Digital Field Experiences

Phillion discusses in this article the implementation of a distance field experience project implemented online in order to provide primarily white pre-service teachers in rural, fairly isolated areas with opportunities to interact with diverse groups of students that are not well represented in the general vicinity of the teaching college. The participants use video conferencing and communicated frequently with the supervising in-service teachers to plan activities and prepare materials for students. Field experiences have been documented as the best way to prepare future teachers for the complexity and diversity of the classrooms in which they are likely to teach in our ever more diversifying society. Through this program, which is linked together through an online service called Polycom, preservice teachers observe the classroom, interact with students, and utilize the available technology to create engaging and enriching lessons.

It seems to me that such digital, distance field experiences may be the best option available to teaching colleges located in rural or “low-diversity” areas. I definitely do not see online options as equivalent to being in a real school, interacting with students and teachers in person. If I were an educator of educators, I may adopt such a system in a similar situation, but I would always hesitate to limit field experiences to an online environment. It is often said that multicultural sensitivity can only develop with a lot of critical, meaningful interaction with people from many different walks of life, and I fail to see how sensitive nonverbal communication skills could be developed without physical proximity. For these reasons I may just consider distance field experiences as an alternative to traditional visits to schools.

Phillion, J. (2005). Providing Field Experiences with Diverse Populations for Preservice Teachers: Using Technology to Bridge Distances and Cultures. Multicultural Perspectives, 7(3), 3–9.

Changes in Brain Function in Children with Dyslexia after Training

Dyslexia is a difficulty in reading that does not stem from areas of general intelligence, motivation, or necessary education. Between 5 and 17% of the general population is estimated to have mild to severe dyslexia. Temple summarizes research findings in this article that addresses whether dyslexia can be improved after focused practice with reading on a computer. The training program used, called Fast ForWord Language, focuses on oral language and auditory processing. Auditory processing is very important in learning how to match the sounds of a word with the meaning of letters on a page. Without the ability to detect rapid auditory signals, a child is unable to distinguish certain sounds and develops an inaccurate understanding of the sounds of his or her language. After training, a significant increase in oral language and auditory processing was observed in children that used the program, in normalizing and compensating terms. While it is important to understand that dyslexia is not only a matter of “trying hard enough” at reading, with carefully targeted practice young people may be able to improve their reading abilities.

As a language teacher I am happy to hear that guided and appropriate language training can be of help to struggling students. I expect that there will be a number of students in classes of mine that have disabilities or exceptionalities. I will keep this information in mind as I am invited to IEP meetings in which this research background information could be valuable. This article also reinforces in me the idea that both drill and practice and the methods of imparting knowledge and skills to students are very important.

Temple, E. (2003) Changes in Brain Function in Children with Dyslexia after Training. The Phonics Bulletin, 04/2003, 1-3.

The Virtual Revolution

Virtual schools are able to offer some services and flexibility that traditional schools cannot, yet those involved (in development or “in class”) face a number of challenges as well. The curriculum can be focused and instruction can be more individualized than in tangible schools. Also, flexible scheduling and student-centered learning can benefit students interested in technology and those who cannot physically attend a school, because of distance, illness, injury, or what have you. However, these schools are not for everyone and no matter how much they advance, it seems that virtual education will never completely do away with real educators. According to the authors, even “computer-based tutoring programs with artificial intelligence are not credible threats to the teaching profession”. Online/distance education generally lacks valuable human interaction and personal contact. Some do, however, expect that artificial intelligence will evolve to a point beyond certain measures of human intelligence.

I do not think that computers will evolve even near-human emotional intelligence, at least not in the perceivable future. This means that professional educators could not be replaced by digital or robotic computer teachers in every student home or classroom. I think virtual schools will remain an alternative or supplementary means to educate students. I cannot expect myself to contribute to the construction or development of such a school program in the near future, because I lack the time and training at this point to convert even an excellent in class lesson to a digital or interactive electronic format. I expect most preservice teachers will not be prepared to do this coming out of teaching colleges.

