learners are being pushed to master keyboarding and computing skills. But what does it feel like for a kindergartener, whose family has faithfully followed the American Academy of Pediatric’s suggestions to limit screen time, to arrive at school and immediately be assessed on a computer?

In her PBS MediaShift essay, Jenny Shank describes the tensions emerging between parents with low-tech child rearing styles, teachers frantically trying to prepare students for computer-based tests that could determine the future of their careers, and districts following the latest trends. Shank’s essay gives voice to that “stuck in the middle” feeling when a parent supports the idea of technology integration in school generally, but isn’t sure she thinks it’s being done well. Shank writes:

“I’m all for teaching kids about technology, which will be a part of their personal and work lives forever. But shouldn’t they learn how to write software programs rather than how to scan a text and answer multiple-choice questions on a screen? Shouldn’t they learn about how to assemble computer hardware, build an object with a 3-D printer, or shoot and edit digital video footage rather than passively watch as a computer reads them a book? Many studies suggest that when people read on a screen rather than paper, they read less attentively and retain less. So why aren’t schools using computers for what these machines are actually good at instead?”

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How to Unplug Your Kids Despite Schools Pushing Tech with Common Core

Before my son started kindergarten in a public school in Boulder, Colo., in August, his teacher asked me to bring him in for an assessment. I expected this to be similar to what my daughter experienced when she started kindergarten three years ago — he’d meet his teacher, see his classroom, and then his teacher would ask him a few questions. She’d ask if anybody read to him at home, and see if he knew how to turn the pages of a book and hold it right side up.

On the day we were assigned to come to school, when the teachers separated the kids from the parents, handed us a stack of paperwork to fill out, and ushered the kids into a separate room, I thought that’s what was going on. But about 20 minutes later, the teacher came out and asked me, “Has Theo ever used a computer before?” She explained that the kids were in the computer lab, completing an assessment on the machines.

I told her Theo hadn’t used a mouse much, except for a few times at the library. In fact he hasn’t used any kind of computer much except for limited sessions playing games on the iPad. He’d certainly never sat for a full hour at a computer, as he would during this assessment. “You should know,” I said, “Theo is left-handed.”

When I said this, two other mothers looked up from the papers they were filling out, alarmed, and said that their kids were left-handed too.

“Oh, well that explains it!” the teacher said, and went back into the computer lab to switch the kids’ mice to the left-hand side.

The American Society of Pediatrics’ most recent guidelines for media use among children note that lots of kids are spending seven hours or more a day looking at a screen. They advise the creation of screen-free zones at home, media curfews at meals and before bedtime, and no screen time for kids under 2 years old (an admonition I dutifully followed — it was a happy day when I finally turned on “Sesame Street” for my kids). Kids over age 2 should have no more than one to two hours of screen time a day.

Meanwhile, public schools are facing pressure to prepare kids for nationwide tests of the Common Core standards, which begin in the 2014-2015 school year. Most tests for fourth graders and up will be computer-based and require facility with a computer mouse, and the literacy tests will include essays that the kids must type directly into the computer.

Schools are understandably nervous, as in some districts these test scores will determine whether a teacher gets a raise, keeps a job, or if a school is closed. So in my kids’ school and others, they’re ramping up computer lab time and encouraging kids to use literacy and math programs at home, despite the fact that some lack Internet access. According to a 2013 U.S. Census report, 25.6 percent of Americans don’t have home Internet access.

What is a mom to do when the test-focused technology policies of her child’s school conflict with health guidelines and with her own instincts and beliefs about the right way to raise her children?

The Wrong-Handed-Mouse Report

A few weeks after Theo’s wrong-handed-mouse kindergarten assessment, I met with his teacher for our first parent-teacher conference. Thankfully, she’d done old-fashioned one-on-one evaluations of the kids because this was the first year for the computer assessments and she wasn’t sure how accurate they would be. Still, she presented me with a 17-page printout of the results by a company called i-Ready. The printout includes four pages of advertisements for “Recommended Products from Curriculum Associates” — computer applications parents can buy to drill their kids on these tests, called Ready Common Core Reading Instruction. (The teacher apologized for the ads and suggested I ignore them.)

