4-Perceptions as an educator - Various other bits (Posting 2)

Summative course for Masters of  Education Portfolio  

2. How has my learning path shaped by perceptions  as an educator?

I am more aware of the negative aspects of technology in service to power structures in schools and the labour involved for a perceived greater gain in educational outcomes that have only barely evolved to equal in the last 30 years of digital technologies in the classroom.

Technology , and especially educational technology is not neutral, It has many unseen and unquestion educative properties that are discounted ( Selwyn 2000) and within the realms of education Writ Large thereby affecting society much greater than schooling ( English 2000) 

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In my overview of education course I did some  research  to examine  the claims of educational technology to provide superior educational and learning outcomes and why school instructional mandate and budgets are given inappropriate amounts of funding every year.  There is a kind of blindness or psychosis, and Utopian view for technology in education to ameliorate all all teaching, learning and assessment  outcomes. Very few definitive causal relationships have be forthcoming in the research that shows technology to be superior. 

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Paulo Freire says that all real and important knowledge must be relevant to the groups being taught; that they must be active participants in what is ‘best to know ‘, in the creation and consumption of learning materials within their own autonomous institutions. This very democratic means of teaching and learning is being usurped by technology, and specifically open online courses and resources, which by their very nature are decontextualized to meet the broadest audience possible. I would like to examine more fully, the power structures behind the pushing of digital technologies and open resources in the face of such cross-purposes in pedagogy.

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Since the publication date of 2005 a lot of media convergence and social media digital technologies have complicated the easy fix that the authors present. It is curious to me, even after all the research of the efficacies of digital technologies over the last 30 years, why a more balanced approach to assessment is not incorporated. There are many barriers to Teacher and student uptake regarding to using digital technologies for learning. Accessibility to video, audio, and computer tools, even in our always on state-of-being, prevent a lot of learners and teachers from full engagement for creativity or assessment. The time to learn how to use these technologies for assessment or creative endeavours is always a major stumbling block. It has been my experience as an early technology teacher and promoter that students will take easiest road using technology since a lot of what they do online is socializing and entertainment. When the time-consuming and often very difficult mastery of digital tools for learning in introduced, many students (and also teachers) decide it is too much of a time commitment for the return on their investment. I have seen this in the courses in video, audio, web design, desktop publishing that I taught for many years. Most people aren’t that interested in getting proficient enough with a digitally creative or educational assessment tool. The few that are, usually have self-promotion as an ulterior motive or have a proclivity towards technologies, and don’t mind spending the time just for the sake of learning it. This has been me for the last 30 years.

 To further illustrate the point: a few years back at a dinner party a teacher friend as me what digital tools I used in education. I provided the list of the digital technologies that I had been using or learning and teaching and as during my hiatus as a programmer. At the mention of the extensive work I did in Microsoft Excel, the teacher exclaimed, “I’ve always wanted to be really adept with Excel!” I explained how many hours I had spent getting things wrong, reading about macros an automation using Excel in books online. I came up with a conservative estimate of 200 hours for a one-time project for the CEO of McCain International who wanted to so some analysis on the various grades of fries we sold by country and by month and quarter for 3 years. This did not deter the zeal of the teacher who wished to be proficient. So I instructed her to do the same with books and the Internet and inquired as to what the purpose for her need to be excellent in Excel. There was none, save for mastery of a digital tool to impress someone in a unknown future scenario. It told the person she was in love with the idea of digital technologies for learning and teaching as Sir Ken Robinson told when he said he really wanted to be a keyboard player (Robinson, 2009). The keyboardist in Sir Paul McCartney’s band said he was enamored of the ability but not all the time practising and playing endless gigs. The passion wasn’t there or he would have already been following that passion.

            Many teachers are not digital natives nor technology innovators. This is not a criticism. They seek the most efficient and effective way of imparting, instilling and assessing knowledge and thinking given their life experience and educational backgrounds. So when assessment is mandated, it becomes another uncomfortable exercise for which many receive little or no training, either in their post-secondary or professional development learning environments. It becomes merely more administration, taking time away from the passion of teaching and learning. Not all teachers or students want to do things digitally, and as I have said many times before, not every educational problem is a digital nail seeking a digital hammer. Teachers and institutions have not progressed to the point at which questioning educational technologies in any critical manner is allowable. Rejecting or questioning digital assessment that they are unqualified to process from lack of skill, training or experience will not be allowed therefore is not legitimate. Teachers assessments of Visual, Digital, and Media Literacy or 21^st century skills will be one of compliance, often as you mentioned, to the dictated of business needs. The unexamined and unquestioned digital technologies of education will amplify Industrial Revolution 2.0 will make it a certainty in our educational institutions (Rushkoff, 2016). It will be curious to see if the digital natives who become teachers provide the digital tide that floats all ships in the near future. By teachers own self-assessment of skills and abilities it appears the digital nirvana is maybe another 30 years off in the future (Nantais & Cockerline, 2009)

