Cyberlearning Research Summit – Futuring in the World of Education

June 29, 2014bonniebraceysutton Leave a comment

To continue to lead in an increasingly crowded space of contributors from other agencies, corporations, and interest groups the community NSF funding fosters felt the need to share the “transformative potential” called for in cyberlearning.

Instructive is the Blog from SRI
SRI Blog
The photos in the original blog are at the site.
http://www.circleducators.org/about.html

National Cyberlearning Summit Features Major Advances in Learning with Technology
By Jeremy Roschelle at 12:57 PM PDT, Wed Jun 18, 2014

On June 9 and 10, 2014, more than 100 investigators, innovators, researchers, and educators convened for a summit at the University of Wisconsin, Madison to identify and communicate major advances in learning with technology. Participants presented findings from diverse projects, yet a common message emerged from the summit: the importance of highlighting new images of what learning looks like.

SRI Blog
The photos in the original blog are at the site.
http://www.circleducators.org/about.html

National Cyberlearning Summit Features Major Advances in Learning with Technology
By Jeremy Roschelle at 12:57 PM PDT, Wed Jun 18, 2014

The images of learning shared at the summit centered on students’ engagement in meaningful inquiry and knowledge creation, while using new tools that enable students to more intuitively and deeply express what they know and can do. The images also emphasized collaboration and conversation with both peers and mentors, and that student inquiry and learning is accelerated and sustained when students participate in supportive learning communities. While technology in learning is growing rapidly through the efforts of many communities, the cyberlearning research community demonstrated unique accomplishments in achieving this new image of learning in several ways:

Through design-based research
By incorporating modern learning theory
By collecting rigorous data to inform improvement
By building partnerships for impact

Further, the cyberlearning community showed unusual strength in approaches to learning that spanned and connected classroom-based, home-based, and community-based learning environments.

Opening presentations featured compelling images of how technology can support students’ engagement in inquiry and knowledge creation. For example, Dr. Ingmar Riedel-Kruse (Stanford University) showed how an undergraduate biology course could engage students in meaningful inquiry despite students’ lack of prior experience in setting up biology experiments.

Dr. Riedel-Kruse demonstrated a robotic apparatus for conducting controlled experiments with real organisms from an internet browser.

This apparatus allowed undergraduates to design their own experiments to explore patterns of growth and to collect data and images from the experiments on their laptops over the internet, from any place and at any time of day. This enabled students’ inquiry process to grow from curiosity about visual patterns to running an extended series of experiments and collecting quantitative data, while supporting newcomers to biology who didn’t have the requisite skills to set up biological experiments and measurement apparatus.

Dr. Jim Slotta (University of Toronto) showed how conventional classrooms could become places where students do field work. Strategically placed monitors in a reconfigured classroom revealed an imaginary, simulated infestation of bugs crawling behind the walls and under the floorboards of the classroom, and students were thrust into the challenging of understanding the insects’ behavior by making observations, developing conjectures, and testing hypotheses.

In another example, the classroom became a rainforest in which a simulated natural disaster had taken place, and students had to make observations and collect data to uncover the cause.

Dr. Slotta’s central advance was a technique for writing computer-controlled scripts that could immerse students in these experiences, and yet keep them moving towards key learning outcomes—thus relieving the teacher of the need to orchestrate the sequence of learning experiences in these complex, immersive simulations. This allowed the teacher to focus with the students on the content and process of learning science.

Another characteristic of the images of learning at the summit was how they involved new forms of student expression. In a simple, yet mind-blowing demonstration of augmented reality, Dr. Jodi Davenport (WestEd) showed how technology could enable playful, hands-on work to connect with conceptual scientific investigations. Dr. Davenport handed out Lego-like models of molecules that students could hold in their hands and manipulate into new shapes. A tablet computer with special image recognition software was able to recognize what the student was doing and instantly visualize hidden scientific phenomena and variables—heat, energy, chemical bonds, etc.—thus connecting students’ physical moves to scientific models.