The wrong-handed-mouse assessment included all kinds of software-generated tips about how to improve skills my son knows perfectly well how to do — when interacting with a person rather than a screen. One of the i-Ready instructions: “Model how to blend onset and rime [sic] of spoken one-syllable words and finish by saying the whole word.”

If a human had assessed my child rather than a machine, I would have gleefully pointed out that they’d misspelled the word rhyme several times in this report. (I can’t resist being a pedant when it’s so much fun.) Or maybe they actually wanted to encourage me to engage my kindergartner in a discussion of hoarfrost? Or perhaps their archaic spelling is in homage to Coleridge? If the creators of this software can’t spell the word rhyme, how can I trust that their academic assessments are valid?

Maybe I should have begun to drill my son on these skills, hoarfrost identification aside, but instead I let the wrong-handed-mouse report drift under other papers, and continued to read to him before bed as I always have, rather than prop him before a computer to practice literacy and mouse-handling skills.

Briggs Gamblin, the director of Communications for Boulder Valley School District (BVSD), noted that this i-Ready assessment for kindergartners is recommended by the Colorado Department of Education. “For some students,” Gamblin wrote in an email, “the computer-based assessment was a new experience. Staff recognize this could impact individual scores.”

A Little of This, A Little of That

Most of what my son does at school seems like joyful, hands-on kindergarten as usual, but at home we are encouraged to have kids log in to a program called Raz-Kids, through which they listen to books and record themselves reading the stories. Every once in awhile we do this for a few days in a row, then the recording mechanism on the program malfunctions, and we forget about it for months.

Raz-Kids homepage.

Meanwhile, in third grade, as the Common Core standards test looms, my daughter has been drilling on typing and test-taking skills. The kids spend time in the computer lab or on computers in the library every day, working on programs such as one called Typing Pal that’s supposed to teach them to touch type fluently (as far as I can tell, painstaking hunting and pecking is still the norm, even after years with this program) and an online reading program called Reading Plus. Teachers can monitor how often students are logging in at home and how many lessons they’re completing.

I think the reading selections in Reading Plus are generally engaging and high-quality. I also think the Common Core test the kids will be taking, called PARCC, is fair and will do a good job of measuring critical thinking skills, judging from the samples I’ve reviewed. But what I don’t feel comfortable with is all the multiple-choice-question drilling the kids are doing to prepare for it.

Briggs Gamblin said, “BVSD does not have a policy restricting or requiring the amount of time children use computers and other electronic devices. However, BVSD practice is that computers and other electronic devices should be a natural part of instruction and used intentionally to enhance and aid instructional practices.”

My daughter does well in school, but at every parent teacher conference I’ve attended so far, the teacher gently suggests that she use the online resources the school makes available more often. I do, for a few weeks after the conference. Then I forget about it, or can’t make the time.

Never once have my kids asked if they can please, please sit at the computer and use Reading Plus or Raz-Kids. Instead, they ask me to please, please read them a book or play with them or take them to the park. Besides, with all the screen time they have at school, when they get home they’ve just about exhausted the American Society of Pediatrics’ recommended media limits for the day.

Looking for the Quick Fix: Job Skills for Kindergartners

I started learning to type in a summer class during middle school, but the lessons didn’t really take until high school, when I took a school typing course in which all of the students sat at typewriters, the instructor up front calling out, “A space. J space,” as we clattered along, pressing the corresponding keys. Typing fast and accurately is a skill I used in college and at every job I’ve held since then. But do we really need to make 6-year-olds focus on future job skills?

Some experts see no developmental problem with kids typing young, comparing it to piano playing, while others say kids’ hands are too small to span the keys, or worry about repetitive stress injuries. As of yet, there’s no scientific consensus on the right age to begin to learn to type.

Dr. Brian Volck, assistant professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Hospital Medicine at the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, said, “There’s insufficient data to make a definite recommendation. Some children may be ready at an earlier age than others, depending on such factors attention and manual dexterity.”

