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Teacher Center » 21st Century Schools: Learning in the Digital Age
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HOME 21st Century Schools |
POLL Where Do You Stand? |
QUIZ Old School or New School? |
VIDEO QUIZ Digital Media Index |
POLL What Are the Obstacles? |
VIDEO POLL Digital Media & Learning |
SELF ASSESSMENT |
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Teachers are tapping into technology and digital media for learning. Watch How Google Saved a School and discuss the hype and the hopes for improving education through technology.
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More and more educators are tapping into the power of digital media and technology for teaching and learning. The variety of information resources available online is simply staggering. Explore how teachers and students are using the power of social media to promote students' active engagement, critical thinking and literacy skills.
New Forms of Learning. It doesn't need to happen in school. Because it's visual, interactive and social, learning can happen anywhere with digital media as people collaborate and share about a wide range of topics and issues that matter to them. Technology and School Improvement. Technology may transform schools by promoting student engagement and creativity. But critics fear that too much focus on technology takes attention away from what's really needed to improve schools: capable, well-trained teachers; student-centered learning methods; and smaller class sizes. Hope, Hype and Reality. Are today's learners really different from previous generations? Compelling images of students using digital technology are impressive, but the research evidence on the impact of technology on learning is more mixed. And it's sometimes hard to separate the scholarship from the marketing hype, given the deep investment of technology companies in promoting the idea of technology's transformative potential.
Online Resources for Teachers include:
WATCH: Check out the featured videos and activities that explore learning in the digital age.
PLAY: Take the "Old School, New School" quiz.
RATE: Use Where Do You Stand? Rate your level of agreement with opinions about teaching and learning in K-12 schools today.
READ: Learn more through informative one-page readings.
COMMENT: What do you think? How do you use technology effectively in your school?
Learning Objectives:
In this workshop, educators will:
- Understand why digital media and technology may (or may not) transform the process of teaching and learning
- Clarify and reflect on attitudes about the role of digital media in education
- Learn about specific instructional practices for integrating digital media and technology in the K-12 classroom
- Consider the quality of various information sources on issues related to the use of digital media in schools
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Where Do You Stand? Technology in our Schools
How Google Saved a School looks at how the introduction of laptops at I.S. 339 helped make a significant change in the culture of learning for both students and teachers.
After watching the video, rate your level of agreement with these statements. Click to see how others responded. Share your opinions by posting a comment.
QUIZ Are You Old School or New School?
Learning Objective: Understand your beliefs about the use of technology in education. Are you old school or new school? Are you an enthusiastic supporter of technology in education, or a bit more skeptical?
Procedure: Read each pair of statements below and choose the one that best reflects your view.
Based on your responses, you are:
"New School"
You're enthusiastic about digital technology as a tool for transforming education, and you support collaborative, student-centered approaches to teaching and learning.
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"Hopeful"
You recognize that technology can engage students in learning and help educators transmit the knowledge and skills students need for a well-rounded education.
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"Skeptic"
You believe that the quality of instruction is what matters most. It's the teacher and teaching strategy, not the technology, that makes the difference.
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"Old School"
You're not convinced that technology is the answer to the challenges educators face today. You see the future of education as continuing in the tradition established by previous generations.
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Learn More. Read Old School, New School to reflect on how these four perspectives reflect different values about the benefits and drawbacks of using technology for teaching and learning.
Old School, New School: Educational Perspectives on Digital Media and Technology
Which perspective best reflects your views about digital media and education?
New School. You're enthusiastic about digital technology as a tool for transforming education, and you support collaborative, student-centered approaches to learning.
Hopeful. You know that technology can engage students in learning and help teachers transmit the knowledge and skills students need for a well-rounded education.
Old School. You're not convinced that technology is the answer to the challenges educators face today. You see the future of education as continuing in the tradition that has been established by previous generations.
Skeptic. The quality of instruction is what matters most. Student-centered approaches really make a difference in improving learning. Technology isn't really the solution here.
Key to Reading the Chart
Let's call the x-axis your level of engagement with digital technology. Perhaps you're not crazy about staring at a screen all day (west), or you share your technology insights every day on your blog (east).
Let's call the y-axis your approach to student learning. Perhaps you're someone who knows that reading comprehension tests help kids gain culturally valued knowledge (south), or you're more interested in helping kids learn anything using engaging activities (north).
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Digital Media Index: Test Your Knowledge About Technology Use in the Classroom
Learning Objective: Find out what you know about the use of technology in the classroom.
Procedure: Watch "Friending Boo Radley," take a quiz about the use of technology in the classroom, and give your opinions on obstacles teachers face in using technology in the classroom.
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This video features Jennifer Johns, a middle school English teacher who uses social media in creative ways to promote students' exploration of literature. Is Jennifer Johns a typical teacher or an exception to the rule?
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How much do you know about how teachers and students actually use technology in K-12 education? Make an educated guess about the number that best fits in the boxes below.
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Share Your Thoughts About Obstacles to the Use of Technology in the Classroom
In using technology in meaningful ways in the K‐12 classroom, good teachers can face a number of obstacles. What 3 obstacles from the list beloware most significant?
Learn More. Check out Are Computers Used in Innovative Ways? to learn more about how computers are actually used by teachers and students in schools.
Cheerleaders for Technology in Education
If you're a teacher, you'd almost have to live in a cave to miss the many messages about the wonders of digital technology for teaching and learning.
