Hi everyone,
Our two chapters of Davidson’s book for Monday give us provocative case studies of how educators might use new technologies to produce new, different kinds of learning, and to encourage their students to engage in that learning fully and actively. For Davidson, technologies like the iPod and video games allow for a kind of learning that has all kinds of possible uses in the classroom and beyond.
Since one way to approach the third paper is to expand Davidson’s thinking into new areas, to jump-start your thinking on that, for this blog post I’d like you to try imagining some possible new applications of technology in the classroom (or in a college/university environment more broadly) and think about how they might fit into Davidson’s theories. While the paper will ask you to research and analyze actual real-world examples, you don’t need to do that for this blog. Instead, be creative—imagine or invent a use of technology that would enhance or change your learning processes here at Temple in important, meaningful ways.
The “important and meaningful” part there is crucial to coming up with a strong response to this question. Don’t just come up with an idea that would make class or homework faster, easier, more entertaining, etc. Those are all important, but for Davidson, the technologies she discusses aren’t just convenient or engaging gadgets—they transform the very nature of how students learn. Your suggestion should shoot for that too!
The obvious first thought here is the iPhone or iPad, and there are certainly lots of potential apps and uses of those devices that might address these issues (many of which have already been developed). But think more creatively too—how might we use texting, Facebook, Twitter, phone cameras, or any of a number of other technologies to change the way we work in our classrooms?
To get full credit for this blog posting, you should quote, sandwich, and explain a passage from chapter 3 or 5 of Davidson’s book, and explain how your technological idea illustrates or addresses that passage—in looking for material to quote, remember to think of bigger-picture conceptual moments in her writing rather than narrative anecdotes.
Good luck, be creative, and have some fun with this—who knows, you might see your inventions in a classroom next fall!
Reminder: your response should go in the comments section for this post. It is due by midnight on Sunday, April 1st, the night before our Monday class, and should be at least 150 words. If you have any questions, let me know via email.
Debates in Digital Culture Section 18 
As discussed in class, we are living in the 21st century but are using many 20th century methods in the education system. I was lucky enough to attend a high school that was used more technology based than normal. There were smart boards in every classroom but that is about it. Most schools are not taking the advantage of using blogging platforms and electronics to teach their students. An interesting way teachers can use technology in the classrooms could be Facebook groups where they discuss their topics or using video chat to have guest speakers from around the country. Cathy H. Davidson describes what school is like today, “Efficiency was the byword of the day, in the world of work and in the world of school. Learning to pay attention as directed –through rote memorization and mastery of facts – was important, and schools even developed forms of rapid-fire question and answer such as the spelling bee and math quiz” (p 73). Schools are still using old methods to teach their students, and many people are wondering why our education system in not as good as some other countries. A reason is that many adults are trying to use the wrong method for children that grew up in a digitally based world. Using video chats and Facebook groups will connect students to each other and learn in brand new efficient ways.
Davidson, Cathy .“Project Classroom Makeover.” Now You See It. The Penguin Group, 2011. 74. Print.
According to Cathy H. Davidson, the last generation of college students who could incorporate old teaching techniques and the World Wide Web was in 2003 (Davidson 62). Those born before1983, would have no idea of how to incorporate the web into learning because the world wide web had not yet been invented, and those born after 1986, would have been born into the new digital era. This new digital era has taken over adolescents time and brain. Duke’s courage to try and transform iPods into teaching and learning devices, has grown to heights no one ever imagined it would. Although we have many learning applications and notebooks that are electronically ran to help enhance education for students, their are still many things about today’s education that reminds us of the sit and lecture era. An application that would help enhance this, is using things that interest your students, such as finding a game that could be played on a Xbox, for the boys who like video games, or a chat session between girls on Facebook or Twitter; then allowing each group to talk digitally through iChat or off laptops to have a discussion ready for class. These ideas seem far fetched but it’s the next step for bettering our education. As our digital world keeps improving so does our education system of teaching and learning. The two need to meet on an even level, and at this moment the digital world is winning by an extremem amount.
Davidson, Cathy .“Project Classroom Makeover.” Now You See It. The Penguin Group, 2011. 74. Print.