See also the Myth of the Digital Native links for more on this often cited delusional catchphrase:

http://chrisbetcher.com/2009/01/the-myth-of-the-digital-native/

http://thebaffler.com/blog/the-digital-native-a-profitable-myth

http://chronicle.com/article/Confronting-the-Myth-of-the/145949/

http://jolt.merlot.org/vol7no4/koutropoulos_1211.pdf

References

Nantais, M., & Cockerline, G. (2009). Are all our Teacher Candidates Equally Digital Natives? The MERN Journal: Journal of the Manitoba Educational Research Network, 3, 50-58. Retrieved May 30, 2016, from http://www.mern.ca/journal/Journal-V03.pdf

Robinson, K. (2009). The element: How finding your passion changes everything. Penguin.

Rushkoff, D. (2016). Throwing rocks at the Google bus: How growth became the enemy of prosperity. Penguin Books.

3-Perceptions as an educator (Posting 2) -Teacher technology anxiety

How has my learning path shaped by perceptions  as an educator? Cont'd

Professional's technology anxiety 
Technological advances mandated by school divisions, from Internet web 2.0 applications to new and improved software programs, have increased the burdens and responsibilities of teachers, beyond the reasonable expectations of a well-balanced professional. Even technologically savvy teachers find it increasingly difficult to deal with the never-ending technological demands of their profession. The flood of email inquiries from multiple sources are compounded by the expectations of an ongoing online presence for course delivery, development reporting, and the perceived need to stay current in many software applications for work and professional development. From the moment the computer first boots to life in the morning, to the moment it shuts down at night, a teacher is in a continual struggle for time.

            One of the time-consuming tasks of any teacher’s day is the onslaught of email messages. Constant requests from administrators, parents, colleagues, and students create a heightened sense of urgency and are an immediate demand on a teacher’s valuable time. Homework, mark clarifications, scheduling meetings, and documentation requests cause anxiety in a well-prepared teacher from the first whir of the hard drive and click of the mouse. This demand on time, foisted upon individuals, leaves less time for instruction and the updating of an online teacher presence. Email tasks are laborious, time-consuming administrative tasks that have added to our stress, and are not an educator’s primary focus, yet teachers are expected to command this technology and find the time to be proficient.

Multiple means of communications and its concomitant immediacy have created the “always on teacher” existence. Teachers expend more energy than they should with administrative web-based tasks, such as updating students’ assessments nightly and keeping online attendance and marks. This administration is de rigueur for today’s teacher, regardless of ability or will. Software that is supposed to save time increases workload, instead. Additionally, it is often expected that teacher put course outlines, unit plans, and lesson plans online. Putting this information in the public arena leaves it open not only to peer scrutiny and criticism, but also to theft. This responsibility also adds pressure to be meticulous beyond personal expectations, for fear of ridicule or reprisals from others. Even those trained in many facets of information technology are just barely coping with the technological inundation. It is no wonder that the “always on teacher,” in continual update mode, finds it difficult to stay current in the field of educational technology, while trying to meet all of these administrative demands.

Originating in the business world, the continual need for growth and expansion associated with computers and their applications has insinuated itself into the educational field.   Many one-day professional development opportunities purport to be a remedy to teachers’ anxiety over a perceived digital literacy deficit, thereby creating a negative feedback loop with regard to technology skills acquisition. With division-mandated software applications in ubiquitous use, teachers feel compelled to take professional development in IT training, rather than pedagogically significant personal development. Again, teachers’ time is monopolized by technological skills updating and training, which is counterproductive many teachers’ pedagogical   purpose and style.

