EdLab blogs

CSCL 2013 - MTClassroom and MTDashboard: Supporting Analysis of Teacher Attention in an Orchestrated Multi-tabletop Classroom

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 11:38:47 -0400

Abstract:
Emerging tabletop devices can offer new means to enhance teachers' classroom control and awareness. These technologies can help them orchestrate activities, and capture, analyse and visualise students' collaborative interactions.MTClassroom and MTDashboard, that were designed, deployed and tested to support the teacher in orchestrating collaborative learning activities at an authentic classroom. MTClassroom is an enriched multi- tabletop environment that captures aspects of students' activity as they work in small groups. MTDashboard is an orchestration tool displayed at a handheld device, giving the teacher control over classroom activities and providing ‘real-time’ indicators of participation and task progress of each group. We analysed teacher’s attention by triangulating quantitative evidence captured by our environment with qualitative observations and teacher’s perceptions.

CSCL 2013 Evening Keynote - Connection Machines: The Role of Rapport in Computer Supported Collaborative Learning

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 16:46:09 -0400

Justine Cassell
Human Computer Interaction Institute, Carnegie Mellon University

In thinking about the ways in which computers can support learning we often concentrate on the task or cognitive aspects of the collaboration between human and machine. However, the social nature of some of the best kinds of human-human learning interactions does not need to be left behind in human-computer collaborative learning, and understanding the social nature of human-human peer collaborative learning can help us to design computational systems that are most effective in real world contexts. To that end, in this talk I report on a series of studies that look at the building of rapport between humans over time, and between humans and computational systems. I look at the effects of this rapport building on peer learning among young children, junior highschool students, and adults, when the learning partners are actual human peers and computer peers. From

Rap Genius Education BBQ this Saturday!

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 15:13:46 -0400

Join the new "Education Czar" at Rap Genius Edu (RGedu), Jeremy Dean (see Vialogue below), for a free kick-off BBQ this Saturday! (Here is the invite to RSVP!) The goal of the BBQ is to share Rap Genius Education's offerings with "educator evangelists" and edtech connectors who might be willing to Alpha Test the platform and share their insight. Join them! Eat delicious food! Enjoy thematic cocktails!

If you do go, please add your +1 below and add your 2-cents afterwards to the blog!

Finally, check-out my blog post from this past November that helps announce Rap Genius... and this post covering the Real GZA + Science Genius event here at Teachers College this past December.

CSCL 2013 - Navigating Through Controversial Online Discussions: The Influence of Visualized Ratings

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 11:54:08 -0400

Through this study (similar concept with Vialogues, except not video dialogues, we don't have ratings), they found uni-polar and bi-polar reading patterns based on discussion ratings.
- making agreement ratings available leads to bipolar navigation,
- the availability of quality ratings leads to unipolar navigation,

Conclusion: providing different types of visualized ratings have specific guiding effects for navigation.

This is a lab study. They asked students to rate everything in real life. Will you really rate every single discussion?

I have high hopes with our navigation-support viz in Vialogues. We really need to have the navigation support tailored to our goal (just overview? awareness?) How do we make our good discussions stand out with or without ratings?

Navigating Through Controversial Online Discussions: The Influence of Visualized Ratings
Jürgen Buder, Knowledge Media Research Center, Tübingen Germany, j.buder@iwm-kmrc.de Christina Schwind, Knowledge Media Research Center, Tübingen Germany, c.schwind@iwm-kmrc.de Anja Rudat, Knowledge Media Research Center, Tübingen Germany, a.rudat@iwm-kmrc.de Daniel Bodemer, University of Duisburg-Essen, Media-Based Knowledge Construction, Germany, bodemer@uni-due.de

SMM Series: Twitter Drawbacks/Solutions

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 11:32:39 -0400

Welcome to the second post of the SMM Series! Today’s topic will be on some of the problems that come with Twitter and some solutions for them. We use multiple Twitter accounts here at Edlab (Vialogues, TCRecord, NLT), so I really hope that these will help you learn more about Twitter; you can also use these same solutions for your own personal Twitter account. There will also be a SMM series in the near future on “Personal Branding!” Here are the 5 main drawbacks + solutions:

1. Not Interacting with your Followers
Many Twitter users simply tweet and that’s all. However, you need to interact with others to gain their interest and satisfaction with your company. You can be active by following other companies similar to yours or influential people that interest you. Or you can ask questions in your tweets and start a conversation by also responding to their questions and tweets by retweeting. Retweeting can also build connections/followers with other users (Rule 5 from the 10 Rules to Follow). If they are responding to you and you are not, it is a one-sided conversation that will NOT give you the results you want.