In another example overlaying scientific ideas on a familiar substrate, Dr. Tapan Parikh (University of California, Berkeley) showed tools that allowed youth to represent data about their communities by overlaying photographs and symbolic representations on maps on their mobile devices (e.g. from Google Maps). Likewise, Dr. Deborah Fields (Utah State University) demonstrated crafts that incorporate technology. She shared student projects such as making bicycling clothing that could show turn signals and increase safety. Dr. Fields’ message was that expression of STEM knowledge and skill could be grounded in hands-on projects with fabric, wood, and other materials—and not just what students do on paper or on computers. These are but a few of the exciting demonstrations given at the summit.

Although some people foresee technology as taking over human teaching roles, such as tutoring students or making instructional decisions, several of the strongest technological advances at the summit emphasized how technology could augment and complement the roles of people. In one example, Dr. Carolyn Rosé (Carnegie Mellon University) examined how students collaborate in online learning environments via discussion boards. She showed an innovative technology that could analyze the discussion and intervene as an additional discussion partner. Scholars have found that deep learning is fostered by when teachers and students engage in “accountable talk”. Dr. Rosé’s computational agents could join a conversation to bolster the human participants’ engagement in the routines of accountable talk, such as prompting students to ask each other to explain (and not just assert) ideas.

In another example, Dr. Janice Gobert (Worcester Polytechnic Institute) showed how a simulated science lab could give students useful feedback not only on multiple choice questions about simple facts, but also about the process of carrying out a scientific inquiry—and this feedback could help students and teachers focus not only on right answers but more importantly on how scientists conduct valid investigation.

Dr. Janice Gobert (Worcester Polytechnic Institute) showed how a simulated science lab could give students useful feedback not only on multiple choice questions about simple facts, but also about the process of carrying out a scientific inquiry—and this feedback could help students and teachers focus not only on right answers but more importantly on how scientists conduct valid investigations.

In a third example, Dr. Sidney D’Mello demonstrated facial recognition technology that could detect when students were confused, frustrated, or bored—and the startling fact that the image recognition technology was more accurate in determining these emotions than typical teachers. Whereas the term “cyberlearning” might sound cold and robotic, Dr. D’Mello highlighted how cyberlearning is actually moving to richly engage with student emotions, and the relationships among emotion and reasoning—for example, that temporary state of confusion can be productive for students’ learning, but not if the confusion shifts into frustration and disengagement. Dr. D’Mello offered that the ability to recognize whether students were productively confused or unhappily frustrated by might help teachers and students better regulate learning experiences.

Participants at the summit also brought many examples of playful learning environments, such as games. However, when people think of video games they often imagine children engaged in solitary, isolated activity. In contrast, a particularly strong consonance among presentations at the summit was on the importance of collaboration and community for learning outcomes in playful environments.

For example, Dr. Nichole Pinkard (DePaul University) shared work from the Cities of Learning program, a summer program in Chicago (and soon, many other cities) that engages youth in a web of related neighborhood activities to increase their participation in STEM activities and build their personal identities as STEM learners. Dr. Pinkard explained how the thoughtful design of multiple opportunities for learning in neighborhoods and communities along with recruitment of different types of mentors and adult leaders led to positive experience for youth as they played games and engaged in playful activities. Here, STEM learning was situated not as a solitary game, but as a social gaming challenge in youths’ neighborhoods.

Dr. Leilah Lyons (University of Illinois, Chicago and New York Hall of Science) highlighted how well-designed tools can foster a particularly productive form of collaborative learning in which students have tools aggregate what they are learning, potentially on different aspects of a shared phenomena or problem.

Dr. Yasmin Kafai (University of Pennsylvania) emphatically demonstrated how programming (an activity which is strongly connected with images of solitary activity) engages learners more strongly when understood and contextualized as a community activity which involves more than writing code—how online youth communities where students tell stories, build games, and make animations can foster learning to code.

As the summit wrapped up, participants reflected on the challenge of achieving large-scale impacts from cyberlearning investigations. Some thought it could take 10 to 20 years until these new images of learning were widely deployed in society and a similar length of time for the necessary technologies to mature and become widespread. Others saw opportunities to deploy cyberlearning advances more immediately, potentially in the context of existing products or classroom practices. Some suggested open source as a means to make technical advances available more broadly, while others emphasized the participation of cyberlearning leaders in start-up companies or as consultants to established companies.