Greenway, R., Vanourek, G. (2006). The Virtual Revolution. Education Next, Spring 2006.

The Web's Impact on Student Learning

Research into the effectiveness of online learning has been focused mainly on the areas of critical thinking and writing skills. Content analysis is one method of evaluating online exchanges like chats and threaded discussions. A 1995 study (Cochrane, Newman, & Webb) showed that students were less likely to contribute novel ideas online and more likely to make important statements and link ideas compared to normal classroom interactions. This implies that internet exchanges may be better suited for linear thinking than brainstorming. Online discussions allow students ample time to consider appropriate responses and analyze issues and problems introduced by a prompt or other participant. In order to understand the effectiveness and usefulness of online education, it is also important to consider and research social implications for communicating without seeing others. We lose a number of valuable nonverbal social cues in cyber space and it is still uncertain how much one may compensate for this loss with more expressive or reflective writing.

I feel that the scope of this article is somewhat limited by the available research on internet education. The assumption from this article is that learning will continue to take place online through writing and threaded discussion to a large extent. I would like to consider how this may change, especially as we find ways of empowering students to express themselves online in a multitude of alternative, meaningful ways; not only through writing, but also through concept mapping, visual arts, video and simulations, student-led research, music and theater, etc. As a world languages teacher I am constantly considering effective teaching methods and also how students can demonstrate growth and understanding. I do not feel that I underestimate the value of writing and I will make it a key aspect of learning in my classroom, yet I hope to use diverse, well-researched instructional strategies, possibly including everything mentioned above. I assume that advancing technology will allow us to demonstrate skills and understanding in all of these ways online in the future.

Meyer, K. (2003). The Web’s Impact on Student Learning. T.H.E. Journal Online, 04/2003.

Probing for Plagiarism in the Virtual Classroom

How do we go about preventing or even detecting cheating in a digitalized world of learning? Hamlin and Ryan offer some considerations and suggestions for plagiarism issues. Time restrictions are often implemented to dissuade cheating on online tests, as students theoretically lack the time to look up or copy answers this way. Discussion boards may provide additional tools to assess student writing and use as a foundation for hypothesizing about plagiarism. Students submit many samples of their own writing during this process. As participating in a discussion board is frequently a low-stakes and highly contextualized activity, students are less likely to even consider cheating. A number of online services are available to facilitate educator determination of plagiarism as well. Plagiarism.org and other plagiarism detecting web sites use digital document fingerprinting to cross-reference documents with a database containing hundreds of thousands of papers. Instructors can only hope to deter student cheating by informing students that they will collect writing samples to analyze, run term papers through plagiarism-detecting programs, administer frequent pop-quizzes, and measure participation through online discussion boards.

It is interesting to me that in teaching students valuable computer skills in a foreign or secondary language I am, at the same time, also empowering students to cheat and use services that would make avoiding learning far too easy. Fortunately, I would imagine that most term paper sites offer substantially longer and more complex papers than my students would be capable in completing within three or four years of learning another language. It should be much easier for me, therefore, to detect plagiarism in my classroom. I am also somewhat relieved in considering that many cheating services have less to offer to beginning students of Spanish or Japanese. I will consider how students in my more advanced classes may discover how to abuse ever-improving cheating services online.

Hamlin, L., and Ryan, W. (2003). Probing for Plagiarism in the Virtual Classroom. Syllabus, 07/2003.

The Myth about Student Competency

The idea that “our students are technologically competent” is one that is perhaps tossed around a little too much, according to Oblinger and Hawkins. While virtually 100% of students these days are competent using word-processing and surfing the internet, only 25% of students can create a web page and not too many are comfortable with spreadsheets or graphic design work. How should we measure information technology competency? The first question to answer, however, is what skills do students need in our digital world? After we determine this, we can consider how we might go about imparting and teaching these skills to our students. We must plan for widely-varying skill levels and also consider what extra technical support to provide, whether that means offering help desk services somewhere on a school campus, or whether that means teachers (or other classroom assistants) staying after school to answer questions and guide students through their challenges.

