Author: grabe

A few folks (also Warlick) have recently used their blogs to comment on “integrating technology.” We have used this term in our writing for the past dozen years or so and end up being attracted to posts that focus on some of our key “memes.” After reading the recent posts I came away very disappointed.

Here’s the thing: If we’re only trying to integrate technology, then we’re using it for the sake of using it. In that case, the goal is job training, which is an absolutely inane idea because schools will never be able to keep up with broader society and businesses driven by markets and money. Inevitably, schools will be left wallowing, desperately struggling to keep their “integration” relevant (from “Integration – the term of the enemy” – Teacher’s Writes which I admit is nearly as clever a blog title as Learning Aloud).

It is not that I do not agree with the underlying sentiment of these posts. I would argue that the key variable is what students do with technology not what teachers do. However, this distinction (teacher use vs. student use) seems to have nearly opposite meaning for how these linked bloggers and I interpret the meaning of technologyintegration.

We all attach our own meaning to words – it is a constructivist thing I suppose. In our work, we use integration in a different way – Integrating Technology for Meaningful Learning, Integrating the Internet for Meaningful Learning. Integration implies a process and the keys for interpretation are undefined – what is integrated by whom within what? Our focus is on what students do with technology and we assume students can use technology to meaningfully learn the content topics they have previously been required to address in other ways. The assumption in some of the other posts is that students are being asked to develop tech literacy (not a bad thing, but not the same thing as applying technology tools to understanding more traditional content) or that instructors are using technology tools to do their own personal work (also not a bad thing).

I would hate to have folks out there ganging up on a defenseless word so I felt the need to step in and defend “integration’s” good name. 😉

The idea for Swivel sounds very cool – people upload data sets and allow others to explore. Simple analyses can be valuable learning experiences – plot two variables in order to determine if similar trends are evident, calculate correlations.

The downside – individuals are already contributing data sets that may be inappropriate for younger student use (e.g., beer consumption and hate comments). Too bad. This may end up as another opportunity that will be avoided because it will be possible to find something that will offend someone.

Here is an interesting news feature concerning the “codes” children may use when IMing friends (via YouTube).

(leet ~= elite)

The Center for the Digital Future (USC Annenberg School) has been conducting surveys for six years in an attempt to track the impact of the Internet on society. The 2007 report is now available. Unfortunately, the report costs several hundred dollars. A brief summary is available online, but a little more detail is available from some bloggers (e.g., Andy Carvin).

It would really be unfair for me to summarize someone else’s summary so I refer you to learning.now (the Carvin blog) for greater detail. The one finding I will mention concerns the proportion of Internet users who produce content. Posting photos to the web represents the category of greatest use (about 24%). This makes sense to me – posting pictures requires much less effort than writing. About 13% claim they have a personal web page and 7% have a blog. Andy does not mention an age break down so I can’t say if data on the “authoring” of individuals of K-12 age are available.

This post is for one of my readers who tried to convince me that the Allyn and Bacon rep told her Houghton Mifflin would be owned by Allyn & Bacon.

Information released to the press today seems to indicate that the Riverdeep purchase of Houghton Mifflin is still a go.

At first blush, we’re smaller, they’re bigger, we’re software, they’re traditional print,” O’Callaghan said. “The real synergy between our businesses is that we’re an educational publishing company just like them, but we’re doing it on different mediums aimed at different funding sources.

Why do I care? Our book is published by Houghton Mifflin and part of my professional future rides on what happens to Houghton Mifflin. Even if this deal goes through, the new owner may sell of the higher ed resources. However, I think being interested in technology enhanced education within a company that is focused on educational software applications may enable some interesting opportunies. Of course, I said the same thing when Houghton Mifflin was sold to Vivendi.

Pardon this personal diversion – content of more general interest soon.

eSchoolNews article on this topic.

The Seattle Times reports the Gates Foundation has provided the Bellevue school district nearly 2 million to post the districts entire curriclum. The article contends that the site will be wiki-like allowing external input and possible lesson ratings.

While there are many “lesson web sites” available, I suppose what makes this effort unique is the real time nature of the content (this is what our students are studying now) and the completeness/interrelatedness of the material.

The article also promises that the site will offer some video content. As a teacher educator, I hope that the video is “realistic” and offers a glimpse of daily classroom life rather than carefully selected examples. While my understanding is that the resource is not intended for professional development, I have long felt a range of video cases would be very helpful.

Andy Carvin has a different take on this project and relates it more to the opencourseware efforts at institutions such as MIT.

Bellevue has already developed a substantial online description of the district’s curriculum.