Importantly, representatives from both large and small commercial and nonprofit publishers attended the meeting. Michael Jay of Educational Systemics offered a key insight. Mr. Jay said the overriding challenge was overcoming cultural differences between research communities and practitioner communities, and between research communities and entrepreneurial communities—differences that make communicating about advances and working together difficult. There was broad agreement that it was important to keep exploring and understanding these differences, and to find practical, immediate steps that would enable the cyberlearning community to engage with like-minded, yet complementary partners to achieve greater impacts.

More information about the cyberlearning summit and other activities and accomplishments can be found at the http://circlcenter.org web site. Video recordings of many of the key talks are available at this site and on YouTube.

The Cyberlearning Summit was hosted by the Center for Innovative Research in Cyberlearning (CIRCL), based at SRI International in collaboration with Educational Development Center (EDC) and NORC. Funding was provided by the National Science Foundation. Dr. Sherry Hsi (Lawrence Hall of Science) served as program chair, assisted by a diverse program committee, as well as a logistics team headed by Sarita Pillai at EDC.

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant Numbers IIS-1233722 and IIS-1441631. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

Is America Really a Digitally Literate Nation? Do People Really Understand Inequity?Social Justice?

March 8, 2013June 4, 2014bonniebraceysutton Leave a comment

Recently a lot of articles and workshops have come to us about the digital divide and that it still exists. It is a relief that people are coming back to the realization that we have an uneven learning landscape. Here is a whole article. The following is an excerpt. This is a lot of information, but it is very important to understand the challenges in education.
“For children in the U.S., their homes, their communities, and their schools both represent and perpetuate inequity. In fact, the inequity of childhood is increasing, not shrinking.”

At the Broadband Summit hosted by the FCC and NTIA, I heard stories of people who are new to technology and how difficult it is for some populations to embrace technology. Many people are still waiting to embrace the mouse. Of course now we can leapfrog to a tablet. But understanding is the key to embracing technology in meaningful ways. Outstanding were the NTIA projects that support the uses of technology in community ways.

Sadly, many communities are still not well-connected.

SHARING THE VISION

In February, there was an uncommon event. It was the 2013 Broadband Summit ( Broadband Adoption and Usage- What Have We Learned?)NTIA and the FCC shared the day in sharing knowledge.

The FCC is a leader in encouraging the safe use of electronic media by children.Educators are held to the idea of digital textbooks while many do not have connectivity in their schools. Students do not have the skills for workforce readiness. Many teachers don/t have the skills they need to be effective in the use of technology. Some of these ideas are shared in Digital Nation from Edutopia.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=nKIu9yen5nc

From televisions to laptops to cell phones, electronic media have become some children’s almost constant companions. The commission provides parents with a variety of resources to improve children’s safety in today’s complex media landscape, including:

At the SITE Conference in New Orleans… we will share the results of our work and research so that you don’t have to guess about resources . We have a Facebook Grant. The work will be published in the society’s journals.Here is a little information to frame the research that has been conducted.What is SITE?

We are the Society for Information Technology & Teacher Education, and it is our mission to promote research, scholarship, collaboration, exchange and support.

SITE Conference 2013 – Teaching in Exponential Times!

The 24th Annual International SITE Conference will be held March 25 – 29, 2013 in New Orleans, LA, USA

DIGITAL CITIZENSHIP?

Definitions of Digital Citizenship In Our Facebook Grant Work

“Digital citizenship” is an umbrella term that covers a whole host of important issues. Broadly, it’s the guidelines for responsible, appropriate behavior when one is using technology. But specifically, it can cover anything from “netiquette” to cyber-bullying; technology access and the digital divide; online safety and privacy; copyright, plagiarism, and digital law, and more. In fact, some programs that teach digital citizenship have outlined no less than nine elements that intersect to inform a well-equipped digital citizen. It’s an overwhelming array of skills to be taught and topics to explore.The source of the nine elements is ISTE.org.

But while there is much talk about the importance of teaching digital citizenship in this information society, not many are sure what that really looks like. What tools are out there for teaching it? And how in the world can teachers make time in an already overcrowded curriculum?What about those who do not have broadband access? Or limited bandwidth?

Digital Passport?

WHO USES TECHNOLOGY?

