online education

Matthew Lynch published in EdTech & Innovation

6 Ways Technology Utilization in a Classroom Environment

Technology is increasingly becoming a fundamental part of our lives. Its adoption to the various functionalities of a person’s life from childhood with playing toys to adulthood has made life easier and complex at the same time. Its implementation is being advocated for yet its effects seem to grow with each passing day. However, it is important to understand that its use is diverse and the benefits associated outweigh the limitations and effects.

As a fact, technology utilization in a classroom is now being used in schools for different learning activities. Today, many teachers have taken to issuing exam papers, results, reading materials and other evaluation or learning equipment online. These are just some of the ways that technology revolutionize education. Without the proper technological knowledge, some of the tasks expected of a teacher or student can be difficult to achieve. Therefore, technology is perceived as annoying, irritating and to some extent intimidating. Well, here are seven ways that you can use to implement or use technology in your classroom.

1. Social media

The social media is a major aspect of children in this era. Teachers can use this media or platform to their advantage by becoming friends and sharing essential information through the technological platform. Students, parents and their teachers can sign up for online conferencing and hold meetings, give parents their children’s school progress, share learning materials etc. Teachers, for example, can share unique students write ups with the rest of the class and or solicit their opinion in regards to a topic or subject to be or already covered. For example, through Twitter’s backchannel, teachers can obtain students feedback, share ideas or learning materials. Furthermore, the student’s attention will be with you as all of them are quite fond of the social media.

2. Blogs, Wiki and YouTube

Advanced level students can use these for learning purposes. This includes posting assessments and evaluations and other important such as best write-ups that students have in a certain period. The blogs can also be a strategic learning as well as a support initiative where students are encouraged to be themselves. They can post their hand works online for others to see, evaluate and rate or criticise for better growth. The teacher can also publish the best works by the students on the same platform. This further encourages them and also sharing the information in class is a major way of promoting and showing appreciation to the students.

3. Creating Google and Apple Apps

These are quite essential especially in sharing important and pertinent information with class, parents and other stakeholders. Teachers can create school calendars, an app containing different school materials to assist the students in reading on their own. In addition, the students can use many forums in these apps for their own benefit and learning purposes. For example, an educative and fun app for games is a nice way for the students to be engaged in a class. This is in relation to games that are related to different games that are developed from a topic on the school books or class subjects.

4. Video Streaming

Pictures, images or videos are quite fundamental in forming opinions and learning. It is said that information tends to be imprinted into a person’s mind and are easier to remember for everyone. Furthermore, they capture and entertain the students, which make learning fun. This is an example that is being set by YouTube and other video streaming facilities. With a step by step instruction manual with pictures to illustrate it further, it becomes the most effective means of teaching and for students, the easiest means to grasp and understand what is being taught. In addition, these videos are already there on any subject and therefore, finding one that rhymes with your topic is not that difficult.

5. Mobile devices

This is on an increasing trend especially in use inside the classrooms. It is evident that many students use them for other purposes other than learning. Therefore, introducing class assignments to be shared and distributed through the mobile devices e.g. WhatsApp. You can create students groups and assign them various tasks that they will be required to full fill using their internet or mobile connection. This ensures they pay attention to their learning and education and creates cohesion among the students assigned a specific task. Also encourage them to let others acquire reading materials by sharing them with others.

6. Video conferencing

This is one of the best means of teaching for both students and teachers. For students, it means that their favourite teacher will be present even though he/she is in a different geographical location. Video conferencing offers a platform for interactions between students and their teacher. It can be used to issue the student’s instructions on their daily tasks, offer presentations and much more.

Conclusion

Technology is a useful tool in the development and growth of schools and other educational institutions. Its utilisation for schooling and classroom purposes is an added advantage to the society and specifically to the children.

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Matthew Lynch published in EdTech & Innovation, Equity, HBCU's, Matthew Lynch

Diversity at College Level Bolstered by Online Offerings

Each year online learning initiatives becomes less of a fringe movement and more of an incorporated, and accepted, form of education. More than 6.7 million people took at least one online class in the fall of 2011 and 32 percent of college students now take at least one online course during their matriculation. It is even becoming commonplace for high schools to require all students to take an online class before graduation as a way to prep them for the “real world” of secondary education.

