Learning Aloud

Cindy is in the dissemination phase of her history grant. The idea is to extend the training first conducted with history teachers in Grand Forks to other teachers within the region. Today, the program involved an online experience with professionals from the Library of Congress.

No matter how extensive my background with technology, I continue to be amazed by experiences such as this – sitting in Grand Forks and interacting with people from the Library of Congress is pretty cool.

History teacher or not, the LOC is worth exploring. What a tremendous repository of resources and these resources are becoming easier to locate. While I have explored this site on several locations, the tour provided some new insights (perhaps things are being added all of the time). Here is a suggestion – consider exploring the Self-Serve Workshops.

The afternoon session was devoted to teaching with primary sources. This turned out to be less interesting and similar to other sessions I have experienced several times locally. Practicing the three stage analysis system with a couple of images – what do I see, what do I know, what do I think – was probably not the best use of a limited amount of time. This is an issue that has always troubled me in the development of teachers – given a limited amount of class time, should class time be devoted to working through examples. What can be assumed regarding the ability of educators to apply from the presentation and discussion of examples? Homework is one thing, the limited amount of time available when interacting with people from the LOC another.

The demo image follows. Like so many with a computer in my hands, I tend to get off track when not completely engaged. I immediately Googled “evacuation sale” and guessed the image was a forced sale by a Japanese store owner. It turns out the phrase brings up this topic at the top of a Google search. Was I doing history?

The buzz is that virus creators have found a way to pick on Mac users (Washington Post article). As I understand the approach, Mac users must be tricked into downloading a file purported to be a picture but that is actually a program. When opened, the program attempts to send itself to anyone on the users iChat list.

The logic works like this – here is a secret file, open it, run it, and see what happens (I am being facetious here). The danger would seem to be in situations in which you receive such a file from someone you know and do not stop to wonder why an image file would come in a compressed form, etc.

MacWorld Article

An issue Cindy addresses in her preprofessional technology for teachers class is the longevity and visibility of what we say on the Internet. Her point to future teachers is that the behaviors you describe online (.e.g., myspace) may be available for consideration by future employers (or parents if that thought is scarier).

An eSchool News article  considers a similar issue and describes some similar examples (e.g., high school athletes bragging about drinking behavior). The message – be aware of your digital footprint.

What is that expression – The wheels of justice grind slow, but they grind exceedingly fine? It was the slow part of this expression that came to mind.

I am preparing for my instructional design class and I want to talk about what research tells us about instructional software. Reading research articles and reviews of research articles is often frustrating for education graduate students. The results often seem inconclusive and marginal making it difficult for those searching for clear guidance to reach any kind of conclusion.

Then it came to me – the Department of Education would provide the information I need. From some dark and seldom accessed region of my brain, I dredged up the recollection that the U.S. Department of Education in keeping with the requirements of NCLB that educational practice be based on “rigorous scientifically based research methods to provide evidence of effectiveness” had undertaken to “carry out a national study of the conditions and practices necessary for technology to be used effectively to improve teaching and learning.” This program was mandated by Congress in 2001 and the press release identifying the software to be evaluated and the companies to conduct the reseach is dated 2004.

“Why bother with the journals I normally read?” I thought. No reason to consider the findings of those university professor types, why not rely on the research sponsored by the government?

Do you remember this topic? Companies were worried their software would not be considered (only a few commercial programs were accepted for evaluation) and were worried that only “approved” software that demonstrated achievement gains could then be purchased with federal funds (the list of software selected is included in the site I link to above).

The Feds would certainly be in a unique position to do certain types of research. Major studies are very expensive – to assure cooperation schools and teachers will likely be compensated to make certain the methodological definition of the control and treatment conditions are maintained, supervision to make certain compliance with such assignments will also be required, there will likely be the need to purchase content specific evaluation instruments, etc.

After wading through the literature and the typical criticisms, I do want to read the methodology of these well funded studies. What will serve as a dependent variables? Will there be multiple dependent variables to assure that a range of outcomes and possible benefits and liabilities be evaluated? What will be considered a “control group”? etc.

Evidently, government funded initiatives do not operate under the “publish or perish” directive. I have been looking, but I cannot find anything that would indicate what has been accomplished to this point. I can find online resports announcing that a company’s software has been selected for the research and I can find comments on the government initiative and discussions of what qualifies as quality research. What I can’t seem to locate are SRI or Mathematica (the companies selected to perform the research) reports. I will keep trying and if something surfaces I will add it here.

