Technology: enhance or inhibit learning?

From Oxford Dictionaries:

To enhance:intensify, increase, or further improve the quality, value, or extent of

To inhibit: hinder, restrain, or prevent (an action or process)

We were asked to consider the question: does technology enhance or inhibit learning?

This is my reply:

Technology enhances learning. End of. We need the right technology to do the enhancing.

Can technology inhibit learning? Probably, if it is a poor fit to what is needed, a compromise that does not do much for the learner. But let’s not make excuses for the people cautious about technology, it is more invigorating to consider the possibilities.

Technology saves time and money. Look at this HapTEL project, not only is it saving money, it is making better dentists, because they can practise, practise, practise.

Technology is colourful and interactive, it allows the learner to get involved and run at their own pace.

Technology enables students to explore and discover, some of the items discovered can be made in advance by the teacher.

Using the Internet students can learn ideas in advance and prepare for lessons, they can also consolidate their learning. Students can take responsibility to prepare resources for themselves and others, what is available to the teacher is available to the student. There is no difference.

In a college environment suitable devices to support the technology are required. The minimum standard here is PCs and interactive boards. The next tier of device would be tablets and laptops. Availability of the latter opens up every space as a learning space.

It would be a mistake to imagine every student now has a smartphone, they don’t. Even if they do they may not be willing to use their data. Therefore good WiFi throughout all areas is required. The teacher needs to be very careful not to make device-related assumptions.

Malfunctioning equipment will cause frustration and waste a great deal of time, strong IT support is required.

We have to get all our ‘ducks in a row’ – the device, the setting, the technology. When this happens the quality of learning is superb and the students want more.

When I used Blendspace to deliver a lesson on the reflex arc I felt the students really learnt well. They were able to use the first Blendspace lesson to recap on their previous days learning and to use the second Blendspace lesson to learn new material. The recapping allowed them to take a BBC Bitesize quiz and review clips. The second lesson had a similar format (a blend of digital content) facilitating the completion of a traditional worksheet. When I next met the group and did some Q&A to check their learning I discovered they had picked up the main concepts about the reflex arc on their own. When I got the stats as to who had viewed the lessons delivered to my email, this was the 'icing on the cake'. As mentioned in my 'Curating Tools' blog post, the students really liked Blendspace and were engaged by it.

I enjoyed making a lesson on Prezi, but will be more likely to hand this one over to the students.

I fully intend to ask the BTEC in Applied Science Year 2 students to use their phones to record a video which they upload to YouTube. I am going to ask them to explain an aspect of DNA technology and embed or hyperlink it to an assignment presentation. The assignment I have in mind already requires them to make a presentation and so this will become an extra feature of that work, shared in. My colleague made highly effective use of this ploy and I am going to do the same (I blogged about her work in my 'Multimedia' entry). I am also going to use Audioboo soon, this will be good for students who do not want to be seen and who would like to write a script of what they are going to say.

Finally, I have developed a real 'soft spot' for Linoit. It provided me with neat lessons on 'Lipids' and 'Animal nutrition' and was so easy for the students to use.

Curating tools (Week 8 part 3)

Blendspace is a tool which our teacher described as being 'Google's gift to teachers'.

It allows you to curate lessons using digital and other content in an extremely smooth and streamlined way.

It invites the user to make a 'New Lesson' thereby suggesting teachers alone are the target audience for this tool.

You build your content in blocks and really there are no restrictions on the content you may add, for example you are not limited to YouTube videos alone, you can add clips from anywhere on the web. You can add any of your own resources, provided they are accessible from cloud storage on the web. So if you want to add one of your own PowerPoints that would work if it were in Box. Any other resources, such as a Prezi or a quiz would be linked in straight from the cloud.

I tried two Blendspace lessons with my IGCSE Biology students, allowing them to work through the content at their own speed. We were in an ICT room and so I asked them to log on and find Blendspace / Gallery / The nervous System by xxxxxxx (me!). They had to view content, interact with it and complete a standard paper worksheet. After the first lesson they had to look at The reflex arc and do the same. Both of these lessons were completed during a college one hour lesson: efficient.