There have been some arguments on how the United States can make changes within schools so that children can be competitive amongst those around the world. There are many reasons why students may be failing courses, but one in particular remains a large threat to student academics. In the third chapter of Cathy Davidson’s book “Now You See It,” Cathy explains that children are failing school due to their boredom and lack of rigor. She explains that, “Kids aren’t failing because school is too hard but because it doesn’t interest them. It doesn’t capture their attention” (76). The usage of technology should be more profound within a twenty-first century classroom. In order to combat such lack of motivation I believe that portable video cameras such as the Flip Camera or other miniature cameras should be incorporated into curriculum. Portable cameras offer the chance for students to capture and replay a meaningful and insightful moment in their daily life. It also allows students to record academic activities such as choreography, lectures, art demonstrations, and even laboratory skills. This in part allows students to capture moments relevant to their studies firsthand, which then strengthens interest within the subject. The cameras allow students to share insights with one another through crowdsourcing, which is defined by Davidson as, “inviting a group to collaborate on a solution to a problem” (64). The ability for the camera to upload and send videos to one another allows students to share critiques and criticisms also allows for more participation and excitement in class curriculum. Portable cameras could offer many possibilities for students to engage with their studies and one another, in order to make the classroom a more engrossing experience.
Davidson, Cathy N. “Project Classroom Makeover.” Now You See It: How the Brain Science of Attention Will Transform the Way We Live, Work, and Learn. New York: Viking, 2011. 61-104. Print.
As we delve more and more into digital culture we are going to keep finding new ways to use the internet as our tool. However as more and more technology comes out the demand for certain types of technology starts to decline. For example today there are so many social networking sites, the digital world does not need a new form of social networking similar to Facebook or Twitter. This is the problem with Google Plus it has a lot of potential but , it is being marketed as a social networking site but people do not need a new social networking site. Google Plus has a lot of potential. However, hope is not lost thanks to crowdsourcing, “Crowdsourcing means inviting a group to collaborate on a solution to a problem, but that term didn’t exist in 2003 when we conducted the iPod experiment. It was coined by Jeff Howe of Wired Magazine in 2006 to refer to the widespread Internet practice of posting an open call requesting help in completing some task, ranging from writing code to creating a winning logo. Crowdsoucring is outsourcing to the crowd” (64-65). Google plus should be crowdsourced to college campuses for educational purposes, similar to the iPod study. Students should be challenged to use Google plus as a format for group projects and study groups. Also the fact that students use Google docs and Gmail frequently adding Google plus just seems like a natural progression.
Davidson, Cathy N. Now You See It: How the Brain Science of Attention Will Transform the Way We Live, Work, and Learn. New York: Viking, 2011. Print.
Integrating new technologies in classrooms is becoming an imperative part of changing the ways in which students are taught and how they learn. One issue that is never going to completely go away is students missing class due to illness or other unforeseen circumstances. A way to combat this would be with the use of technologies like Skype which allow for video chat. There are already a number of Universities that allow for lectures to be recorded and put online for the students’ benefit, but it would be more beneficial for the students to be able to participate in class even if they were unable to attend class. In addition to this, there are online classes, but it is still not exactly the same structure as would be provided to have in class lectures with the possibilities of being able to participate even if the student is not in the classroom. Making the changes to incorporate more technology into the classrooms and the teaching styles of today’s students is something that needs to be done. Davidson notes an important, and strongly related, question that needs to be considered which is: “how do we make over the twentieth-century classroom to take advantage of all the remarkable digital benefits of the twenty-first century?” (71). In stating this, she is basically saying that we need to change the way we teach students because the ways they were taught in the 19th and 20th centuries isn’t going to work anymore. This relates back to the idea of incorporating a Skype style feature to lectures because it would allow students to be more proactive about their education even if they are unable to attend lectures due to unavoidable circumstances.
Davidson, Cathy N. Now You See It: How the Brain Science of Attention Will Transform the Way We Live, Work, and Learn. New York: Viking, 2011. Print.
