More Mobile on Campus

EduCause is the international professional association for IT in higher education. The focus of the latest edition of the Educause Quarterly is on mobile computing and its impact(s) on colleges: http://educause.informz.net/educause/archives/archive_1404284.html

We expect a growing demand for mobile support in every area, from our applications to our infrastructure.

Three steps we have taken recently to address these demands are:

• Our switch to Gmail for students, which has very strong support for a wide range of mobile devices;
• Doubling of campus bandwidth (not without remaining issues) to better support the growing number of mobile devices and their "always on" nature;
• Expansion of our wireless network coverage to all floors in the Circle and Crescent houses this summer. (The 5th Form houses were done last summer. All Houses have had wireless on the first floor common areas for several years, as have all floors in academic buildings.)

As one of the authors writes, "Individuals have had access to 'portable learning devices' since the advent of the printing press; we call them books." But there are many who believe that the growing power and ubiquity of network-enabled smartphones will probably bring the greatest technological changes since the general availability of the Internet - if we use them correctly, not just as content delivery devices. As others have said, "this changes everything." How will it change Lawrenceville?

Personal Learning Networks

A lot has been said recently about the idea of Personal Learning Networks, or PLNs. Wikipedia has a good explanation here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_Learning_Networks

One of the key elements that the Powerful Learning Practice program (http://plpnetwork.com/) that several Lawrenceville teachers and administrators took part in was about the importance of and tools used in the creation of a PLN. We all had experiences where even our nascent PLN became a source of high quality information and guidance on a variety of subjects during this process.

It can be argued that PLNs are nothing new. 20 years ago, the depth and breadth of your Rolodex often indicated the strength of your PLN. Today's tools just make it easier to connect with colleagues and experts from around the world.

Now, Facebook is entering the PLN world by allowing you to ask questions of your friends, and friends of friends, through their new Questions tool: http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=10150110059982131
Given the huge amount of time that our students (and teenagers in general) spend on Facebook, this might be a good way to have them develop PLNs.

However, for this to truly be useful, it means that adults, experts, educators, etc. need to be on Facebook and "visible" enough to be found in the questioning process.

-->Are there ways that you use a PLN in your work or for hobbies that could be transferred to how we educate students here?

Want to try a PLN or learn more? Educational technologist David Warlick has some good information and links on his site: http://davidwarlick.com/wiki/pmwiki.php?n=Main.TheArtAmpTechniqueOfCultivatingYourPersonalLearningNetwork

More on eBooks

Two interesting data points recently about eBooks in schools.

UK trade publishers surveyed by Publishing Technology predict that 2012 will be the year that eBook revenue surpasses the "tipping point" for physical book revenue: http://blog.publishingtechnology.com/blogs/uk-trade-publishers-predict-2012-revenue-tipping-point-e-books/
Interesting, on the textbook side, they state "one in four UK academic publishers were already seeing 10% of their total book revenue coming from e-books in 2011, with double that predicting this would be the case in 2012".

Last week, Henrico County (VA) Public Schools uperintendent Patrick Russo said "We made a commitment pretty much we are not buying more textbooks." The district has had a 1:1 laptop program for approximately 10 years, and currently supplies laptops to over 25,000 high school and middle school students and almost 4,000 teachers through the county.

EdWeek's Technology Counts 2010 Released

Education Week has released their 14th annual report on the state of educational technology: http://www.edweek.org/media/ew/tc/2011/digital/Education_Week_Technology_Counts_2011.pdf

While once simply a tally of hardware and Internet connections, the report now explains why technology matters in education and points to trends and trend setters.

One of the major themes this year is the use of technology to provide a more personalized learning experience for each student. Interestingly, it is one of the advertisements that sums up the need to technology in this area:

To teach exactly what every student needs each day, you'd need an insomniac, genius sidekick.

While it is possible to differentiate the instruction for each and every student using traditional methods, proper use of technology can help, not only with the instruction, but with the assessment that leads to that instruction.