When I mentioned some of the uses of computers at my kids’ school, including the wrong-handed-mouse test, to Nicholas Carr, technology reporter and author of the Pulitzer Prize-finalist The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains and the new The Glass Cage: Automation and Us, about the misguided rise of automation in education and other sectors, he responded in an email, “This is an entirely wrong-headed approach and runs counter to pretty much everything we know about child development. But technology promises a quick fix, and at the moment, in education and elsewhere, that seems to be what we want.”

I’m all for teaching kids about technology, which will be a part of their personal and work lives forever. But shouldn’t they learn how to write software programs rather than how to scan a text and answer multiple-choice questions on a screen? Shouldn’t they learn about how to assemble computer hardware, build an object with a 3-D printer, or shoot and edit digital video footage rather than passively watch as a computer reads them a book? Many studies suggest that when people read on a screen rather than paper, they read less attentively and retain less. So why aren’t schools using computers for what these machines are actually good at instead?

My daughter tells me that when she and her friends finish their required computer lab activities, they explore. One kid figures out a new trick and teaches the others — how to modify the background of their desktop or play music while they work on Typing Pal, for example. My daughter enjoys learning from her friends and teaching them how to program cartoon cat videos in Scratch. This is the kind of learning about computers I feel is more valuable than screen-reading and quizzes — and the kids are teaching themselves.

When I asked Briggs Gamblin why the Boulder Valley School District doesn’t emphasize programming more, he said, “BVSD staff are in the early study of enhancing computer science instruction and activities in elementary and middle school curricular offerings. BVSD staff recognize there is student interest in programming and developing computer/technology skills as part of 21st Century learning.”

At home, parents get the final say on screen time

When my kids get home from school, they have about five hours before bedtime. Once they eat, do offline homework, practice sports, piano, or Lego building, eat again, and take a bath, that leaves us with about one precious hour. On most nights I choose to spend that hour reading stories to my kids and talking with them and having them read to me, rather than setting them up on the computer to practice literacy skills.

I don’t blame the teachers for having the kids practice test taking and typing — teachers are under a lot of pressure with the Common Core tests, and they are trying to make sure every kid is comfortable with computers. But at home, I can choose to unplug my kids.

I expect for as long as my kids are in school, teachers will continue to urge me to have them spend more time on the computer, and maybe my kids won’t do as well on the computer tests as their offline intelligence would suggest they should. But somehow, I think the kids will be all right.

 

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8 Technologies That Will Shape Future Classrooms

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What does the future of learning hold? What will classrooms of the future be like? Emerging technologies such as cloud computing, augmented reality (AR) and 3D printing are paving the way for the future of education in ways we may have yet to see. At the very least though, we can extrapolate from what these promising technologies and predict how schools will adopt them in time to come.

However, just as the original intentions for new technology often give way to innovative and unpredictable usage, we can never be sure if a twist is waiting for these rising stars. As for now, let us observe their progress and speculate on how these 8 up-and-coming technologies could potentially change education for the better.

Recommended Reading: Major Tech In Education Trends In 2013 [Infographic]

1. Augmented Reality (AR)

We’re still waiting for Augmented Reality to take the world by storm by way of Google Glass, gaming and awesome apps for astronomy.

It’s expected to wow audiences with its AR capabilities, which allow users to see additional information layered over what they see through the lens. Currently, however, access to AR technology for educational purposes is mostly limited to smartphone apps.

Read Also: 5 Top Augmented Reality Apps For Education

Apps like Sky Map lets you scout the night sky for constellations, but they are not fully integrated as a component of education as they have yet to reach the stage of seamlessness. The AR experience must be immersive enough to blend information readily with the reality.

With Google Glass and the other AR-enabled wearable devices that will soon follow, students explore the world without having to hold up a device which could distract from the experience. Created by Will Powell, an AR developer for Oxford, a simpler version of the Google Glass showcases how effortless this can be. Check out this video to enter a world with seamlessly integrated augmented reality.

Read Also: How Augmented Reality Is The Next Big Social Experience

A New Way To Teach

Virtual field trips are also possible with AR. Physics teacher, Andrew Vanden Heuvel, taught from inside the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland, streaming what he sees through a beta Google Glass to his students thousands of miles away. They see him, and he sees them; it’s as if they are in the same classroom! The “Hangout” feature in use here is particularly promising for team collaborations in projects and assignments.