There are lots of users of technology. My concern is that there are people who do not use, know about or are interested in the use of technology , nor do they know how they benefit from the ways in which technology is used at the highest levels in Supercomputing. They innocently use GPS, weather resources from Supercomputing, watch on television the news from around the world, get climate updates, and earthquake and seismic information without thinking of the source. They get visualization and modeling examples daily, and do not think at all of computational thinking , problem solving and the math that is required to be able to participate in computing.Many people use the cloud without knowledge of what it is. A good reference or starting point is at Shodor.org.

There is a higher form of computing that facilitates a lot of tasks for us and few people seem to be aware of it.

You will hear people say, I don’t need technology. Sure. Invisible uses are everywhere.

It is called Supercomputing.

GOT BROADBAND?

This morning several articles caught my eye. But more than the articles is the interesting interaction on-line and the discussions about have and have-nots. Friends of mine, a professor, a code writer and a mathematician had a late night discussion following my posting this video by Jeannette Wing.

Dr. Jeannette Wing was the Assistant Director for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) Directorate at the National Science Foundation.Social Media helps us to communicate, though we may not always agree, at least there is the opportunity to exchange ideas and to think deeply with reflection. Dr. Wing has moved into the private sector. Microsoft announced that it has hired Dr. Jeannette Wing as Vice President of its Research division. Microsoft Research is an expansive group of technologists, scientists, and dreamers that build technology that may, or perhaps more often may not make it to market.

GOT PEDAGOGICAL KNOWLEDGE?

Such interesting conversations I have on Facebook. This is what I am talking about as a model for use of technology. It is not happening in most inner city and rural and distant schools. People have the tools but not the pedagogical knowledge of integration . ( TPACK)

The TPACK Model
The TPACK Model was created in response to the need to provide a framework around the important pieces of innovating learning with a focus on Technology, Pedagogy, and Content Knowledge. The overlap of these three components is where the 21st Century classroom is most powerful.

Here is general information on TPACK

Got Computational Thinking?

Computational thinking will be a fundamental skill used by everyone in the world. To reading, writing, and arithmetic, lets add computational thinking to every child’s analytical ability. Computational thinking is an approach to solving problems, building systems, and understanding human behavior that draws on the power and limits of computing. While computational thinking has already begun to influence many disciplines, from the sciences to the humanities, the best is yet to come.Looking to the future, we can anticipate even more profound impact of computational thinking on science, technology, and society: on the ways new discoveries will be made, innovation will occur, and cultures will evolve.

It is this that we learn with. So we had a person who writes code, a scientist and me, a teacher.. in a late night discussion with a professor about the video.This is one of the things about social media. It cuts the silos. Ground truths in social media.

In this interview from the Education Technology & Change blog, Henry Neeman from the University of Oklahoma describes the increasing accessibility of HPC.

“You may not see the supercomputers, but every single day supercomputing is making our lives better. Everything from the cars we drive to the weather forecast on TV to the movies we watch to the detergent bottles in our laundry rooms are made, or made better, by supercomputing. Today, there are a number of ways for citizens to access supercomputing. Often, these are known as “science gateways,” and they provide a simple interface to a complicated back end. An example is nanoHUB, which K-12 and postsecondary students can use to do nanotechnology simulations. In fact, the nanoHUB website has curricula and teaching materials that any teacher can put to work in their classroom.”

early exposure and interest through outreach

This article caught my eye because it says the things that I have been blogging about, talking about and sharing for some time.

The article is entitled “By the Numbers: Teachers, Tech, and the Digital Divide” it extracts information from the latest Pew Report which is here. The new Pew Research survey of more than 2,400 middle school and high school teachers released today shows that, while teachers believe technology has helped with their teaching, it’s also brought new challenges — including the possibility of creating a bigger rift between low-income and high-income students.

Reading first.. . and there is free technology of excellence….Many of us know the challenges first hand . Many of us work at different levels of understanding of the difficulty. Often people dismiss what we who are on the ground , in the classrooms and in the places of need as if what we are saying is untrue. We have children who cannot read. Technology can help solve that problem. Early learning is important. Books and technology work too.

We know that people use the tools of technology, but that expense is a problem. We know that the cell phone has brought many people to a mobile use of technology and that “bring your own device” has become the salvation for some schools.Mobile use was shared in the Wireless Technology conference.