The flexibility and convenience of online learning is well known but what is not as readily talked about is the way distance education promotes diversity of the college population. With less red tape than the traditional college format, online students are able to earn credits while still working full time, maintaining families and dealing with illnesses. Whether students take just one course remotely, or obtain an entire degree, they are able to take on the demands of college life more readily – leading to student population with more variety.

The Babson Survey Research Group recently revealed that while online college student enrollment is on the rise, traditional colleges and universities saw their first drop in enrollment in the ten years the survey has been conducted. This drop is small – less than a tenth of one percent – but its significance is big. A trend toward the educational equality of online curriculum is being realized by students, institutions and employers across the board. The benefits of a college education through quality online initiatives are now becoming more accessible to students that simply cannot commit to the constraints of a traditional campus setting.

A controversial experiment that could lead the way to even more college credit accessibility is MOOCs, or massive open online courses. As the name implies, these classes are offered to the general public at a low cost, or no cost, in the hopes of earning their students college credit. California-based online course provider Coursera recently had five of its offerings evaluated by the American Council on Education for college credit validity. Four of the courses were recommended for college credit by ACE, and one was endorsed for vocational credit, providing student work verification through a strict proctoring process.

These credits are not earned through community colleges or online-institutions; Duke University, the University of California at Irvine and the University of Pennsylvania are on Coursera’s list of places the courses will earn credit for students that pay a nominal fee. Students that obtain these credits through Coursera can approach any higher education institution and seek their inclusion in a degree program, but the final discretion is up to the particular school.

MOCCs are certainly in an infancy stage and do not provide a “sure thing” yet for students that participate. In the Babson survey mentioned earlier, only 2.6 percent of schools offer a MOOC, but an additional 9.4 percent are building a MOCC plan. The potential for further diversity and equality in education through MOCCs is certainly on the horizon. This form of online learning means that students do not have to commit to an entire course of study to obtain credits or even commit to a particular institution upfront.

MOOCs will further eliminate the socio-economic barriers that keep promising students from seeking out college credits. Students are given more flexibility in scheduling at an affordable price. Though the MOOC trend has its dissenters, I believe it will win over even the most skeptical and increase accessibility for all people that seek higher education. After all, at one time the mention of online courses raised a few eyebrows in the educational community and look how far the concept has come. Further development of online initiatives, specifically in the area of MOOCs, represents the next big step for enriching the diversity of the college student population in America.

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Matthew Lynch published in EdTech & Innovation, Matthew Lynch

Virtual Laboratories – All Good?

It seems that there is nothing that cannot be done online anymore. On a personal level, we do everything from paying bills to scheduling entire vacations in a matter of minutes because of online access. Think about it for a moment: What daily online activities do you do today that were not an option 10 years ago? Five years ago? Last year?

Now consider classroom technology and how it is also evolving rapidly. Implementation of technology in the classroom goes beyond Google searches and reading apps. It stretches into every area of learning, including the sciences. Virtual laboratories are popping up in school districts and online learning curriculum across the country and making it easier and less expensive for students to do experiments remotely. Here are some of the benefits of virtual labs:

Flexible access. Perhaps the most often cited benefit of any online learning is that it can be done at the student’s convenience and when he or she learns best. The same is true of virtual laboratories if the experiments are on the student’s own time. In some cases, a virtual lab may be used during regular class time which narrows this benefit but still allows flexibility for the teacher who is not limited by using resources within a strict timeframe.

Instant feedback. Students can redo experiments on the spot while they are still in a critical thinking mode. All the results are recorded, making communication between teachers and students more efficient too. Experiments no longer have a “one chance” option and students can analyze what went wrong immediately and give it another shot.

Top-notch equipment. Schools and students that use virtual labs have access to cutting-edge technology when it comes to experimentation. Companies that build and maintain virtual labs must compete with each other to stay ahead of technology progression and that raises the quality of options for students. With a virtual lab, students do not have to settle on outdated, yet expensive, equipment because a school cannot afford to replace it consistently.