The classes I take at Temple often require lots and lots of Mathematics. Whether it is finding a solution to a Chemistry or Calculus problem, these procedures take a very long time. I regularly waste a lot of it just trying to find descriptions to teach me how to solve these problems in a different way or someone besides my teacher to explain what I need to do. From past experiences I know that your peers can also serve as the best tutors and it frequently happens that working with people that are on the same level of understanding as you helps the learning process. But living on such a large and busy campus, it’s not always easy to find these peers and even if they are found, meeting at a place and at a time that works for everyone can also be rather challenging. So to solve this problem I would propose for Temple to produce a website that would allow students either to post questions from their Math and Science classes or reply to these questions with video tutorials that would include step by step explanations and audio responses that can be paused and played at any time. Not only will this new technology save students time it will also propose a new way of learning. In her book, Now You See It, Cathy Davidson makes it clear that the reason many students fail in school is because the educational system has become so narrow and it is obvious that every person needs a different procedure in order to learn. To broaden our way of learning this website could provide solutions for every type of learner. The visual learner would watch videos of a peer solving a problem, an auditory learner would strictly listen to explanations and the kinesthetic learner would be provided with tutorials that require them to get up and start moving. Digital peer mentoring can get rid of the boring process of looking everything up in a 500 page textbook that nobody wants to carry around and provide an efficient way for students to teach each other. When a student can successfully explain a complex idea to another student they can gain more confidence in what they’re doing. Davidson writes, “Without confidence in your ability to learn something new, it is almost impossible to see what you have to change in order to succeed against a new challenge. Confidence in your ability to learn is confidence in your ability to unlearn, to switch assumptions or methods or partnerships in order to do better. This is true not only for you, as an individual, but for whole institutions”. But because confidence might not be enough and because every aspect in the digital world works around competition, the program could run on a system of extra credit points, so for every helpful tutorial a student creates he or she will be granted bonus points in his or her class. Davidson later states, “We have spent a lot of time and money building elaborate systems for rewarding individual excellence and punishing individual failure, as if worth had an on/off switch. What we are beginning to see are the ways that we can take our individual energies and work toward goals that accomplish something greater than we imagined on our own. As we shall see, some visionaries are also beginning to use digital interaction to come up with new ways of working together to envision solutions to seemingly intractable problems”. A website for digital tutorials can be a proposal for Davidson’s difficulty with success and failure in the classroom and the future of learning that does not require extravagant or expensive concepts.
Technology is continuously changing and most of our younger generation revolves and relies on these new technologies. Many are stepping away from the traditional ways of teaching and are trying to find new ways we can use technology to get students more engaged and wanting to learn. In Cathy Davidson’s, Now You See it, stated “There schools hadn’t changed much, but at home, online, they were already information searchers” (62). When students go home they are constantly using technology so why not integrate it into the school setting.
My idea is using Aim or another instant messaging service inside or outside the classroom. Generally in a group chat. Using group instant messaging (Aim) allows students to share their ideas with everyone is that group in a short statement/ idea quickly. Also these messaging system now allow its users to not allow contact each others using text but also sharing pictures, videos, links and video chatting on in one simple device in a quick manner. Using and instant messaging system is following the idea of crowd sourcing, which is the idea of a group collaborating on a solution (64). Online writing works and benefits students, “ Their writing online, at least in their blogs, was incomparably better in the traditional term papers they wrote for the class” (101). Students benefiting from doing assignments online and they were even better than papers they were writing in class. Even though instant messaging isn’t the same, its is the begin stage. Students can share their ideas on specific topic, which can later form into main ideas for their papers and even thesis statements to get others students thinking. Aim and other instant messaging can help student get their main points across while receiving feedback (conversation form) from other students and their teacher in a timely manner.
Davidson, Cathy N. “Project Classroom Makeover.” Now You See It: How the Brain Science of Attention Will Transform the Way We Live, Work, and Learn. New York: Viking, 2011. 61-104. Print.
