Technology in Elementary Education

[elementarytech]

Obama wants video games created!!!

    Ok, so even the White House has ideas about how gaming really can be used for education! 

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/washington/story/2012-01-26/edcuational-video-games-white-house/52908052/1

[elementarytech]

"Education is becoming less dependent on courses, exams, and degrees, & more on people being linked worldwide to resources and to each other."

Marc Prensky via Twitter 5/31/13

[elementarytech]

Video Games Win a Beachhead in the Classroom

Can one middle school’s approach to teach using video games transform education?

[elementarytech]

ENTERING THE EDUCATION ARCADE

HENRY JENKINS, ERIC KLOPFER, 

KURT SQUIRE, AND PHILIP TAN 

Comparative Media Studies, MIT 

You have entered a typical public high school just a few years from now. 

In the American history class, the teacher has just told the students to log off a multiplayer game that simulated the events leading up to the American Revolution and to begin comparing their experiences through class discussion. One student has been a merchant embittered by British taxation, another a banker fiercely loyal to the crown, a third a blacksmith trying to do business with all sides, and a fourth a slave being tempted by British soldiers with promises of freedom if he joins their ranks. 

In the biology class, students compare notes on last night's homework, which had them design their own virus to see if it could overcome the antibodies and infect the human host. The teacher asks the students to identify properties that enable viruses to spread fast and survive longer. One student has cheated by reading ahead in the textbook, which produces groans from her classmates and a secret smile from her teacher. 

In the psychology class, students are doing experiments on "sims" trying to determine which model of mind governs behavior, and keep consulting the blackboard where the teacher's notes from yesterday's lecture are still visible. 

The environmental science classroom is empty. Teams of students are wandering the school grounds, going back and forth between data displayed on their handhelds and observations of their real-world surroundings, trying to be the first to locate and remedy the source of a fictional chemical leak. 

In the physics classroom, students are taking a test. You can tell because they have turned off the volume on their GameBoys and are trying to solve a series of challenging levels that require them to plant electronic charges, which they use to propel themselves through mazes. 

Has education become nothing but fun and games? Not exactly. In each case, the games are being integrated into a range of other curricular activities. Games are enhancing traditional educational tools such as lectures, discussions, lab reports, homework, fieldtrips, tests, and textbooks. Games are being allowed to do what games do best, while other kinds of teaching support those lessons. 

These are just a few of the scenarios for the future of games and education developed over the past two years by the Microsoft-MIT iCampus project, Games to Teach. Faculty and students in the MIT Comparative Media Studies Program, consulting with educators and game designers, developed more than fifteen conceptual prototypes: design documents for games which might support teaching across math, science, the humanities, the arts, and the social sciences at an advanced high school or early college level. You can access them at http://cms.mit.edu/games/education/proto.html.

These games reflect different pedagogical models, game genres, platforms, and classroom uses, showing the diverse ways in which educators of the future may be able to deploy computer and video games to enhance learning. Pretty much everything described in those design documents could be done now, given the current state of game technology and existing approaches to game design. The next challenges will be as much economic (how do we pay for the development of educational games); social (how do we train a generation of teachers to integrate such games meaningfully into their total curricular activities); and political (how do we make a case for the kind of in-depth understanding these games facilitate in an era of standardized testing?).

[elementarytech]

Marc Prensky-What is the role of the teacher is todays world?

I love the idea that teachers don't necessarily have to know how to use the technology-they can let the creative juices of the child flow and allow them to create!  I think that might really help as digital immigrants teach the digital natives:)

[elementarytech]

How Teachers Use Technology in the Classroom

What types of technology do you use in your classroom at least 3 times per week ?

Other types of technology educators use include:

Leapfrogs

PC for Safari, videos, etc. over the Elmo

Computer with the Elmo for projection of web sites and other information.

  Other forms of technology educators would like to use in the classroom that are currently not available…..

typing programs, smart boards

might be cool to have a smart board

Smart boards!

Smart boards

Smart boards

Clickers (we have them, but don't know how to use them)

More access to computers and interactive software for publishing, producing, and scaffolding research in Spanish!! Typing curriculum to make the process easier.

Possibly smart boards for some interactive lessons.

Smart boards

Smart boards

Feedback…Traditional vs. Technology?  Both please!

I think that both traditional instruction and technological instruction can be engaging. I enjoy using technology in the classroom and use it on a daily basis through the Elmo, projecting the computer, using the mobi's, sometimes the mini laptops and ipad. Of course the students do too, but many of them are "plugged in" all the time and need much more practice and experience with social interaction. They need to be more sensitive to the thoughts and feelings of others which I feel like can get lost when we over use technology. I think a balanced approach using the two types is ideal. There's a lot to be said for real life versus virtual experience. I think that students also need more training to use technology. Younger students need typing instruction to prepare them for upper grades.

Though technology is engaging, effectiveness is still dependent on each student.

While traditional instruction is still "easier," I certainly prefer instruction through technology, which I'm learning to use, because of the engagement of my students.

I really feel the student engagement piece depends on the topic and what kind of technology is in use. My students love to hear a story that I have shown of a story read on U-tube by the president or video of clouds for weather. On the i-pad they are not so interested in listening to or reading stories then they are more into the game type of activities where they are doing something and it is more interactive. They like traditional instruction on some things and the fact that they can turn and talk with peers. Sometimes it just depends on the subject matter and how technology can be incorporated with the traditional instruction to teach to a different learning style. Especially with new and difficult concepts the students like where the teacher can control the pace of instruction so if we need to spend more time on certain aspects we can take the time to give extra instruction or more practice or talk through a process.