It is apparent that many forces, which are tied to advances in computer technologies, are converging in the digital millennium to increase expectations, workloads, and time demands on teachers. These factors are often beyond a teacher’s control, as they are dictated by utopian school division ideals for software and other technologies to solve problems in our educational institutions.  Teachers, who have been imbued with the critical thinking faculties that they are told to impart to their students, often feel overwhelmed, and they often choose to disengage from computers and information technology. The computer advances do little to ameliorate time demands on teachers, and, in fact, they exacerbate a growing problem: teacher buy-in to technological innovations that do not serve pedagogical outcomes. Teachers see new technologies as an increased workload for little return, and this increased demand for technological proficiency can lead to diminished self-confidence in educators.

2-Perceptions as an educator (Posting 2)

How has my learning path shaped by perceptions  as an educator? Cont'd
In response to the article Mills 2010

It is imperative that prior student knowledge should be accessed before we start applying digital solutions to all their learning outcomes for literacy. Digital and social media are just adjuncts to reading and learning not replacements. Too often we are inundated the messages of digital zealots, who claim to have the solution to all learning, whether it reading, Science-Technology-Engineering-Math (STEM) pedagogies, or one of the many forms of expanded multimodal literacies. As you correctly point out, teachers need to be more critical as to whether the students learning needs are being met by yet another Powerpoint presentation in compliance to digital inclusion their course. Many teachers do not accurately assess student’s abilities (pre-knowledge as per good pedagogy) using digital technologies and thus are defeated before they start.

In my 30 years as an ICT teacher and consultant, I have witnessed many failed educational initiatives using video, web and many other educational integrations of digital technologies. This was partly because of incorrect teacher perception of student skills that were non-existent, or poorly developed. Additionally, access to computers and lack of teacher competence and confidence were limiting factors. A BU study of new teachers attests to the fact that teachers competencies, by their own admission, is at very low levels ( Nantais & Cockerline, 2009), coupled with anxiety to be keeping up with digital technologies many teachers use what is familiar and expedient, as do many students. The critical factor of time, to learn how to use digital tools in order to master them, then to be creative, puts great limitations on regular class inclusion of digital technologies in non-tech courses. In my time as a systems analyst and programmer I learned that in business and IT, project failures and constraints are always followed the principles of the Iron Triangle: Scope (Time X Resources), Cost and Scheduling. The principles apply even if the cost is free digital educational tools and unlimited or free resources. The scope (time) and scheduling elements are what cause many forays into digital literacy. None of the realities of barriers to adopting new modes of literacy are new, but they are under-promoted to both teachers and students, leading many authors to argue there is much more of industrial revolution 2.0 ( Rushkoff, 2009 ), Taylorism, and corporate commercial interests at work  in our educational institutions, than paradigm shifts in literacies (Selywn, 2013).

The fact that the paper was not critical of any aspects of the digital turn in new literacy, which we have been promise for many decades now tends to make me be skeptical of the motives being presented as just more techno-utopianism. I don’t dispute that there is better access and ubiquity to literacy materials in multiple forms, or that is can be transformative. I just would like teachers critical of educational technology similar to Douglas Rushkoff when he used McLuhan’s tetrad of media effects  to examine digital promise. Or Neil Selwyn, who wrote an under-recognized book on this whole subject. What is being lost in this rush to the ‘new literacy’ is just as important as what is purported to be gained. One thing that remains constant is that students need time to read and think deeply so as to be ‘creative rather than consumer’ (Mills, 2010, p. 256). For an article not to take into account some of these aforementioned critical elements in its discourse, is not to provide balance, and panders to the same tech-based, panacea mentality, and the myopia many educators have concerning use of digital technologies in service to education.

1. Educational technology (Post 2) Digital Realities

Summative course for Masters of  Education Portfolio 

Educational technology (Post 2)

1. What are the main ideas  I have learned in my readings from various books, articles and from both informal and formal experiential,social, and online learning ?

Students who spend more time socializing do so with the exclusion of engaging in academic tasks thus showing poorer academic performance in schoolwork (Junco & Cotton, 2011, p. 512).  Others however, state that task switching causes inefficiencies in performance when returning to the primary task, but has benefits if it is secondary and passive, since it can provide pause to enable renewed focus (Spink & Waller, 2008 p. 108).  Multitasking and digital technologies are being used incorrectly in educational settings and can impair learning and retention of data in most students.  In the fields of educational and clinical psychology, it has been well established that there is a “cognitive bottleneck” in the prefrontal lobes where higher order thinking occurs, and there is increased competition for an individual’s attention between one or more tasks (Wood, et al., 2011, p. 366).  Even if a learner is alert to the task at hand, and actively willing and able to selectively choose to which information it is important to attend, if attention is divided, then rapid switching between tasks will cause cognitive overload.  As a result, students will not encode or remember all the things to which they attended (Junco & Cotton, 2012, p. 505).  Imperfect selection of information means that the data is not fully accessible for later accurate retrieval or for use in higher order cognitive activities.  The performance decrements are worse when the two mental processing tasks, competing for limited working memory resources, are similar (Wood et al., p. 366).  For instance, listening to music and trying to listen to the instructor would be more taxing on working memory that listening to the instructor while viewing images on Facebook (Junco & Cotton, 2012, p.512).  It is apparent from research that educators will have to be aware of these impairments to learning and retention in order to be help students effectively engage with classroom material.

