Teaching students to be multimedia storytellers — from Spotlight on Digital Media & Learning
From DSC:
With a special congrats out to Laura Fleming on her curation efforts:
We wanted to point Spotlight readers to a new, powerful collection on the National Writing Project’s Digital Is website. Reading and Writing Transmedia is curated by Laura Fleming, a library media specialist in River Edge, N.J., who blogs regularly about the connection between transmedia and education.
Check out the Teachscape Reflect product — looks very promising!
Excerpt:
What if you could accurately capture everything that happens in the classroom? Imagine being able to catch every detail of teaching and learning, and then being able to review the captured material online anytime, anywhere, to assess instructional practices.
By combining 360-degree video and high-quality audio capture with online collaboration tools featuring research-based frameworks—including Charlotte Danielson’s Framework for Teaching—Teachscape Reflect delivers a classroom observation system and virtual professional learning community anchored in a common definition of teacher effectiveness.
From DSC:
We may be investigating this product for use with supporting remote student teachers. But Reflect can also be used for professional development purposes as well.
Also see:
In science and math classes across the country, digital tools are being used to conduct experiments, analyze data, and run 3-D simulations to explain complex concepts. Language arts teachers are now pushing the definition of literacy to include the ability to express ideas through media. This report, “Multimedia Transformation,” examines the many ways multimedia tools are transforming teaching and learning as schools work to raise achievement and prepare students for careers that require increasingly sophisticated uses of technology.
Is Higher Education Ready for “The Education Bubble”? — from CampusTechnology.com by Trent Batson
Excerpts:
American higher education–the jewel in the global crown of universal education, with nearly a quarter of the total number of higher education institutions in the world, and including graduate programs that are the envy of the world–is facing the prospect of being the next bubble to burst. Technology is both a culprit and a promising ally.
The spread of information technology, and its infusion into our culture, has opened the world to learning opportunities–raising expectations for college graduates and changing the terms of success.
Is American higher education ready to either prevent the bubble from bursting or to weather the storm when it does burst? And what is the bubble?
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The bubble, as we can see by all the dimensions just described, is, in fact, a potential “perfect storm.”
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But this effort must also result from a presidential-level decree: “The learning theory that fit so well in our culture and with the dominant technology pre-1995 (print-based and paper-based technologies), now is not working very well for any of us, so we have to change. Each of you on campus has sincerely and devotedly committed yourselves fully to learning, but now we know that our learning epistemology is less and less appropriate. This is not your fault; it is simply a time of incredible human growth; it is a time of rapid evolution in our culture; a time of re-shaping our economy. We must transform or become irrelevant.”
From DSC:
Good to see I have some company in these perspectives; thanks for the article Trent. Also see:
From 5/21/09
Taking next-gen classrooms beyond the pilot — from campustechnology.com by Jennifer Demski
How the University of Minnesota moved its Active Learning Classroom concept to prime time
From DSC:
Taking this concept into learning spaces…I would like to see this type of thing in all Smart Classrooms; for example:
Also see:
echalk — from www.echalk.de
From DSC:
I’m looking for a technology that can capture 20 feet worth of “chalkboard” for longer mathematical problems and solutions and equations. How can we capture that?
Perhaps I’m not thinking clearly, but tablets don’t seem nearly large enough to fit these types of work on them in their entirety. Document cameras are another potential option, but again, the writing surface is too small. That goes for PolyVision’s Eno Board, Smart’s Interactive Whiteboards, BrightLink Projectors from Epson and other similar products.
That’s why E-Chalk caught my attention.
I’m trying to free up students’ minds — to allow them to be cognitively engaged with — and present with — the content being discussed (vs. having to madly write down the equations before the professor erases the board). I want them to walk away with such writings on a device and/or accessible somewhere on the cloud.
E-chalk is more than a traditional chalkboard because it integrates multimedia elements:
[Concept] The new “textbook”: A multi-layered approach — from Daniel S. Christian
I’ve been thinking recently about new approaches to relaying — and engaging with — content in a “textbook”.
For a physical textbook
When opening up a physical textbook to a particular page, QR-like codes would be printed on the physical pages of the textbook. With the advent of augmented reality, such a mechanism would open up some new possibilities to interact with content for that page. For example, some overall characteristics about this new, layered approach:
For an electronic-based textbook
Advantages of this concept/model:
Addendum (5/26):
Excerpt from introduction (emphasis DSC):
Three factors are driving this new interest and enthusiasm for digital learning by educators. First, teachers and administrators are increasingly become technology-enabled themselves, using emerging technologies such as mobile devices, online classes and digital content to improve their own productivity. This development of a personal value proposition with the technology is propelling educators to think creatively about how to leverage these same tools in the classroom. Second, students and increasingly parents are demanding a different kind of learning experience and that is forcing even the most reluctant teachers and administrators to re-evaluate their perspectives about the value of technology within learning. As noted in prior Speak Up national reports, students have a very clear vision for 21st century learning. Their preference is for learning environments that are socially-based, un-tethered and digitally rich. Parents are also supportive of this new learning paradigm and as we noted in our first Speak Up 2010 report (released in April 2011) the emergence of a new trend of parental digital choice is an indication of this unprecedented support level. And schools and districts are waking up to this new trend. Concerns about parents’ capability to, for example, enroll their children in non-district provided online classes are compelling many districts to start virtual schools themselves. The third factor, the economy, and its resulting financial pressures on school and district budgets, has created a sense of urgency to more fully investigate how technologies can help educators meet their instructional goals with less expense.
All three factors converging at the same time has opened up a new window of possibilities for achieving the promise of technology to transform education. Evidence of this shift in perspective and vision by educators is noted in some comparative Speak Up findings over the past few years.
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This report is the second in a two-part series to document the key national findings from Speak Up 2010.
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In this companion report, “The New 3E’s of Education: Enabled, Engaged, Empowered – How Today’s Educators are Advancing a New Vision for Teaching and Learning,” we explore how teachers, principals, district administrators, librarians and technology coordinators are addressing the student vision for learning around three key trends. These trends have generated significant interest in the past year at conferences, in policy discussions and within our schools and districts: mobile learning, online and blended learning and digital content.
While each of these trends includes the essential components of the student vision of socially-based, un-tethered and digitally-rich learning, they also provide a unique backdrop for investigating the role of educators to engage, enable and empower students through the use of these emerging technologies.
• Role of Librarians and Technology Coordinators: To enable student use of the emerging technologies through their planning, support and recommendation responsibilities.
• Role of Classroom Teachers: To engage students in rich, compelling learning experiences through the effective use of these technologies in the classroom.
• Role of School and District Administrators: To empower both teachers and students to creatively envision the future of digital learning, and to provide opportunities for exploring the elements of a new shared vision for learning.
