Posted on 21st July 2008 by Judy Breck in Mobile Learning
cellphone, education, learning, mobile, students
This afternoon I went to first showing of the afternoon of the new Batman movie, “The Dark Knight.” About ten minutes before the scheduled start of the trailers ahead of the movie, I entered the theater seating about 300 — one of seven in the multiplex on Third Avenue at 86th Street in Manhattan. The screen was dark and the theater about half filled, mostly with teenagers. As I came down the darkened aisle from the back I noticed the rows were dotted with little lights, which were the screens of mobile devices the kids were using as they waited for things to start happening on the screen.
A major excuse given for prohibiting students from bringing their mobiles into schools is that the kids will use them to disrupt class time. The deportment of the same age group that is not trusted by schools was certainly not a problem today. The little screens were turned off when the entertainment began and there was no sound from any of the devices that interrupted the movie. This group of young people demonstrated that they use their mobiles a lot — and that they can resist interrupting when that is appropriate. Sure, Batman is more interesting than school work usually is, but maybe by using the mobiles for some of the education activities we can make that more interesting for this generation.
It is interesting too that trust sells movie tickets — as two ferryboats full of people demonstrate in this movie that is a huge hit with teenagers.
Posted on 31st January 2008 by Judy Breck in Golden Age of Learning
blogging, discovery, dna, network, science, SEO, skills, students, writing
Yesterday I made a presentation to a group of about 30 gifted teenagers (15-19 year-olds) about opportunities blogging and the burgeoning search engine optimization (SEO) field offered them now and in the future. I explained how they could make money writing blog posts, and that doing so in high school and college was a very effective way to hone their writing talent and build a skill they could use in many ways throughout their lives.
To introduce the SEO discussion, I quoted an email I received this week from a colleague in the open education efforts: “I have been connecting with friends in Silicon Valley that have knowledge of SEO gurus. Given the enormous economic impact of an optimized site, hot SEO people are among the highest compensated folks in the web-industry these days.” The kids were amazed. Only a couple of them had heard of search engine optimization.
I had begun the talk by telling the group that the book in the picture I was projecting on the screen we were looking at was my textbook from 1958, the year I graduated from college. I explained that I have kept the book because in terms of what has happened in biology in the past 50 years, the book is now quite quaint: it does not mention DNA.
For the young people in my audience, SEO is apparently in the same state of obscurity as DNA was when I was their age. In 1958, Crick and Watson had discovered the double helix and the genetic coding method it held for replicating life. Biologists have worked through the half century since to understand the new science of genetics and to implement its powers. In 1958 the huge implications we now know of DNA were barely hinted.
Can it be that the network structures over which search is being optimized as the 21st century method of commerce and communication are discoveries as important as DNA was? I think they are. The challenge for educators is to understand the new network science and to implement its powers for learning.
Using SEO for education means optimizing open education resources (OER) so the search engines can find them when students look for what they want to learn. Just because kids are early adopters of computers, we cannot assume they should have to figure out SEO for learning resources. They don’t yet know what that is, best I can tell.
Posted on 28th February 2007 by Judy Breck in Mobile Learning
learning, mobile, rheingold, schools, students, todd
The time has come for mobile learning. This is the year: 2007. If you are an optimist you can say that the stars are aligned. If you are more the tempest type, you can join Todd Richmond in saying: the educational sector will be dragged into the future kicking and screaming by the next perfect storm.
Genuine engagement of students with the knowledge available online has been put off for a decade. Wired schools usually have firewalls, making what the kids can look at online selective from the central office. Wired schools put computers in labs or just have one or two in a classroom, so that youngsters have their hands off of keyboards for most of the day. Even online classes tend to be repositioned versions of classrooms from the old analog education system of the 20th century. Although there are bountiful good intentions and elaborate efforts that have accomplished these things, learning is still far from a direct engagement of the school age generation with the new location of and new interaction with what is known by humankind online.