Tools for Knowing about Knowing

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 10:29:22 -0400

Saturday I attended EDesign Lab’s Showcase of learning tools -- new digital products created by educators, technologists, and designers to enhance student engagement. The products presented were social learning tools designed around the idea of metacognition, or recognizing our own cognitive processes. Although the three products are in different stages of development, I think they have valuable potential because they create student-centered activities that encourage students to take responsibility for their own learning.

Because
Because is a graphing and picture tool built on the Google Drive API that allows multiple users to examine a graph and discuss cause and effect relationships. With this tool, a social studies teacher could input data about US military troop levels in the 20th century and share the graph with his students, asking guided questions like, “Identify peak troop deployment in the 60s and 70s and discuss causes.” Students then drop markers onto the graph and forms discussions around the data. Extremely simple to use and understand, this seems like an effective way of analyzing data points and relationships in groups.

CSCL 2013 Keynote - Connecting Kids: The Future of Video

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 09:41:42 -0400

Kori Inkpen (Microsoft Research)

Understanding how kids connect with video may hold the keys to delivering the long-awaited promise of video communication. Children's play is rich, creative and imaginative and research shows that children’s play easily transcends distance through the use of video. And remarkably, children are extremely comfortable interacting over video. This talk highlights several recent projects that demonstrate children’s rich, social interactions using video to connect with friends and family, regardless of whether they live in the same neighborhood, or on the other side of the world. As these technologies become embedded into the fabric of daily life, video will transform children’s social interactions in both learning and play, enabling them to share rich experiences in ways not possible with current technologies.

Apple considering bigger, cheaper iPhones

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 01:39:21 -0400

Apparently Apple is trying to create new iPhones which will have a lower cost, bigger in size and comes in different colors. These iPhones will be Apple's way of of competing with its rivals Samsung. If Apple goes ahead with this project, they will venture in the “Phablet” market; meaning creating bigger phones but which doesn’t qualify as tablets. It will be two models, one dealing with the new fingerprint technology and the other being a cheaper version plastic case. Apple always creates two colored iPhones with higher prices valuing $499 and up without contract; but with contract you can get it approximately $199 and up.

The new iPhones that they are trying to launch will cost just $99, which will be more affordable for customers. Their main colors are black and white, and are now thinking of adding five to six new colors. This new iPhone is expected to launch in September of this year. The sizes of the new iPhones are bigger than usual, 4.7-5.7 inches instead of the regular 3.5-inch iPhone 4s and the 4-inch iPhone 5. More people are willing to buy their phones if they make these changes. This project it’s just under discussion and hopefully they will come to a great decision and release it to the public soon.

New GED Testing

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 00:04:04 -0400

GED has usually been the route back to school for many high school dropouts in order to provide a sort of credentialing towards a college degree. Coming this January, the way the GED testing is constructed will be different. Students will now be allowed to take the exam on the computer and will be able to know their results the same day if they passed. The new changes have also doubled the pricing after the American Council on Education partnered with Pearson to form GED testing service. However, the amount of money a student must pay depends on where they live. The confusion over pricing have also triggered other companies such as McGraw Hill to enter the market with their own high school equivalent test. This has led some states to to drop the GED exams.

Teachers and Teachnology in Classrooms

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 00:00:30 -0400

The speaker of the video below shares his thoughts on how technology impacts the way classrooms are being directed in three phases. As you go through the different phases, in phase three, it becomes clear that technology makes teachers less or not involve in class, with students directing classes and reviewing their own work. This might be very helpful for student engagement with one another but will it be helpful to their overall education?

