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Rescooped by
Ivon Prefontaine, PhD
from Innovative styles in educatio
onto Educational Leadership and Technology |
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As digital technologies become daily staples in both our personal and professional lives, there's been much discussion among educators and community leaders as to whether these devices and innovations could in some way be accountable for shifts in...
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Larissa MacFarquhar on the philosopher and cognitive scientist who believes that the tools we use to help us think may be what makes human thought special.
Ivon Prefontaine, PhD's insight:
Tools like smart phones and notebooks extend memory. Given different circumstances, people will require a different tool to meet their needs.
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Children need opportunities to develop hand strength and dexterity needed to hold pencils
Ivon Prefontaine, PhD's insight:
When we introduce and use new tools, there will be unintended consequences. Good research helps inform how we mighr deal with these consequences i.e. play with blocks, drawing, use of fingers and hands, etc.
This is not a physical dexterity issue, but other research has shown how it can be a mental dexterity issue.
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Human beings have been fighting distractions for thousands of years. Yet, somehow it seems like the battleground has shifted. Rather than what you’d typically think of as distractions — like…
Ivon Prefontaine, PhD's insight:
Technology is how we experience using our tools. It is about thinking, choosing, and using them in thoughtful and wise ways.
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The greatest fear of parents and teachers is that the tech industry wants to replace teachers with computers. They fear that the business leaders want to cut costs by replacing expensive humans with inexpensive machines, that never require health care or a pension. They believe that education requires human interaction. They prefer experience, wisdom, judgment, sensibility, sensitivity and compassion in the classroom to the cold, static excellence of a machine. Via Nik Peachey
Ivon Prefontaine, PhD's insight:
This is a Diane Ravitch article. Teaching is relational and adds the human touch computers never can. There are likely more than five risks. For example, the picture looks and I guess feels like a "traditional" classroom with desks in neat orderly rows. 
magnus sandberg's curator insight,
January 5, 2:57 AM
Interesting read on some real risks of technology in school. Note that the real risk here is the new stakeholders who's goals are for themselves, not for the students.
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This was the eighth time undertaking this year-end project, and it was, by far, the most difficult one yet. In part, 2017 was just a very bad year. A bad year for the politics of education. A bad year for the politics of technology. A busy year, full of bad education technology. There were many ed-tech storylines to follow, almost all of them dystopian. In part too, this project is just a lot of work, as there’s a ton of writing and as (I hope) there’s some big thinking as well. Via Miloš Bajčetić
Ivon Prefontaine, PhD's insight:
Audrey Watters presents links to other posts she wrote in 2017 about digital technology. It takes time to go to each and read them. The ones about "fake news" and weaponization of data are intriguing.
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A number of events in 2017 have caused more people to do what few people have done until now — ask whether mechanisms and media billions of people have adopted enthusiastically might be more harmful…
Ivon Prefontaine, PhD's insight:
Technology is not what we think it is. Technology (techne + logos) is a way of thinking and conversation about, with, and through tools we use as craftspeople.
A tool poorly understood and used is not useful. It reminds me of Abraham Maslow's quote: "If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail."
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Facebook and Twitter won't fix fake news alone, says danah boyd. Today's information wars are also a reflection of us.
Ivon Prefontaine, PhD's insight:
Who is responsible for discerning what fake news is? Each of us is. We need to take time and question what we consume as news.
The article is an interview with Danah Boyd from Wired. 
GwynethJones's curator insight,
December 19, 2017 6:48 PM
I always love reading what danah boyd aka @zephoria is talking about - she's always on point!
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"Questioning AI ethics does not make you a gloomy Luddite," or so the title of a recent article in a London business newspaper assures us. The most important thing to be learned here is that someone feels this needs to be said. Beyond that, there is also something instructive about the concluding paragraphs. If we… Via Ana Cristina Pratas
Ivon Prefontaine, PhD's insight:
"Technologies like AI emerge and evolve in social spaces that are resistant to substantial ethical critique. They also operate at a scale that undermines the possibility of ethical judgment and responsibility. Moreover, our society is ordered in such a way that there is very little to be done about it, chiefly because of the absence of structures that would sustain and empower ethical reflection and practice, the absence, in other words, of a we that is not merely rhetorical."