In other cases, students may be able to see supplementary and interactive information appearing on historical artifacts for them to get to know more about its history, just like how this AR advertising app can recognize images in the real world and interact with them.

Read Also: A Geek’s Wishlist – 10 Things We Want To Do With Google Glass

2. 3D Printing

What’s a better present for your 10-year-old than a LEGO set? How about a 3D printer, one specifically for children? The 3D printer should really be a must-have in classrooms. Instead of being restricted to what they can play with, pupils in the classroom of the future can print out 3D models for various purposes, including show-and-tell.

Engineering students and teachers are prime examples of who could directly benefit from 3D printing technology. In Benilde-St. Margaret’s School in Minneapolis, the school’s Dimension BST 3D printer lets students create design prototypes.

The 3D printer produces working mini-models to test out engineering design principles, so students can perfect their design before making an actual prototype. Together with CAD (computer-aided design) modeling software, 3D printing allows these students to experiment freely with their designs without expending considerable costs and time.

Abstract Thought, Real-Life Models

As it will be for many other subjects that require some form of visualization, the decreasing cost of 3D printers means that more teachers will be able to reconstruct complex concept models to teach theoretical concepts. For instance, the concept of molecular structures and configurations may be hard to grasp, but by printing out physical versions of these structures, this can help students put a form on abstract thought, and aid in better understanding.

Read Also: 20 Amazing Creations You Can Make With 3D Printing

3. Cloud Computing

“My dog ate my homework” just won’t cut it with teachers in the near future. Cloud computing is buzzing these days and will most likely continue to change many aspects of our society, particularly education. In a bid to modernize education in China, the city of Zhuji in Zhejiang has installed more than 6,000 cloud computing terminal devices in 118 schools.

Read Also: 9 High-Tech Toys & Gadgets Designed For Kids

In the future classroom, students may just need an electronic device to access all their homework and all other learning resources in the Cloud. This means no more lugging heavy textbooks to school, and having constant access to your reading materials as long as you have an Internet connection.

Such convenience will provide students the freedom to work on their projects or homework anytime and anywhere. The digital library is accessible even when the campus library is not. In fact you can skip hitching a ride there, or to the bookstore or even to class (but being sick may no longer be an acceptable excuse to skip “attending” class from your bedroom).

An Online Learning Opportunity

Cloud computing seeks to virtualize the classroom. Schools can now leverage on cloud technology and set up online learning platforms for students to log on and attend classes in a virtual environment.

Take for example, the concept of cloud-based virtual learning environment (VLE), which allows students to access learning content and participate in discussions in forums. Assignments or even tests can also be easily disseminated to the class, minimizing the need for students to be physically present, but to encourage interaction and discussion, educators require another channel.

4. Online Social Networking

Numerous universities have already registered themselves with the online virtual world, Second Life to provide students with an online platform to socialize with each other. As a big part of the cloud platform, such social networks allows students to share their ideas freely, while teachers moderate.

This is a very empowering notion because it will imbue learners with a new perception – that learning is a personal responsibility and not that of the teacher’s.

For Homework… Discuss

Furthermore, this many-to-many interactive learning where ideas are allowed to flow freely will be more aligned with real-world scenarios where collaboration is usually the norm. Social networking tools can be incorporated to enhance collaboration and team-building initiatives.

Still, if there is a need, teachers, lecturers and professors can lend some guidance in the form of responses to forum queries or by uploading useful information to the cloud community instantaneously. Another benefit is that It also serves as a great feedback tool, to help improve the courseware. A social-based approach to education will seem more than relevant to students of the future.

5. Flexible Displays

Note-taking on memo pads is still very much alive during lectures although there may be a shift from paper to laptops, netbooks or tablets. As educational settings become more digitalized, how will the future classroom reconcile the differences between pen and paper versus keyboard and screen?

The answer might just be flexible OLED-based displays. Just like regular paper, these displays will be lightweight, flexible and extremely thin. This means we can roll them up into tubes or fold them like newspapers.