Students’ perception of ease of use of digital technologies, coupled with the ubiquity and range of activities available on digital devices, have shown that learners, especially young adults, will engage in off-task behaviors both in and out of instructional environments (Wood et al., 2011, p. 365; Junco & Cotton,  2012, p. 511).  Students have self-reported being off-task with digital technologies 43% of the time in controlled experiments with approximately even amounts of the remaining participants choosing to be super-multitaskers, and thereby even less engaged, or non-users, avoiding the technology altogether (Wood et al., 2011, p. 369 Sana et al., p. 25).  Research also indicates that Instant Messaging (IM’ing), and its successor, texting, is by far the worst arrestor of the cognitive processes for a multitasking learner in any setting (Junco & Cotton, 2011, p. 371).  More definitive research could be done using eye-tracking technologies or direct observation via video recording instead of self-reporting to better assess complete attentional focus (Sana et al., p. 29; Zhang et al., 2013, p. 29).  But, it is clear that in formal or informal learning settings, students are at a distinct disadvantage with multitasking and digital technologies no matter how adept they are, or perceive themselves to be, due to the evidence seen.  They will continue to disengage with difficult learning tasks by multitasking or choosing off-task activities.

Multitasking in any learning environment affects quality of learning and retention of even simple information. In an institutional setting, learning is hampered by multitasking and by not mentally attending or focusing on informational input.  Multitasking might hamper higher order tasks that involve understanding material and application of material to novel situations” (Wood et al. 2011, p. 366).  Even worse for learning is that in the relaxed, unsupervised home setting, where there are frequently no controls on usage of digital technology there is a frenzy of task switching and all the associated data loss and imperfect mental encoding.  This is where studying supposedly takes place.  Internationally, non-culturally bound information exists suggesting that lower GPAs and poorer academic performance may be a result of less studying because of the strong negative relationship between time spent on computers and the amount of time studying (Wentworth & Middleton, 2014 p. 310).  If multitasking and off-task activities teachers hamper simple information in any learning environment will continue to be at a disadvantage with getting students to engage with difficult and arduous reading and writing tasks.

Motivation is a big factor in off-task activities in all learning environments. Intrinsic and extrinsic motivators are: perceived efficiency; enjoyment; and the desire to use technology to learn are all linked to socializing and relationships when learning using digital technologies (Zhang et al., 2013).  More research is needed to ascertain whether students at all levels of education are learning socially or using social connections as avoidance mechanisms to academic engagement.  Given the poor results of engagement in online Massive Online Open Courses (MOOC) (Konnikova, 2014, para. 6), it is clear that teachers need to develop more social relationships in order to connect to students in digital learning settings and to keep them motivated to be on task with the learning tasks presented.  Otherwise, socializing and other cognitively low-cost activities will trump academic engagement when in competition for students’ attention. With status quo digital course design and delivery, motivation for enjoyment and socializing will keep learner disengaged in the classroom.

The effects of multitasking has impact, even on those who are quite successful in both online and offline learning. Studies to date are inadequate, but suggest that effective student e-learning engagement and skills sets mirror those of effective learners in general (Winter et al., 2010, p. 72).  The authors showed that Ph.D. students are successful learners already, and have success in learning using traditional skills which correlates with effective online learning and time management skills needed to be successful as an e-learning online milieu.  Because the Doctorate students sample is better able to seek information and educational resources offline, they experience more success doing the same online. The learning cohort used technology differently based on successful strategies that were not technology based.  Also is has been shown that those who used sophisticated strategies in offline environments practiced successful attention management in digital learning settings (Sánchez, et al., p. 553-4).  Even students that can transfer highly successful skills to the online environment still remain cognitively ineffective and less cogent then they might be without the distractions of multitasking (Frontline, [Video file], Digital Nation, 2010).