With all of the new technology being developed schools and universities are trying to determine the most effective way to incorporate them into the classroom. So far, there hasn’t been any consistent way for this to be done. At my high school, we had smart boards during my freshmen year, but they were removed a year later because they conflicted with another piece of technology. Schools are attempting to change the learning experience for today’s student’s, but in my opinion they should focus on other aspects. Rather then using more technology during class, there should be certain times where people are forced into doing group work while using online resources. Cathy Davidson discusses the benefits of working in groups when she says “You train in groups so you can learn from one another not only techniques but your own weaknesses.” (139) When you work in groups it gives you another perspective that is usually very beneficial. At Temple, I’ve had one class that attempted to assign a paper that people would work on in pairs. Although they assigned it like this there was very little structure and guidance and basically people each wrote half a paper and just combined them. That didn’t really accomplish very much in terms of working together. I think it makes a lot more sense to work in this way, but people need to use the right tools in order to do so. The thing is, we already have the tools to do this. Google provides everything in one place. With Google docs, gmail, gchat, and google + we already have everything we need. These tools make it extremely easy to work with other people on the same project. The only thing that needs to happen now is for more partner and group work to be assigned. By only using new technology in the class room, the learning process hasn’t really changed and until we start trying out new methods like online group work there will continue to be very little change.
Although many technologies are part of the 21st century, the public education system is still using the 20 century; handwritten notes and reading out of a textbook. Some schools utilize the technology in their school, while some school does not. Teachers are always wonder why their students are not paying attention in class. Davidson stated, “‘Efficiency’ was the byword of the day, in the world of work and in the world of school. Learning to pay attention as directed –through rote memorization and mastery of facts – was important, and schools even developed forms of rapid-fire question and answer such as the spelling bee and math quiz” (73). In other words, she is saying that school today is still like the 20th century. In order to get students to engage in class, teachers should utilize the technology because today generation, students are all about the technology. For instance, the teacher may create a social networking site and create a blog to get the students to participate with what the class is discussing.
Technology continues to grow and evolve on a daily basis. It feels like every time you turn your head in today’s society a new digital device has hit the markets. In chapter three of Cathy Davidson’s book Now You See It she talks about how the use of digital technology can transform the nature in which students learn. Social networks allow people all around the world to connect and share their own personal thoughts and ideas with each other. However, what if Facebook wasn’t only used as a way to meet new people and connected with current friends and family? What if there was a way to incorporate it into education? I feel if teachers can incorporate Facebook as their new way to teach their daily lesson plans then the nature in which students learn can change in a positive way. Facebook has a feature in which a user can create a group page. Teachers would be able to organize each topic they teach by creating a new Facebook group for each topic. This would allow students to actively discuss the course material at home with their friends, family, and fellow classmates. In a sense, Facebook would become an online blog for students. The advantage of using Facebook over a blog website is that the amount of people that go on Facebook daily is much larger than any blog site out there. Therefore, users from around the world would be able to add to classroom discussion. This will expose students to new thoughts and ideas that they wouldn’t hear if they only discussed topics with the class alone. Davidson states that “Relevance has been proved to be a crucial factor for keeping students in high school, especially mid- and lower-level students. Tie what kids learn in school to what they can use in their homes, their families, and their neighborhood- and vice versa- and not surprisingly, that relevance kicks their likelihood of staying in school up a few notches” (76). In other words, students tend to drop out of high school due to the fact that they can’t connect or relate to any of the material being taught. If teachers can find a way to educate students on material in which they can use and apply outside of the classroom then students will feel that the information they are being taught is relevant and therefore stay in school. I feel that by incorporating Facebook into the classroom not only will a student’s interest go up but they will also feel like the material being taught to them has some sort of relevance. Students want to be educated in a way that allows them to take what they learned and apply it to home, work, life experiences, etc. What one technology can do all of that if brought into the classroom? Facebook! Students would not only being exposed to more knowledge but they also would be working on their communication skills as well. Communication skills are vital to becoming successful outside of the classroom. You can have the greatest ideas known to mankind stored in brain but if you don’t know how to share those ideas with others then they are useless. In addition, if you do share those ideas then you need to be able to accept others thoughts and opinions, even if they disagree with your thoughts. I believe that Facebook is the answer to teaching students relevant information that can be applied to situations outside of the classroom.
Davidson, Cathy N. “Project Classroom Makeover.” Now You See It: How the Brain Science of Attention Will Transform the Way We Live, Work, and Learn. New York: Viking, 2011. 61-104. Print.