Wireless EdTech Beyond Being There – The Mobile Future of Learning ( in case you missed it)

There are a few other pieces of research that affect those of us of diversity in very important ways. We have always known that the digital divide is a problem based on access to broadband, hardware and access to teachers who may not have achieved the transformational skills to use technology in meaningful ways.

Some examples of ways in which people are trying to help are:

By Sean Cavanagh in Education Week

“Can online graphic novels help teenagers cope with difficult social situations?

Are 3-D technologies a tool for helping English-learners acquire language skills outside traditional educational settings? And what about the potential for mobile apps that let students manipulate on-screen images with their fingers to help them learn fractions?”

“A federal program, still in its infancy, is supporting research that seeks to answer those and other questions by wedding partners that often operate in isolation—educational technology and scientific research on learning—with the goal of transforming teaching and learning in schools.”

The federal government has been funding projects focused on technology and education for decades, and it has backed research on cognition in many forms. But the relatively new program, called Cyberlearning: Transforming Education , is the National Science Foundation ’s attempt to create a space within the agency devoted to supporting research on advanced learning technologies.

Some of the beginning steps of the program were shared in a conference .

NSF Funds Research to Identify What Works

Jeremy Rochelle of SRI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHmR0G_NmsE

The conference, which was hosted at the National Geographic, involved SRI , and NSF

you can find the portal here.They invite you to help write pages for the cyber-learning topic areas listed below. Their aim is to develop definitions that are strong enough to show the direction of the field but open enough to allow for innovation (see Defining Cyber-learning, below). If you have expertise in any of these areas and would like to be involved in editing these pages, please email cyberlearning-info@sri.com to request a wiki account.

Here are the topics:

The Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) project is also defining key TEL topics

This is the portal for this important work.( http://cyberlearning.sri.com/w/index.php/Cyberlearning:Community_portal)

There are many teachers, educators, administrators who are still learning to understand these topics and so even with help from various groups trying to make a difference, the leap of faith is a broad one. Edutopia has a program that starts to share why we must go digital.

There are still people who resist personal and educational use of technology for various reasons. Many teachers have the tools,but not the know how or support or the ideational scaffolding that is needed to be technology fluent. The Pew Report outlined many of the things that I would say, but also lets us know that it is not just

those of us who talk about the digital divide and social justice who are complaining about lack of broadband, access, tools and support for learning the technology.

Digital Generation: Educators

http://www.edutopia.org/digital-generation-teachers

Edutopia has videos, blogs, and all manner of resources to share with educators on how to use and integrate technology into good practice.

There is no cost for exploring good practices in education at the site.

Is the Digital Divide Dead? Our 21st Century Challenge is to Level the Playing Field

September 18, 2012September 20, 2012bonniebraceysutton Leave a comment

Meeting the Challenge

The digital divide is very much alive. Reporters find it boring to discuss and would rather talk about new technologies. I understand. The nature of technology and its ever forward reach , change and transition is one reason that the digital divide continues to exist. There are other components of the divide that many people do not recognize . There is an information divide , a technology divide, a content divide in subject area and a use divide . Many people have devices that they do not use to the fullest because they do not understand, or have professional development to understand.There is always something new to learn. Sometimes we ask too much of our teachers and demand change by evaluation that is difficult to come by. Juggling the effects of poverty and poor schools is a daunting task. See here but I digress . You can see why reporters don’t want to share the sadness of the still existing digital divide in our “education nation”. Positive projects are under-reported. The Jack Kent Cooke Foundation shared a silent past of the problem in this report.

MAJOR TALENT DRAIN IN OUR NATION’S SCHOOLS, SQUANDERING THE POTENTIAL OF MILLIONS OF HIGH-ACHIEVING, LOWER-INCOME STUDENTS, NEW REPORT UNCOVERS well the report is not new now..but there is still a problem.

Children need to have technology and active learning in after school, museum and community programs that excite their imagination and fuel their learning.

Current education policy focused on “proficiency” misses opportunity to raise achievement levels among the brightest, lower-income students

Technology changes make learning a constant. Lack of broadband is another reason to know that there is a digital divide that is difficult to leap over. Most do not include the global reach of the technologies, but the daily news brings us the world. There are places in the world where technology is not a given. Some states that are more remote are using technology in new ways. Broadband is still a problem and many people are still on the dark side of the digital divide The Seattle Times shared this story which is one that is hardly shared in the media.