Lower costs. There is a fee associated with using virtual labs but the capital and maintenance costs are drastically reduced. Instead of one school footing the bill for resources, the cost is split among the clients of the particular virtual lab. This allows school to provide a better learning experience for students at a fraction of the cost.

Higher efficiency, lower costs, better equipment – is there a downside to virtual labs? I’d say it is too early to really see the effects, positive or negative, of science through virtual experimentation, but a few red flags pop into my own mind. I remember many of my in-class science experiments vividly. The sights, smells and sounds of biology and chemistry reactions at my own hand cemented the lessons into memory. It was real for me because it was right in front of my face and I was the one controlling the outcomes (or so I thought).

I wonder how much of that wonder is lost in a digital format? I can’t imagine the next generation of scientists will fall in love with their fields from watching experiments on a computer screen but I could be wrong. Even with the in-person science experimentation I did in school, I had no desire to enter those fields. So perhaps those with a predisposition for the true sciences will not be deterred by virtual experimentation. Perhaps even more students will find a love for those fields because digital lessons allow for more repetition and instant feedback.

Like all classroom technology, virtual labs need to be scrutinized to ensure that behind the flashy capabilities, their true purpose is being met. That will take some time and testing, of course, but I think it is possible with the right combination of in-person and remote lessons.

Do you use a virtual lab in your classroom? What do you think about its potential for learning?

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Matthew Lynch published in Higher Education

4 Degrees to Make a Difference in Your Community

**The Edvocate is pleased to publish guest posts as way to fuel important conversations surrounding P-20 education in America. The opinions contained within guest posts are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official opinion of The Edvocate or Dr. Matthew Lynch.**

A guest post by Anica Oaks

Education is something that can make a difference not only in your life, but also the lives of people in your community. It can facilitate everything from solving problems like water delivery to ensuring people who can’t take care of themselves are cared for.

Let’s explore four degrees that can help you make a big difference in your community. This will better help you determine what you should learn if you want to give back to the people around you.

1. Social Work

There are situations where people are unable to care for themselves. Children and the elderly tend to make the majority of these cases, but there are situations where adults may need help acquiring jobs or housing.

A degree in social work can help you give back to your community. You can help people directly, which in turn allows you to see the results of your work.

2. Civil Engineering

Utilities and transportation represent necessities that people require. Clean water is one of the most important necessities.

What most people fail to realize is that it takes an incredible amount of work to move the 44 million gallons of water people in the United States use each day.

Infrastructure for electricity, gas, buildings, roads and so on require a similar amount of work. That’s why civil engineering is one of the best ways to give back to your local community.

If you are curious, mathematical, and inventive, an online master’s degree in civil engineering can provide you with the avenue to make a real difference in your society. Whether you passion lies with finding more economical and efficient solutions, or in seeing your vision through from conception to creation, you can make a difference with civil engineering.

3. Finance

Often overlooked is the study of finance, which includes how it can solve problems for everyone from the individual citizen to business owners.

Consider how this degree gives back to the individual within your community: You can help single mothers, families and other parties with planning their finances. You may even be essential in ensuring that a child can pay for college.

Similar applications can be found within the realm of local businesses. You may be essential in helping “Mom and Pop” businesses plan their finances, limit their losses, and continue to provide reliable services to their customers.

4. Law

The last example of a degree that can give back to your community is one that deal with law. How it gives back depends upon the type of law that you practice or the role you choose to perform when it comes to dealing with the law.

You can give back with a law degree by helping with divorces, aiding in custody battles, representing the rights of unprivileged individuals, resolving minor legal disputes, and helping people change the local laws to better align with the interests of your community.

Making a Difference with a Degree

Educations allow you to make an incredible difference inside of your community. They enable you to help people in ways that they may be unable to acquire, or by providing services at a higher quality.

That means if you want to give back to your community, then you should consider investing in yourself for a higher education.

___

Anica is a professional content and copywriter who graduated from the University of San Francisco. She loves dogs, the ocean, and anything outdoor-related. She was raised in a big family, so she’s used to putting things to a vote. Also, cartwheels are her specialty. You can connect with Anica here.