Read Also: Are Flexible Display Smartphones Here To Stay?

Paper-Thin Smartphones

Unlike regular paper however, these plastic e-papers are not only durable (“unbreakable” is the correct term), but also provides interactivity. With swipes, taps and pinching (maybe), these flexible paper-thin displays can take over paper-centric industries.

Feast your eyes on this paper-thin, A4-sized digital paper prototype by Sony which weighs only a mere 63g. Laptops and even smartphones can’t hold a candle to that kind of portability.

6. Biometrics: Eye Tracking

One technology that’s been gaining recognition is biometrics. Conventionally biometrics are associated with the security industry, as it uses what is unique to each one of us to authenticate our identity: fingerprints, facial recognition, iris patterns, voice. In terms of education, some schools are only using fingerprinting to prevent truancy and for borrowing books from their school library.

Read Also: A Look Into: Biometric Technology

However, eye-tracking can be helpful for instance, in providing invaluable feedback for teachers to understand how students absorb and understand the learning content. As a matter of fact, advertising research have been using eye-tracking technology to see how consumers respond to their ads and to determine what captures their attention.

Similarly, the same form of analysis can be conducted to ascertain course effectiveness or individual learning styles. Mirametrix is using its S2 Eye Tracker to assess how students learn by getting details of where they look during online learning sessions.

Cheaper alternatives are turning up in the form of Eye Tribe for Windows and Android, so it’s only a matter of time before this data is attainable by educators.

Read Also: 9 Minority-Report-Inspired Touchless Technology

The data may then be integrated with interactive adaptive learning systems in a manner that adjusts the content to best suit each student’s learning style. Alternatively, the eye movement patterns may also guide the delivery of the content, taking into account concepts students might have trouble understanding evident in the longer time they spend gazing at that particular section.

7. Multi-Touch LCD Screens

Over the past few decades, we’ve seen the transition from blackboard to whiteboard, to overhead projector and to video projector for computers in schools. If you’re guessing that the next in line will be something that is akin to our smartphones and tablets, you may be right. Specifically speaking, the next “board” is likely to be a giant touchscreen LCD screen which allows a greater amount of interactivity.

After all, we’re talking about a screen that will be attached to a computer capable of generating infinite combinations of images, sounds and videos, just like our smartphones. The major difference with this new “board” and our smart devices is that it will be capable of detecting multiple touch inputs from many students simultaneously.

LCD Touch boards

Instead of the traditional big board in front of the classroom, it will probably be just like the Samsung SUR40 for Microsoft Surface, a giant tablet with its LCD screen lying flat atop a table-like structure. Students will sit around the table tablet, swipe on the board to manipulate and drag images around the screen, or type notes with their onscreen keyboards.

Think of the possibilities if every pupil gets one of these desks. Along with the social networking feature, these multi-touch surfaces will also allow students to collaborate live with peers around the world by manipulating virtual objects in real-time. The Multi-touch project by SynergyNet in Durham University is a great existing example of how such technology can be used by school children.

8. Game-Based Learning

Growing up at a time when the world is connected by the internet, kids today seems to have very short attention spans. This is unsurprising, since their childhood revolves around YouTube, Facebook and smartphones that provide them with on-the-go 24-hours updates and the answers to all their queries through Google and Wikipedia.

To cater to such a fast-paced generation, schools will eventually abandon traditional teaching methods of rote learning to align themselves with the times. One great way to achieve that is to use what had always been considered as a major distraction to learning – video games.

Gaming For Grades

KinectEDucation provides a one-stop online community for interested educators and students who want to use Microsoft Kinect for learning purposes. As can be seen from their video, some of the best suggestions on how educators and students can benefit from the motion-sensing technology include enabling students to learn sign language and how to play the guitar by detecting their hand movements.

In another example, a professor from the University of Washington Bothell teaches mathematics to her class by giving them the first-hand experience of learning through their motions which are captured by Kinect. Along with successful devices like Wii Remote and PlayStation Move, the motion-sensing technology is believed to be able to provide the necessary level of interactivity for students to feel more engaged with learning.