Being raised in a different cultural environment I can see role of technology in the process of studying at Temple from a whole new perspective. The availability to technology at Temple is amazing. The Tech Center, the Data Bases and the application process itself are steps taken by the university in order to facilitate and improve the studying experience of the student. However, it is easy to notice a discrepancy between the multitude of technological devices and apps designed for them and the very few of them that are actually incorporated in the study process. The study experience is still based on the 20th century needs and is structured as Cathy Davidson mentions in her article ” on the fundamental principle in education: hierarchy based on credentials. The authority principle, based on top-down expertise, is the foundation of formal education, from kindergarten playgrounds to advanced graduate courses”(77). That means that given the opportunity to ease and improve our learning experience we are still loyal to the old mentality in what studying concerns. It is difficult to figure out whom is to be blamed for this. Being a Biochemistry Major most of the time I am faced with very difficult and very complex problems that require a very keen sense of problem solving as well as a constant dedication to study and research. I find it surprising that there is no network within the university that would connect the students involved in the same science courses and that would facilitate the problem solving and the change of opinions in the process of problem solving. There have been minor attempts at doing that by posting on the blackboard the list of the students that have the same major or by offering the possibility to mass emails that somehow connect all the students but I don’t see how that can contribute to the enhancement of the problem solving techniques. As Cathy Davidson mentions in her article about the result of iPod introduction in the studying experience “Students who had grown up connected digitally gravitated to ways that the iPod could be used for collective learning. They turned the iPods into social media and networked their learning in ways that we did not anticipate”(80). That means that we are to “be held responsible” for the lack of such networks in our university. We are the new generation that has to profit from their use and we are the ones that know how to set them up and how to improve them by collectively participating in their creation.
New technology to enhance entertainment and efficiency are being released every single day. While this new technology has the potential to be beneficial to learning and schooling, eight out of ten times it is only another distraction to kids trying to get an education. Although children are able to purchase these new technological developments themselves, most schools are still stuck in the olden way of teaching, As Davidson describes in her book Now You See It, “Efficiency was the byword of the day, in the world of work and in the world of school. Learning to pay attention as directed through rote memorization and mastery of facts was important, and schools even developed forms of rapid-fire question and answer such as the spelling bee and math quiz” (p 73). With that being said, the less distractions the better. I believe a device that would be very valuable to a teacher or professor would be a gadget that could turn off or control all technology in the classroom used personally by the students. There are many times throughout the school day when children do not pay attention due to playing on their laptop, cell phone, iPad, or any other type of device that they bring into the classroom. If the person in charge had the ability to determine when and when not a student could use them, it would force the kids to pay attention until sufficient technological advancements were made within the school.
Davidson, Cathy. “Project Classroom Makeover.” Now You See It: How the Brain Science of Attention Will Transform the Way We Live, Work, and Learn. New York: Viking, 2011. 61-104. Print.
New technology to enhance entertainment and efficiency are being released every single day. While this new technology has the potential to be beneficial to learning and schooling, eight out of ten times it is only another distraction to kids trying to get an education. Although children are able to purchase these new technological developments themselves, most schools are still stuck in the olden way of teaching, As Davidson describes in her book Now You See It, “Efficiency was the byword of the day, in the world of work and in the world of school. Learning to pay attention as directed through rote memorization and mastery of facts was important, and schools even developed forms of rapid-fire question and answer such as the spelling bee and math quiz” (73). With that being said, the less distractions the better. I believe a device that would be very valuable to a teacher or professor would be a gadget that could turn off or control all technology in the classroom used personally by the students. There are many times throughout the school day when children do not pay attention due to playing on their laptop, cell phone, iPad, or any other type of device that they bring into the classroom. If the person in charge had the ability to determine when and when not a student could use them, it would force the kids to pay attention until sufficient technological advancements were made within the school.
Davidson, Cathy. “Project Classroom Makeover.” Now You See It: How the Brain Science of Attention Will Transform the Way We Live, Work, and Learn. New York: Viking, 2011. 61-104. Print.
From the very start of chapter 5, I knew I’d be discussing the Davidson’s mentioning of Ender’s Game (as it’s the very book I’m reading right now), and thankfully it brings up what I’ve been writing about, which is collaboration and its recent intensity boom with the rise of the internet. From the chapter- “From this project, Mr. Germain has let the kids create their own groups, and they can work in a group of any size from one to five. Some kids chose to work alone, and so long as the student is able to provide a justification for working individually, Mr. Germain approves it.”