As a student exposed to technology in classrooms, I personally think that technology changes learning in class. From my personal experience, I'll rather a teacher to direct in-class lessons, as it gets me more involved and want to learn even more about the specific subject been studied.

What are your thoughts on this subject? How would you like the classroom to be conducted?

Project-Based Learning

Sun, 16 Jun 2013 22:54:57 -0400

The Vialogue below focuses on project-based learning. Before watching this video, I had an idea that project-based learning is created purposefully to help students gain more understanding of concepts in their classrooms, to broaden their knowledge base, improve communication, enhanced leadership skills, and improve writing skills. However, while watching the video, the speaker made mention of something that I was not aware of. I was a little skeptical when the speaker said critical thinking, collaboration, and communication are the three key things that are not often taught in a traditional classroom. Ever since I began schooling in this country, one thing that I have noticed in school classrooms is that teachers want their students to engage in group work one way or another. The teachers know the importance of interdependence because working in interdependency is faster and and it brings more success than working independently, or dependently.

Teachers allow students to collaborate because every student has his or her own ideas and thoughts. This also creates communication because the students will have to talk in order to accomplish the assignment. Thus, I really don't agree with the speaker because I have witnessed these three things being taught in school. Whether the subject is math, science, or history, one of these three things will be put into practice. Please feel free to share your thoughts.

A Life Lesson

Sun, 16 Jun 2013 22:41:31 -0400

In the video below, students are taught how to save money at a young age. They are taking a summer school class and are almost placed in real life situations to give them an understanding on what it'll be like for them when they get older.

In my opinion, this is a very important thing to teach and learn. I guess its never too early to learn this lesson. I believe this should be a class that one has to take in high school and be counted as an elective class. I'm not sure how well or challenging this class would be, especially for older students, but it'll be good to know. What are your thoughts on this class? Can it be added as an elective in high school?

Cornell Note Taking System

Sun, 16 Jun 2013 22:27:24 -0400

For all the interns at EdLab currently taking college courses I would highly recommend this system of note taking. The Cornell Note Taking system was created at Cornell University and although it is no holy grail of note taking, this system has been shown to be very effective.

The method involves a sheet of paper folded into several sections: the cue section, the summaries section, and the note taking area. This division allows a student to properly organize thoughts and key info discussed in class. The cue section is the area where you write down questions that your notes answer (almost like Jeopardy). In the summaries area, you use your notes to summarize what you learned during the lecture. And finally, the note taking area is where you gather all the important information from your lecture.

A lot of my classmates have told me how helpful this method is and I intend to begin using it next semester.

Inspiring Texts Fail to Improve Performance

Sun, 16 Jun 2013 21:31:24 -0400

I found this article very interesting. Roland Fryer, an economist at Harvard University conducted an experiment in U.S. Schools where students were sent inspiring text messages. The aim for Roland Fryer was to "assess whether students better understood the link between human capital and outcomes". The experiment was done in state schools in Oklahoma City and included 2,000 students. The students were given free mobile phones in return for receiving daily texts that encouraged students to stay in school and study for exams. The experiment was a success except in one aspect: it made no difference on how the students performed in school.

I believe the main focus of the experiment should have been on whether the students would perform better with inspiring text messages. The article and the experiment of course supported my statement, the inspiring quotes didn't help improve anything on student performance in school. But what Roland Fryer learned from his experiment was that students did indeed put more effort because of the inspiring messages. But the effort was not effective in producing test scores and the students lacked knowledge in "how to translate effort into output".

Teachers Speak Up for Using Student Data

Sat, 15 Jun 2013 21:26:55 -0400

After seeing Wednesday's Nutmeg seminar, I later came across these set of very short videos featuring teachers that seem to instinctively understand how important student data is, in the same manner of Nutmeg: they do not just rely on the end and final result to nurture student's growth.

I watched David Gesualdi's video here:

"I ... have a number in my head of where that student performed on the previous assessment and that's what drives my instruction," says Gesualdi.

This teacher, who can't shake out of his head the number of how each student performed on the previous test is like the Olympics athlete, bounded by his latest and highest record on the running tracks...Numbers can really haunt and motivate, huh?

His words made me happy, and I just thought to share!