A well-written report from The Apollo Research Institute
Thanks to Stephen for bringing this to our attention (again).
Future Work Skills 2020 ~ Stephen’s Web.
Here’s a direct link to the report.
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This is a continuation of the conversation started earlier.
This link looks like a good starting point – it lists a lot of important considerations related to the evaluation and selection of media.
Sadly, much of it is out of date. It lists computer software as one thing, and digital technology can’t really be lumped together as one thing anymore.
Instructional Media
Instructional Media: Selection and Use
Craig L. Scanlan, EdD, RRT, FAARC
The digital world has changed radically since 2003.
Things that have happened since 2003:
World of Warcraft (Blizzard Entertainment Inc., 2004)
Second Life (Linden Lab, 2003)
Facebook
Google became a verb
touch screens on phones, and now, almost everything
netbooks
tablets
..,.
The list is very long.
It’s hard for people to fully appreciate the magnitude of the change. This is the first time in history that the world in which our teachers grew up is radically different (technologically speaking) from the world in which their students are growing up. There have always been changes, and there were always things teachers could point to and say “We didn’t have those in MY day.” but never before have there been such fundamental changes to the ways we can learn and to the choices for learners.
Part of the result of this monumental change is that much research that’s been done in the area of educational technology is stale. Almost everything written about computers and education before, say, 2003 needs to be viewed very carefully, as much of it is simply irrelevant now.
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There’s a link to my blog posting in the LA Times. Cool.
Apparently I am one of a “sizable cadre of bloggers”…
– does that count as a citation, I wonder?
Michael Hiltzik: Looking for a reason to love the iPad – latimes.com.
I don’t “hate the iPad,” like the sizable cadre of bloggers given to proclaiming their distaste online. I’m merely indifferent to its supposed virtues, as I am to many other cultural phenomena I’m expected to find fascinating, like Ryan Seacrest and Pippa Middleton.
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Anyone know a a good dictionary/thesaurus app I can install on my PC?
I used to use the offline version of Websters, which I loved, but it is old and won’t install on my 64bit machine.
Lately I’ve been using WordWeb, but they just cut me off because I have flown on airplanes (apparently, that is all they need to know to determine that I’m not green enough).
How’s that for presumptuous?
All of a sudden I get this pop-up. It asks me some questions about how many flights I’ve taken this year. I have no idea WHY I’m being asked these questions, but I’m honest, so I answer them honestly. I’ve taken several flights this year – for business; to see family; and for holiday.
Once I enter my response, I am told I fly too much and can no longer access their dictionary for free. Presumably I am not environmentally conscious enough.
They didn’t ask if I maintain my own septic field (thereby NOT contributing to the waste management burden of my nearest city). I do.
They didn’t ask if I use the public water supply. I don’t. I have my own well: the water we drink is untreated, thereby avoiding the energy and resources required to treat reservoir water. They didn’t ask about that.
They didn’t ask how often I take a trip in my car for only one thing – i.e. how long do I save up errands so I can do them all with one trip. I’ve been doing that for several decades.
They also didn’t ask if I raise my own food, which I do. The animals I raise for food have good lives – they are safe; they have sufficient space to play; and they get fresh air and daylight every single day.
I wonder if those people who decided I wasn’t green enough look after their own garbage? How many bags of garbage do they produce each year?
I wonder if they even have any idea what life might be like for people living outside of a big city? In other words how to do things for yourself instead of hiring it done.
I wonder if they ever think about what happens to the stuff they flush down the toilet and pour down the sink (I do… I have to because it all stays on my own land).
I wonder how much of their food they raise themselves?
Or how much of their garbage they save to feed back to the poultry, who in turn use it to make eggs and meat. Do you suppose any of them just throw things away?
I am by no means perfect, and I have no doubt I could be doing more to reduce my impact on the planet, but with the same token WHERE DO THEY GET OFF DECIDING I’M NOT ENVIRONMENTALLY CONSCIOUS ENOUGH ON THE BASIS OF A SINGLE MEASURE?!?!?!?