Learning To Design Games

Another concept adopted by educators does not focus on the gameplay or interactivity; rather, it emphasizes on how learning the game design process can educate students. In Gamestar Mechanic, the idea is to impart students with basic game designing skills (without the complexity of programming) to create their own games and consequently help them develop broad skill sets such as language, systematic thinking, problem-solving (through simulation, trial-and-errors, etc), storytelling, art and many more.

School children from fourth to ninth grade learn how to design one by playing a game itself where they assume the role of a young aspiring game designer who’ll go through quests, missions, etc to be awarded with various Sprites to use in their Toolbox (an area for them to design their own games). This is not unlike the role-playing video games we see in today’s market.

This illustrates how educators are moving away from traditional classroom teaching to that of letting students have fun and learn while they play interactive games. It’s inevitable that students in the future who grow up with such technology will require much higher levels of fun and excitement before they see education as appealing and captivating.

Education Beyond the Classroom

In the future, education will no longer be restricted to formalized institutes like schools and classes. Using AR, cloud computing, online social networking and adaptive learning systems utilizing eye tracking technology, learning can take place outside the tradtional classroom.

Experimentations and mistakes will also be encouraged as simulations are made possible through 3D printing and game-based learning without actually incurring real-world consequences or costs. Chief among all, students will soon be imparted with the wisdom of seeing learning as not a chore, but as a critical and gratifying part of their life which requires their proactive involvement.

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Less Is More: 4 Strategies To Streamline Your Curriculum

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Posted By Sherwen Mohan

Less Is More: 4 Strategies To Streamline Your Curriculum

Less Is More: 4 Strategies To Streamline Your Curriculum

by Renee Rubin, Ed.D., educationmomentum.com

Educators often wonder how they are going to meet all the demands of Common Core. One important point is that the standards require more depth and less breadth. Meeting these standards can be done by doing less, not more. In this post, we’ll look at three effective ways to do this: integrating curriculum, combining test prep into daily learning, and cutting topics.

First, let’s look at what the standards mean by more “depth.” For example, fifth graders need to “conduct short research projects that use several sources to build knowledge through investigation of different aspects of a topic.” This means that students need to be able to find and read with comprehension several sources on the same topic. They need to evaluate those sources for relevance and validity. Finally, the learners need to demonstrate that they have built knowledge about different aspects of the topic.

This is just one example of how the Common Core requires teachers and students to spend extended amounts of time on one topic. The problem is there simply is not enough time to spend days or weeks studying one topic unless changes are made. In our recent book, Less is More in Elementary School: Strategies for Thriving in a High-Stakes Environment, we suggest a variety of ways to find the time required for the in-depth teaching and learning needed for the Common Core Standards. Here, we’ll focus on three major strategies; integrating, combining, and cutting.

If we want to prepare students for the Common Core and lifelong learning, we can’t keep adding to the curriculum. One response is to integrate, combine, and cut. Less is more!

Less Is More: 4 Strategies For A More Efficient Curriculum

1. Integrate subjects

This effectively meets the Common Core and saves time by removing duplication in different subject areas. For example, students may learn to compare and contrast two habitats and then apply similar skills to literature or social studies with the guidance of the teacher. With integrated curriculum, elementary school teachers no longer need to carve out specific times for reading, social studies, and science.

If students are studying a theme, such as cooperation, they may read realistic fiction about cooperation one week and social studies texts about historical or current examples of cooperation the next week during the same time of day. Integrated curriculum also is a good way of finding time to read more non-fiction texts as required by the Common Core Standards and assessments.

(See Less is More in Elementary School for examples of integrated units with appropriate Common Core Standard C)

2. Combine Assessment Prep Into Daily Learning

Although students need some practice with the format of high-stakes tests, we believe that most assessment should be integrated with daily learning to save time and improve student achievement. Extensive benchmark testinging and test-preparation materials take time away from the in-depth learning required by the Common Core.

Assessment that is part of instruction allows teachers to provide effective feedback to students during the learning process so they can improve their work. For example, the Common Core math standards call for students to “construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others.”

As students are working on math problems, the teacher can circulate through the room asking them to explain their reasoning. Thus, the teacher can informally assess the progress of the students and provide immediate feedback to encourage improvement. Students may do fewer, problems but their reasoning skills should improve.