Using Blendspace was very simple, they did not require a URL nor did they need to join Blendspace, all was easily visible. I realised that actually, they enjoyed finding their lesson in the Gallery and noticing it had been made for them. Once again I had to offer IT support to many of the students who simply were not as intuitive on the web as I would have expected. Many could not understand the tabbed browsing and the need to return to the start page. Also they could not maximise the screen or notice the forward arrows to advance between the blocks. Fortunately for them I am happy to support them and now see the aquisition of IT skills as part of their learning.

My next target is to deliver a class lesson using Blendspace.

Push technology (Week 8 part 2)

Reversing those arrows, that's all it is.

The old model for using the Internet is this: log on, go to favourite sites, look for interesting new content, waste lots of time.

The arrows are going out from me the user to those sites.

The new model for using the Internet is this: log on, go to Twitter or an RSS feed of choice, look at the interesting content waiting there for me to view, waste lots of time.

The arrows are now coming back to me the user from those sites.

If as a teacher I now design content for my students I can push it to them using an RSS feed (there is one available on the VLE) or on Twitter. The latter has become the BOSS and is the one most people are using now. Probably because the ability to tweet and use the hashtag makes it interactive and incredibly powerful. Also you can follow all sorts of interesting people and football clubs. At the time of writing this blog I am still adjusting to this idea and have yet to see how I could make it work in my teaching life. However, I certainly will be encouraging my students to get Twitter accounts and to start following interesting and relevant things.

I now realise many of the apps on my iPhone use push technology and that I need to turn this function on. Also need to start thinking about push technology and its relevance to teaching.

Here's a random image I made using Photofunia, it features one of my daughters and one of my nieces

And another I made using Redkid:

Quiz night (Week 7)

The very words 'Quiz night' makes me think of all the truly dire fundraisers I have been to in draughty community halls. Sitting at a table drinking cheap plonk, eating salty snacks, waiting for the fish supper to arrive and answering questions. Later realising that some people are really good at this and that I will never ever be able to answer anything in the sports section. Somehow I always triumph in the raffle and in the ladies I once overheard someone refer to me as a 'lucky cow' which really made my night.

The Internet offers us some slick software for creating a quiz and once again, if I was to build up my stock of such quizzes I could create some genuine learning opportunities for students. The questions can be tricky and designed to really make you think. The quiz I am about to link was one I started in December and have just finished now (January), it was my quiz and I had to think about the answers! Called 'Meiosis' and made using ProProfs.

Meiosis

Quizlet appears to be the BOSS of all quiz sites, you make a set of flashcards (as many as you like) and then these feed into 6 different quizzes all of which are TOTALLY AWESOME. One of these is a spelling quiz in which a voice reads out the key words and the quizzer types it. I made a set of flashcards called 'Protein synthesis and the genetic code', take a look and see what you think.

Quizzes surely come under the umbrella of gamefication (a word that must have been invented by G W Bush)? Obviously you could use online quizzes in an IT room, but also I think in a classroom with an interactive whiteboard. In this context I would see them as a starter or plenary and not a main lesson activity. If you were really keen you could make quizzes to use as a 'flipped learning' or revision activity, but that would take dedication to the cause. There is the option of finding quizzes made by other people, but I tend to find I don't trust a thing unless I have made it myself, especially when you are dealing with facts that have to be spot on.

Nucleic acids quest (Week 4 / part 2)

I'm living my dream! A lovely, big box has appeared in my blog, I am so happy. I did this using the embed code, not the URL.


On the same theme, here is a song about DNA

TubeChop - that overlong YouTube video I didn't want to use can be edited to size, like this one called 'what makes a marine biologist scream? Some kind of crazy cephelapod'.

Stories are sequences and we need to be digital (Week 6)

I made this story and I rather like it. I used Storyboard That and it is about
Create a Copy | View Larger ">apoptosis

This took quite some time, but I did look at other resources suggested to us, feeling Storyboard That would work best for me and biology.

Social media (Week 5)

Some of the group started to investigate social media in week 4, however this week was the 'get go' for me.

Like many people I am something of a Facebook addict, but cannot really see how it fits in with education. What it does present to my mind is many safeguarding issues, so I am always thoughtful about that.

