What’s New? The Promise and Peril of Digital Learning

What’s New?The Promise and Peril of

Digital Media and Learning

Justin Reich

Co-Founder, EdTechTeacher

Fellow, Berkman Center for Internet and Society

What Will the Future Look Like?

• Intel Future Concepts

• Alternates:– Microsoft 2020

• To what extent does technology allow us to do old things faster or more easily?

• To what extent does technology allow us to create learning environments that are truly different?

Framing Questions• How does the digital revolution make the

CONTEXT of learning different?

• What new FORMS are enabled by digital tools?

• How do digital tools shape our MINDS?

HOW DOES THE DIGITAL MAKE THE CONTEXT OF LEARNING DIFFERENT?

Wave #1: Computers and the Labor Market

Skills for 21st Century Work and Life:

The New Division of Labor

Richard J. MurnaneHarvard Graduate School of

EducationFrank Levy

MIT

Computerizing Routine Tasks: Self-Service Check-In

Types of Tasks Computers Do Not Well

Tasks that cannot be described well as a series of if-then-do steps because:

• The boundaries of the problem are ill-defined

• Solving the problem requires imagining novel solutions

• We learn to define the task and accomplish it through social interactions

Economy-Wide Measures of Routine and Non-Routine Task Input: 1969-1998 (1969=0)

Changes in Task Mix Within Occupations: Example: Secretary

• 1970 description of a secretary’s job:“Secretaries relieve their employers of routine duties so they can work on more important matters. . . .”

• 2000 description of a secretary’s job:“. . . Office automation and organizational restructuring have led secretaries to assume a wide range of new responsibilities once reserved for managerial and professional staff. Many secretaries now provide training and orientation to new staff, conduct research on the Internet, and learn to operate new office technologies.” Source: U.S. Department of Labor Occupational Handbook

A Homework Question• Examine the homework that teachers in your school

typically assign:

• Does the homework push students to develop expert thinking skills (non-routine problem solving)

• What about communication skills?• Or does the homework ask students to do the kind of

rules-based tasks that computers can be programmed to do?

• The answer may tell you a lot about the types of jobs your school is preparing students to do.

How do we put technology in the service of learning?

WHAT NEW FORMS ARE ENABLED BY DIGITAL TOOLS?

Edward Thorndike

Education as Science of Delivery

John Dewey

Education as Life

“One cannot understand the history of education in the United States during the 20th century unless one realises that Edward L. Thorndike won and John Dewey lost.”

-Ellen Lagemann

MASSIVELY OPEN ONLINE COURSES OR MOOCS

Links on MOOCs• Market: https://www.ai-class.com/

• Open: https://6002x.mitx.mit.edu/

Failed Attempts at Wikipedia

Links on MOOCs• Market: https://www.ai-class.com/

• Open: https://6002x.mitx.mit.edu/

• Dewey: http://ds106.us/

PERSONALIZED LEARNING

Personalized Learning: Khan Academy

• http://www.khanacademy.org/new-and-noteworthy/v/the-gates-notes--teachers-in-los-altos

• http://www.khanacademy.org/math/algebra/linear-equations-and-inequalitie/v/slope-and-rate-of-change

• http://www.khanacademy.org/math/algebra/equation-of-a-line/e/slope_of_a_line

BTW, math videos don’t have to be lecture

• Meyer on Problem Finding– http://www.youtube.com/watch?

v=BlvKWEvKSi8#t=06m45s

• Popcorn Picker– https://vimeo.com/42501010

Personalized Learning:Roadtrip Nation

• http://www.roadtripnation.org/

We all agree that personalization is important…

Therefore we will all disagree about what it means…

HOW DO DIGITAL MEDIA CHANGE OUR MINDS?

Net Smart: Five Literacies

• Attention

• Collaboration

• Participation

• Crap Detection

• Network Smarts

“Kids are good at things like Facebook, but they don’t know how to conduct basic searches!”

Ethical fault lines in digital life• Identity – When does identity play cross over into

identity deception?

• Privacy – What are the boundaries of sharing information about oneself and others online?

• Ownership and Authorship – What is the meaning of ownership and authorship in copy-paste, download, and remix environments?

• Credibility – How do people signal their trustworthiness online and judge the trustworthiness of others?

• Participation – In a context of rapidly forming and disintegrating communities, how are norms of behavior established, maintained, and respected online?

Support Bystanders Who Witness Bullying 

• Help the person being bullied get away from the situation.• Take away the audience by choosing not to watch and walk

away.• Tell the child doing the bullying that you don’t like it and to

stop doing it (but only if it feels safe to do so).• Distract the bully or offer an escape for the target by saying

something like, “Mr. Smith needs to see you right now” or “Come on, we need you for our game” (but only if it feels safe to do so).

• http://www.stopbullying.gov/respond/support-kids-involved/index.html#bystanders (excerpts)

So what are we supposed to do?

• Define learning

• Put technology in the service of learning

• Ask “What’s New?”

• Involve young people in your deliberations and trust their wisdom and insight

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