Now it is obvious how 21s century students will engage that knowledge: they will study it directly, interacting with it individually — they will hold it in their hands and interface it with their minds. They will do that with their mobiles, with the portable computers they already have in their pockets.
These are the aligned stars of 2007—the elements of the perfect storm: the kids have the mobiles (cell phones), open education resources online abound, mobile technology is roaring toward broadband with all the bells and whistles of interaction and video and the like, the W3C Mobile Initiative has set a course toward mobile browsing of the internet which will open more and more online knowledge content for learning from mobiles.
The tens of thousands of mobilists gathered last month in Barcelona will have a role in bringing mobile learning forward this year, and if you are one of them I urge you to get to work on mobile learning and be part of the next big thing. Universities, museums, laboratories, individual experts and other keepers of analog knowledge can, should — and I believe will — open their knowledge increasingly to mobile learning in coming months. Gamers will move into mobiles for learning. Teachers will ask students to take their mobiles out of their pockets for integration into the learning process.
And the kids? The first students born in the 21st century are finishing the first grade of school this spring. Teenagers around the planet already have made the mobile basic to their way of life. As Howard Rheingold has written: The tools for cultural production and distribution are now in the pockets of 14 year olds. If we do not morph learning into the mobile venue, the young generation will do it themselves. They are doing that with their music, their pictures, their friendships and (especially in developing countries) with new businesses and services. The day is upon education for: no more pencils, no print books, no more analog backward looks.
Posted on 13th February 2007 by Judy Breck in Networks
apprentice, astronomy, students, virtual
This week eSchool News reports: “in the latest frontier of astronomy, known as ‘virtual astronomy,’ professional astronomers are increasingly enlisting the help of students and other novice stargazers to sift through these data in search of the next great breakthrough.”
What is happening in astronomy is at the leading edge of virtual apprenticeship—something that will replace uncountable hours of boredom experienced in the past by young people in schools. The Internet can connect youngsters to real places of productivity and research: businesses, laboratories and venues where knowledge is refined and art is made. In the agricultural world of a few centuries ago, the kids learned farming in real barns and fields. In the industrial times that created schools, children were sent to schools instead of factories (a good idea!). The Internet provides a new means for new generations to learn by participation. The astronomers are showing us that way, as described in the article cited above and here.
Posted on 9th June 2006 by Judy Breck in Schools We Have Now
computer, share, students
Today I am attending “2006 Innovative Marketing Conference” at Columbia Business School in New York. Deepak Advani, senior vp and chief marketing officer at Lenovo mentioned in his keynote that his company had created an innovative feature for computers used in education. He said the feature was a button to push that restored everything on a computer to where it had been when a student ended his/her session using the machine. Several students could thus use a single computer by simply pushing a button to restore their own work and files.
Advani said the feature was popular. Of course! When you think about it, how do our kids put up with the HUGE frustration they routinely experience of not having their own computer at school.
Posted on 30th January 2006 by Judy Breck in Schools We Have Now
censorship, students, wikipedia
In all our efforts to keep the Internet open, have we forgotten our children? Do educators and librarians have the authority to judge what is appropriate for our kids to study online? The article here in the current eSchool News blythly assumes Wikipedia must stand the judgment of the education establishment before it is accepted as a learning resource for students. Hey, what about the judgment of the individuals participating as editors in creating Wikipedia articles?
Repeatedly, the bottom line the article comes down to is that education must teach students “information literacy.” Though “information literacy” is not defined here, several quotes about what the kids are supposed to do about checking their sources does not sound different than what I learned about checking printed sources when I was in high school fifty years ago. As to educators teaching kids how to use digital information, I think in the real world the need is pretty much the reverse of that because the educators have taken a lot longer than students to figure out the Internet.
What scares me is there is not the least hesitation in the article to assume educators must approve what students study. That notion does not teach information literacy — it empowers censorship. We need to be careful here.