WTF do they know about my life?
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This question was asked on one of the LinkedIn groups (AECT: Association for Educational Communications and Technology) I belong to. It got me thinking….
I decided to move my part of the conversation here because the notion interests me.
Here’s some of what I said:
For me, there’s also a distinction to be made between media and applications (and then also specific instances of particular kinds of applications).
When I am designing instruction, I start with my main objectives and then think about what I could use that would help me do that. Sometimes (often, actually) I have multiple objectives, like: writing a report; practicing collaborative editing, AND learning to use a ‘modern’ tool.
The first consideration will almost always be practical: if you don’t have the equipment, access, funding, and administrative permission (support is often too much to hope for) to use some media, then there’s rarely any point in pursuing that avenue further at this time. Sometimes it will be possible to secure the necessary prerequisites, in which case it’ll be important to have a reasoned argument for why this approach should be supported.
…
To me it all boils down to ROI (return on investment) – and I DON’T mean in a corporate sense. Investment in this case includes time spent – by the administrators, the teachers, the students, EVERYONE. It includes the amount of time needed by teachers to understand it as well as use it. Money is only one part of the picture. Deciding based on expected ROI also includes examining benefit that can be expected from doing it this way instead of some other way.
This assessment is difficult to do because it can not be made objective – so there will always be a grey area between the yes and no (which is often where the debates break out).
There are a whole lot of questions that should be asked which can ultimately help make a decision about what to use. In the end, that is the way to evaluate or assess media. Sometimes it can be done at a fairly high level of abstraction: should we allow wireless internet access in our school? Other times it must be done on a case by case basis: it would be foolish to forbid the use of digital games, but at the same time only some games will be suitable, and then only in some circumstances.
For example, I once spent 3 full days creating an animated example in PowerPoint that took 5 minutes to go through in class. I had 100 students in the class.
Is it worth spending 24 hours making an example that takes 5 minutes to demonstrate? Maybe. Did it help more students understand the concept than other, ‘cheaper’ approaches? It probably did (I didn’t do the studies to verify). Is it re-usable? You bet. Will it become stale? Not this one, as it dealt with a fairly fundamental concept. Was it a good use of my time? Not entirely – I could have designed it and then hired someone to make it, but that was not an option for me in this case.Perhaps it would be useful to compile a list of questions that need to be asked. For each situation, the questions should be ranked and arranged specifically for that situation. The answer to a particular question could end up being a deal-breaker in one situation, and irrelevant in another so there has to be some flexibility.
What I would find useful is a tool that would allow us to build a database of questions that we could select and rank. The user fills out a small questionnaire, which then automatically formulates an customized assessment form we could use. If you want to get fancy, you can specify minimum requirements.
What do you think such a tool should look like?
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What Do We Do When the Internet Mob Is Wrong? – Slashdot.
Something to think about:
“By now most people have heard the news and seen the picture of the boy who was killed over the new Nike sneakers. There are Facebook pages devoted to fist-shaking protests about materialism and greed. Yada yada yada. But while the scuffles over the shoes were real, the death was not. The photo was just a stock photo of some kid in a lab. We know this because of some old school reporters — Steve Earley and Justin Fentin of the Baltimore Sun. In the rush to celebrate crowdsourcing, many of us pooh-pooh the old media as ‘gatekeepers,’ but there are times when keeping that gate locked is a good idea. After all, if one of the crowd discovered the error, the signal would barely rise above the noise. There are people claiming that anyone questioning the facts is being disrespectful. Is there something we can do about the mobocracy? How can we support the best traditions of journalism while fixing the worst? How can we nurture accuracy?”
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Hear, hear:
Nerds and Male Privilege.