The access to Broadband is a national problem in rural, distant and some urban areas.

. SETDA shares the Broadband problem in a powerpoint.

Broadband Powerpoint Presentation

North Dakota accepted the challenge and created a project to share new ways of working and of training teachers.They train new teachers and in service teachers and university professors in online ways.

There are online ways to bridge the divide, using in person and online differ for learners depending on their comfort base. I try to be PC and Apple fluent.. that takes owning both devices and keeping up with the new applications, add a cell phone, the cloud, and a tablet and you will understand . The hierarchy of devices is an article that shares and shows the ideas of how the technology should work. Actually we all have a learning curve to conquer you ,don’t to have to be a nerd, but that iyou do have to pay attention. The media also tells you that you , as a person if not a teenager.. that you can’t be a part of the new ways of using technology . Not true. It just takes immersion, exploration, involvement and sometimes time to learn and practice the new technology . I have been helped by the Supercomputing Conference and the Shodor.org resources.For 24 years, SC has been at the forefront in gathering the best and brightest minds in supercomputing together, with our unparalleled technical papers, tutorials, posters and speakers.

We also know that there are people who cannot afford the devices, Maybe some of them, maybe the ones they really want to have. But they try using what they have and watch for the changes. A printer comes in very handy, as does some kind of camera. You don’t have to have a printer but you do need to have access to a place to print or a way to save your files until you can find a place to print.

This child had never seen an I Pad .. when working with the Teragrid we shared a lot of technology resources with kids who had never, ever seen them.

Everyone does not own all of the devices, but most of the devices are getting cheaper and are more user friendly. For educators with good professional development within their school systems, and who are up on the latest core curriculum, technology is a winning strategy. There are initiatives that are aimed to help people in underserved communities to get technology at low cost, with some training for use of the tools.

There are still people who are intimidated by the use of technology, and there are school systems that do not let teachers personalize, and individualize their technology resources. There are also rural, distant and difficult journeys that speak to the resources available to the community, the school and the local businesses.

Rays oF Hope.. New Directions

Funding and a major initiative in the District of Columbia. Who knew? There is a neighborhood Supercomputer center in DC that is operated by Dr. Jesse Bemley, of JEF. At the highest levels of technology the Supercomputing Conference has Education and Broadening Engagement to involve those populations who have not bee involved.

There are a lot of people who have been toiling in the areas of computational thinking and wonderful things have happened.The Howard University Department of Systems and Computer Science proposes the Partnership for Early Engagement in Computer Science High School (PEECS-HS) program. This program partners Howard University with Washington, D.C. Public Schools (DCPS) and Google, Inc. to introduce a new course titled “Introduction to Computer Science (CS)” across DCPS high schools. The course will adopt and extend the Exploring Computer Science curriculum, originally piloted in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD). PEECS-HS will introduce students to the broad range of opportunities in CS, and allow them to develop basic competencies in CS fundamentals, and maintain a positive perception of CS. In addition, the program will produce a new unit on Mobile Application Development, which will be added to the general Exploring Computer Science curriculum.. PEECS-HS will prepare in-service and pre-service DCPS teachers to teach the new curriculum. For sustainability, PEECS-HS will prepare in-service teachers to lead future Introduction to CS professional development sessions. As with many urban school districts, DCPS is predominately African-American, an important but often overlooked, component of the groups that need broadening engagement. See “Tackling America’s 21st Century Challenges” a sobering thought is that of the opportunity gap.

The recent SIIA report defines these goals for change for all of education.

The Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA) is the principal trade association for the software and digital content industry .

Software.2012 SIIA’s Vision K-20 Report

SEVEN EDUCATIONAL GOALS represent the instructional and institutional outcomes enabled through technology and e-learning:

Meet the personalized needs of all students
Support accountability and inform instruction
Deepen learning and motivate students
Facilitate communication, connectivity, and collaboration
Manage the education enterprise effectively and economically
Enable students to learn from any place at any time
Nurture creativity and self-expression

FIVE TECHNOLOGY MEASURES may indicate progress for technology and e-learning implementation toward these educational goals:

Widely utilizes 21st Century Tools for teaching and learning
Provides anytime/anywhere educational access
Offers differentiated learning options and resources
Employs technology-based assessment tools
Uses technology to redesign and enable the enterprise support

The Future?