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A related project, the What Works Clearinghouse, provides what I think is a useful tool for those interested in educational research. Among other services, the site lists various research studies and identifies which meet and which do not meet “quality” research standards. It appears that middle school math is the only content area with reported studies at this time.

Somewhere in my Intro Psych notes (I teach the course from time to time), I must have some lecture material on “addictions.” What is an addiction? Are there good addictions? etc.

The concept of a technology “addiction” surfaces from time to time in a negative way. The “message” in such concerns might be that – “Kids need to get outside and stop spending so much time in front of the computer” or “People don’t talk anymore – they just send emails”. I remember in the early days of email and the Internet, there was a notion that technology was leading to shallow interpersonal relationships and a greater incidence of depression.

I tend not to think of such issues in a personal way – I just spend more and more time using technology to do my work and my life. Perhaps I should consider what my use of technology is doing to my inner child, my relationships, etc.

OK – after a few seconds of thought, I have decided everything is fine. Or, more accurately, I have decided that my life, imperfections and all, is my life and this life simply includes many experiences that involve technology. These are real experiences that involve real people, real emotions, and the real world. I communicate with technology because it is an efficient and effective way to communicate. My wife IMs me when she is done teaching her class and we can go to lunch. I take digital pictures instead of capturing images on film or the more personal “sketches or paintings”. I enjoy the process of collecting digital images, I can’t draw, and while I enjoy nature in my face it is -20 today and there is nothing much about that is green or moving. How I interact with people or the world around me is less significant than is that the fact that I interact.

I suppose these “concerns” resurface with each new technology. I read Toffler’s “The Third Wave” many years ago and remember Toffler’s observation that with each new wave of change there is a certain nostalgia and even attempts by some to move back to the lifestyle of an earlier time. He observed that often the good old days were not actually as good as we remember or as are reported by those who romanticize and do not actually experience.

ABC News offers the comments of several experts on the topic of Computer Addiction or Just Modern Life.

Today the Grand Forks Herald, my local paper, ran a front page article entitled “Online threats: Dangers lurk on web site.” The article focused mainly on myspace and accounts of sexual predators in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area (the article was written for the St. Paul Pioneer Press).

Because I am an advocate for educational use of Internet communication tools, such articles make me nervous. I guess I am nervous because I fear parents may overreact to such reports and balk when teachers want to engage students in educational Internet projects. There is no denying that some level of danger must be associated with online activity. Those with criminal intent will find “locations” that allow easy and relatively “risk free” access to potential victims. The Internet is particularly dangerous because we lack cues to the identity of individuals we interact with (e.g., it is obvious I am a middle-aged male when encountered in person, but my written words would not contain this information) and we may have a false sense of security when interacting from a location where we feel safe (e.g., our home).

I would guess:

• students are more closely supervised at school than at home
• school are more active in limiting access to dangerous sites
• educators are more likely than parents to address Internet safety as a “life skill”

Of course, these arguments are not universally true and parents still make the final decision when the safety of their children is at stake.

I have been attempting to think of an argument that will put parents at ease. No, actually I probably do not want to put parents at ease. I want them to think of Internet skills as essential and use of the Internet as universal. I also want them to understand what the risks are and to understand that risks will exist and perhaps be greater outside of the school setting. I want their children to experience the benefits of the Internet and be aware of the dangers.

Here is an idea. Internet activity clearly involves a small level of risk. In this regard, it is very much like driving a car. We learn to drive because we tend to believe driving is an essential life skill and because we accept driving as a recreational activity. As drivers, we would be foolish if we did not avoid situations and behaviors that are unnecessarily dangerous and if we did not take safety precautions. Truth is, we are sometimes foolish – we may drive too fast or without seat belts. Still, we accept the dangers of driving and expect our children to develop driving skills.

How should children be prepared for activities that involve opportunities and dangers? I did not teach my children to drive. They were taught be “professional educators.” Perhaps the same should be true in developing Internet skills.

Here is another news article commenting on research findings associated with video game experience. This article emphasizes the positive benefits of improved ability to control attention (block irrelevant experience). Such ability is relevant in some performance tasks and may be related to more successful cognitive aging. Strange as it might seem, Canadian research psychologist Ellen Bialystok sees similarities between the impact of videogames and bilingualism. She contends both experiences force individuals to exercise attentional control.