Technology Meets Education

1. Technology Meets Education Tony Anceriz, Victoria Feldman & Michelle Green

2. Assistive Technology and the Students with Special Education Needs .

3. Assistive/Adaptive Technology • Broad range of supports available to assist people with various cognitive, sensory, physical, communication, learning, and other challenges that limit participation and learning opportunities. • It is a system or support that allows a person with a disability to work around his/her area of challenge. • It does not provide a “cure” for a condition or disability.

4. Rationale for Implementing AT in Schools • Making the school curriculum accessible to all students. • Allow students to access information, connect with others, and participate.

5. Trends • Currently, the United States has a more highly developed educational assistive technology model than exists in other countries. • Under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), all students on an Individual Education Program (IEP) must be considered for assistive technology. • United States Department of Education provides federal funding to state authorities to support assistive technology initiatives. • Federal legislation and funding have fostered awareness among politicians, educators, advocates, families, and others of the value of AT in education, lifelong learning, career advancement, and the societal inclusion of people with disabilities.

6. Trends (continued) • The United Kingdom’s Special Educational Needs and Disability Act 2001 does not include specific language on technology support for students. • In Australia, the Disabilities Discrimination Act (DDA) protects students from discrimination in education. However, there is no language in the DDA addressing assistive technology consideration. • In Canada, the provinces and territories control the delivery of educational services and establish their own systems.

7. Matching appropriate AT to individual learner needs • The specific characteristics of the student (age, abilities, preferences) • The learning environments where AT will be used • The learning goals that the AT is intended to support http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assistive_technology

8. Assistive technology products • Low tech: erasable pens; coloured coding systems and overlays; tactile and manipulative learning products; highlighter pens and tape • Mid tech: battery operated devices such as tape recorders, timers, lighted handheld magnifiers, books on tape • High tech: portable computerized devices; standard and specialized computer hardware and software

9. AT and Learning Disabilities Learning Disabilities – neurological disorder that affects the brain to understand, remember or communicate information

10. Software for Learning Disabled Students • WORD Q • http://www.wordq.com • For students who have difficulty writing and spelling • Audio feedback for text and spell check to enhance writing and editing • Word prediction suggests words when you have trouble spelling or choosing the right word • Word Q reads back typed sentences so that students can hear missing words or punctuation

11. SPEAK Q • Helps student to write text by speaking into headset • Student has choice of typing with the keyboard, using word prediction, or speaking straight into the text • Speech recognition and word prediction are integrated to enhance the effectiveness of each other

12. INSPIRATION http://www.inspiration.com/ • Multi-coloured web mapping for visual thinking, brainstorming and organizing thoughts • Converts a web to a text outline for sentences, paragraph and essay formation

13. Inspiration at a Glance

14. Inspiration Cont…

15. Inspiration Cont.

16. KURZWEIL 3000 http://www.kurzweiledu.com • Uses a multi sensory approach • Reads text back to student (eg. Textbooks) • Features include decoding, study skills, writing and test taking tools designed to adapt to each individual’s learning style

17. Something to Think About • In some jurisdictions, students with Learning Disabilities, are less likely to receive AT support. • Achieving equity of access to AT services in schools across Canada may be a challenge without federal legislation, funding, or national standards. • Few in-service and pre-service AT training opportunities are available for educators across Canada. • There is a growing demand for professional development, information-sharing among staff members, training sessions, and personal-learning activities that will allow teachers to improve and to acquire the skills and abilities needed to incorporate computer applications into the curriculum.

18. Keep In Mind… • We all use assistive technology on a daily basis. It becomes essential and even unnoticeable.

19. The Real World of Technology – Ch. X Ursula M. Franklin

20. Interfaces between biosphere and bitsphere • Biosphere– living creatures, their biological support systems, their physical and mental artifacts. • Bitsphere– sphere of storage, display, transmittal of information or data in BIT.

21. At the interface of biosphere and bitsphere, the reality of togetherness and belonging becomes eroded by the asynchronous activities in virtual time and space.

22. Three streams where common problems and difficulties fall: • Displacement of people by devices. • Vast underestimation of the contributions to a task made by people learning or working together. • Asynchronistic modes of doing things. Results are social time-space dislocation.

23. Two facets of the learning process: Explicit learning –lesson objective (ex. single digit multiplication) Implicit learning – occurred by the way in traditional setting – cooperation, taking turns, listening, and tolerance (social skills).

24. When technology is used to diminish the drill of explicit learning, the occasion for implicit learning may also diminish. In the classroom device-assisted, individually paced acquisition of knowledge leave no room for implicit learning opportunities.

25. A look at the new term Metamodal Mastery • What does it mean? • What are some of the implications of its pursuit? • Who assesses the level of mastery and against what criteria?

26. Metamodal Mastery: Virtual Mediations of Transdisciplinarity In Higher Education by Mary Leigh Morbey and Carolyn Steele “The educational digital divide between educators and students is getting larger every day.” “Nowhere is this educational digital divide more marked than in the university;”

27. Impact Potentional of virtual 3D environments on higher education “Universities are under increasing pressure from governments; industries, and parents to provide its graduates with mastery of current and emergent technological literacies” p.2 “By 2016 students aged 13-30 will be spending over 40 hours a week using interactive, internet based, 3D visual environments for a wide range of purposes including education” p.2

28. Webkinz http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=w_iF2Fl-HBY

30. “Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments” “On the external public level, the epistemological blurring of academic boundaries has been articulated in marketing and research literature as interdisciplinary, an opportunity to see the world through different lenses.” p.3 “Privately, however, in the internal professional realms of the academy-dissertation defenses, academic journals, tenure reviews, and library holdings – the disciplinary divisions are still strongly maintained.” p.3

31. This transdisciplinary position “We believe this conceptualization holds immense promise for describing diverse crossings of academic disciplines beyond solely artistically based domains; a fluid, to and fro, crossings of boundaries in a Heideggerian sense (Heidegger, 1971).”