Y’see, one of the issues that nerd girls face is the fact that they are seen as girls first and anything else second. And before you flood my comments section demanding to know why this is a bad thing, realize that being seen as a “girl” first colors every interaction that they have within fandom. They’re treated differently because they are women.
…
Male privilege – again – is about what men can expect as the default setting for society. A man isn’t going to have everything about him filtered through the prism of his gender first. A man, for example, who gets a job isn’t going to face with suggestions that his attractiveness or that his willingness to perform sexual favors was a factor in his being hired, nor will he be shrugged off as a “quota hire”. A man isn’t expected to be a representative of his sex in all things; if he fails at a job, it’s not going to be extrapolated that all men are unfit for that job. A man who’s strong-willed or aggressive won’t be denigrated for it, nor are men socialized to “go along to get along”. A man can expect to have his opinion considered, not dismissed out of hand because of his sex. When paired with a woman who’s of equal status, the man can expect that most of the world will assume that he’s the one in charge. And, critically, a man doesn’t have to continually view the world through the lens of potential violence and sexual assault.
Now with this in mind, consider why being a girl first may be a hindrance to geek girls. A guy who plays a first person shooter – Call of Duty, Halo, Battlefield, what-have-you – online may expect a certain amount of trash talking, but he’s not going to be inundated with offers for sex, threats of rape, sounds of simulated masturbation or demands that he blow the other players – but not before going to the kitchen and getting them a beer/sandwich/pizza first. Men will also not be told that they’re being “too sensitive” or that “they need to toughen up” when they complain about said sexual threats.
Men also won’t have their opinions weighed or dismissed solely on the basis of how sexy or attractive they are. The most common responses a woman can expect in an argument – especially online – is that she’s fat, ugly, single, jealous, a whore, or a lesbian – or any combination thereof – and therefore her opinion is irrelevant, regardless of it’s actual merits. This is especially true if she’s commenting on the portrayal of female characters, whether in comics, video games or movies.
Very well said.
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I bought an iPad in September.
I was not really excited. There is no question that Apple products are sleek and good-looking. Beautiful even.
For some of us though, functionality is a bigger part of the user experience than how it looks, or how good I look when I’m using it in a public space. I’ve been in computer science for nearly 35 years. I feel no need to impress people with my tech savvy.
I bought this iPad because I do work in education and new media and I need to be able to see what people are making, doing, and talking about. Many apps for the ipad are available ONLY on the ipad. So I bought one.
It has a nice screen. The touch interface works well – most of the time (though it is certainly not as responsive or reliable as iPad junkies would have you believe).
There are some fun games available.
It’s pretty good – most of the time – for reading mail. It’s very slow and often requires you to re-start the app in order to move things along.
It’s mediocre at surfing the web – again: it’s slow, frequently hangs, and of course, there’s the whole “can’t do anything that requires flash of Java” thing (see later, under why I hate my iPad).
The sound is OK.
It’s fairly light; easy to carry around and the batteries last a pretty long time.
That’s about where my accolades end.
The list of reasons I hate my iPad is long and grows almost daily.
Why I Hate my iPad
Here are the first ten that pop into my head:
- You can’t initialize your iPad unless you have a computer.
- AND an iTunes account.
- My ability to personalize the device (it is MINE, right?) is extremely limited.
- Many of the apps can’t be personalized (what if don’t LIKE brown for my calendar)?
- It does not support flash.
- It does not support Java.
- It has no USB ports.
- Memory is limited.
- It can only do one thing at a time.
- There is no BACK button.
- There is only one way to do most things.
- You can’t put anything on it, except through iTunes.
- You can’t take anything off, except through iTunes.
- There are many things you can’t readily save elsewhere AT ALL.
Oh, yeah, and the camera SUCKS. (My DS takes better pictures.)
It also doesn’t record image information in the same way as other devices, like, my DS, my phone, and EVERY digital camera I have ever owned.
There are many more but these are the ones that popped into my head in the first 30 seconds. I’ll add more as they occur to me…..
Stay tuned.