Digital Media and Learning: Video presentation by high schoolers, video of John Seely Brown's keynote at DML2012

This is a video of students from Morningside, Crenshaw, Rosevelt, Locke, and Manual Arts high schools in L.A. who presented a session on Education for a Digital Democracy at the recent Digital Media and Learning Conference. 

What I especially like about this presentation is the way the students highlighted the current state of technology in their urban schools, and what they have to say about their schools' policies regarding the use of personal technologies during the school day.

Digital Media and Learning Conference: Kids from Locke High from School Library JournalVimeo. on

Thanks to the School Library Journal and Scott McCloud for sharing this!

If you are interested in digital media/new media/multimedia and learning, take the time to view John Seely Brown's DML 2012 Keynote:
Cultivating the Entrepreneurial Learner in the 21st Century

DML2012 John Seely Brown Keynote from DML Research Hub on Vimeo.

PDF transcript of John Seely Brown's keynote

RELATED

Digital Media and Learning Hub

John Seely Brown's website

Book:  A New Culture of Learning:  Cultivating the Imagination for a World of Constant Change

Douglas Thomas and John Seely Brown

Teresa Brazen's Adaptive Path blog post: Explaining User Experience Design to High Schoolers (and other new audiences)

Teresa Brazen, from Adaptive Path, wrote a useful post about Explaining User Experience Design to High Schoolers (and other new audiences).  In the US, we have lower rates of students deciding to pursue careers in technology-related fields, and among teen girls, the numbers are quite low.  For example,

I've promised to give a little presentation to high school computer students about human-computer interaction and user experience design, with an eye on emerging technologies. I found Teresa's suggestions quite helpful.  For a 15-year-old student, these technologies will be the tools of their work, should they decide to go forward with technology-related studies after high school. For anyone thinking about speaking to a group of high school students, Teresa brings up a few good points:

"The thing about high school kids is they won’t pretend to be interested if you’ve lost them. Adults at a conference will gaze forward in your general direction, but high school kids will just put their head on the table and go to sleep. If you ever want to get a real gauge of how interesting a speaker you are (or how well you’re really communicating), I highly recommend it, humbling as it is."


Any high school teacher will confirm that this is true.

Teresa links to a post on Ben Chun's "And Yet It Moves: Adventures in Teaching and Technology" blog, which is worth reading.  Ben teaches at Galileao Academy of Science and Technology, within the Academy of Information Technology.  He also teachers AP Computer Science.  Prior to teaching technology, he taught math for two years. He has good insights to share.

SOMEWHAT RELATED:


Edutopia
Ring, S. (2007)  Tech gURLS: Closing the Technological Gender Gap

National Center for Women in Information Technology (NCWIT)

Alvarado, C., Dodds, Z. Women in CS:  An Evaluation of Three Promising Practices. In Proceedings of SIGCSE  2010  ACM Press.

Barriers to Technology Integration - Hello! It's NOT always the teacher: One "classroom for the future" teacher's recent story about barriers to technology integration in her high school history class

If you work in education, you probably heard the term, "21st Century Schools". All teachers must become skillful integrators of technology and pedagogy, and this will be the solution to cure all of public education's ills, right?!

Many teachers DO embrace technology, but find that despite the technological revolution, there are many barriers to moving forward.

The link below is to a 2009 thesis written by Barbara J. Wismer, a teacher who devoted much of her her life, 24/7, as a Classroom for the Future teacher while working on her Master of Education degree. Her classroom was provided with a set of laptops, an interactive whiteboard, an LCD projector, a video camera, a digital camera, and an assortment of applications.  In her thesis, Ms. Wismer describes numerous barriers that she faced nearly every day during her study.  These are barriers that hold true throughout many schools in the U.S.  Ms. Wismer provides a personal description of her experiences, a breath of fresh air when compared with most academic papers that have crossed my path:

Wired Students, Motivated Learners:  The Effects of Classrooms for the Future Technology on Student Motivation and Achievement

Here are a few examples from the "Problems and Shortcomings" section of the thesis (p. 89-96):

"The “right click” function is disabled (it is also disabled for teachers, too). This made the copying and pasting of pictures and information more difficult."


"Flash drives (USB saving devices) are the biggest gripe among teachers in my district. We are not allowed to insert a flash drive into a school computer; it can result in immediate dismissal. The technology department places such a restriction (the staff has all the same restrictions as students) on us out of fear that someone will bring in a virus or operating system that could compromise our school district’s system. It is frustrating to be treated like we are children. There is constant uproar in the district to treat the teachers like adults and respect the decisions we make – like not abusing the right to use a flash drive. Many of the saving issues that I brought up previously could be avoided with the permission to use a flash drive."


"Internet connection and network connection issues plagued us the entire semester. There were some days when half of the class would lose their connection and any unsaved work would be lost."