Technology (techne + logos) is about thoughtful and ethical conversations about, with, and through our tools. That means we have to speak to each other
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Developing skills-based online courses and credentials is the easy part. The hard part is getting employers to pay attention. Via Martin Debattista
Ivon Prefontaine, PhD's insight:
Content is easy to design. The challenge is to get employees to pay attention as to how the content is used.
Technology (techne + logos) is about a craftsperson's conversation about, with, and through their tools. That requires mindful and thoughtful attention to our tools.
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A new study shows more and more teenagers are hanging out on devices when they should be catching ZZZs, putting their health at risk.
Ivon Prefontaine, PhD's insight:
Part of teaching children how to use computers and smart phones is the negative impacts such as lack of sleep. The lead researcher, Jean Twenge, says lack of sleep can lead to depression. This is an issue of health and well-being.
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Stewardship in the "Age of Algorithms"
Ivon Prefontaine, PhD's insight:
What is the human role in algorithms and their use in machine learning, AI, and untapped developments?
The pace of change is such that we cannot abdicate human responsibilities to that queston. Technology (techne+logos) is a wisdom and conversation about, with, and through our tools.
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“Why can’t I use this picture?” This is a question my students often ask whenever they are looking for images on the Internet for projects they create in Via Bookmarking Librarian
Ivon Prefontaine, PhD's insight:
This is ann informative read.
Elizabeth Hutchinson's curator insight,
November 17, 2017 1:44 AM
Just because it is there does not mean you can take it. 'Educational purposes' does not mean you do not have to teach copyright!
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Cellphones in schools is a subject I’ve discussed at length before and one that doesn’t seem to be going away any time soon. It’s a bellweather issue, an issue that indicates clearly where you sit on the educational spectrum. Do schools teach students “the rules” or help students learn effectively? Via John Evans, Stephania Savva, Ph.D
Ivon Prefontaine, PhD's insight:
A key question about digital tools is students learning to self-regulate their use. What if we gave students a cell phone break every 30 minutes?
Mark Cottee's curator insight,
October 29, 2017 5:59 PM
Saw this argument in full swing recently and very pleased to happen across this article today. Nothing is ever black and white but this issue may hold the answer to the more fundamental question of - "What is school there for?"
Carol Hancox's curator insight,
November 3, 2017 7:52 PM
Yes cell phones are distracting so they should be banned in school, but we need to keep them in school so that we can teach students how to regulate their use, so they are not distracted as adults
Elizabeth Hutchinson's curator insight,
November 24, 2017 1:04 AM
It really is important for students to learn how to regulate their use of their phones. Where better than in school where they are using them anyway whether we like it or not.
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Improving the world through disruptive innovation.
Ivon Prefontaine, PhD's insight:
I don't think the digital portfolio will replace the CV. They will complement each other. Both are tools.
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I’m in my mid-thirties, which means my social media feed is full of pictures of tonight’s dinner, links to obituaries for 80’s celebrities, and angst-filled articles about how kids these days are…
Ivon Prefontaine, PhD's insight:
The point of understanding what a pharmakon is points us towards what it means to use things in moderation. That was Plato's point. More recently, Jacques Derrida used the phrase in a similar manner. There is always good and point. Humans need to find ways to integrate tools into their lives in ways that serve humans.
Are digital tools addictive? Sherry Turkle suggests we should avoid the word addictive. The challenge becomes how do we use our tools in moderation? Technology (techne + logos) is about wise use of tools.
