RIMS CTAP DPLC

This really takes me back. Slashdot: “Looking Back From the 1980s at Computers In Education”

“As someone who went to high school in the ’80s, this newsletter from 1980 (PDF) is a blast from the past. An interview with Microsoft talks up its BASIC language product and predicts voice control of computers in five years. Advertisements for Compute magazine, which was about to go monthly, and an article about a computer ‘network’ in Minnesota that connects some fax machine-looking terminal to a central computer over telephone lines. Lots of Atari, TI and RadioShack news too. It’s a reminder from 30 years ago that we are still not using technology effectively in education.”

Op-ed piece by SF writer Robert J. Sawyer, illustrating very well the real conflict between 21st Century education and the “last gasps of the couch-potato generation.”

“All Screens Are Not Created Equal”

We have an epidemic of attention deficit disorder — or, at least, we have an epidemic of diagnoses of that condition. And the culprit most often named: the use of computers.

But is there really something wrong with huge numbers of young people today? Has computer use rotted their brains? Or is it — perhaps — that there’s something wrong with how we’re defining normal?

Our psychological tests for measuring attention were developed between the 1950s and the 1990s. But that was an aberrant period in human history. It was the era of the boob tube and couch potatoes, of people sitting passively in front of television sets for hours on end. Now, in a world in which young people constantly shift their attention from one thing to another, we brand them as ill if they don’t sit still in class.

Our Digital Classroom participants are in the news, again!

Joe Williams and Bret Cowan’s classrooms were featured on Time Warner Cable’s So Cal News on June 1 and 2. So Cal news can be seen on CNN Headline News if you have Time Warner in the Inland Empire.
The news clip focuses on how Interwrite Pads and Student Response Systems engage students and how they allow teachers to meet the needs of learners.
Check it out at http://www.twcsocalnews.com/index.php?option=com_seyret&task=videodirectlink&Itemid=26&id=682

While in conversation with many districts of late, I have been asked about, or sometimes told about, classroom amplification systems. Several Directors of Technology have told me how wonderful these systems are, and are beginning to implement them in new or remodeled classrooms.

I have experienced amplification systems as an Assistive Technology. Obviously, they serve a great purpose when meeting a special need.

But my gut questioned the need for this in all classrooms. Is louder always better? Wouldn’t habituation of the amplified voice happen?

I asked one of the Technology Directors if he had any research on the use of these, and he sent me to http://www.lightspeed-tek.com/files/trost_study.pdf. According to this study, the most drastic difference in classrooms was a 72% decrease of teacher redirection. Obviously, we’d expect to see increased learning with a decrease of redirection.

I have found some very compelling research, including the fact that the ideal range for students to hear a teacher is 6 feet.

A problem I had with my research was the fact that most of the sites linked back to the same source: a vendor.

I’m certainly not opposed to this technology, nor opposed to the fact that a vendor is looking at putting research out there on their product. I’m just interested in looking more varied sources.  

Of course, I’d like to hear what you all think in our DPLC. Has anyone seen them in a general education classroom?  

I see a good amount of money going into these systems, and want to be sure that they are serving our students well.