I read lots of criticism of textbooks, but I find little I think imagines the future of the textbook aside from replacing it with some as yet to be determined alternative. I want a clearer vision.
I have turned to those who offer perspectives on the future of other media. One of the best books on this topic I have read recently is Geeks Bearing Gifts by Jeff Jarvis. Jarvis is a CUNY journalism prof who writes about new media and changes to journalism.
What vocations should students be strongly encouraged to consider? Computer science seems to be the newest thing. We may be thinking too narrowly. Perhaps the potential income of the next Zuckerberg is encouraging parents and educators to focus students toward coding related careers.
I wonder. Being a builder or home remodeler has great career opportunities. You cannot be outsourced and you might land your own show on the “home beautiful” channel. I am just guessing here. What I know about these vocations I have learned by watching television and hiring to work in my home. From my observations, construction seems to be quite lucrative and creative work. Coding jobs are easily sent to other countries and who would be interested in the “coding channel”?
I am trying to be humorous, but I think we must be careful when expecting young people to explore based on our values or what seems to be careers that may or may not be important in a decade.
How we learn to code is also an issue. Many of the success stories result from personal passion and informal learning rather than formal training. Programming is a great skill to teach yourself and to learn by doing. Check this TechCrunch post by a young coder.
So many studies end with the admonition – more research is needed. I suppose this is the case because many studies only are able to resolve some of the questions that were originally posed or find results that do not match the findings of others.
This has long been true of investigations of technology in education. Just so I am not accused of being a technology fan boy, here is a cautionary report from NPR.
I cannot say that I have read the original studies cited here. I tend to follow specific journals and I have yet to see these findings in journals. This does not mean that the results do not deserve scrutiny.
One thing I would urge readers to note is the correlational nature of many of these findings. When things are related the nature of the relationship can be challenging to interpret from correlational data. This does not mean that correlational research has no value. Sometimes certain important variables are difficult or unethical to manipulate. I tend to start by trying to generate reasonable alternate explanations just to see if I can find other ways to interpret the statistics.
My previous post explained that many educators are wary of using the events of the present political season to explore the political process. Their concerns do seem realistic. However, I did not want to imply that taking advantage of these current events do not represent great opportunities for student participation and learning. PBS offers some great ideas for how high school students might be engaged with the upcoming debates in a systematic and more academic way. If the debates of the primaries were any indication, the future debates should provide a great way to exercise critical thinking through the analysis of the arguments advanced and the distractions employed.
Educators are frequently encouraged to take educational advantage of the “real world”. One might think that the election season would offer a great opportunity to explain the political process. Many are now backing away because the educators are concerned students will repeat inappropriate comments they have picked up at home or have to deal with parents disagreeing with what teachers might say about candidates.
This article from Fast Company explains some of the concerns expressed by educators.
I, like many photographers, have lots of pictures of sunflowers. Some of my personal favorites were taken on a road trip in Russia. What encourages this focus on this plant?
I am guessing it is because a) we like the face of the sunflower and often pose human faces among the sunflower faces, and b) the systematic way in which sunflowers face in the same direction is interesting
Do sunflowers follow the sun? I always thought so, but there seems to be disagreement among the online sources I sampled. Recently, I heard a local newsperson offer what were supposed to be the current thought. One explanation concluded that it is the heat that the flowers seek. Heat evidently attracts more insects which encourage more successful pollination which of course results in a better seed crop.
A recent NPR story on sunflowers.
If students have access some of these ideas might be interesting to investigate. How would you collect data in a reliable fashion? How would you test the hypothesis that sunflowers follow the sun? Is there a difference on a sunny and cloudy day?
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