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A Digital Skills Continuum: Differentiating Technology
18
In 2012/13 we have an education system that is grasping at digital learning opportunities, often recklessly, with little regard for pedagogy. We assume 'digital natives' know how to effectively use the technology we toss at them in hopes of magically producing greater learning opportunities...
We're also seeing technology radically shrink, personalize and cheapen, meaning many people now carry a connected personal computer with them all the time. This personalized technology quickly becomes an extension of the user's psyche, and they become very distraught if prevented from exercising it.
Any digitally literate person has a tech cloud around them...
What do you wish your teaching tech-cloud would look like?
Imagine a cloud of technology that orbits a digital coach (a teacher who knows the equipment and is exploring and pushing back the boundaries of digital pedagogy). Now imagine empowering that teacher to support their less digitally literate colleagues...
A small grouping of heterogeneous devices around a digitally literate teacher that offer access to digital information, digital creation and online collaboration in a variety of forms
DIGITAL FLUENCIES TO BUILD IN BEGINNERS
- Computers as a learning & research tool - break habitual use patterns!
- Familiarity with personal usage in order to prepare for effective personalization of technology
- Internet as a source of information/not just entertainment
- Critical analysis skills
- Internet as a collaborative tool
- digital citizenship
- social computing (social media, cyber bullying, digital footprint awareness)
The goal: to develop digital fluency around something other than an entertainment paradigm
The problem: Educational technology that is poorly optimized to teach digital literacy
what do I believe about technology?
we need to be digitally agnostic!
if you don't understand it, it will use you!
what we use influences how we appear digitally
digital clouds?
MY
TECH CLOUD
... or is this technology revolution doing something deeper to us?
My personal technology choices
i7 Toshi laptop
my tech has to be fast & enduring
phablet!
i7 desktop multiboot: win7/8/OSx/Linux, 32Gb RAM, SSD, 2x4Tb drives
Is technology something that surrounds us?
Olympus EPL-3
pro quality super portable micro-SLR, bluetooth connectivity to the web, many lenses.
...has it begun to insinuate itself into our very sense of self?
introduction
Who Am I?
The State of Educational Technology
DIVERSIFYING EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY lab-mini-lab-BYOD: a digital skills continuum
no coherent development of digital skills
- I got my first computer when I was eleven (1980)
- I taught myself to program on it by modding games
- I first got on the internet in 1992, I was a regular user by '94
- if I'm a digital immigrant, I'm a very early adopter
personalization of technology
generic educational technology
technology assisted individualized learning
Computer Technician
Network Administrator
mobilization
technical illiteracy
2013
@tk1ng
social media
Computer Engineering Qualified Instructor
timothy.king@ugdsb.on.ca
self-taught, habitual users
blogger
transparency
www.atking.ca
artist
GAMER!
writer
What relationship are we developing with digital technology?
Where are the implications of this relationship for education?
How can we integrate digital fluency into schools?
unfamiliarity with technology
cloud computing
web designer
digital impoverishment
digital empowerment
Follow me on some reflection...
Yes! BYOD as a reward for proven skills!
It isn't the Alpha, it's the Omega!
BOOKS THAT INFORMED THIS TALK:
(yes, I still read books)
With some invaluable PLN input on BYOD from Andrew Campbell (@acampbell99) and Gary Stager (@garystager)
http://stager.tv/blog/?p=2397
http://singularity.com/
http://acampbell99.wordpress.com/2012/04/24/what-is-the-d-in-byod-discrimination-divide/
http://www.theshallowsbook.com/
DIGITAL FLUENCY CONTINUUM
http://www.matthewbcrawford.com/
The Shallows synopsis: We are becoming low attention, widely dispersed thinkers - we are unable to think deeply about anything any more in a world of constant distraction and continual transformation
Journeyman
Mastery
Apprentice
The Singularity Is Near synopsis: we are living on the cusp of a change in human evolution that will make the industrial revolution look like a blip. We are on the verge of creating greater than human intelligence, which by its very nature is beyond our ability to comprehend - the world is about to become stranger than we can comprehend
Shop Class As Soulcraft synopsis: in a 'creative economy' we value management double talk and consumer based passivity over objective (ie: skills based) learning. It's a world of idiots who say much but can actually do nothing
byod: a reward for fluency
what we have now
where we could go:
School computer lab
The Ideal Digital Learner
Mini-lab Concept
NEVER as a starting point! It's like buying a car for someone who doesn't know how to drive!