I had not really considered Pinterest to be a form of social media, I thought it was just for females to plan their weddings on using secret boards (sorry). Having looked at it critically I now start to understand its potential and have got an account. The number of teachers with incredible ideas that they make freely available via Pinterest is remarkable. I made a board with one pin and was then thrilled to discover further suggestions arriving on my phone that linked to this one pin. I now see why is is a form of social media. I also realise that one of my daughters gave me a very good explanation about Pinterest months ago, which I did not heed at the time. Take a peek at a pin on our teachers board.

I have created a Pinterest board called Cellular respiration and populated it with a range of things on this topic. Many of the animations I wanted to pin were unpinnable, which led to me becoming a little frustrated with it. I also did not find it as easy to use as I had first imagined. I think Pinterest will probably be one for me to use to organise my things, I cannot envision asking students to visit any of my boards, but I keep an open mind.

I have also joined Delicious and got the app for my phone too. What this does is store links and allow you to identify key words associated with each one. There are different ways to search for links on Delicious, but using key words becomes a good way to find links you may have forgotten about. This surely will be good for me because I have been storing links for years now on titled Word documents (control + click!), in a folder called 'Source files' (not sure why I called it that). I have one file at home and another at work. With cloud storage and Delicious I will be able to access my links anywhere. Now I need to build my collection. The only aspect that will diminish the usefulness of Delicious is my love of PowerPoints with hyperlinks ......

This is now the 8 February 2014 and I am now updating my thoughts on Delicious. On my iPhone I was chuffed to discover that like Pinterest, it suggests links for me, but then was less chuffed to discover the app is not optimised for iPhone 4s and does not work well. Logging on with my PC has also been problematical and so for now I have abandoned Delicious.

Reflection is a very important thing to do, most people are convinced of that I think. We need to take time to ponder and evaluate every aspect of our lives. At my college we are trying to foster this habit in students by asking them to write in a 'Learning Journal'. Now this is a beautiful idea and one I fully subscribe to. A physical, handleable article: the journal itself, can make a strong impression on a young person and become something of value. They simply pick it up and open it, faster than any device. Yet there is a downside. Such things are bulky, can be lost, are not that secure and cost money. Through doing this course I have come to the opinion that we should ask young people to blog. This is something free and flexible which the young person can make truly theirs, displaying their own unique identity through their blog posts. Along the way developing valuable IT skills, due to the inbuilt features of blogs.

So which blog to use? Kidblog is clearly great because it makes the users part of a Kidblog community and gives teachers complete control over their students blogs and user accounts. Would this be the best option for students in a 16+ college? My experience of young people is that they decide in nanoseconds whether they like a thing or not and my feeling is Kidblog would be a not. Too much interference from adults is possible and even the name sounds too young. I currently feel Blogger would be the best site to use, because as part of the 'Google family' of apps it offers students amazing design based on Googles superior algorithms. With one Google account you have it all. I would be massively in favour of promoting blogging and am going to start with my tutees.

The real revelation for me was our teachers explanation of how to use Twitter as a feed of bespoke information ready for me, the user to consume. This was brilliant, I got an account and have started to use Twitter. I am not sure why I decided to follow NASA, there are only so many pictures of planets I can take.

So I need to think about how Twitter can be used as a teaching and learning tool. I found this wonderful linear list which I am going to link, so I can keep it forever. Twitter allows communication between teacher and student / student and student / other combinations, including parents and carers. It allows the teacher to create a feed of information they want the student to engage with, to pose questions and disseminate course-related information. Students can search on Twitter to discover knowledge for themselves, they can follow relevant people and post tweets to summarise their learning. We all need to learn to use the hashtag. This is such a lot for me to understand and internalise.

I am going to start here: trial use of Twitter with one group (probably my tutor group), create a feed specific to this group, ask them to follow this feed, start to post things I want them to read, disseminate information of all sorts and finally, ask them to post a tweet of what they have learnt after some lessons. This feels very daunting, but I think it needs to be done.

The main barrier for me is always the same: remembering to do the new. Life seems so busy and actually setting aside time to master a new technology, such as Twitter, is a challenge. This is the same for the students, I know some do use Twitter, but I am not sure how many? I think if I am going to do it I have to do 80% of the work and make it very easy for them to engage with it. So the barriers are: time constraints and unfamiliarity - this applies to us all.