Research

Alan November talks about the Net Generation from TVO's Big Ideas. A great quote:

Don't ban Facebook. I was talking to a CIO of a province that banned Facebook.
I said, "Why did you do that." He said, "Well, because young people are wasting their time at work."
And I said, "Well, if young people are wasting their time at work, that's a management problem not a technology problem. That has to do with motivation, supervision, and workflow. "
And I said, "What was the effect of banning Facebook?"
"Well, everybody went to MySpace."
[...] It said to all the young people: we don't understand your technology, we don't get collaboration, and we don't trust you.

Replace "work" with "school."

In an article in ASCD's Education Update (Vol 50, Num 10, October 2008), Rick Allen explores some research on the use of technology to improve literacy. Some points:

• thus far research on the efficacy of technology in teaching literacy has provided "lackluster" results
• current technology does not significantly influence student performance (Effectiveness of Reading and Mathematics Software Products: Findings from the First Student Cohort)
• improved newer technologies have more promise (Intelligent Tutoring Systems: Carnegie Mellon University and University of Pittsburgh - Reading Tutor, Pearson's Quick Reads) and other speech recognition software
• technology is more effective in remedial teaching (for example, learning disabilities like dyslexia)
• Charles MacArthur, Handbook of Writing Research: in a study of 9-10 year-olds with severe spelling problems, word processing software significantly improved literacy
• Carol Greig, Reading Buddies: an example of mp3 players increasing literacy skills for beginning readers
• effective tools for evaluating reading levels: KidBiz3000 and Achieve3000, Reading Assistant (available for both PC and Mac)
• software able to slow down audio is effective for students with auditory problems

In short, at the moment research shows technology does no worse than a live teacher, and can be used effectively to improve learning when used in conjunction with "live" teaching. Newer technologies provide increasingly effective results (audio analyzing, speech recognition, interactive). My feeling is that the new GarageBand, with built-in lessons, would be an example of this newer, more effective technology.

The full article is available for purchase at ASCD.org.

Since the invention of language, we've been using various technologies to store our data, from the Sumerian cuneiform scripts on tablets to the video files on your iPhone. While there are certain advantages to our modern systems of storage (try watching the latest Boston Legal episode on a clay tablet... talk about pixelation!), there seems to be a consistent pattern of decreasing life-span for the data storage mechanism.

In other words, an inverse relationship exists between longevity and modernity in terms of data storage technology: the more recently a technology is put into wide use, the less time it is expected to last.

There may be many reasons for this including planned obsolescence, free-market battles between proprietary technologies, and the fact that we can't know for sure how long a technology will last without actually testing it. Check back at this blog in 7,000 years and there'll be definitive data.

A corollary to this trend is the fact that we care less and less about where the data actually resides. So-called "cloud-computing" is an example of this. While humans continue to care about data, we are increasingly motivated by making the information important and the medium irrelevant.

The music industry is a good example of this. Those of us in our 40s can remember, and may still own, the same music in vinyl, eight-track tape, cassette tape, CD, and any number of digital format files. It used to be that you needed to play a record on a record player, a tape in a tape player, a CD in a CD player. Now, we can listen to our digital file on almost any device handily available, be it computer, iPod, iPhone, GPS, picture frame... probably even modern refrigerators.

The new strategy for longevity of data is adaptability. To wit: keep multiple versions, in multiple places, on multiple media.

And this is why we have backups of backups of backups.

Teach your students adaptability, so they can last.

And next time you see this message...

*Data from Wikipedia and Wired Magazine (Aug. 2008, One Life to Live, p. 46 - 47).

A brief article in the Clarion Ledger recently outlined the success of a program developed by Marcia Daft (coincidentally, a Mac user, as evidenced by her iWeb site) with a grant from the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, to integrate the arts into learning.

Her method involves integrating song, dance, poetry into subject specific learning. This is not a new technique, just ask the likes of Sesame Street, Grammar Rock or any number of educational kids programming shows.

The Arts Education Partnership, provides some interesting research data on arts in the curriculum to support this integrated pedagogy. For example, students who take arts classes have higher math and verbal SAT scores than students who do not.

What's the point?

The Mac is a perfect tool for a teacher wanting to integrate the arts into the curriculum: make those movies, take those pictures, write those songs!

The evidence is in: iLife improves teaching and learning. Start those Macs, leverage that learning

Scholastic has just released the 2008 Kids & Family Reading Report, and as much as the clear self-interests of Scholastic in funding this research have to be taken into account, the report makes some interesting findings with implications for teachers interested in technology integration:

• a majority of children think it is important to read for pleasure (68%)
• pleasure reading of books drops off steadily after the age of 8
• 2/3 prefer to read a physical book than read on a digital screen
• high frequency internet users are more likely to read books for fun every day
• 2/3 of children went online to find out more information regarding physical books they were reading
• parents who read frequently are 6 times more likely to have children that read often
• mothers read more, and recommend books more effectively, for their children than fathers

While these findings should be taken with a grain of salt, it seems that a big take-away for educators is that digital technology and book technology can work in synergy for a coordinated approach to developing children's literacy, and that the older a child gets, the more important digital information skills become.

"Advanced iPhone" will be a course coming to a high school near you.

Wired magazine published and interesting article, "Want to Remember Everything You'll Ever Learn?" by Gary Wolf, about Piotr Wozniak, the man behind a Windows program called SuperMemo that promises to improve your memory.

Perhaps a little too fundamentalist in his views for my comfort level, the article and Wozniak bring up an interesting point for educators:

...there is an ideal moment to practice what you've learned. Practice too soon and you waste your time. Practice too late and you've forgotten the material and have to relearn it. The right time to practice is just at the moment you're about to forget. Unfortunately, this moment is different for every person and each bit of information... Fortunately, human forgetting follows a pattern. We forget exponentially. A graph of our likelihood of getting the correct answer on a quiz sweeps quickly downward over time and then levels off. This pattern has long been known to cognitive psychology, but it has been difficult to put to practical use. It's too complex for us to employ with our naked brains.... Twenty years ago, Wozniak realized that computers could easily calculate the moment of forgetting.

It's worth taking a gander at the short Wikipedia entry on the "Forgetting Curve" suggesting mnemonics and repetition are the main techniques for improving memory, though, it should be noted that this has nothing to do with critical thinking or other cognitive skills. Thus, with the emphasis in education moving away from straight memorization of facts, and ubiquitous access to the internet when information is needed, it's not likely to be a glamorous addition to techniques of pedagogy. However, for second (third, fourth) language learning this research seems particularly useful in terms of vocabulary.

Don't forget to read this article ever twenty minutes for the remainder of the day.