"By why is Google Images blocked? Why are all blogs (even educational ones) blocked? Why can I not download a video from United Streaming or a flipchart from Promethean Planet? We were told that if we wanted any of those things downloaded, we were to provide a list to the technology department. I did that and was told that I could download them myself at home and then save them to a CD-ROM and bring them in to use."


"The only complaint that I would have is that about half of the teachers that have the equipment actually use it. The other half just lets the equipment sit in a closet. I have found that those teachers only signed up to be part of the Classrooms for the Future program to have a laptop cart permanently in their room."


I had no idea that teachers could be restricted from access to the right-click functions of their mice at work, and could be fired for inserting a flash drive into a school's computer!   Both restrictions had a negative impact on Ms. Wisner's ability to do her job with efficiency.


There is a long road ahead.


RELATED


21st Century Tech for 21st Century Schools
(Mark Prensky, Edutopia)
Classroom for The Future
Partnership for 21st Century Skills
National Educational Technology Plan 2010

For Techies & Tech Curious: Python and PyMT developments - PyMT and speech recognition

PyMT is short for Python Multi-Touch, a project that is the work of several members of the NUI Group.  Sharath Patali experimented with speech input for PyMT and used the pocketsphinx library from CMU to integrate into PyMT. It worked out well, as you can see from his video demo below:


PyMT Speech Recognition from Sharath Patali on Vimeo.

Other people involved with the PyMT project are Nathanael Lecaude, Matthew Virbel, Thomas Hansen, and Xelapond.

Sharath Patali's Blog/Website Roll (Links to some NUI-group members)

• Divesh and Aditya’s Blog
• Harry van der Veen’s Blog
• Laurence Muller's Blog
• Linux Hacker ( Balaji R Rao)
• Paul D’Intino’s Orion
• Seth Sandler (Cerupcat)
• Sparsh-I Team
• Tommy’s MT Blog

Matthieu Virbel on Vimeo
NUI Group on Vimeo


Python and Game Programming Resources
Adaptation and Evaluation of Numpty Physics for Multi-touch Multiplayer Interaction (pdf)
(A python-based module called "numptyphysics" was created to integrate Python multi-touch cold to allow the C++ code to parse data, converting it to C structs passed to the game code using pointers.)
Python Programming Language Official Website
Pygame
PythonGames
PythonL Game Programming Wiki, by Geoff Howland and Rene Dudfield
Lectures 1-6
Beginning Game Development with Python and Pygame -Book (Will McGugan)
Game Programming with Python - Book (Sean Riley)

Comment:
The reason I'm putting together resources about Python, multi-touch, and games is that I hope to facilitate an exchange between two of the schools I serve as a school psychologist.

Both of the schools are on the same campus. One is a high school for technology and the arts, and one is a program for teens and young adults who have severe disabilities, including autism.  Next semester, one of the computer teachers will be teaching a game programming class using Python for a class of graduating seniors, and if all goes well, perhaps some of the students will create a game for the students with disabilities that would work well on a SMARTboard.

Even better:  It would be great if the pre-engineering students could build a multi-touch table or two for the students with disabilities, running games in PyMT that the computer students create!

Stamp out mindless note-taking with DyKnow...

I'm always on the look-out for interactive technology that can support engaged learning. This application is much richer than a basic note-taking solution! (via TechPsych)

Take a look at this videoclip about DyKnow, an application developed to combat mindless note-taking and enhance classroom learning. Although the video demonstrates the benefits of this technology in a university classroom, it is clear to see that this would be a great asset in high school classes conducted in computer labs or have access to classroom sets of laptops.

The "retro" effect of this black-and white clip is entertaining.



DyKnow provides a means for teachers to control the way the laptop is used during class, which in a high school environment is important. Watch the DyKnow Monitor video to learn more about the features of this application, which includes a means of instant progress monitoring. The software provides for collaborative interaction between students and between the students and the teacher's work space.

In my opinion, this looks like it would be an effective resource in high schools that are adopting data-driven decision-making and Response to Intervention (RTI) models. It provides students - and teachers- with immediate feedback, and monitors progress electronically.

We know that most students do not learn best auditorily at the high school level, yet much of the high school curriculum is delivered through traditional means that involve lectures, note-taking, and some discussions. In this set up, it can be easy for some of the students to become disctracted in class, with lower grades and test scores as a consequence.

For many struggling students, traditional means of instruction opens the door for task avoidant behaviors and an increase in discipline events. They simply are not often fully engaged in the learning process.

Video: DyKnow in a high school setting: DyKnow in Action: Auburn City Schools

Article: High School Students, Teachers Learn Long-Term Benefits of Tablet PC's in the Classroom

The DyKnow video highlights some of the ways that the curriculum be delivered in a more on-task, visual, and 'hands on" way that engages a higher percentage of students.

If your school is using DyKnow, feel free to leave a comment about your thoughts!