There are times when you just need a really good laugh. Enjoy!
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- Testing Twitter Tools on my Blog but I am not impressed with its functionliaty. #
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When I see a title like “Do Podcasts Help Students Learn” in an article, paper, blog or any other location I know for certain that I will see some variation of the following statement in the document:
Overall, the study found no statistical difference between the performance of students who used…
In this article the “no significant difference” statement came just a few paragraphs into the piece. Anyone who has more that just an Introduction to Psychology or Educational Psychology course should know that measuring learning is a very challenging task. It is much easier to measure the factors that contribute to an effective learning environment like, engagement, motivation, time on task etc. and fortunately some of these factors were included in the article. While the researchers in this study found no statistical difference between the performance of students who used podcasts over those using text it did reveal the following:
1. Podcasts grab attention and maintain it.
2. Students conceptually understood the content, not just remembered it, and the scale of understanding seemed to tip toward the podcasts.
3. The students who said they weren’t that motivated at the beginning of the class scored higher on the test when they listened to the podcasts.
So the students who used the podcasts were more engaged, understood the concepts better and were more motivated. While we aren’t sure if podcast help students learn they do contribute to the factors necessary for effective learning environments. The study also reveals that the men who participated in the study increased their post test scores and general the students like using the podcasts.
If we step back from the fact that this is an implementation of a relatively simple to use technology and look at the pedagogy we will see that condensing information into a 10 minute summary enhanced by audio and video, is there any wonder that students preferred these supplements and were more engaged. If we just look at the learning the title of the piece could have been “Do Effective Instructor Class Summaries Help Students Learn.” But that doesn’t increase hits or solicit reader responses…
Technorati’s annual state of the Blogosphere points to some significant trends. The most significant is that the corporate world has recognized the impact of Blogs and are now focusing a great deal of effort in this space. The hobbyist blogger is no longer posting as much as they had in the past choosing to spend more time with family or use micro-blogging and social networking instead.
Is the move by the leading edge hobbyist toward twitter and social networking surprising? Of course not, nor is the fact that the corporate world is embracing a technology just when the leader edgers are moving onto the next big thing.
This is a phenomenal report filled with easy to follow charts and lots of valuable information and is a must see.
A student in my EDUC 652 class posted a link to the Beloit College College Mindset list for the Class of 2014. Since 1998, Beloit College has released the Beloit College Mindset List. It provides a look at the cultural touchstones that shape the lives of students entering college this fall.
The list include 75 items in addition to a generous description of the student who will graduate from College in 2014. The following is only the first 5 points:
For these students, Benny Hill, Sam Kinison, Sam Walton, Bert Parks and Tony Perkins have always been dead.
- Few in the class know how to write in cursive.
- Email is just too slow, and they seldom if ever use snail mail.
- “Go West, Young College Grad” has always implied “and don’t stop until you get to Asia…and learn Chinese along the way.”
- Al Gore has always been animated.
- Los Angelenos have always been trying to get along.
This is a really good reminder of how important it is to really get a good understanding of where are learner are at. Unless you grew up at the same time and in the same conditions your cultural attitudes will be different. I am not saying that we need to bend to our young learners whims and unrealistic expectations, we just need to be aware of why they assume and expect what they do and take this into account when we create learning environment in which they can flourish.