With my recent writings I’ve been thinking mostly that the recent development of intense group thought-sharing and hyper-collaboration has been the “next step”, or a total improvement, in how anybody accomplishes anything anymore. But the passage indicates this sentiment is not absolutely shared. “Part of this lesson is to analyze the advantages and disadvantages of different ways of working: independent versus group thinking, delegation of tasks, how some people step up to challenges and others let you down…”. The teaching style of Mr. Germain clearly shows that group-work is gaining more weight as an important early skill, but the fact that there are doubts makes me question whether the very old individual efforts should actually be forgotten.
Technology surrounds us on a daily basis now and children younger and younger are becoming tech savvy much faster. So using technology in the classroom is a great thing and can be useful in many ways than one. In the book “Now You See It” Cathy Davidson discusses and exercise in Duke University where all of the incoming freshmen and other students that create apps and convince their professors to use them will get free iPods. Davidson states, “The iPod experiment was not an investment in technology. It was an investment in a new form of attention, one that didn’t require the student to always face forward, learn from on high, memorize what was already a given, or accept knowledge as something predetermined and passively absorbed” (Davidson 69). In other words, the experiment gave the students a different learning experience that was outside of the norm. Since people are more tech savvy and can normally learn a song or commercial with just a few listens why not create songs with the key terms or information that has to be learned. For example, there are lots of terms that students need to learn for history or science for example and you could create a catchy tune with a beat and easily begin to not only memorize the terms but understand how to apply them as well. There are lots of audio programs to work with such as Audacity, which is even free. Students would have fun trying to rhyme terms singing, rapping or just using auto tune to have some fun. People memorize songs easily and can usually recite their favorite without evening to have to hear it. The teacher or professor could then send out the best of the best or even post all of the songs for the students to hear and have create a “playlist” just for all of these songs that were created by the students. It’s also a great tool to have and know how to use editing programs for the future and will be a great asset for a lot of jobs in todays work force.
Davidson, Cathy N. “Project Classroom Makeover.” Now You See It: How the Brain Science of Attention Will Transform the Way We Live, Work, and Learn. New York: Viking, 2011. 61-104. Print.
Twitter’s hashtaging ability could be used for feedback for students and even collaboration between teachers. Hashtaging a title for twitter picture like #Assignment12A, and an art student can upload a photo for inspiration to a place where other students and the professor can view and tweet back feedback. This works in the same way Zotero does for our class and posting sources to the site. The collaborating and sharing with a few simple clicks on a mobile phone incorporates twitter into digital learning. This idea exploits the reality that most students in university in day are tech savvy enough to utilize there available technology to work for them. The idea of incorporating social media into the equation (something that students are already on a lot helps in the application of the tool, since few will need assistance mastering it): “The real treasure trove was to be found in the students’ innovations. Working together, and often alongside their professors, they came up with far more learning apps for their iPods than anyone—even at Apple—had dreamed possible… Interconnection was the part the students grasped before any of us did. Students who had grown up connected digitally gravitated to ways that the iPod could be used for collective learning. They turned iPods into social media and networked their learning in ways we did not anticipate” (Davidson). Davidson points this out in her piece, students are the salvation for their own learning–meaning that the savvy of students with this social media environment will help them in their collaboration in the classroom. If students can sporadically check and keep updated on what other students are adding to the collection of ideas, they can respond and be inspired themselves.
Davidson, Cathy N. “Project Classroom Makeover.” Now You See It: How the Brain Science of Attention Will Transform the Way We Live, Work, and Learn. New York: Viking, 2011. 61-104. Print.
