Month: July 2009

The Pew Internet and American Life project has released another report concerning how and how much we use the Internet. The focus of this most recent post was the rapidly increasing use of wireless Internet use. The study reports that 1/3 of Americans have now accessed the Internet using a cell phone or smart phone. I tend to interpret the data sources I follow based on my interest in educational applications and I know there is growing interest in smart phones in classrooms. My immediate reaction is based not on the number of families or teens with cell phones, but the number with a data plan. The proportion of those who have a cell phone who have browsed the Internet, watched a video, or sent email is 25% or less. I wonder if this is approximately the proportion with a data plan.

I think access issues are important. I find netbooks appealing because the lower cost may make it practical for schools to provide each student with a “learning device”. The limitation is home access. Equity cannot be achieved without home access.

I am a fan of the iPhone but I cannot own one because I live in North Dakota. Another equity issue, but I guess I have other resources. The rumors of an Apple tablet are also intriguing. Again, a mobile device that will rely on cell access rather than or perhaps in addition to wifi.

The problem is the cost of data plans. As I have explained in my other blog, I now have a solution to iPhone problem in North Dakota. I have discovered mifi.

Here is my mifi. As you can see, it is about the size of a credit card and maybe 1/3 inch thick. A mifi is a combination EVDO and wireless access point. In other words, it uses a cell service (Verizon in this case) and then extends this as wifi to up to 5 devices in a 30 meter circle (if I remember correctly). Here is what is cool. I can put this device in my pocket and use my iPhone touch as a very mobile computer. I become my own walking access point. If I was younger I could be my own running access point.

Here is the down side. We pay $60 a month for 5 gigabyte access. I was concerned about the quantity of content we would normally download/upload. We were out of town over the weekend with Cindy’s brother and wife and we all connected – sometimes two computers and my Touch at one time. No video or music that I remember, but lots of Internet use, Twitter, email, etc. Several hours a day I would guess.

We used only a fraction of a gigabyte so 5 gigabytes would probably meet the needs of an average family if there was not a need to download movies.

Still, $60 is more than basic cable (with no quantity restrictions in most locations) and as an annual expense far exceeds minimum  hardware costs.

We worry about inexpensive devices. We worry about the cost of content. Seems to me that the immediate challenge is the cost to connect. At present, the real opportunities that exist are available only to some.

I had a plan for how the rest of my career would play out. Senior-level (i.e., old) academics can kind of do this kind of thing. The plan went something like this. Professional: At work – a) teaching – educational psychology and ed tech, intro psychology, and b) research – technology support of study behavior for students in large introductory courses. Outside of work – work on revision of book with Cindy, develop participatory web portal for anyone who might be interested. This blog is a small part of my portal concept. I do not have a plan for all of those aspects of my life outside of what I consider my professional life.

The plan changed two weeks ago. I have spent 13 years as a department administrator (i.e., chairperson). Six years ago, I decided it was time to refocus so at the end of a three-year term I decided it was time to quit. Now, I am back in that role. Three years – a big chunk of the time I am likely to remain employed have now been committed.

I am familiar enough with the role that I realize things are now quite different. I am still uncertain what will go to make room for these new commitments. Blogs posts may be less frequent. Topics may change.

The administrative responsibilities have changed quite a bit from six years ago and much of this change involves technology. Psychology has added a large distance MA program in forensic psychology (60+ students) and a complete online undergraduate major (e.g., students can add a major in psych to an existing undergraduate program). There is an interesting reality in administering such programs that one not does appreciate or need to worry about as a researcher or ed tech academic. These programs need to make enough money to at least break even. People have their jobs on the line. Ideals regarding how such courses should be taught, how many students can be enrolled, and what will be demanded of students take on a different perspective. I am not the “talent” in this case. I am the one who must keep an eye on some of the variables involved to hopefully assure that the books balance and everyone has a satisfying experience.

This should be interesting.

I drove from Minneapolis to Grand Forks last evening. I typically listen to podcasts or audiobooks when I drive and I enjoy the time to think. The audiobook for the trip was Jeff Jarvis’ “What would Google do?” I have commented on this book previously, but I was listening again to the chapter on the “future of higher education / what is wrong with higher education” (my version of the title). I find myself reacting to many different issues. To keep this post within practical limits, I will comment on one topic.

General complaint about college in the Google age – memorizing stuff you can look up on Google is a waste of time.

Reaction – I have heard this before. However, I know few college profs who see their courses as an exercise in memorization. Perhaps this is one of those issues we see as a problem in the courses taught by others, but not in of our own. We want to get to things we see as interesting and relevant, but I am guessing we first feel the need to develop background so our students can understand what we see as interesting and relevant. I can understand how students in survey courses (I sometimes teach Introduction to Psychology) may come to believe their performance relies on memorization. It does, but memorization is not the point. Without a shared vocabulary and the ability to represent basic principles of the field, communication and knowledge development are pretty difficult.

