[Yr7-10it] RE: Year 7-10 IT structures

Alida Bonotto abono at mira.net
Tue Oct 23 19:21:47 EST 2007


I've heard Prensky and MacKenzie speaking live and I found Prensky more 
convincing. Prensky is a little too black and white with his 
native/immigrants theory - but I see examples of his theory in action 
every day at school.....

rie at bigpond.net.au wrote:
> Hello All
>
> Just wanted throw this back into the mix, Jamie McKenzie has done a very interesting piece on Digital Natives and the popularist work of Marc Prensky.  http://fno.org/nov07/nativism.html
> How much do we really know about how students are using technology in all aspects of their lives and how does this relate to teachers in the classroom?
>
> Ilana Snyder did a piece on reading e-learning research which is very helpful.  http://jbowes.edublogs.org/2005/11/05/illana-snyder-critical-reading-of-e-learning-research/
>
> Regards
>
> Anne-Marie
>
> Anne-Marie Chase
> Graduate School of Education, M428
> The University of Western Australia
> 35 Stirling Highway
> CRAWLEY
> Western Australia 6009
>
> Phone +61 8 6488 2300
> Fax +61 8 6488 1052
> e-mail chasea01 at student.uwa.edu.au
> web http://digital-kids.wikispaces.com
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ---- Cameron Bell <bell.cameron.p at edumail.vic.gov.au> wrote: 
>   
>> But Bill, lots and lots of schools have implemented laptop programs - 
>> some for many years now. We have found that you don't need one laptop 
>> per child - in fact, I believe that insisting each child having their 
>> own laptop can stifle pedagogical progress. When each child has their 
>> own laptop or they are working in a lab, the teacher is generally just 
>> using the same teaching techniques and lesson plans they always have, 
>> insisting on personal work, students working in isolation 
>> (communicating, but in isolation) with the whole class doing the same 
>> activity at the same time. The laptop struggles to break out from being 
>> a glorified word-processor, file storage and email client to the off the 
>> shelf tool that gets used as needed, to develop a solution for the 
>> problem at hand.
>> We have run with a one-between-two program here for the past couple of 
>> years (I was skeptical as I had just come from a 1-1 school) and apart 
>> from a couple of dedicated labs, we now deliberately aim for 
>> one-between-two for all our technology infrastructure. It means students 
>> _must_ collaborate as teams on producing work and we are being forced to 
>> develop methods for students to be able to collaborate- but then produce 
>> work that reflects their own knowledge, not the groups knowledge. It's 
>> tricky but I have found a very useful little tool that enables that to 
>> happen in my classes and the rest of the staff have adapted too! Some of 
>> us are creating digital portfolios, this requires group prac work, but 
>> individual reflections. How do you do this with one-between-two? You are 
>> forced to examine individual learning plans, multiple lesson plans 
>> within a lesson, rather than the one-size-fits-all approach that we have 
>> always done. (Primaries have done this for years!) While 1/2 the class 
>> use the laptops for part of an activity, the other 1/2 are doing another 
>> part. For us, this is also essential to break up a 72 min period and 
>> help keep the students focussed.
>> One between two is cheaper too!  ;-)
>> Cheers
>> Cameron
>>
>> Bill Kerr wrote:
>>     
>>> There is a large elephant in the room that no one has referred to so 
>>> far: the OLPC
>>>
>>> The one laptop per child non profit project not only plans to deliver 
>>> millions of laptops to third world children but has also become a hand 
>>> grenade in the commercial world - and has succeeded in forcing down 
>>> the price of other laptops now on offer
>>>
>>> "... the whole global mind-think around technology has changed.
>>>
>>> No longer is low cost computing in education a fantasy, no longer are 
>>> big technology companies secondary, and everyone wants to sell 
>>> technology into classrooms. Intel introduced Classmate PC 
>>> <http://www.olpcnews.com/countries/brazil/olpc_classmate_mobilis.html> 
>>> to Brazil, Asustek is selling Eee PC's 
>>> <http://www.olpcnews.com/sales_talk/intel/negroponte_100_laptop_asus.html> 
>>> in the USA, and even thin-client manufactures compare themselves to 
>>> OLPC 
>>> <http://www.olpcnews.com/sales_talk/competition/stephen_dukker_anti_olpc_campaign.html>."
>>> http://www.olpcnews.com/sales_talk/countries/sales_inhibiting_xo_distribution.html
>>>
>>> How will schools and education departments in the wealthy west react 
>>> to the fact that in a few years we will have the capability for every 
>>> child to have their own laptop?
>>>
>>> Will we treat them like mobile phones and ban them or try to figure 
>>> out a way to utilise them for optimal educational development?
>>>
>>> The use and misuse of computers in schools has up until now been based 
>>> around the idea that computers mainly belong in labs and / or that 
>>> access is limited. The fact of limited access has acted as a powerful 
>>> brake for many teachers not to extend their knowledge much beyond the 
>>> basics.
>>>
>>> Most (all?) of the maths curriculum could be taught using laptops. In 
>>> fact MIT produced a series of books in the 80s for teaching much of 
>>> maths and aspects of language and art using logo.
>>>
>>> Shouldn't we factor this potential into the discussion? If we are 
>>> talking about the future it might be incorrect to assume that the 
>>> pattern of distribution of computers in schools will remain similar to 
>>> the present.
>>>
>>> -- 
>>> Bill Kerr
>>> http://billkerr2.blogspot.com/
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> http://www.edulists.com.au <http://www.edulists.com.au> - FAQ, 
>>> resources, subscribe, unsubscribe
>>> Year 7 - 10 IT Mailing List kindly supported by
>>> http://www.vcaa.vic.edu.au <http://www.vcaa.vic.edu.au> - Victorian 
>>> Curriculum and Assessment Authority and
>>> http://www.vitta.org.au <http://www.vitta.org.au> - VITTA Victorian 
>>> Information Technology Teachers Association Inc
>>>       
>> Important - This email and any attachments may be confidential. If received in error, please contact us and delete all copies. Before opening or using attachments check them for viruses and defects. Regardless of any loss, damage or consequence, whether caused by the negligence of the sender or not, resulting directly or indirectly from the use of any attached files our liability is limited to resupplying any affected attachments. Any representations or opinions expressed are those of the individual sender, and not necessarily those of the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development.
>>     
>
> _______________________________________________
> http://www.edulists.com.au - FAQ, resources, subscribe, unsubscribe
> Year 7 - 10 IT Mailing List kindly supported by
> http://www.vcaa.vic.edu.au - Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority and
> http://www.vitta.org.au  - VITTA Victorian Information Technology Teachers Association Inc
>
>
>   

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://www.edulists.com.au/pipermail/yr7-10it/attachments/20071023/1c73d61e/attachment-0001.html


More information about the Yr7-10it mailing list