Today’s students are no longer the people our educational system was designed to teach. Today’s students think and process information fundamentally differently from their predecessors. The most effective thing the educational system can do is to adapt to the digital world we all live in today. Today’s digital natives in grades K-12 have already grown-up with the emergence of digital technology into our daily lives. Therefore, by properly making use of technologies such as, video chat, blogs and video games the digital immigrants in today’s educational system will find a common language amongst digital immigrants as test scores undoubtedly improve. Personally, as a student, I can attest to the boring manner in which most of my professors conduct their courses. Many professors have lost touch with their students because the students refuse to learn in the same old-fashioned way that the professors were originally taught. I can also attest to the fact that once my high school incorporated smart boards into every classroom, learning became much more interactive and even fun at times. As both students and teachers were being exposed to new ways to teach and learn, our time began to be used much more efficiently. As far as I know, most high schools have not gone as far to have smart boards installed into their classrooms. However as more and more schools across the country begin to realize the benefits that inherently come with installing a high-grade piece of technology into the classroom. In Cathy Davidson’s book, “Now You See It” she explains that, ”Kids aren’t failing school because its too hard but because it doesn’t interest them. It doesn’t capture their attention (76).” Now that we are in the twenty-first century it is due time we incorporate the technology we use everyday, into our classroom’s. In order to accomplish an order as tall as fundamentally redefining the educational system as a whole, a special product needs to come to fruition. When I think of the problems that I encounter day-to-day as a college student, one of the first things that comes to mind is taking a test in a crowded lecture hall. With so many kids crammed into such a small place, concentrating on taking a test is no easy task. That is why I envision distributing a pair of special headphones to each student taking a test. These headphones are completely noise cancelling, and provide their own soothing soundtrack that can be adjusted. As expected, the headphones do not allow students to play their own music. Admittingly, this may not make learning an easy or more exciting thing. But when we think about the technology and capabilities we have in our hands, it would be foolish not to apply what we have and know into a field as crucial as education. A simple change to the way we efficiently take tests in a crowded environment may prove to be the piece of technology that inspires the next great thing to come to a classroom near you!
Davidson, Cathy N. “Project Classroom Makeover.” Now You See It: How the Brain Science of Attention Will Transform the Way We Live, Work, and Learn. New York: Viking, 2011. 61-104. Print.
Facebook is a website that is always taking on a different role. It is mostly used for communication and connecting people from all over the world, but up until recently Facebook has also been a site used for advertising, games, applications, and sharing links from different websites to people’s profiles. Sooner or later Facebook will be used as a classroom function and this could be an online class or a side part of a class (such as this blog). Although there are many legalities with teacher/student frienships on social networking sites, I think there could be a new way to make professional Facebook accounts for school. These accounts could then form groups with their classmates and teachers without any legal troubles and most importantly further their classroom experience. Teachers could assign students to blog through Facebook, like certain pages, join other groups, read article apps, etc. In Cathy N. Davidson’s book, “Now You See It”, chapter 5 discusses how Duke University was among the first universities to apply a new technology to the classroom, being the iPod. To her surprise the iPod turned out to be a very useful tool to students. She states, “and they began exploring apps, developing applications that could be added to the iPod’s repertoire of abilities without Apple having to give away its proprietary code. In other words, the iPod could still remain an iPod with its own distinctive characteristics, but it could change and morph as new features were added and new capabilities emerged, including some developed by users. To me, this was a conceptual breakthrough: that a commercial product might also be susceptible to consumer customization, a way of extending the infinitely changeable open-source properties of the Internet itself to a product with a far more fixed, finite identity” (Davidson 75). This relates directly to Facebook and how it could change with the help of its consumers. Davidson never thought a “toy” could be a tool for learning, and I’m sure many people don’t believe Facebook a social community could potentially be used for education either. Facebook could “change and morph” new features so it could be like the revolutionary breakthrough with the iPod. It’s literally the same concept just two different technologies, but if one has been proven to work well then there is no harm in trying to use a social media as a means of educating either.
Davidson, Cathy N. “Project Classroom Makeover.” Now You See It: How the Brain Science of Attention Will Transform the Way We Live, Work, and Learn. New York: Viking, 2011. 69-113. Electronic.
Despite the shortcomings of public US school systems in the 21st century, pioneers in education are coming up with ways to utilize technology to promote learning, such as Duke University’s experimentation with the Apple iPod. “The iPod experiment [at Duke],” Professor Cathy Davidson explains is, not surprisingly, “an acknowledgement that the brain is, above all, interactive, that it selects, repeats, and mirrors, always, constantly, in complex interactions with the world” (69-70). We have been interactively learning throughout human history, from creating fire and the wheel, to apprenticing, to interning, and through interactive “alternate reality” or “virtual reality” gaming. We have always been able to learn by doing. How we learn, however, has changed. For many 20th century Americans, learning new skills—valuable skills that were needed in order to work and make a living, first in industrial America and then corporate America—meant formal training and educating. Today, in a world of accessibility, “the chief mode of informal learning for a new generation of students ha[s] been changed,” Davidson states, “by the World Wide Web” (70). Rather than forcing students to learn what politicians think they must learn in order to become active members of their society, the Internet and technologies that use it are allowing young people to (1) learn about their interests (2) share and combine what they learn to make astoundingly creative and innovative ideas and products and (3) profit and prosper. The education of tomorrow is no longer learning everything you’re told to learn, but combining both formal and informal education to create well-rounded graduates, but also confident graduates who have had the liberty to explore their interests, strengthen their innate skills, and utilize themselves to solve substantial problems.