the threat of habitual use creating negative feedback
transformative technology
the value of objective skillsets
apprenticeship learning - always personalized, hands on and dependent on demonstrable skills
the blind leading the blind
boundless optimism
technically competent/confident
Mid-level digital fluencies
Centralized IT
- no differentiation
- no digital diversity
- no opportunity to learn variations in technology
- irrelevant to the world students are graduated into
- results in poor digital literacy
- fair in the same way that making all students wear size 5 shoes is fair
for beginners
Access to diverse equipment & online environments
undirected/School Lab/BYOD Edtech
developing digital literacy through differentiating technology
basic labs for beginners
- awareness of various hardware and software approaches to digital access
- development of a personalized approach to effective digital skills
- ability to self moderate online behavior in a productive manner in an otherwise unstructured environment
- effective troubleshooting abilities
mini-lab: diverse school devices that teach digital fluency
SYNTHESIS
system designed to slowly open options as skills are demonstrated consistently
(objective skills: mastery learning!)
digitally self-aware (citizen, footprint)
learning evolves into a more open system
(when students demonstrate an ability to cope with it)
(that's staff or students)
I aim to take Kurzweil's boundless optimism and faith in our technological evolution, Carr's concerns about how we are losing our ability to think in a technological morass, and Crawford's belief in the value of objective skills development in order to build a digital skills continuum based on increased access to differentiated tools that helps digital natives and immigrants both gain mastery of technology, instead of being habitual users
ability to choose correct digital tools to maximize effectiveness of digitally enhanced learning
an experienced digital coach/digital mentor
able to maximize effectiveness on a variety of digital tools
BYOD
- randomly instituted
- little oversight or training
- left to individual teachers, who then off load management due to lack of digital fluency
- played as a money saving move
- enhances digital divide
- no steps to earn/achieve it
- unpedagogically supported
curriculum continuum of digital fluency
develop familiarity with basic digital fluencies
secure, directed environment
interrogative: questioning of online content
development of awareness of personal style in approaching digital fluency
Followed by a bad solution:
a desperate grab at BYOD without thinking about the true goal: enabling better learning through effective technological usage
More Information:
digital apprenticeships with clear developmental goals
Leverage digital mastery to spread deep, meaningful digital literacy
What is a mini-lab you ask?
Your tech-cloud reflects your preference and knowledge of these tools - poorly chosen tech-tools are the hallmark of a weak user
if we're to teach students how to use this personalized technology, we need to begin in school...
MY
TECH CLOUD
personalized electronics
The Mini-lab
size halving while speed doubling every 18 months - Moore's Law keeps happening!
slow
miniaturizing
massive
My personal technology choices
cheapening
expensive
general purpose, cheap, fast, personalized, common...
more commonplace
rare
i7 Toshi laptop
my tech has to be fast, flexible, open & enduring
specialized
personalizing
phablet!
greater integration, greater personalization
Where's it going next?
it's external now, it'll get more intimate in the future!
The next step in our evolution toward decentralized, differentiated technology access in education
from scarce appliance to personal extension
cloud computing
bet it isn't this...
Centralized, remotely board controlled, error prone, limited access desktops
The School COMPUTER lab
- centrally administrated
- heavily intranet dependent
- costly to maintain
- bloated software image
- slow to change
- frequent breakage and vandalism (no on-site ownership)
- high student to computer ratio (30:1 per student:computer per school)
- limited access through school desktop labs
- poor digital literacy in staff & students (maintenance and repair is handed to off-site specialists - teachers & students have no chance to develop familiarity or ownership, and have no control)
differentiation of technology leads to deeper mastery
The Mini-lab
Educational technology for learning digital skills, not ease of management!
BYOD: highest level of demonstrated digital mastery
operations
http://prezi.com/h7ms3hw7jx7-/mini-lab/
... for the full Mini-Lab argument
- The digital coach (a teacher) maintains and monitors the hardware.
- A clear sense of ownership and responsibility (reduces vandalism).
- Teachers who want to use the mini-lab must demonstrate sufficient knowledge (yes, the digital literacy I'm asking for in students must be demonstrated by teachers too)
- DCs help to develop digital fluency across staff, administration and students