32. Transdisciplinary Trans according to one dictionary definition means Across. Disciplinary according to the dictionary p. 280 is an adjective that means of, promoting, or used for discipline; corrective

33. From Multimodal Literacy to Metamodal Mastery (slide #10) “For this reason, in our articulation of metamodal mastery we reject the term literacy and its privileging of language in favor of the term ‘mastery’, which is less constrained in its Modal affiliation than the notion of literacy and focuses more on outcomes (mastery) than on the means (skills required to reach them). “ P.6

34. Metamodal Mastery “Our preliminary definition of metamodal mastery then, is the ability to create, analyze, and synthesize data, artifacts, epistemologies, and vocabularies from a variety of fields in a variety of modes and media, especially those that are virtual.”

35. Two Contemporary Virtual Environments SECOND LIFE THE CROQUET PROJECT http://www.secondlife.org/ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b72CvvMuD6Q http://www.opencroquet.org/index.php/Main_Page

36. Second Life in Higher Education Harvard Law School (HLS) offering CyberOne: Law in the Court of Public Opinion first offered by Professor Charles R. Nesson in September 2006 - strong sense of community - developed new sets of classroom norms - students who struggle with writing found a new range of expression - non participation ended and as did student domination of discussion

37. The Croquet Project The croquet project, unlike second life is entirely built by users employing a developer’s language called “Squeak”. All fix-ups happen in full view of users. My personal concern with both second life and croquet project has to do with young people having so much power. I feel students should learn how to use the technologies but not use them to argue a position when they are still studying.

38. Examples The Arts Metaverse Project developed at the University of British Columbia which uses the ability of Croquet to build unique environments. P.15 - When combined with OGRE 3D an open source graphics engine, the resulting ancient spaces environments were even more detailed. P.16 - The Arts Metaverse Ancient Spaces Project “utilizes the potential of virtual worlds to cross disciplinary boundaries and foster higher level thinking.” p.18

39. Conclusions “Following in their footsteps, we urge sustained, theoretically-based, systematic research to more clearly develop and implement virtual transdisciplinary metamodal mastery in higher education”. Now you can explore how my mind works: in the next few slides, or if you disagree on paper.

40. Following in their footsteps We urge sustained (to maintain or prolong p.1013) theoretically (lacking practical application or actual existence; hypothetical p. 1040) based, systematic (characterized by the use of order and planning; methodical p. 1020) research to more clearly develop and implement virtual (having the essence or effect but not the appearance or form of p. 1120) transdisciplinary (across promoting)

41. Definitions Cont’d (going beyond p. 627) modal (of or relating to mode or manner p. 642) mastery in higher education. I understand that they are urging prolonged lacking actual existence methodical research to more clearly develop unreal trans disciplinary modes of mastery in higher education. But I may I have misunderstood.

42. Technology & The Curriculum Say what?

43. Science AND Technology • Where does technology fit into the curriculum? • How is technology defined within the curriculum? • What are the typical expectations? • How might we reshape how technology is viewed and employed?

44. Where is Technology? • Technology within the curriculum is linked and grouped mainly with science • Technology is also found with drama, however it is used as a tool for performance and not as in stream of knowledge • “Science is not the mother of technology. Science and Technology today have parallel or side-by-side relationships; they stimulate and utilize each other. It is more appropriate to regard science and technology as one enterprise with a spectrum of interconnected activity that to think of two fields” (Franklin P. 30)

45. How is Science & Technology Defined/Assessed? • Science and Technology are defined and assessed by three simple expectations. • systems of knowledge; • processes of investigation and exploration; • social enterprises;

46. Science Science is a form of knowledge that seeks to describe and explain the natural and physical world and its place in the universe. Technology Technology is a form of knowledge that uses materials, energy, tools (including computers), skills and other forms of knowledge (including scientific knowledge) to meet needs through inventing or modifying devices, structures, systems, or processes. Systems of Knowledge

47. Science Science is not only a body of knowledge but "a way of knowing." Scientific investigation involves the application of methods that have proven over time to be useful in advancing scientific knowledge. Technology Technology is also "a way of knowing" and a process of exploration and experimentation. Technological investigation involves the application of methods known as design processes. Processes of Investigation and Exploration

48. Science Scientific knowledge and investigation do not exist independently of their social context. Scientific process accepts new knowledge within the international community of scientists on the basis of well-established norms and principles. Technology Technological knowledge and investigation are rooted in the real needs of people and build on past knowledge through exploration and experimentation. Technology process accepts new knowledge within the community of technologists and engineers on the basis of well-established norms and practices. Social Enterprises

49. What Are We Looking For?

50. Typical Technology Strands From K-12 • use appropriate vocabulary, including correct science and technology terminology, in describing their investigations, explorations, and observations • use available technology appropriately to enhance their work in drama and dance • describe how humans are affected by natural events and how technology has helped humans adapt to these events • In high school, typical strands include using technology to produce their work/presentations