What do students want from online learning?

We've been thinking about what role an online experience would have in a Lawrenceville education. We turned to SpeakUp, a group which surveys over 2.2 million students, parents and educators annually to get their thoughts about technology in education: http://www.tomorrow.org/speakup/

In last year's survey, they asked students about what they wanted from an online learning experience:

Click to enlarge

The dark green line represents students who have taken an online class; the lighter green line is students who want online learning as a must have in their "ultimate" school.

The report infers that students value online learning because it gives them more control over their learning experience: "today’s students are increasingly taking their educational destiny into their own hands by seeking out learning opportunities outside of school and leveraging technology tools and applications to customize the learning process to meet their specific needs".

National Education Technology Plan

Called "Transforming American Education: Learning Powered by Technology," the US plan was released 2010. It lists goals and recommendations for the following areas:

• Learning
• Assessment
• Teaching
• Infrastructure
• Productivity

While one of the primary goals of this plan is college preparedness and increased college enrollment, there are some sections applicable to Lawrenceville:

The challenging and rapidly changing demands of our global economy tell us what people need to know and who needs to learn. Advances in learning sciences show us how people learn. Technology makes it possible for us to act on this knowledge and understanding.

The full plan, as well as an executive summary, is available here: http://www.ed.gov/technology/netp-2010

Digital Textbooks

But digital textbooks must be more than just the same words, but on a screen instead of paper.
E.O. Wilson and the MIT Media lab are working on a great science text which shows some of the possibilities: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/10/wilson-free-biology-textbook

IDEO the design company has some great ideas here, especially about the social sharing aspect offered by digital texts: http://vimeo.com/15142335

The Inkling app on iPad is also showing great potential: http://www.inkling.com/

How does having a textbook which quizzes your students and adaptively provides different content to each student based on their response change the way we teach?

2011 Horizon Report Released

Each year since 2004, the New Media Consortium (NMC) and the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI) have released a "Horizon Report" which describes areas of emerging technology that their advisory board believes will have significant impact on education and creative expression over the next one to five years.

The areas of emerging technology they cited for 2011 are:

Time to adoption: One Year or Less

• Electronic Books
• Mobiles

Time to adoption: Two to Three Years

• Augmented Reality
• Game-based Learning

Time to adoption: Four to Five Years

• Gesture-based Computing
• Learning Analytics

In addition, the report cites four key trends:

1. The abundance of resources and relationships made easily accessible via the Internet is increasingly challenging us to revisit our roles as educators in sense-making, coaching, and credentialing.
2. People expect to be able to work, learn, and study whenever and wherever they want.
3. The world of work is increasingly collaborative, giving rise to reflection about the way student projects are structured.
4. The technologies we use are increasingly cloud-based, and our notions of IT support are decentralized.

http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/HR2011.pdf

Partnership for 21st Century Skills

They succinctly propose a "Framework for 21st Century Learning" - fuse the 3Rs (traditional subjects like reading, writing, mathematics, history, and others) and the 4Cs (critical thinking and problem solving, communication, collaboration and creativity) to best prepare our students for their future (and not our past):

http://www.p21.org/

Lawrenceville does many of these things already and does them well. Our challenge is in the "fusing" - as many commenters here have pointed out, we don't want in any way to take away from the areas where we already excel.

So, how can we best bring some of these new skills and dispositions into our school without taking away from what we do well?

The Technology Gap in Education

ASCD (the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development), has an interesting post today titled "The Technology Gap in Education": http://www.ascd.org/ascd-express/vol6/609-fioriello.aspx

The author asserts:

Technology has a place in the education of everyone, from the very earliest learners to adults. But for it to be used most effectively, the gap between teachers and students, and the gap among teachers themselves, must be closed.

She then offers 4 steps to bridge that gap:

1. Students and Teachers Must Work Together
2. Take Advantage of the Lessons Students Have to Offer
3. Digital Learning Opportunities Increase Student Engagement
4. Join the Social Media World of Today's Students