James Morrison states

“A “disruptive innovation” is a potential event that may change the future of educational practice. There are a number of disruptive innovations emerging in the contemporary educational landscape today in response to the demands of the global workplace (e.g., Western Governors University, Peer2Peer University, Khan Academy, ShowMe, the Independent Project, MITx, edX, Coursera, StraighterLine, MOOCs, Udacity, digital textbooks, flipped classrooms; see the “Open Educational Resources” page at the Horizon site’s On-Ramp section). The purpose of this presentation was to stimulate discussion on how and why such innovations have the potential to dramatically change current educational practice. A video of the presentation is now available.”

The National Science Foundation pointed toward the future as well with a Cyberlearning Conference.

The summit was sponsored by the National Science Foundation as a means to engage the community in accelerating the focus on transformative R&D in Cyberlearning and related programs, and was hosted by SRI International, the National Geographic Society, and the Lawrence Hall of Science, signaling a strong commitment to innovative STEM learning both in schools and beyond schools. Additional support was also provided by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

You can explore the researchers ideas here in their portal..Here is their portal with the ideas and topic to learn about without the cost of a conference, or workshop.

unfortunately a lot of professional training is very expensive. There is Open Courseware.1 – Great Expectations of ChemLab Boot Camp. Tune in here:http://ocw.mit.edu/high-school/chemistry/chemistry-lab-boot-camp/

Transformational Learning in a CyberLearning Summit

January 19, 2012bonniebraceysutton 1 Comment

Some of us as pioneers in STEM and in technology, have been working in computer learning and use of technology so long that we had begun to think that change would never happen. Working in minority areas we are always running to catch up.

I was participating in technology well enough to be on the National Information Infrastructure Advisory Council. We helped to frame the vision of what technology would be in the United States. We wrote documents and shared methodology. But change was slow in coming. Years have passed and not much has happened in some teaching and learning spaces. Some of our dreams and ideas are still waiting to be fulfilled, like Broadband for all. In case this information is history here is a link if you need a history lesson.

So we go from conference to conference and speak those who believe change will come. We continue to learn and try to keep carrying the message of the use of technology. But it has been hard. We pioneers are talking about computational sciences and the latest headlines from Apple regarding the repurposing of textbooks. You have to look at that picture, because the end of the conference talked about the reality of that happened. That was Chad Dorsey of Concord.org. He is the reason I was able to sit and sit and sit.. though the conference was great it was a long time to actually BE on line. Did I mention NSF? I take it for granted having taught in Arlington, with access to their information. I remember being laughed at when we used the first iterations of digital media, but NSF was firmly in support. CUSEEME? the reporters said it was stupid. So much they did not know.

There was a reference to a cyber conference from the National Geographic . If you have ever had professional development from the National Geographic you would jump at the chance….the resources for teachers are so many. Their training is outstanding and it is inclusive learning. So with NSF and SRI and National Geographic I knew the offerings would be outstanding. You can still participate in the portal to help build knowledge.

This was the site, for the webcast. If you know me,You know that I do not love webcasts because so many of them are really bad. I also love the excitement of talking to the participants and the exchange of ideas. What I usually do to go to the National Academy of Sciences and attend the workshops , when I know about them. It is a singular joy to learn in this way, but the experience from yesterday expanded the audience, created a collaborative group of people even beyond the projects that I love the most wbich are the Supercomputimg Comference and Cilt.org which is no longer an entity but a great model for what happened yesterday.So I was not included.. well really I was, there was the online group you can look here to see the program for the webcast. My friend from SRI gathered the best and the brightest to inform the public and to share the resources. I knew their work was from excellence since they were a part of Cilt.org. This may be their new way of :

What a powerful example of transformational learning . Here’s to the creators of the conference. You should join the thought parade. Thanks to all who created an inspirational day. Hopefully some of these ideas will be made a part of the national conversation on the use of technology.

The Power of Us

Seeking to Bring Customized Education to the Children of America

SRI