thoughts on mobile learning

Thoughts on mobile learning:

Using mobile technology has become much more common in recent years in school classrooms.
In my opinion there are a lot of qualifiers than go along with using mobile technology like tablets, for learning. Some examples of qualifiers are using for "guided learning" which requires the teacher to actively supervise the learning in their classroom. This is important because technology, no matter how advanced is not a suitable replacement for interactive guided learning. Apps and programs that attempt to replace the classroom teacher lack the ability to motivate students when there are so many ways to be distracted. Speaking of getting distracted, tablets and other connected devices have so many ways to get off task. With high levels of distractibility, what is keeping kids accountable for actually learning the lesson? These are just some questions that can come up, ad should be addressed by proper implementation for using technology in the classroom.

Just like safety standards for science laboratories, similar standards should exist for using mobile technology in the classroom. Assuming those standards and qualifiers exist, then such mobile learning can be massively beneficial. Just as having actual experiments in science classes provides hands on experience that can give understanding above and beyond reading about the subject in a book or hearing a lecture on the subject. Mobile devices can provide a new medium of interaction, can keep the discussion active even after class. they can provide better ways for students to collaborate, and bring new information that is subject relevant at the students discretion to add to the overall learning process, and broaden the scope.

Searching for curriculums in the digital age.

I read this article in Edweek, a link is provided at the end of this response. The article is an overview of the lack of sources for adaptive curricula in the subjects of science and social studies compared to math and language arts that are available to teachers in order to personalize learning in their classroom.

The problem is not a lack of material, but rather a lack of incorporated learning environments that are adaptive to the students. Digital programs that can target areas of struggle and begin to focus differently on different students’ weak areas. These ‘adaptive’ programs can help teachers target and focus their class time more efficiently by providing statistics and feedback on the classrooms.

Personally I am excited that these tool exist in many forms in mathematics since I plan on teaching that subject. However, every classroom should have access to equivalent tools that empower the teacher to teach better, and support the students in and out of the classroom. The article is a call for adaptive, prepackaged, high quality digital programs like those that exist in math and reading, but for all the subject areas that students explore during their education, specifically science and social studies.

One reason this discrepancy exists is because of the current nation standards, and the tests that are mandated by such standards, because the tests place a high emphasis on reading and mathematics, those subjects have received more attention and funding for advanced learning tools. From a development side, the fact that math and reading standards are similar across multiple states makes development easier and more cost effective, so it really is a perfect storm for the math and reading subject areas.

Even though having these powerful tool at a teachers’ disposal is very appealing, there are still people who caution against using pre-packaged, adaptive curricula in social studies and science, mostly because there isn’t a progression, from one topic to another, such as exists in mathematics where ideas build upon previous ones. Social study classrooms tend to focus regionally on topics and issues of the city, county, or state, and it seems unlikely that a development company will find it economical to customize their product by state or county.

The real gem of the article for me personally was how a school district using an adaptive curriculum in math eases the transition for students who swap schools, as long as they stay in district, their progress and statistics carry over digitally so they continue in the new school environment exactly where they were at the other school. However, in science and social studies this isn’t the case. There is one company, IXL, that did recently release elementary-level social studies and science products, which could signal a shift in the exclusion of social studies and science products from the digital integrated age.

To conclude, integrated and adaptive education programs that give teachers the tools to be better teachers and students the tools to be better learners, are important to have in all subjects. As long as they do not replace or supplant the teacher themselves. The more tools teachers have to collaborate with each other, help their students at a 1-1 level, and focus the learning in their classrooms, the better off education will be. Never leave out the most important classroom ingredient; a passionate, motivated teacher that is always looking for new learning opportunities to incorporate into their classrooms.

Article

"Your Brain on Videogames"

The title of this TED talk is: “your brain on video games, Daphne Bavelier talks about how video games affect video-game-player's brain's. Some interesting information right off the bat is that the average age of video game players is 33, much higher than people may think at first. A particular focus of the talk is on action based, faced paced, first-person-shooter type videogames such as ‘Call of Duty’. In moderation, Bavelier argues that video games, in reasonable doses: "have powerful positive effects on many different parts of human behavior". Her lab measures in a quantitative data, that is measurable data the effects of playing videogames on people who play them. Things like vision for instance. They found that the vision of action gamers is a bit better than that of non-gamers. Specifically, in areas of clutter like reading small font and seeing/distinguishing gray-scales.

one way Bavelier's lab tests subjects is to  have them say the color of the 'text' that words are written in, which can become difficult when the word itself is a color different than the color of the text it is written in. the finding of her lab was that people who play action games resolve this mental conflict faster. Furthermore, action gamers scored better in object tracking, that is their ability to keep track of multiple objects, gamers scored almost double what the average person, or control group scored. This skill can be important for reacting and observing surroundings when driving or other activities that require awareness.

Daphne Bavelier explains that the areas of the brain that control attention span are much more efficient in those people who habitually play action games. The lab finding was that people who play videogames can switch tasks very fast, contrary to people who are “multimedia-taskers” that is people who are engaged in managing multiple social media apps, conversations and reading articles, basically staring at a different kind of screen than action gamers, these Multimedia-taskers tend to be very poor multi-taskers. Furthermore, even different types of video games have varying degrees of effects on the people who play them.

Her research is trying to distill the specific elements of action videogames that are causing the increased ability to multitask, focus, and help with vision, so that some kind of action game can be developed to help with rehabilitation, education, and other uses. They need long term results, and those are promising, since participants in her studies have kept their increased efficiency from playing small doses of action games even 5 months down the road.

The largest problem currently faced is marrying the worlds of the video game designers, people who exceed in marketing an irresistible product, and then filling that product with the specific elements of those action games that have the greatest effect on the aforementioned skills of focus, multitasking, and vision. In order to create a product that can be marketed to people recovering from brain trauma or other diseases, to education software that students actually enjoy participating in.

your Brain on Videogames