3. Use Power Standards

According to edglossary.org, Power Standards refer to “a subset of learning standards that educators have determined to be the highest priority or most important for students to learn.” The big idea? They explain that “it is often impossible for teachers to cover every academic standard over the course of a school year, given the depth and breadth of state learning standards. Power standards, therefore, are the prioritized academic expectations that educators determine to be the most critical and essential for students to learn…”

Educators and authors Larry Ainsworth and Douglas Reeves “propose three criteria for selecting power standards:

  • Endurance: Standards that focus on knowledge and skills that will be relevant throughout a student’s lifetime (such as learning how to read or how to interpret a map).
  • Leverage: Standards that focus on knowledge and skills used in multiple academic disciplines (such as writing grammatically and persuasively or interpreting and analyzing data).
  • Essentiality: Standards that focus on the knowledge and skills necessary for students to succeed in the next grade level or the next sequential course in an academic subject (such as understanding algebraic functions before taking geometry or calculus, which require the use of algebra).”

In short, establishing Power Standards, and then designing curriculum and instruction around this critical and anchoring content, can be a powerful–and learned-centered–strategy to create a sense of priority in what you teach, and what students learn.

Note, the 40/40/40 Rule can be useful here as well.

4. Revisit Old Work With New Thinking

If we want to prepare students for the Common Core and lifelong learning, we can’t keep adding to the curriculum. We need to integrate, combine, and cut. Less is more. What’s most important in your curriculum?

Cut topics: Even with the above measures, educators probably need to make cuts, which can be tough to do since we all have our favorite activities or topics. Perhaps the easiest type of cutting to do is in quantity; fewer math problems or fewer integrated units. For example, students need to be given opportunities to revise and edit their writing and do peer editing. This may mean that they write fewer texts, but they will have a better understanding of the writing process.

Renee Rubin, Michelle H. Abrego, and John A. Sutterby areis co-authors of Less is More in Elementary School: Strategies for Thriving in a High-Stakes Environment. She is also an educational consultant at Education Momentum; Co-authors are Michelle H. Abrego and John A. Sutterby; Less Is More: 4 Strategies To Streamline Your Curriculum; image attribution flicr user jirkamatusek

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63 Things Every Student Should Know In A Digital World

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Posted By Ian Jukes

Digital World

It could be argued—and probably argued well—that what a student fundamentally needs to know today isn’t much different than what Tom Sawyer or Joan of Arc or Alexander the Great needed to know.

  • Communication.
  • Resourcefulness.
  • Creativity.
  • Persistence.

How true this turns out to be depends on how macro you want to get. If we want to discuss our needs as humans in broad, sweeping themes, then food, water, shelter, connectivity, safety, and some degree of self-esteem pretty much cover it.

But in an increasingly connected and digital world, the things a student needs to know are indeed changing—fundamental human needs sometimes drastically redressed for an alien modern world. Just as salt allowed for the keeping of meats, the advent of antibiotics made deadly viruses and diseases simply inconvenient, and electricity completely altered when and where we slept and work and played, technology is again changing the kind of “stuff” a student needs to know.

Of course, these are just starters. Such a list really could go on forever.

The Changing Things They Need To Know: 13 Categories & 63 Ideas

Information Sources

1. The best way to find different kinds of information

2. How to save information so that it can be easily found and used again

3. Distinguish fact from opinion, and know the importance of each

4. How to think critically—and carefully–about information

Learning Pathways

5. How to self-direct learning

6. How to mobilize learning

7. How to identify what’s worth understanding

8. How to relate habits with performance

Human Spaces

9. The relationship between physical and digital spaces

10. The pros and cons—and subsequent sweet spots–of digital tools

11. What mobile technology requires—and makes possible

12. The nuance of communication in-person (e.g., eye contact, body language) and in digital domains (e.g., introduction, social following, etc.)

Socializing Ideas

13. The consequences of sharing an idea

14. The right stage of the creative process to share an idea

15. That everything digital is accelerated; plan accordingly. And this kind of acceleration doesn’t always happen in the brick-and-mortal world—and that’s okay.