Multitasking in educational settings affects not only the active participant but also those in close proximity. Stanford University researchers and others have concluded that “multitasking on a laptop poses significant distraction to both the users and fellow students and can be detrimental to comprehension of lecture content” (Sana et al., p. 24).  New York University social media theorist Clay Shirky, an early proponent of digital technology use in educational settings, has now changed the rules from ‘allowed unless by request’ to ‘banned unless required’ because of the distraction and negative impact technology is having on those who are not choosing to use it (Shirky, 2014, para. 5).  Many educators are now in agreement that it is unfair to place other students at a learning disadvantage because of the choices of their peers.

It is becoming evident that continual attention arrest for socializing is deleterious to all persons, whether an expert or novice to digital technologies; the cost to society being the inability of learners to formulate cogent, reasoned ideas or follow lengthy or complex instructions.  Additionally, there is evidence that deep reading is in jeopardy because of media-driven cognition, with its emphasis on speed and discouragement of deliberation in both thinking and reading.  The brain’s plasticity may be at risk of being rewired due to the ubiquity of digital media and information overload (Wolf, & Barzilli, 2009, p. 33). This does not bode well for today’s digital learner in the more complex and information-saturated learning environment of the 21^st century.  Educators are expected to make information more palatable for the new learning paradigm and in fact, we should be doing the opposite by building in more complexity and difficulty to challenge learners and expand their thought processes, not bring them to a lowered learning baseline.  Removing socializing and procrastination inside of the period of work; focusing on educational tasks instead of attentional arresting technologies; and maximizing engagement with learning objects are tasks  to which we as educators and learners will have to put greater efforts.

Due to digital technology’s ubiquity, novelty, and the false premise that technology makes learning more efficient, many learners’ behavioral conditioning in non-instructional settings is to accept many small rewards for many menial digital tasks, such as emailing and posting thoughts to social media (Levitin, 2014, p. 15.70).  This reward system is becoming manifest in the learning setting at all levels as a non-cultural indicator of how students wish to learn and how they perceive valuable learning to be presented (Wentworth & Middleton, 2014 p. 310).  It will have disastrous consequences for learning as ‘continuous partial attention’ continues as the standard in classrooms unchecked and unmonitored (Stone, 2002-2014, [What is continuous partial attention] para.1).  Multitasking and unregulated or unsupervised use of digital technologies in an educational setting will dictate changes in the way we teach and learn if we wish to minimized distraction and maximize attention to material for retention and use at Bloom’s higher taxonomic levels.  Educators will have to make course content that runs counter to this behavioral conditioning which appears to be taking precedence both in and out of a formal learning environments.

Some authors state that students will have to accept responsibility for their own learning but can be included in the process by creating classroom etiquette rules or restricting access in classes to course-based websites only (Sana et al., p. 30).  The technology for culling and presenting information from the vast database that is the World Wide Web and presenting it a ‘walled-garden’ (an Intranet) has existed  since the earliest days of the Internet.  These methods have seldom been used because they are seen as either limiting in scope and breadth, or because they eliminate the serendipity that comes from surfing the web.  In fact, they are exactly the tools needed so teachers can collate and deliver many resources in a non-distracting, focused, multi-modal way while eliminating the distractive elements of online learning.  Other solutions for educators have been suggested such as instructors being given help to compete with Facebook, Twitter and texting by “developing enriching, informative and interactive classes…” (Sana et al., p. 30).  This method of enrichment seems idealistic, given the current workloads of teachers and professors without remuneration or time off in lieu of work done.  Additionally, the lack of familiarity with creation tools for teachers is a hindrance for even teachers who are technologically inclined.  Teachers’ perceptions of the efficiency of delivery methods other than technology, and value judgements as to the return on investment of multiple means of delivery for those who might possibly engage, have to be take into account before there is large scale adoption  Teachers are not instructional designers.  Another measure to insure engagement is the Personal Learning Communities (PLC) which incorporates socializing and learning in less formal setting, and leaves it to the student to engage, if they choose, asynchronously. Other initiatives include flipped classrooms and blended learning environments.  These also put the onus on the students to engage with course material, and free up time for the teacher to be the facilitator of knowledge acquisition, rather than the content expert. Institutions and administrators will have to be less technologically Utopian to make sure that educational technology are being used correctly in service to students and by extension to society.  Even if legions of teachers will create multiple means of access to interesting lesson material, the responsibility will ultimately fall to the individual learner to engage, focus and rail against the predominate easy route of multitasking and reward.