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Matthew Lynch published in EdTech & Innovation, HBCU's, Higher Education

Can schools punish students for off-campus, online speech?

Clay Calvert, University of Florida

In January 2014, Reid Sagehorn, a student at Rogers High School in Minnesota, jokingly tweeted “actually yeah” in response to a question about whether he had made out with one of his high school teachers.

The public school, acting on the tweet, suspended him for seven weeks. Sagehorn, a member of the National Honor Society, fought the suspension in a federal court, claiming the actions of school officials violated his First Amendment right to free speech.

Did the school have the right to punish him for his off-campus expression? It turns out – no.

In August 2015, a federal judge rejected the school officials’ motion to have the case dismissed. After all, the court found that Sagehorn made the post while away from campus, during nonschool hours, without using the school’s computers. And last month Sagehorn collected a settlement of more than US$400,000.

Sadly, Reid Sagehorn’s case is not unique. For at least the past 15 years, schools across the nation have engaged in Orwellian overreaches into the homes and bedrooms of students to punish them for their off-campus, online expression regarding classmates, teachers and administrators.

Despite the bevy of cases, the issue of whether schools can punish students for off-campus, online speech remains unresolved.

Cases where school kids were suspended

For instance, in April 2015, a federal court in Oregon considered a case called Burge v Colton School District 53 in which an eighth grader was suspended from his public middle school based upon out-of-school comments he posted on his personal Facebook page.

And in September 2014, a federal court in New York considered a case called Bradford v Norwich City School District in which a public high school student was suspended “based on a text-message conversation he had with another student regarding a third student while outside of school.”

Judge Glenn Suddaby observed in Bradford that “the Supreme Court has yet to speak on the scope of a school’s authority to discipline a student for speech that does not occur on school grounds or at a school-sponsored event.”

Silence from the Supreme Court

Indeed, a key problem here is that the US Supreme Court has never ruled in a case involving the off-campus speech rights of students in the digital era.

Public school students do possess First Amendment speech rights, although those rights are not the same as those of adults in nonschool settings.

A case in point is the Supreme Court’s famous 1969 proclamation in Tinker v Des Moines Independent Community School District that students do not
“shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.”

A key problem has been the silence of the Supreme Court on free speech rights of students.
Jeff Kubina, CC BY-SA

In this case, a divided court upheld the right of students to wear to school black armbands emblazoned with peace signs as a form of political protest against the war in Vietnam. The majority reasoned that such speech could be stopped only if school officials had actual facts to believe it would lead to a substantial and material disruption of the educational atmosphere.

But Tinker was an on-campus speech case. And although the Supreme Court has considered three more student speech cases since Tinker, none involved either off-campus or digital expression.

A chance to resolve the issue

Schools today are trying to exert their authority far beyond the schoolhouse gate. Some courts have allowed these efforts and others have rejected them, but now the Supreme Court has a prime opportunity to resolve the matter in a case called Bell v Itawamba County School Board.

In January 2011, a Mississippi high school student, Taylor Bell, was suspended from Itawamba Agricultural High School after he posted, while away from campus during nonschool hours, a homemade rap video to Facebook and YouTube.

In the video, Bell criticizes in no uncertain terms two male teachers for their alleged sexual harassment of minor female students. A version of rap that describes the resulting controversy is available online.

In August 2015, the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit narrowly ruled that high school officials in Mississippi did not violate the First Amendment speech rights of Bell when they punished him for posting the video because it allegedly threatened two teachers.

In a ruling against Taylor Bell, the Fifth Circuit majority concluded that the rule from the Tinker case applies to off-campus speech:

when a student intentionally directs at the school community speech reasonably understood by school officials to threaten, harass, and intimidate a teacher, even when such speech originated, and was disseminated, off-campus without the use of school resources.

One of the judges in the case, James Dennis, writing in dissent, ripped into the majority for broadly proclaiming “that a public school board is constitutionally empowered to punish a student whistleblower for his purely off-campus Internet speech publicizing a matter of public concern.”