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Paul A. Kirschner OK; I’ve covered taking notes with or without laptops and whether people learn better if they read from paper or screen. This is the third blog in an apparent, unplanned, trilogy. Disclaimer: Let’s sketch/frame the situation so there are no misunderstandings. Yes, I know that using a computer (e.g., laptop, tablet, smartphone)…
Ivon Prefontaine, PhD's insight:
The blog begins with a disclaimer that it is not a call for the ban of laptops and computers in classrooms.
Technology is a practical wisdom and conversation about, with, and through the tools we use as craftspeople. It is not about the tools alone. Understood this way choices about computers and laptops become situational and contextual.
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Rebekah Neumann, the co-founder of $20 billion shared-office firm WeWork, wants to encourage kids to be “conscious” entrepreneurs. “There’s no reason why children in elementary schools can’t be…
Ivon Prefontaine, PhD's insight:
Really, children creating startups in kindergarten. Who would have thought that would have problems attached?
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There is a correlation between cell phones and teen depression, writes Delaney Ruston, so US schools should follow France's lead and ban students' from having them during school.
Ivon Prefontaine, PhD's insight:
Cell phones reduce social interaction and increase exclusion of some students. It may not be overt bullying, but it is isolating and may feel like it is.
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Ivon Prefontaine, PhD's insight:
"Education technology is pitched as a cure-all for the many problems plaguing K-12 education, though rarely do new technologies move the needle in any significant way – and they often come at a steep price." When we treat technology as tools, we miss what its essence is: a craftsperson's conversation about, with, and through their tools. It is practical wisdom on how to use those tools. We accept a one-size-fits-all approach in unquestioned and taken-for-granted ways. The challenge is to engage teacher and student voice in the process of change, whatever that might be.
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Before you or your children wear out your shiny new VR gadgets, be sure you're fully aware of the potential health risks of this exciting technology. Via Peter Mellow
Ivon Prefontaine, PhD's insight:
They are tripping over things, eye and ear damage, and motion sickness. Children are at most risk.
One that is missing is we are not aware of the world and people we are around.
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Ivon Prefontaine, PhD's insight:
The first one about screentime is increasingly repeated. Others such as listening to music, exercising before bed, writing things in your head, etc. make sense.
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Ivon Prefontaine, PhD's insight:
"Biased information — misleading in nature, typically used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view — is a much more prevalent problem than fake news. It’s a problem that doesn’t exist only within Facebook but across social networks and other information-rich services (Google, YouTube, etc.)."
Teachers and schools can play a significant role in this biased information and propaganda.
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Everything you need to know about human communication lies hidden in one, 4-minute monologue from one of the greatest actors of all time.
Ivon Prefontaine, PhD's insight:
"The result of all this, the lack of confidence, the false images, the weak technological replacement for true friendship, true love, is that we keep spinning in circles."
I critiqued "Dead Poet's Society" in a Master's class. Teaching is about being free and responsbile to create. It is relational and there is no tool that replaces true friendship, love, compassion, and communication. Machines pass on information. Humans communicate. Thomas Merton said "We call it falling in love for a reason. It can hurt."
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And even if you’re reading this on your laptop of PC, there’s one thing I want to ask you: How important is your device to you? I was shocked when I read a weird statistic a while back. An experiment…
Ivon Prefontaine, PhD's insight:
The argument, based on research, is cell phones change our behaviour. What does that mean in a classroom? What does it mean for teachers and students?
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Too many classes, all grade levels, begin the school year with getting down to academic business - starting to cover content, discussing expectations regarding academic requirements, giving tests, and other academic information provided by the teacher to the students in a mostly one-way communication. The human or social element is often disregarded. I believe that… Via Yashy Tohsaku
Ivon Prefontaine, PhD's insight:
To be clear we are teachers and we teach. Facilitating and being a facilitator might be a role we assume within teaching.
The general premise of the article is to reach and form relationships with students. Begin each school year doing that with a variety of activities that helped you learn who students are and their interests. |
Howard Gardner wrote about this as early as 1993. We have the ability to effectively make this happen.