But critical thinkers always ask the question, "Who's the author, and what's the purpose of this message? Can you separate the reality from the hype?" Consider some of the many resources available to educators today:
Edutopia is a publication of the George Lucas Educational Foundation, the magazine and Web site designed to spread the word about ideal learning environments and cutting-edge uses of technology in education.
Threshold Magazine is a journal for district, state and national education leaders, sponsored by the cable television industry through the nonprofit organization Cable in the Classroom. Launched in 2003, it features nationally recognized experts offering provocative ideas, opinions and research at the intersection of education and technology.
Before you visit the Tech & Learning Web site, you must fill out a detailed questionnaire so that you can be added to the company's database. The publication sells advertising based on how many readers influence the hardware- and software-buying decisions in their school districts.
Why are so many different organizations promoting the use of digital media and technology for learning? Some perspectives include:
- It's the best way for students to learn
- It's essential for the workers of the future to have technology skills
- Digital technology motivates and engages learners
- The elementary and secondary education sector is a huge potential market for digital media and technology products and services
There are a lot of cheerleaders for educational technology. And while we shouldn't be dismayed or surprised to see that commercial interests are involved, when evaluating the quality of information about technology in education, it's important to recognize that business interests are deeply invested in promoting technology tools for learning -- and that these interests will shape the messages we receive.
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Are Computers Used in Innovative Ways?
Teens are doing more writing than ever before -- mostly because they are socializing online. A recent study by Andrea Lunsford of Stanford University shows that 38 percent of students' writing takes place outside the classroom. As Clive Thompson put it in an article in Wired, "Before the Internet came along, most Americans never wrote anything, ever, that wasn't a school assignment."
But what are children and teens doing when it comes to using computers when they're in school?
The best evidence we have about the actual use of technology in education comes from a survey of teachers conducted by the U.S. Department of Education. More than 4,900 teachers from a nationally representative sample were asked about their use of digital media for teaching and learning. Classroom teachers who were teaching core subject areas during the 2004-2005 school year participated in the study.
The data suggest that teachers do not generally use digital media for the purposes recommended by experts and advocates. Experts stress how digital media can promote students' collaboration, self-expression and problem-solving skills. Instead, digital technology is used in much more mundane, modest and teacher-centered ways; for example, for personal research and lesson planning. Here's how teachers used digital technology on a monthly basis:
- Thirty percent of teachers used technology to create tests or quizzes.
- Twenty-four percent of teachers developed curricula or assignments in math or reading.
- Twenty-seven percent of teachers used it for research in planning a lesson.
- Eight percent used technology to maintain Web pages for their classes.
Here's how their students used digital technology on a monthly basis:
- Forty percent used computers for practice on math or reading.
- Thirty-seven percent used word processing at least once or twice a month.
- Twenty-nine percent used the Internet for research.
- Ten percent used PowerPoint to make slides.
- Five percent used digital photography or video equipment.
- One percent created Web pages.
What would be needed to help teachers make more active, student-centered use of digital media?
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Digital Media and Learning
Learning Objective: Find out more about the effects of digital media on learning.
Procedure: Watch short video clips and share your opinion about how digital media affects the learning process.
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| Marc Prensky says that kids can actually learn more about a topic of interest to them when they are on their own and outside of school and that most schools are just a formal credential. Access to the Internet gives students more opportunities to learn about subjects that really matter to them.
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Poll: Do young people learn more from following their personal interests exploring the Internet than they do in school?
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Todd Oppenheimer says that it's important that the classroom be a place where people can have sustained conversations with others. A focus on digital media in the classroom will intensify the shortening of students' attention spans.
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Poll: Should school be a place where students can engage with people, ideas and information, without all the pressure to use the latest technology gadgets?
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James Paul Gee talks about blocking or limiting access to the Internet and how software can be used to maximize learning.
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Poll: Should schools block access to certain Web sites?
Consider This: Twenty-one states have Internet-filtering laws that apply to public schools or libraries, requiring them to prevent minors from gaining access to sexually explicit, obscene or harmful materials.
In 2000, Congress enacted the Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA), which offers e-rate technology discounts to schools on the condition that they use Internet filters. The law, which was upheld by a Supreme Court decision in 2003, allows communities to set their own standards for what content is (and is not) filtered.
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Self-assessment
Now you're ready to answer the following questions to reflect on your own learning about 21st Century Schools.
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Resources and Readings for Learning More
Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century
Henry Jenkins offers a vision for the new kinds of knowledge and skills that young people growing up with digital media and technology need.
Partnership for 21st Century Learning MILE Guide
Get a deeper understanding of the many kinds of changes that schools need to bring technology into the K-12 curriculum, including issues related to leadership, policy and organizational systems.
What Would Socrates Say?
Peter Cookson Jr. offers reflection on the kinds of thinking skills needed for participation in 21st-century learning: critical reflection, empirical reasoning, collective intelligence and metacognition.
Edutopia
The George Lucas Educational Foundation sponsors this comprehensive "Digital Generation" Web site that features youth perspectives and innovative ways to use technology in the classroom.
Activities for Students: Life Online
This activity will help students recognize and address issues that might arise from their use of digital media and the ability to communicate so quickly and easily with so many people.
National Association for Media Literacy Education
This organization supports the work of educators from many disciplines and fields who are using media and technology to build critical thinking and communication skills.
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Digital Nation is brought to you by the Verizon Foundation
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