Blurts

The “digital native” thing has always annoyed me. I guess I should be less critical – growing up with a technology in place does not necessarily mean you understand the technology or can use it in creative ways.

I always wondered why there was so little data available on who knows what. It would seem the kind of thing researchers could easily investigate. An article in THE Journal referenced a recent study that I found interesting. The study concluded that middle school science teachers know more about tech than their students. What I found useful about the paper was the literature review (the full paper is available online). Ed tech grad students might want to take a look at this paper as a good source for other studies.

If you read my blogs on a regular basis, you likely understand my interest in politics. For me, this interest is a requirement of anyone interested in public education. For a couple of decades, Cindy and I have hosted a gathering at our place to watch the returns. This year because we have moved we are no longer in the company of our friends.

Just for kicks, I searched my blogs for past comments on this day. Interesting to review the highs and the lows.

Here is a NY Time article on the financial opportunity in selling class notes. This is one of those topics that relates to my past professional life. I had no interest in selling notes, but I was interested in the note-taking limitations of lower performing college students and how their learning might be improved by what were called “expert notes”. Those who purchase notes have achieved an important goal – they have acted in support of their learning. One of the problems I found in my research was that when expert notes were made available, the notes were more likely to be accessed by higher performing rather than lower performing students. Hence, it is difficult to do applied research on this topic. It is difficult to isolate the value of the more complete notes from the higher motivation to learn possibly implied by seeking the notes in the first place.

I was also interested in the potential of wiki notes. I would post an outline of presentations and invite any and all to add details. This never seemed to work. There was plenty of interest in detailed notes, but not in creating such a resource for peers. This is also an interesting question. Why, if students have taken more complete notes on a device, are they unwilling to share and collaborate?

These are issues in the transitions between the idealism of the lab and the frustrating realities of what most students are willing to do in support of learning. Selling notes to the needy works because of these disparities.

I must be careful when I characterize what other people advocate because I may not actually understand their intent. This is the case with my reaction to educators who have discovered coding. Is the intent that it would be helpful if students learned coding as a life/vocational skill or that they learn enough about coding that they are not mystified by how technology works? Education is a type of zero-sum game. Unfortunately, we keep thinking of things to add, but they struggle with what to delete.

I can code – I really can. I operated servers in support of my research for many years and wrote the software that was the basis for my research. I went through several languages over the years as I moved from a focus on isolated computers to making use of the Internet. Now that I am retired I was thinking I should develop something that would make me rich, famous, or both. I have the time. I have the hardware. Why not just sit down and get to it? What I am lacking is the “big idea” and probably the motivation to search for one. I would rather read and write.

I just encountered this piece from the Telegraph that prompted this post and made a similar point. The topic also reminds me of the conversations I have had with my son about his career (he was originally a video editor and now an artistic director). For example, what is the advantage of his college educational relative to a technical degree say focused on multimedia. His reaction kind of explains my situation as a programmer. He values the background that allows him to tell a story with technology. This might be a documentary or a television ad. Mastery of the tech tools is important but that is just the starting point. He has a film degree, but he once told me that “anthropology” would also have been a good starting point. This was when he wanted to focus on documentaries and before he understood that supporting a family would at least temporarily require that he apply his skills in a different way. The point being that coding or video editing are tools and it is the background allowing the creative application of these tools that results in innovation.