Category: Learning

StudyWiz – K-12 iTouch Enabled Tool

Dwayne Harapnuik Leave a comment

studywizOne of the biggest challenges that we are seeing with K-12 institutions planning to deploy an iTouch solution in schools is that they must highly regulate their learners access to the internet and are not able to use cloud resources like Gmail, Google Apps, YouTube and many of the tools that we take for granted in higher education. To successfully deploy a mobile solution K-12 need to replace or replicate the cloud. StudyWiz may be the ideal solution to do just this. It not only provides an email, file management, document sharing and a communication platform it more importantly allows schools to closely control how students access these resources.

The initial demonstration that I viewed at HandHeld 2009 looked very promising but we now need to look at the product much closer and see if we can use it in the College of Education at ACU to help prepare future teachers who may be facing this tool in the field.

Off to Europe

Dwayne Harapnuik Leave a comment

I will be leaving on for a trip to Europe that will start off in London, and include meetings with Cambridge University Press in Cambridge and then finish off with meetings with Alcatel Lucent’s Bell Labs in Paris. hl2009-logoThere should be an opportunity to take in the final day of the HandHeld Learning conference in London — more specifically take in the presentation by my collegues George Saltsman and Scott Perkins and the final keynote address by Ray Kurzweil.

Despite the high degree of cellular access in Europe free WiFi isn’t as available so my posts may be intermitent and totally dependent on my access.

Stay Tuned…

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Microsoft Tablet – A History of Speculation

Dwayne Harapnuik Leave a comment

appletablet_600x375Jason Hiner of Tech Republic’s Tech Sanity Check pulls together a wonderful history of links on the speculation over the Apple Tablet. Are we any closer to an Apple Tablet. Was a rumored mass purchase of 10 inch touch screens just that, a rumor, or will we see an Apple Tablet release perhaps in the new year? I won’t speculate but simply point to Hiners article and give you the option to make your own decision.

A history of the elusive Apple tablet, in links…

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Facebook – New Student Commons?

Dwayne Harapnuik Leave a comment
http://chronicle.com/article/Facebook-The-New-Classroom/48575/

Facebook: The New Classroom Commons? – The Chronicle Review – The Chronicle of Higher Education via kwout

It is very unfortunate that Harriet L. Schwartz’s, assistant professor of professional leadership at Carlow University, post in the Chronicle of Higher Education is only accessible through a paid subscription because she makes a very well reasoned argument for using facebook in the learning environment. Its where your learners are–and most everyone else.

When my 60 something sister, my wifes 70 something parents and all just about everyone else I know is “friending” me in Facebook I guess I too will have to move from being a passive intermittent user of Facebook and meeting my social network where they are at.

Reminder to self — do not renew Chronicle of Higher Education subscription–this content should be free.

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Anti-Teaching: Confronting the Crisis of Significance

Dwayne Harapnuik 1 Comment

Michael Wesch, Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology at Kansas State University the article Anti-Teaching: Confronting the Crisis of Significance with the following statement:

The most significant problem with education today is the problem of significance itself. Students – our most important critics – are struggling to find meaning and significance in their education.

Wesch argues that the way to judge what is significant in a classroom is to look to the questions that students are asking. For example, if the following type of questions are being asked:

What do we need to know for the test?
How long does this paper need to be?
Is attendance mandatory?

then it should be clear that assessment and not learning is what is significant. In contrast to these questions Wesch suggests that good or even great questions are those that force students to challenge their taken-for-granted assumptions and see their own underlying biases–but we seldom get these types of questions.

Significance isn’t just a problem with students but with the educators and with the system as a whole. The statement “some students are just not cut out for school” is an often-heard lament that reflects just how out of touch with our learners our system is. If you exchange the term “learning” for “school”  you get the statement, “some students are just not cut out for learning” which is clearly wrong. Wesch states that learning is the hallmark of humanity and it is learning is part of what makes us human.

Wesch points to anti-teaching and the grand narrative of saving the earth as just two ways that significance can be brought back into learning–but to fully understand these points a good read of the article is required.

Read the full article – Anti-Teaching: Confronting the Crisis of Significance