Judge Dennis stressed that the rule from Tinker, which requires school officials to reasonably predict a substantial and material disruption will be caused by speech before it can be stopped, does not apply to off-campus speech cases.

Why the Supreme Court should hear the Taylor Bell case

Some minors inevitably will post and upload – while away from campus and using their own digital communication devices – allegedly disparaging, offensive or threatening messages and images about fellow students, teachers and school officials on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Snapchat.

The key question, then, is whether and to what extent public schools, consistent with the First Amendment, may discipline students for their off-campus speech.

In November 2015, Bell filed a petition with the US Supreme Court asking it to hear his case.

As Bell’s attorneys argue, the court should take the case because whether or not Tinker applies to off-campus speech cases has “vexed school officials and courts across the country.”

In December, the organization I direct, the Marion B Brechner First Amendment Project, filed a friend-of-the-court brief urging the court to take the case.

Briefs from the attorneys for the school are due January 20, and the court will decide whether to hear Bell later this spring.

The bottom line is this: public school students deserve the right to know, pre-posting and pre-texting, what their First Amendment rights are when they are away from campus.

They must, in other words, be given fair notice. The court should hear Bell to let them know precisely what their rights are. It is an issue not likely to go away soon.

The Conversation

Clay Calvert, Brechner Eminent Scholar in Mass Communication, University of Florida

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

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Matthew Lynch published in EdTech & Innovation, list, Matthew Lynch

3 Critical Questions We Must Ask about the K-12 Online Learning Trend

Online learning is more than a fad. The facts are staggering: According to the International Association for K-12 Online Learning, there are nearly 1.9 million K-12 enrollments in online courses every school year, up from under 50,000 in 2000. The current number does not even include students enrolled in primarily online schools. Thirty-one states have full-time online schools that serve on a statewide basis.

But is this trend, quickly becoming a permanent feature of our education, a positive one? Here are three questions to ask to determine whether online learning is changing the quality of education for the better or for the worse.

  1. Do online courses really adequately prepare you for college? The top reason that districts give for offering online options is for credit recovery, with 81 percent of urban schools citing this reason. Are online courses really equal to ones in the classroom though? It really depends who you ask. Recent news reports out of California show that high school graduation rates are at an all-time high of 78 percent, with even higher numbers in areas like San Francisco and San Jose. While some educators use these numbers to point to student success, critics say the rise in graduation numbers does not necessarily mean that students are college ready. The rise of online courses as a means to “make up” failed or incomplete classes are part of the reason more kids graduate – but do they know what they should?
  2. How rigorous are online courses? This is likely a cloudy area for those of us who grew up before the Internet forever changed the face of distance education. On a basic level, if a student reads the material, and is able to give correct answers on a test, that means he or she has “learned” the content. When an educator takes into account other influential factors like learning style, intelligence and work ethic, that basic definition becomes murky. The general consensus in the education community seems to be that even though online courses have merit, they are less rigorous than classroom settings.
  3. Is making online learning mandatory in high school a good thing? Then there is the issue of online learning as an overarching ideology. Embracing the inevitability that online learning is a very real part of the average college education, the state of Florida began requiring in 2011 that high school students in the 24-credit graduation option to take at least one online course. The public, Internet-based Florida Virtual School leads the way in this innovation and is considered a national leader in the e-Learning model. So in this example, Florida is not simply offering online courses as a backup; the state mandates that students on a college prep path get early exposure to the type of learning they are likely to see in college.

Simply put, there are two very different ways to look at online courses in K-12 education. On one hand, there is educational merit, though that education is debatable as to the actual extent of its effectiveness. On the other hand, there is the practicality aspect of exposing students to online learning long before the college years. The second point paints online learning as a life skill of sorts – something for kids to understand before entering the real world as adults, much like balancing a bank account or learning how to create a resume.

Regardless of the limitations of online learning, those who oppose K-12 online courses are just wasting their breath. The momentum of online learning is gaining speed. Educators can best spend their time looking for ways to enhance the content of what is offered in virtual courses and making the most of what classroom time is available.

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