Purple Chair, Downtown; Denver, Colorado

Here are my takeaways/notes from a May 2nd session titled Web 2.0: Research Issues, Results, and Future Directions hosted by Lynne Schrum and starring Chris Dede, Dan Hickey, Diane Jass Ketelhut, Donald Leu, and Allan Collins.

These reflections are my synthesized notes and not direct quotations. My hand/brain speed and coordination are no match for the rate of human speech, but, I do try. Enjoy!

• Web 2.0 = Rorschach test — there is no one right answer/definition. It’s what we make it. (Dede)

• Web 2.0 or interactive media permits creativity, collaboration, co-creating and sharing. (FYI)

• I used to believe in collective intelligence until I attended my last faculty meeting (Dede).

• Link love: University of Pittsburgh Learn Lab: http://www.learnlab.org/research/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

• New digital media are easy to use, but not easy to use well (Dede).

• New digital media requires fluency in their rhetoric/critical thinking skills (Dede).

• Web 2.0 redefines what, how, and with whom we learn (Dede).

• In most formal learning environments, new digital media is still an add-on (Dede).

• We should be using new digital media to support wisdom building (Dede).

• Wisdom includes*:

1. A cognitive dimension involving rich understanding of a variety of intellectual disciplines and fields
2. A practical-experiential dimension of sophisticated, pragmatic comprehension about how to act given the unresolvable questions, philosophic issues, and unavoidable problems (such as personal mortality) associated with everyday life (Baltes & Smith, 1990)
3. An interpersonal dimension of insightfully appreciating the interactions and contributions of diverse groups, cultures, and societies in shaping civilization
4. An ethical dimension encompassing what the ancient Greeks meant by “knowing and doing the good”
5. A metacognitive dimension of reflective judgment, awareness of the limitations of knowing and of how  these limitations affect the resolution of ill-defined problems (Birren & Fisher, 1990; Kitchener & Brenner, 1990).

This definition draws from, but is more limited than, the concept of extraordinary wisdom delineated by Randall and Kenyon (2001).

• What should we as a society be investing in to support the development of wisdom in children and adults? (Dede)

• Achievement tests undermine achievement in schooling (Hickey).

• If you haven’t already, go read Understanding By Design by Wiggins and McTighe.

• Participatory assessment offers a new way to examine student work that supports a student-centered approach. (Hickey)

• Social collaboration sites present a rich resource for exploring identity for teachers and youth. (Ketelhut)

• For many pre-service teachers, there is a reported incoherence between their online identity and their in-class identity. Specifically, their in-class identity conflicted with their online identity. (Ketelhut)

• When examing online identity issues, consider examining Kegan‘s (1996) model of psychological development consisting of six “equilibrium stages”: the incorporative stage, the impulsive stage, the imperial stage, the interpersonal stage, the institutional stage, and the inter-individual stage. (Ketelhut)

• The Internet presents a reading comprehension issue for learners. (Leu)

• The Internet presents a literacy issue. (Leu)

• If the use of the Internet is limited to educational technology courses, subject area specialists will defer responsibility for integrating it into their curriculum. (Leu)

• For new digital media to be taken seriously in education, it needs to be integrated into subject areas more completely, not as an add-on. (Leu)

• Online reading represents a problem-based comprehension issue. (Leu)

• Web 2.0 is a static construct; we should recognize it as New Literacies instead. (Leu)

• To advance this notion, teacher education must focus on pedagogy, skill development, and a health professional development diet. (Leu)

• It is important for all educators to consider: What should we be teaching in classrooms? (Collins)

• What is important to learn? (Collins)

• What about Web 2.0 or New Literacies fosters wisdom? (Collins)

• New digital media does nothing to promote morals or ethics. (Collins)

• Web 2.0 has insiders and outsiders. (Collins)

• School culture (closed) contrasts Web 2.0 culture (open). (Collins)

• Do social collaboration and social networking sites invite us to questions our identities? (Collins)

• Web 2.0 is making the equity problem in schools worse. (Collins)

• There will be a tremendous price to pay if we do not address this participatory divide. (Collins)

• Critical New Literacies include (Leu):

1. identifying important questions
2. locating information
3. critically evaluating information
4. synthesizing information
5. communicating information

[*The definition of wisdom cited above was pulled from Dede's 2009 Educational Research article: Dede, C. (2009). Comments on Greenhow, Robelia, and Hughes: Technologies that facilitate generating knowledge and possibly wisdom. Educational Researcher, 38(4): 261-262.]

AERA 2010, Denver Colorado

Here is a collected list of notes culled from my first day reflections at the American Educational Research Association 2010 annual meeting in Denver, Colorado. Names appearing in parentheses are referenced at the bottom of this post. While I tried to capture speakers’ thoughts directly, most are paraphrased and filtered through my limited ability to listen and write at the same time. I apologize in advance for misrepresenting any of the speakers’ thoughts and ideas.

• Most schools are surrounded by fences. This is a loaded metaphor. (Ching)

• How should we define learning?

