Listen and Learn?

I am an acutely visual learner. I read voraciously, highlight and jot notes. I also have a ping-pong ball for a brain so when I'm listening to speech, and do not have visual reference points for it, it is likely my thoughts will be ponging around my head. As a result, when listening to a book or a lecture without seeing the words I think tangentially. I may hear the speaker's presentation of Thomas Jefferson's theory of frugal government and my mind will wander to Jefferson's profligate personal finance, the sale of his slaves after his death and I find myself thinking hard about our founding fathers as imperfect (possibly selectively hypocritical) humans when, in fact, I'm supposed to be following the speaker's intended discourse on today's deficit. Once again, I'm on the wrong ping-pong table. Why this preamble?

I worry that educators and well-meaning technology innovators will rush to provide lessons, "readings" and instruction in audio format to take advantage of teenagers' immersion in the iPod world without providing the needed visual cues for those whose learning style is more visual than auditory. I worry about those students who are like me and are likely to disengage from purely auditory instruction. To educate, we must first engage the student. Numerous theories in educational psychology demonstrate that the more senses engaged in an experience, the greater its memory retention value. New studies also indicate that multi-tasking is mythical and that attention divided is attention at deficit to and disengaged from the tasks at hand. Thus, while I applaud and endorse the adaptation of auditory technology in education, I just need assurance that other sensory stimuli will also be packaged in the lessons to create total immersion and engagement in the lesson, not just the medium.

My Favorite Blog...

I'm addicted to Bridging Differences: http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/Bridging-Differences/

Co-blogged by Deborah Meier and Diane Ravitch, activists who have devoted their professional live to public education they are noteworthy for their apparent differences and many spirited dialogues over the decades. Meier is a Deweyian and champion of the democratic mission for our schools while Ravitch is more of a traditionalist and as educational policy maker in the first Bush first administration was instrumental in the laying the groundwork for nationalized curriculum and standards and accountability efforts currently embodied in NCLB. Both brilliant women, they find themselves often strange bedfellows in deploring the current state of public education and the cynical effects that implementation of NCLB is having on the children it is supposed to help.

While not a technology site per se, the national dialog about core curriculum, standards, assessment and the definition of education in the 21st Century cannot be meaningful without incorporating technology solutions. I believe fervently that technology has at least three key roles for education: 1. Engaging demonstration of the application of key skills via multiple learning styles/intelligences through use of multimedia, 2. Encouraging higher level thinking through creative and innovative problem solving using multimedia and computing technologies, 3. Supporting the development and implementation of varied and informative systems of formative and summative assessment. Thus, I read their entries and look for the prospective solutions that technology can bring to the resolution of some key policy issues and questions.

Teddy Bears Go Blogging

Technology for children done well is marvelous to behold. And this was a marvelous example of tapping into children's native curiosity and social nature by using technology as a facilitator. This is the pen-pal for the 21st Century. Importantly, this class project focused on the communications experience rather than the technology itself and this focus is the key piece we need to keep foremost in our thoughts as we incorporate technology into our educational programs. These children learned so much through this exercise that would formerly and formally be parceled into different curricular areas: language arts, geography, culture, home economics and history. Moreover, they learned to collaborate and cooperate with their peers. The opportunity that technology presents, particularly in the town-hall, writ-large, cyber-community of social media, is an extraordinary means to re-integrate educational disciplines in a real-world, social context for our children. Unlike the plastic Mr. Potato Head, this is an excellent, educative and meaningful application of new technology to update an old children's pass-time.