Personally, I am fond of the idea of empowering already-skilled students to help others with lower technical know-how. I figure that as long as those not-so-technically-savvy students have other places and times to impart whatever it is that they have to share, then I can be more certain that students will not feel overwhelmed or undervalued in the educational process. For me, I think my challenges will start with translation of computer technology into the languages which I wish to teach: Spanish, Japanese, and English as a second language. I can picture having my students complete research projects, forming presentations, constructing websites, or creating videos based on course language content, but I would like to immerse them as much as possible in the target language as I am teaching computer skills (as well as keep them on-task and in-language in their interactions with each other). I am not sure exactly how to go about doing this, as the majority of school programs and the majority of the internet use English, which makes it difficult for me in my efforts to teach Spanish and Japanese.

Oblinger, G., and Hawkins, L. (2006). The Myth about Student Competency. EDUCASE, 03/2006, 12-13.

MISESS: Web-Based Examination, Evaluation, and Guidance

MISESS is a Management Information System utilized to allow online, electronic access for students and teachers to all classes, related course material, and examinations. This system allows for various levels of user authentication, meaning that educators can control course and exam content and also determine the manner and time in which students may access material or take tests. Those that manage the system can, of course, make modifications to online materials at any time. Online examinations can take many forms and include various types of questions as well. Question types include multiple-choice, true/false, fill-in-the-blank, and essay format. Depending on the wishes of the instructor, carried out by the system administrator, test questions can even be drawn randomly from a set pool of questions only accessible to that instructor, with the potential implication that each individual student would take a different test that could be graded immediately.

These systems are implemented more often in universities, but wonder to what extent it would be manageable or effective in terms of development time to implement for a high school course. Many tests that I will administer may end up using multiple-choice, short answer, and true-false questions and if I had a testing system set up, I imagine I could save substantial time printing, grading, and handing back tests. Of course I would want to mind the digital divide, taking into account that perhaps sixty percent of my students are likely to have computers with internet access at home, meaning that such test administration should be conducted on school lab or library computers. Such an endeavor may be more feasible as a department-wide development task, although that would require standardizing the Spanish or ESL curricula and test material, which, again, may be very time consuming.

Tanrikulu, Z. (2006). MISESS: Web-Based Examination, Evaluation, and Guidance. EDUCASE, 29.1.

SmartTutor: Combining SmartBooks and Peer Tutors for Multimedia Online Instruction

In this article, Kogen, Kopec, and Whitlock address the question of how we can serve busy, working, commuter students in a college with a lack of tutors. The solution that they summarized is a multimedia, educational technology called SmartTutor. Such a system allows students to access course contents, frequently asked questions, and other information in a non-linear fashion with concept mapping heuristics. At Brooklyn College in New York City this system was developed as a supplement to peer tutors for courses such as the general, required physics class and a computer science gateway course that originally had a 50% drop/fail rate. Such systems need input from many areas of campus to be developed: Professors, students, peer tutors, and computer science and information majors. These systems are quite useful, because they allow access to information at all times of the day, they provide tutors with information on difficult content areas and questions, and they can help students perform better in gateway courses.

I have seen in technology education that concept mapping is not difficult to accomplish on most lab computers. Kogen, et al., mention that these systems are written with HTML and occasionally use JavaScript or PERL for animation. If teachers were instructed in the use of these languages, it seems they could be empowered to create such systems with less institutional support - ideally, that is. It makes sense in a large institution, however, to collaborate with computer science and MIS students, especially as they can receive credit while they complete construction of SmartTutor-type applications.

Kogen, M., Kopec, D., Whitlock, P. (2002). SmartTutor: Combining SmartBooks and Peer Tutors for Multi-media On-line Instruction. Proceedings of the International Conferrence on Engineering Edcation, 08/2002, 1-5.