Consider the following example as a possible explanation of how students may incorrectly believe that memorization is the goal. If I ask a student which of a list of simple descriptions of daily behavior seem best explained by operant conditioning, the student who is unable to offer a reasonable definition of operant conditioning is obviously in trouble. To me, the phrase I used was simply a way to communicate the conditions of the task and my intent is to evaluate something at a deeper level. Would student performance be improved with access to Google in this situation? Perhaps, but I still believe we need to have core knowledge more immediately available. We work within certain working memory limits – it is far better to know basic information when attempting to perform tasks that assume understanding of prerequisite knowledge than to divert from the more applied tasks while attempting to recognize basic vocabulary and understand basic principles. It may be acceptable to deal with an occasional failure of background through search, but frequent failures disrupt our own cognitive performance and become increasingly annoying to those who depend on us in applied settings.

The idea of Googling what you don’t know reminds me of the concept of just in time learning. I am arguing that pushing just in time learning too far reaches a point of absurdity that is inconsistent with the way human cognition works. We constuct understanding, but we must have some internal representations to work with.

Thinking about a survey course such as Introduction to Psychology it may work something like this. Memorization differentiates the C from the B student. I am hoping the difference between the B and the A student depends on something more.

“Why we’re behind: What top nations teach their students but we don’t” is a report offered to the public and policy makers by Common Core. Multiple players with varying motives (business leaders, politicians, academics) are weighing in on the state of education, assessments of what is wrong, and what needs to be done. This is one more contribution. It is starting to remind me of the story of the blind men and the elephant except that everyone here has their eyes open and still tend to see only part of the picture. I have comment on other policy statements/recommendations/concerns in other posts. My goal here is only to summarize the most current report.

The report is based on a simple logic – identify those countries scoring above the US on the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) and attempt to identify factors the differentiate these countries from the US. Nine countries fall into this category. So, the selection of countries is based on quantitative data assumed to reflect a fair comparison of student performance and the explanation for the difference in performance is based on a logical/qualitative assessment of policies, expectations, materials, etc.

The arguments made appear to focus on examples of standards and examples of assessment materials (see the report for a large number of examples).

The general conclusion appears to be:

Several contributors offer individual insights as part of the general report that provide perspective and somewhat different takes on the findings.

It seems there is agreement that the successful countries focus on content knowledge and not just skills. The U.S. has moved to a curriculum that is narrower and more basic. Narrowness might by exemplified by the focus on math and reading. NCLB is described as encouraging this focus.

More successful countries encourage a broader focus in terms of content areas and accept the importance of knowledge (what some might describe as factual knowledge) in addition to skills. The performance advantage in the skill areas is used to argue that broad knowledge may be necessary for the meaningful development of skills.

The report appears to contest counter-claims I have accepted in the past. The U.S. spends more money per student. The focus of the U.S. on all students does not result in a relative weakening of the correlation between SES and performance.

There did appear to be some disagreement among the experts offering comments. For example, the impact of the significance of movement of time away from other subjects to focus on areas emphasized by NCLB exams was not explained in the same way and how assessment fits in was evaluated differently. Existing testing practices were regarded has having some negative influence, but one expert proposes that some countries also assess specific knowledge, but have specific expectations for what will be learned in a greater diversity of areas. Hence, the focus here was not on less testing. In other words there are standards that are more specific in contrast to the vague standards in the U.S. and assessment matches these specific expectations more accurately. All agree on the diversity of knowledge issue.

One expert pushing the position that testing reduces time spent on other areas offers data indicating time spent on science in grades 1-6 decreased by 20% 1994-2004 while time spent on language arts increased 9% and math increased 5%.

Some may be disappointed because the position paper:
a) downplays emphasis on what some describe as 21st Century skills – disputes high stakes, narrow focus testing but does not then propose what have been described as 21st century skills should be the alternative focus
b) clearly advocates content knowledge (information) – basis for understanding, effective skill acquisition

One writer acknowledges an obvious limitation of the methodology. The method assumes that differences noted between the U.S. and “more successful nations” are caused by the differences argued to reliably differentiate instruction and policy. An obvious test of the conclusions reached could be accomplished by testing the findings against other examples. If other countries at the same performance level of the U.S. or lower do not show the same pattern, the explanation would be less credible. In other words if nations scoring below the U.S. offer a broader curriculum and focus on knowledge, the argument that such factors explain the poorer performance of the U.S. relative to the “more successful” countries above would be far less credible.

Google offers the opportunity to create a custom search service and I knew this, but I had never considered potential educational applications until I heard Alan November present some ideas at NECC.

You can set up a search engine and control the web sites it will access (you can probably get the idea from the screen capture I have inserted above. You need a Google account to gain access and then locate the option under the list of Google Products (I can’t offer a link here because the link would not work unless you have a Google account). So, this was not new to me.

What I did not consider was that you can also control who can add sites to search and who can view and how setting these preferences might be of some educational value. Assume a tech coordinator sets up a search engine focused on useful web sites for elementary science and offers elementary teachers within the district the opportunity to contribute URLs. Perhaps the goal is to explore the wildlife of the state. Access to this collection could be made public or shared more privately. What might be made available to students as a consequence of this process might be a Google search engine that would then only return search results appropriate to the topic (level, focus, quality, etc..).

What follows is a custom search engine that will return hits from my two blogs. You can test it be first locating something in this blog and then conducting a search to see if you locate the post you expect (and perhaps others).