Frontline, (2010), [Video File]. Digital Nation. Producer-Director Rachel Dretzin. Retrieved June 21 from http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/digitalnation/view/

Junco, R., & Cotton, S. R. (2011). Multitasking behavior. Computers & Education, 56(2), 370-378. doi:10.1016/j.compedu.2010.08.020 Retrieved from Academic Search Premier database.

Junco, R., & Cotton, S. R. (2012). No A 4 U: The relationship between multitasking and academic performance. Computers & Education, 59(2), 505-514.

        dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2011.12.023 Retrieved from Academic Search Premier database.

Konnikova, M., (2014). Will MOOCs be flukes? Retrieved June 14, 2015, from http://www.newyorker.com/science/maria-konnikova/moocs-failure-solutions.

Levitin, Daniel J., (2014). The organized mind: Thinking straight in the age of information overload. [Kindle Edition]. Retrieved from Amazon.ca

Sana, F., Weston, T., & Cepeda, N. J. (2013). Laptop multitasking hinders classroom learning for both users and nearby peers. Computers & Education, 62, 24-31. doi:10.1016/j.compedu.2012.10.003 Retrieved from Academic Search Premier database.

Sánchez, J., Salinas, A., Contreras, D., & Meyer, E. (2011). Does the new digital generation of learners exist? A qualitative study. British Journal of Educational Technology, 42(4), 543-556. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8535.2010.01069.x

Selwyn, N., (2104). Distrusting educational technology: critical questions for changing times. New York, NY: Routledge.

Shirky, C., (2104). Why I just asked my students to put their laptops away. Retrieved June 9, 2015, from https://medium.com/@cshirky/why-i-just-asked-my-students-to-put-their-laptops-away-7f5f7c50f368

Spink, A., Cole, C., & Waller, M. (2008). Multitasking behavior. Annual Review of Information Science and Technology, 42(1), 93–118. doi:10.1002/aris.2008.1440420110.Retrieved June 9, 2015 from http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/aris.2008.1440420110/pdf

Stone, L. (2002 - 2014). Continuous partial attention. Retrieved June 9, 2015, from http://lindastone.net/qa/continuous-partial-attention.

Wentworth, D. K., & Middleton, J. H. (2014). Technology use and academic performance. Computers & Education, 78, 306-311. doi:10.1016/j.compedu.2014.06.012 Retrieved from Academic Search Premier database.

Winter, J., Cotton, D., Gavin, J., & Yorke, J. D. (2010). Effective E-learning? multi-tasking, distractions and boundary management by graduate students in an online environment.

Research in Learning Technology, 18(1), 71-83. Retrieved June 14^, 1025, from http://www.researchinlearningtechnology.net/index.php/rlt/article/view/10753/12376

Wood, E., Zivcakova, L., Gentile, P., Archer, K., De Pasquale, D., & Nosko, A. (2012). Examining the impact of off-task multi-tasking with technology on real-time classroom learning. Computers & Education, 58(1), 365-374. doi:10.1016/j.compedu.2011.08.029 Retrieved from Academic Search Premier database.

Zhang, Y., Mao, M., Rau, P. P., Choe, P., Bela, L., & Wang, F. (2013). Exploring factors influencing multitasking interaction with multiple smart devices. Computers in Human Behavior, 29(6), 2579-2588. doi:10.1016/j.chb.2013.06.042 Retrieved from Academic Search Premier database.

Masters Summative Journal - Educational technology Context

Summative course for Masters of  Education Portfolio 

Educational technology 

In order to better focus on what I have learned in the last years during my thematic educational Masters journey at university,  I have decided to answer 3 main topic questions: 1. What are the main points I have learned in my readings from various books, articles and from both informal and formal experiential,social, and online learning ? (  see later posting on Education Writ Large ); 2. How has my learning path shaped by perceptions as an educator? 3. How have my pedagogical practices been affected by this knowledge and experience?

First I must provide some context for my learning experience over the last 25 years that preceded my entry in the Masters programme at Brandon University.
My lifelong educational pursuits have been around effective use of ICT in education. This originated with my ‘Computers in the Classroom’ course at Lakehead University in the 1980s and my first use of computers on the First Nations reserve of Pic Mobert where the students had pen overseas pals and my own kids used cd versions of Winnie the Pooh story books ion our AST Advantage PC with the awesome 8 MB of RAM and a 264 MB HDD.