One way to create such confident and employable graduates is to incorporate real problems into their education as early as possible. Though we may be young, our ideas are not guaranteed to be just as naïve. If you feed students with simplified issues, the solutions will likely be simplified and unusable. However, the inverse is also possible. Similar to Duncan Germain’s Creative Productions class, university students need a course with a very loose curriculum that takes issues—local, national, international, whatever!—and tries to solve or improve them. Students can spend time studying the causes and proposed solutions to a problem. They can have online videoconferences with officials and academics; they can take apart a product and tinker with its parts; they can grow a food and try to make it more resilient. Through technology and the Web, they can build and store their research on a central site or server in order to create a collective information base about the issue. The students can then spend more time, either in groups or as individuals, creating proposals to solve the problem. After coming up with solutions, the groups must make their presentations as interactive and appealing as possible to their fellow classmates. They must do more than just PowerPoint presentations because more is required to present an idea in the 21st century. During presentations, groups should have the opportunity to question and debate with one another, similar to how the British Parliament works, except students’ goals should not aim to prove other groups wrong, but to work out which ideas are the best and which ones need more thought. The final step of the process is coming up with a class-wide solution and publishing or creating it somehow, such as on a website or in a film, product, paper, etc. The whole world will be able to review, critique, and possibly use their research, ideas, and products. Creating interactive, real world courses requires students to create and strengthen numerous skills, like research, interviewing, advertising and marketing, fundraising, product development, writing, and web publishing. These types of interactive courses that mix informal brainstorming and critical thinking with valuable skills teach students that they have to capability to change the world. All they need are some guidance, some confidence, and each other.
Davidson, Cathy .“Project Classroom Makeover.” Now You See It. The Penguin Group, 2011. 69-70. Print.
From the moment students enter kindergarden they are taught to follow a twentieth century top-down form of education. For as long as public school systems have been in practice, it has come along with a strictly set mold in which each student is expected to adapt and pass through. Principals, teachers, school and class rules all maintain a constant restraint on the ones they teach. But this method of learning is showing to not be as successful as it may have once been. In the book, Now You See It, Cathy Davidson says, “we wondered what these astonishing young over achievers would do if given the chance not to follow the rules, but to make them. (p.64)” After a series of experiments, it has been found that giving students the tools they need to make the rules may be just the tools they need to create a more successful education. As Davison goes on to say, “good learning between student and teacher is inspired by the three key factors for educational success; rigor, relevance, and relationships. (p. 76)” Within these three factors is where I believe the future of education is held.
To spark an interest within students, teachers and the entire education system needs to be relatable and relevant to students, helping them understand which ways the information being learned is useful. Not only does the interest lie within the material, but also in the way its presented. I believe that if teachers would use Facebook, Twitter, blogs, and texting to get in contact and relate with students that there would be more successful feedback. Teachers should have Twitters and tweet assignments or pictures or links or anything that their students could benefit from in a direct technological way. By using this technology teachers could see their students in their natural habitat and how they learn and respond verses only judging them on a standardized set of capabilities. It would also be interesting if students in a classroom could work on coming up with solutions to a problem such as the gaming challenges of Jane McGonigal. Imagine a test in which you all log on as a classroom at the same time and come up with as many creative solutions to the problem as possible and then being tested on your thinking and creative skills instead of a standard of true or false. If education was presented in a more relevant and interesting way, more students would be ready to learn.
Davidson, Cathy N. “Project Classroom Makeover.” Now You See It: How the Brain Science of Attention Will Transform the Way We Live, Work, and Learn. New York: Viking, 2011. 61-104. Print.