• Why does learning inside a school define learning outside of school? (Ching)

• How is learning outside of school relevant to school learning? (Ching)

• What role does technology play in learning outside of school? (Ching)

• Kids’ access to culture of participation is increasing. (Barron)

• Research suggests production activities using the computer build technical fluencies (Barron).

• There are multi-fold learning opportunities despite the myth of the digital native.

• Parents are a critical factor as learning partners (Barron).

• Given roles parents play in kids’ lives, there are significant experience divides (Barron).

• There are significant divides between the ways in which kids use technology as producers of content. (Barron, 2009).

• Production uses of technology depends on community that surrounds kids (Barron).

• In terms of the different forms and pathways of engagement with technology, parents can play several roles (Barron):

1. Teacher
2. Learning Broker
3. Project Collaborator
4. Resource Provider
5. Non-technical Support (consultant)
6. Learner
7. Employer

• How parents engage technology personally and professionally impacts kids’ use.

• For more information on informal learning research, visit http://life-slc.org

• Strong theoretical framework for designing technologically engaging activities: Cooperative Constructionism (Chapman + Papert).

• Design Experiment Methodology reference: Brown, A. L. (1992). Design experiments: Theoretical and methodological challenges in creating complex interventions. Journal of the Learning Sciences, 2 (2), 141-178.

• “Science is built up of facts, as a house is built of stones; but an accumulation of facts is no more a science than a heap of stones is a house.” — Henri Poincare, 1905 (via Steinkeuhler)

• Examples of learning in out-of-school environments: Computer Clubhouse (Chapman) and Casual Learning Lab (Steinkeuhler).

• There is a tension between intentional learning (other directed) and interest-driven learning (self-directed). (Steinkeuhler).

• Research shows when students are allowed to choose reading material, reading scores are markedly higher on standardized measures associated with fluency and reading level (Steinkeuhler).

• Paradox: Out-of-school learning is always compared to in-school learning. (Sessums)

• Learning happens. Schools need to rethink time, space, and their purpose. (Sessums)

• Let students do more of the driving. (Steinkeuhler)

• Teachers need to play more of a designer and advocate role in schools. (Sessums)

• More research is needed around critical periods for learning (Kuhl).

• Research shows social context and social support are CRITICAL when it comes to knowledge acquisition and skill development (Kuhl).

• Given the critical nature of social context and social support in learning, the garbage-in-garbage-out rule is easily measured. (Sessums)

• The complexity of language use impacts a child’s language and knowledge growth and development (Kuhl).

• Imitative learning is powerful (Meltzoff).

• Imitative learning is closely associated with observational learning (Meltzoff).

• Shared or joint attention is a powerful learning mechanism before we formally acquire language (Meltzoff).

• Cultural stereotypes effect a child’s’ self-concept and learning ability (Meltzoff).

• Cultural stereotypes and self-concepts are effected by observation of and engagement with peers, parents, media, teachers, and mentors (Meltzoff).

• Stereotypes can be overcome with the help of peers, parents, media, teachers, and mentors (Meltzoff).

• Educational policy: How we choose what to do defines a course of action (Malcom).

• Educational policy is influenced by our ability to choose between alternatives, by our present circumstances, and by future goals (Malcom).

• Educational policy challenges (Malcom):

1. Over (and under-) interpreting research findings (looking for the silver bullet);
2. When research collides with conventional wisdom;
3. When research collides with politics;
4. When action is seen as too hard and/or too expensive; and
5. When it is unclear how to get from the present to a future informed by research.

• Educational policy is a blunt instrument (Malcom).

• The “work:” converting research into practice (Sessums).

• To get teachers to change how they conduct their classrooms requires a skilled expert to “tow them into the big wave” (Hickey).

• What are teacher practitioner’s learning about/sharing on Twitter? (Craft)

• How teacher practitioners are being educated about integrating technology into their curriculum varies (Sessums).

• Many technology integration courses are still focusing on teaching PowerPoint, Word, and Excel (1990s) (Sessums).

• The use of participatory media is limited in many colleges and schools of education (Sessums).

• Given an imitative learning model, many teacher practitioners are not being exposed to meaningful uses of participatory media (Sessums).

• Research suggests that most teacher practitioners are at the early stages of technology integration (Mouza, Hughes, Richardson, Niess).

• Reasons cited for limited technology integration include lack of resources, prescribed curricula, and practitioners/administrators being less open to innovative ideas (Mouza).

• What is effective technology integration? What does it look like? How should it be defined? (Sessums)

• What are we trying to achieve by integrating technology into the classroom? (Sessums)

• In what ways does participatory media transform teacher practice? (Sessums)

• Technology is still considered an add-on. It is not yet viewed as an essential part of the educational process in schools (Sessums).

• What will it take for parents, teachers, school officials to move beyond thinking of technology as a teaching tool? (Sessums)

References to people noted above:

Cynthia Carter Ching
Brigid Barron
Robbin Chapman
Constance Steinkeuhler
Patricia Kuhl
Andrew Meltzoff
Shirley Malcom
Dan Hickey
Chris Craft
Joan Hughes
Karen Richardson
Chrystalla Mouza
Margaret Niess