16. The need for digital citizenship—and how to create their own rules citizenships in general–digital and otherwise

Digital Participation

17. How to remix, mash, reimagine, tweak, hack, and repurpose media in credible, compelling, and legal ways

18. How to identify what information is private and what is “social”—and how to make changes accordingly

19. What expertise they can offer the digital world

20. How to take only what you need, even when the (digital) resources seem infinite

Publishing Nuance

21. How to leverage both physical and digital media for authentic—rather than merely digital–purposes

22. The kind of information people look for on the internet

23. What to share with one person, one group, one community, and one planet. (And the difference in permanence and scale between a social message, email, threaded conversation, and text.)

24. How to take advantage of the fact digital text is fluid and endlessly updated and changing

Applying Technology 

25. What the relationship is between a smartphone, tablet, laptop, desktop, and wearable technology

26. How to use the cloud to their advantage; how to preserve bandwidth when necessary

27. How to effectively use technology in ways that might contradict their original purpose or design

28. How to use technology to perform tasks not traditionally thought of as technology-based—e.g., improving vocabulary and literacy, perform and update financial planning, eat healthier foods, etc.

The Always-On Audience

29. How to choose language, structure, tone, modalities, and other considerations based on a specific purpose and audience

30. Knowing the difference between who’s listening, who’s responding, who’s lurking, who cares, who doesn’t care, etc.

31. How to listen with curiosity when there are a million other things to do

32. Popularity and quality often fail to coincide; “traction” is as much timing and ecology as it is design

Social Rules

33. When it is socially-acceptable to check messages, update statuses, check scores, and so on. (Just because everyone at the table is doing it doesn’t mean it doesn’t have significant consequences.)

34. The acceptable timing of human responses depending on social channels

35. Even in a digital world, patience still matters

36. That mobile devices are “me” devices; the real world isn’t like that

Diction

37. Tone is everything; word choice is crucial when every thought is shared

38. Vocabulary & jargon can obscure communication, but also can communicate specific ideas and can’t always be avoided

39. Structure–essay level, blog post level, paragraph level, sentence level, world level, and acronym and initialism level–changes depending on where you publish

40. The benefits of being a polyglot (speaking more than one language) are increasing (not in lieu of, but because of digital translation tools). (This includes localized figurative language in the context of global communication.)

Connecting with Experts

41. Who the experts are

42. How—and when—to reach them

43. The difference between someone knowledgeable, someone experienced, and someone adept

44. When you need a closed group of friends, a crowd full of moderately-informed people, or a professional and/or academic expert

The Self

45. How to identify and fully participate in critical familial and social citizenships

46. How to prioritizing possibilities in spaces where it all seems so endless

47. How to self-monitor and manage their own distraction

48. How to choose the proper scale for work, thinking, or publishing

49. How to recognize niches and opportunity

A Life Built Around Software

50. The consequences of using a single operating system (e.g., iOS, Android, Windows, etc.)

51. The pros and cons of using social log-ins (e.g., facebook) for apps

52. How to evaluate an app for privacy permissions

53. That apps are businesses and some close–and take your media, files, or data with them

54. Nothing is free

Other Internet Pro Tips For Students

55. Passive-aggressiveness, snark, arrogance, unjustified brazenness, cyberbullying-without-being-obvious-about-it, blocking-for-dramatic-effect, ignoring people, and other digital habits carry over into the real world

56. A 140 character comment may not fully capture the nuance of a person’s stance or understanding of a topic. Don’t assume

57. Typos and grammar errors don’t make people stupid

58. Popularity is dangerous

59. Video games can make you smarter. That doesn’t mean that they do

60. People change their minds. That post from 2012 probably feels as dated to them as it does to you

61. If you often find yourself needing to “kill time” with Candy Crush and related fare, check your life choices

62. Just because you can sing, hack, code, paint, run, jump, lead, or dance doesn’t make you any more worthwhile than the next human being, no matter what your follower count suggests

63. Log-in info, passwords, old email address, and other trappings of digital life are a pain. Use password keepers and plan accordingly

63 Things Every Student Should Know In A Digital World