The role of museums in arts education

hoffmato — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 16:14:05 +0000

For those interested in informal learning environments, check out the excellent NYTimes special section on museums. Dorothy Spears’ article, When the Gallery is a Classroom, is particularly relevant as support for arts education programs continues to be axed.

Fun with research

hoffmato — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 00:08:33 +0000

As advances in educational technology continue to increase at an ever-quickening pace, the role of research in helping teachers, school administrators, and other educational professionals find what works best in the classroom will become even more important. Unfortunately, however, many teachers are not sure where to look for solid, peer-reviewed articles that will help separate the virtual wheat from the virtual chaff.

For those interested in educational technology research, the first place to look would be the AACE’s Education & Information Technology Library (EdITlib). If that doesn’t do the trick, a more comprehensive list of scholarly journals can be found on listphile.

Can cell phones save the world?

hoffmato — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 00:15:35 +0000

A quarter of the year almost done and it seems like a perfect time to revisit eLearn Magazine’s list of predictions for 2009. While the list isn’t comprehensive, it does hit upon some of the major trends currently bantered about in educational technology circles such as Web 2.0, cloud computing, and the increased use of video games in formal learning environments. Of the predictions, Chris Dede’s prediction that inexpensive cell phones will “emerge as the learning structure of the developing world” is both the most prescient and most hopeful. One promising example of using mobile technologies in the developing world would be UC Berkley’s MILLEE (Mobile and Immersive Learning for Literacy in Emerging Economies) project. The project, which was supported by the National Science Foundation, and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, was one of the first large scale interventions aimed at fostering literacy in school-aged children living in developing countries through the use of mobile technologies. While the project was successful, it provides just a taste of the possibilities that might emerge when forward thinking people are combined with presently available technology.

APE: A new 500lb gorilla?

hoffmato — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 00:44:18 +0000

The Active Prolonged Engagement project (APE, for short) marked a collaborative effort between the National Science Foundation and San Francisco’s Exploratorium museum. According to their website, the purpose of the project was to “explore strategies and tactics that shift the role of visitors from passive recipient of information to active participant in the exhibit experience.” Active referred to the idea that visitors should be able to dictate the order in which they interact with each part of the exhibit. Prolonged meant that exhibits were designed to increase the amount of time visitors spend on each exhibit. And engagement referred to the idea that visitors should be able to explore a variety of concepts, and that each action they took built upon their previous interactions.

Results from the study indicate that visitors spent more time on APE exhibits, were more physically and cognitively engaged with the exhibits, and were more apt to display aspects of scientific inquiry such as (1) observing and playing with materials to identify variables and develop some theoretical understandings, (2) identifying and formulating questions, (3) finding ways to explore the question, (4) iterative testing of the question to compare findings, (5) reaching some new conclusions based on the evidence, and (6) communicating that new knowledge in a public way. In short, APE exhibits asked visitors to “replace a traditional model of trusting and valuing authority-based transmitted knowledge with more self-directed inquiry.”

Cognitive engagement? Self-directed inquiry? Formulating questions? What self-respecting science teacher wouldn’t want students that displayed those attributes? A better question, of course, is whether the principles found in APE exhibits could and should be applied to classroom settings? Just a few of the possibilities include (1) building permanent “exhibits” in school classrooms using the APE model, (2) using built-in “free days” in which students can explore APE based models in more detail, and (3) decoupling the curriculum from rigid, school-mandated milestone timelines in order to promote self-directed inquiry from students.

Educational technology is stimulating

hoffmato — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 00:50:12 +0000

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 allocates $90.9 billion towards education, $650 million of which goes towards educational technology. This effectively doubles the amount spent on educational technology under the current federal budget. The money, half of which will be available to states within the next 40 days, will be distributed by the U.S. Department of Education’s Enhancing Education Through Technology (Ed-tech) program, and will be used to bolster professional development, purchase computer software, and build computer labs.

That’s the good news.

 The bad news is the legislation fails to create a unified national body designed to help eradicate the digital divide. This model, which has been supported by the Joan Ganz Cooney Center among others, entails creating a federally-funded Digital Teacher Corps that would work directly with the lowest-performing elementary schools throughout the country. Modeled after programs such as Teach for America and the NYC Teaching Fellows program, a Digital Teacher Corps would help ensure all children have access to educational technology. While increased funding is certainly beneficial, there is still room for improvement in how those funds are eventually allocated. Creating a nationalized, federally-funded agency whose sole purpose is to bridge the digital divide in our most impoverished school districts would be a good first step.

The (very) early adopters

hoffmato — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 17:40:01 +0000

Recently, my cousin sent an email detailing his son’s preferred iPhone applications. His favorite, he informed me, was Critical Matter’s popular ABC Animals, but that he was also a fan of Brian Eno’s generative music player Bloom.

He’s two, by the way.

Although it isn’t new for kids to play with their parent’s mobile devices, the age at which kids use them constructively is rapidly decreasing. According to the Joan Ganz Cooney Center’s excellent 2009 report on mobile learning, Pockets of Potential:

93% of 6-to-9-year-olds live in a home with a cell phone.
50% of 6-to-9-year-olds have their own portable video game player, 30% have their own cell phone, and 20% have their own digital music players.
Mobile device ownership among children ages 4-14 has experienced double-digit growth since 2005.

But what about even younger kids? With the advent of touch screen technologies, motion-sensitive accelerometers, and applications specifically designed for young children, it is only a matter of time before mobile devices become as ubiquitous in the hands of toddlers as their favorite binky. In terms of literacy, this means children will increasingly develop digital literacy prior to developing conventional literacy. How this will impact children’s cognitive development is still in question, but it does precipitate the need for more research on how mobile learning applications for young children can be used to impact future literacy outcomes and cognitive growth.

The new h-word

hoffmato — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 02:00:00 +0000

Remember when education was about cultivating the hopes and dreams of children, and not about meeting standards and raising test scores? Me neither. But the fine folks at Futurelab and Beyond Current Horizons believe there is still hope for … errrr, hope.

Launched in 2008, the Million Futures website features a virtual sky where contributors create virtual airplanes that contain their hopes, fears, and aspirations about the future of education. Which begs the two-part question: Does hope still have a place in education, and, if so, what role will technology play in fostering it?