What's in the News

Article: Technology's Impact: A New Study Shows the Effectiveness and Limitations of School Technology
By Richard J. Coley
http://www.electronic-school.com/0997f3.html

Summary: There was a study done to see how effective technology is in the schools. After the study was done some benefits to technology was clear. Computers give students an individualize lesson. They are able to get instant feedback while working, they are also able to see the reasoning why their answers were incorrect and why the right answer is correct. The computer is very patient with the students and does not judge them. So the students have more motivation to learn more. Kulik did a study and made several conclusions from the study. Students seemed to learn more in less time through computer based learning. Students have better attitudes towards computers when their classes include computers. However in some of the cases students attitude toward the subject matter did not improve. Lower achieving students began to perform better because they could pace themselves and there was more structure available to them. Others things happened to improve due to computers, attendance rates went up and student involvement went up as well. Some things are little harder to see if there was improvement. That is with cooperative learning and cognitive thinking. It is difficult to have computer based learning work on that and to judge it as well. There are a lot of kinks to work out in order to for computers to have more of an impact. Practical and methodical issues are the main concern for future of technology in schools.

Response: I feel that the article brings up a lot of good points. There conclusions from the studies are ones that I would have expected to see. I think they are on the right track on to bringing technology into the schools. I would like to see more studies done to see what types of improvements they are making in order to get out the kinks in the system.

My View: Technology is needed in the schools. I feel by performing these studies the schools will see that technology is needed in order to have the students performing better and to have schools doing better. I truly believe that schools need technology.

Questions: What is being done to work out the kinks? What are their plans to implement technology in more schools? How will they perform studies to see if cognitive thinking is being done?

Learning Inventory

Based on your learning style inventory. Which type of multimedia learning is most challenging for you and why? What multimedia tool do you want to learn more about?
Active Learner, Sensing Learner, Visual Learner, Sequential Learner.
I think that the most challenging multimedia tool for my type of learning would be listening to mp3. I have some professors that put their lectures in a mp3 format and that can be difficult for me since I am a visual learner. I would like to learn more about interactive notes and smart boards.

Digital Immingrants vs. Digital Natives

I thought the article really hit the nail on the head of what is like between us and our parents. There is a real difference between the digital natives and the digital immigrants. It is sometimes difficult for me to explain things to my parents especially my mother. There is a real communication barrier, it is like we are speaking a different language or have an "accent" that is hard to understand. I would to hear more about a way to break the translation, make it easier for the digital immigrants to understand the digital natives. There is still a lot to be uncovered on the potential of being a digital native. I would like to see what can done for this upcoming generation because they are going to more native then the digital natives are now and there will be that gap there just like there is a gap between digital natives and digital immigrants. I wonder what changes would need to be done for everyone to understand what is going on in the world.