https://wiki.ties.k12.mn.us/Chris+Dede
What if we did this without the media?
-the control in the River City experiment used a traditional lab instruction
-these paper based control curriculum, they believe, are better than average instruction
-Kids liked the technology/media complimented approach better
Are we doing kids a disservice by banning cell phones?
-At Harvard they have invested a lot of $ in making each seat tech ready with power outlets, Internet access, etc.
-Instructors are saying, "put the cell phone away, turn off the laptop"
-We are not going to integrate these things fully in the short term
-We can find activities for students to use cell phones sometimes.
How are you assessing that learning is taking place? (with the augmented reality project)
-have pre and post measures that measure the high stakes tests
-have diagnostic information from the handhelds to show what functions the kids are using
-include things like attendance records
-look for things beyond the test that show evidence of real learning
Jigsaw pedagogy - collaborative learning where each student must find and contribute a piece to the problem for the success of the entire group.
What professional development?
-smallest part is how to use the technology (kid can learn in 5 min, adult in 15 min.)
-Rivercity - 8 hours of professional development
-biggest part of 8 hours is how to have a collaborative discussion
-Rivercity already takes care of classroom management and engagement and allows teachers to dive right in to a collaborative discussion. (I suspect this is true of nearly all virtual world based instruction)
It looks like you have applied a progressive movement of education to technology. How does this stem from prior educational movements like progressive education movement?
-it stems from progressive education, Montessori, and Dewey
-technology making three things possible
1. society is valuing higher order skills that cannot be taught through traditional instruciton
2. technology helps standardize the learning process
3.
How does something like this scale?
-There are a couple things that will happen over time that will help
-we have a bad sense of first generation curriculum and assessments
-hope the next group of stakeholders takes a look at second generation curriculum and assessments
-argues with colleagues that say school is too hard to change and that we need to focus on informal learning
How do you see a students day evolving to blend the old and new?
-I would be horrified by a school that uses only immersive technologies for instruction
-I would like to see these immersive technologies three times in a course. First in the beginning and students would be lost and see the relevance of the learning. Second, midway as a diagnostic tool. Finally in the end as a summative experience.
-This is a nice blend of the old and the new.
-We must be much more nible in learning how to use web 2.0
What can we expect the web 3.0 to look like?
-unresolved contradiction between 1.0 and 2.0
-Web 1.0 gives you a way to listen to an expert at any time
-Web 2.0 is bottom up giving users the ability to tell us what they want
-Web 3.0 recognizes that both sides have merit
-building a social tagging project with students -www.edtags.org- looks like other social tagging systems - goes beyond by giving a concept map that shows how other people's tags are related- ranks users from top to bottom showing users whose tags are most like yours to those whose tags are least like yours
How might this stuff migrate down to the primary grades?
-would rather see students in the elementary schools learning the classic literacies
-we know that kids need real world sensory stimuli when kids are young - we don't want students to learn how to look up and down by having their avatar look up and down
How does ESL apply to your work with Rivercity?
My hypothesis with River city was students who were dyslexic and ESL would not do as well.
-All studies prove this wrong
-All students with these disabilities do as well because students collaborate as a team.
What about chronic behavior problems?
-We see increases in attendance.
-Teachers report that behavior issues go way down.
-Problem is kids who are engaged but not learning, kids are fooling around but not learning.