With 3 jobs at First Nations schools  ( 2 in Northern Ontario, 1 in Northern Saskatchewan ) and a year in Spence Bay NWT ( now Taloyak, Nunavut), and after many attempts at procuring jobs in education in New Brunswick, I finally went to IT school in Moncton NB. The very expensive Information Technology Institute taught me programming and networking as well as exposed me to the real world salaries and extensive work commitments in the IT field. Three years as a programmer with McCain Foods at their Global Data Centre in Florenceville, New Brunswick, solidified for me that there are those in the IT field who make the exorbitant salaries and those who are the work-a-day salaried employee chasing the illusive fame or fortune promised by the IT recruiters. Since jobs in the US or in Canada did  not pay nearly as well as the teaching profession, I decided to parlay my applied IT credentials, my Science  and education degrees and my systems/programmer experience with McCain into a reboot of my teaching career. With all this education and experience I thought sure I would land a position somewhere on the east coast. I truthfully did not get but one response to the 40+ resumes and cover letters I sent across Canada. The job prospect , which I accepted hastily, was in Brandon MB. As soon as my job as a technology teacher at Neelin started I was interested in promoting technological realism and pragmatism in my students. Whether it was in the area of computer science web design, desktop publishing or information technology in  business, I tried to instill critical thinking in my students. my classes diminished in size over the years, because I tried to imbue my classes with academic rigour and not allow them to be hollow of content and form. This was not a recipe for sustainability of my school initiated courses. Thus I fell out if favour with the powers that promoted technology in education and my services were demoted. In fact, others would curry favour in other high schools and get far more technology that I ever received to make their IT promises  ( which demanded less rigour ) a reality in our division. On the way I did manage to keep up my research into educational technologies through a series of professional development sessions from the  Manitoba Association of Distance Learning and Technology (MADLat 2005 to 2010)  and a  post graduate studies at the University of Manitoba in  Emerging Technologies ( See other postings in this blog). I also received my Vocational Education certification in microcomputers from studies at Red River College. This background information coupled with the reading and research I have done will lay the foundation for my perceptions and the realities of pedagogy utilizing educational technologies and it's antithesis, authentic learning in which technology plays a minor role to human interaction and socially constructed sense-making for learning.
NB. Emerging technologies courses I have done have postings  from previous years. I will not repeat in what I learined or how it affected my pedagogy 

Educational Technology (Post 1)

Summative course for Masters of  Education Portfolio 

Educational technology (Post 1)

One of my primary investigations into effective use of technology in schools focused E-learning and Multitasking and how these affect pedagogy. While the literature is far from conclusive, it is evident from current research that multitasking and the constant connection to digital technologies, is having a negative effect on learning through the impairment of encoding information.  Off-task behaviors in instructional environments is challenging educators to maintain engagement while always connected students take a cognitive loss in nearly every digital multitasking endeavour they undertake, regardless of the  learning setting they encounter.  Learner motivations are directed toward more socially rewarding, non-academic engagement and therefore, at risk are deep reading skills and intimate understanding of complex issues.  Offline skills that would help mitigate online success are being neglected or ignored in deference to more engaging ways of digital learning.  The research however, is showing that digital technologies and always-on learners are at a cognitive disadvantage.  A learner’s social and academic worlds may intersect continuously, but this has consequences for the learner, the teacher and the educational institutions that have only just started to be seriously addressed in cognitive and educational instruction research fields.  Constant connection to attention-grabbing, cognitively novel, and emotionally rewarding, online content is causing both positive and negative changes for teachers’ course delivery, and content.  Examination and support via institutional channels must be increased in order to minimize the negative effects that constant connection creates and keep students focused in our new digital learning environment.
The current literature is replete with examples of how continual multitasking on multiple devices provide little added benefit at best, and impair retention and retrieval of fact-based knowledge at worst. I have read many papers, in my pursuit of a masters of education and my emerging technologies courses, which attest to the problems inherent in unfettered and unfocused and poorly implemented uses  of technology in education, either as mandated by ill-informed administrators or as means of remedial or entertainment modes of engagement. Therein lies the problem. A brief Google Scholar search can yield much literature critical of current practices, if teachers and educational leaders chose to be critical in their stance towards educational technologies. One such example.  (warning deep thinking and extended reading required ).