July 26, 2006 – Dr. Bette Gray

Dr. Gray talked about contentious issues in education with respect to learning and technology. It was interesting to hear of James Bosco’s (Tools, Culture, and Education: Past-Present-Future) perspective on digital natives, that these kids may have grown up with technology, but they don’t know everything. As teachers, we need to make sense of the big picture in relation to education and technology and this will then guide our educational practice and policy. Dr. Gray’s view of ICT is that it is more of a ‘seam in human history’ rather than simply being another tool that is on our plate to use to facilitate learning.

The way technology is implemented in the schools is related to the principal principle: if the principal sees technology as a tool, then it will not be infused in the school. Everyone needs to have a vision of why they think technology is important and they need to be able to articulate this. I was thinking of what my vision of technology is, and it has definitely been changing over the past year and a half! My vision in teaching and education is to give my students an interest in the world around them so that they will have a sense of wonder about the world as they grow older; to make science interesting enough that they will stop and think, “wow, I wonder how ...?” Technology is other methods to make science interesting. The technology is not a tool that is used to look at science, it is science. As I infuse it into the program, it is simply part of the marvel and wonder of the world around us.

A thanks to Bette for making me want to make sure my students don’t ‘Power-down’ when they get to school.

July 25, 2006 – Dr. Tom Keenan and Dr. Stan Ruecker

Dr. Keenan had a very thought evoking presentation that really makes a person wonder about what is being done with all the information that is put on the internet. You log into a new program or site that you’ve just downloaded from the internet and fill in your information… where does this information go? Who has access to it? And what are they doing with this information? He describes a need for “willful blindness” in dealing with technology, that there are times when we need to turn away from technology. Some ideas that I want to pass onto my students include the fact that there is pretty good information on the internet and with it comes power but you really have to think before you put your own information out there. I’m looking forward to presenting this information (and parts of Dr. Keenan’s PowerPoint) to my students to start a discussion in class.

Dr. Ruecker presented some of his designs for manipulating data from various humanities databases. He and his colleagues are designing some really unique ways of sorting through information. I must remember to tell our English teachers about the Orlando project.

July 24, 2006 – Pat Redhead

Pat’s message was the infusion of technology with the program of studies. This allows for a new, more modern course to be developed that has the ICT outcomes fused with the course objectives for all subjects. This would be an ideal situation as the technology would then not be a stand-alone, it would become invisible. She also described technology in a much broader sense rather than just implying computers and the internet. I was quite glad to hear of this broader definition as I have been interpreting technology to mean things like cameras, video and TV as well.

Another interesting discussion Pat brought up was that of the universal design for learning. To me, this means that we develop something using technology for a specific purpose, and there are many other uses for this than was originally planned. It’s a great feeling when you can design a project that can be used in other disciplines! I find that if you collaborate with someone on a project, is quite often has more than one purpose...so... collaborate more often!

Directions in Alberta Education: diversity and design for learning

July 21, 2006 – Trevor Doerksen

I truly hadn’t realized the connectedness of everyone these days until Trevor discussed the phenomenal amount of technology people have access to. I was rather shocked when he said that a child’s iPod can do more for education than Alberta’s SuperNet. Having used the SuperNet to teach my physics 20 class through videoconferencing, I was quite amazed at what we were able to do. Trevor has a bias against standardizing systems and the SuperNet but as a person who must work within the educational restraints of the system, I think we are doing a pretty good job.

Trevor described four “C’s” dealing with technology and education. The first is communication; that the students want to communicate and feel connected with others. The have the ability to use the technology and so we should build on that. The second is to collaborate: work with others (information is cheap, so use it to work together on projects. The third is to create: creating things builds community with the students and a connectedness to the whatever they are creating. I really appreciated his comment about anything with a blank page is a really good learning activity as it requires the students to add their own information to it. The fourth is crisis: this describes the low enrolment in post secondary, the need for webconferencing versus videoconferencing (much cheaper and more user friendly), and get rid of filters. The best advice Trevor had for us was if we had the opportunity to look forward, then we should do that since the technology will always move forward.

July 20, 2006 – Dr. Ray Kurzweil and Charmaine Brooks

After listening to Dr. Kurzweil’s videotaped presentation, my first thought was what a Star-Trek type progression of humanity he foresees in the next fifty years. Through many graphical representations, Dr. Kurzweil clearly showed how information technology is increasing exponentially. From my observations of the younger generation, the digital natives, this is rather obvious. However, I do not feel that his predictions for the future where people simply ‘upload’ information directly into nanotechnical neuroreceptors in their brains to learn something is feasible. Simply getting the knowledge of something is not enough to know it. There are physical skills to learning anything. (For example: uploading basketball skills yet not being able to play because you don’t have the physical ability to play.) Dr. Kurzweil’s comments to our question of the challenges facing education in relation to technology indicated that he sees teachers as simply mentors or guides as the students will be able to simply upload the required knowledge. He also predicts that students will be meeting together in a virtual world. I don’t believe his futuristic uploading theory, however, I do believe virtual classrooms will become the norm.

Charmaine Brooks gave us a look into ICT in Alberta with her presentation, however it was her questions of ‘How do we measure the influence of ICT on student learning?’ and ‘How are the students when they get away from school?’ that really got me thinking of the students in my school. We may not have as many iPods and MP3 players coming into our rural school as compared to the city schools, but the students are really very techno-savvy. What we as teachers need to do is to make sure that the technology is infused with the curriculum to keep student interest in the content.

Welcome Back to Paul Rowe

We're all back after our Summer break and now Welcome Back to Paul Rowe!!

This is a site to check out what's happing in the world of science. Hopefully everyone will have questions and with any luck we'll find out some answers about the world around us!