Thinking about technologies in the classroom

I have just looked up a new course created at McGill University (Montreal, Canada) called Emerging Technologies for Educational Change (EDPE 640). It is an interesting course that I may take this summer or fall. But … But, as often … as always, the teacher completely ignores personal choices of his students. As far as I can see, there is no consideration (or time taken to talk) about one’s digital footprint (in this case, Internet footprint).

While the nature of this course suggests that all students will have to "get dirty" and create some form of online presence, it is always astonishing to note that no time or place is taken to talk about how our choices (as teachers or students) may influence our future lives and the lives of our students. There is no mention of privacy online or any other similar idea. Considering that this course is tailored towards teacher learners it looks like an important concept to consider.

Instead, the teacher expects his students to share their ideas (essentially school work) on Twitter, blogs etc. Most probably, all proposed platforms will be commercial products made for profit and using personal user information to do whatever it takes to make money. Application of such technologies in an adult classroom may, in worst case, generate some form of complaints. Using them in the high school or lower is at least unethical.

Don’t get me wrong: I cannot simply judge a course by its description and declare it bad or unethical or anything else. I simply deplore the fact that there is no course that I know of at McGill that addresses the moral, ethical and legal issues related to the use of “disruptive” technologies including Wikipedia, Twitter, Facebook, Cloud etc.

UPDATE 02/09/2014: I am, finally, taking the above mentioned course now (in the fall semester). More impressions and reflections to come!

Big Brother in schools

I have just watched read the news and watched the video feed about a school that hired a private company to inspect "public" posts of the sutdents: http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-57600251-71/school-district-hires-company-to-follow-kids-facebook-twitter/?tag=nl.e497&s_cid=e497&ttag=e497&ftag=CAD5920658.

Of course, everything is done in the name of the students themselves and the major reason is security: bullying, suicidal thoughts etc. are mentioned as THE reason for school intervention and this programs existence. However, for 40 000$ a year could we do more? Could we do better?

I cannot really grasp and understand why we have come to this point. All I have are questions. My brain simply refuses to process such news. It looks like a tornado in my head jumping from one idea to the next. So here it comes:
What about going back to the basics: talking to the kids? How about investing this money to reduce the class size and ensure that the teachers really do have the time and the resources necessary to know their students and be able to intervene on  one to one personal manner well before administrative machine steps in?

What about the main purpose of the school: preparing free and critical agents of the change of our society? How can we teach a student anything about human rights and freedom when there is no freedom available? All posts are watched; students may get into trouble if anything is suspected. It is in no way a free school of thought!

From a technical point of view, I do not understand what public posts are we talking about. If users Facebook page is private and HTTPS encryption is used (as most students will do soon if they do not do it already) I do not see what there is to inspect? However, if the company uses a man in the middle attack and inspects all students posts on their path from a device to Facebook it is a different story.
That being said, I just wonder how many false positives will this technology generate. Does one ruined life (because of a simple technical mistake) is worth the risk? What is the threshold and when this technology is deemed effective or inefficient?

Many questions and no answers ... What do you think?

Multitasking - A myth?

Following is an ongoing research that I'm doing for myself. it is not indented as a literature review but could be a good starting point for a more formal research experiment. Some references I have found are blogs, others are peer reviewed research articles. Most were useful for a newcomer, like me, trying to understand basic principles.

You have probably heard of the most common assumption associated with the new generation of students: multitasking. "They are multitasking. They are good at it and they feel good about it." However, there is a large body of research that demonstrates that all humans(new or old generation) are alike and are quite bad at multitasking. That does not mean that the next generation will be as bad as we are, it just means that at the moment we are not that good and should know about it.

I'm always looking for research supporting one or the other point of view and based on neurology or at least applying some basic neurology principles that go beyond self-reported surveys.

Here are a few links (I will eventually transform all this into a full APA style reference list):

• Abaté, C. J. (2008). You Say Multitasking Like It’s a Good Thing. Thought & Action. (Originally published in the Fall 2008 (Volume 24) issue of Thought & Action, The NEA Higher Education Journal) (last accessed in June 2013)
• Paul Atchley. You Can't Multitask, So Stop Trying. 2010 (last accessed in June 2013)
• Steven Novella. Multitasking – Can You Walk and Chew Gum at the Same Time? 2012 (last accessed in June 2013)
• Reynol Juncoa, Shelia R. Cotten. The relationship between multitasking and academic performance. 2012
• Adam Gorlick. Media multitaskers pay mental price, Stanford study shows. 2009
• Dzubak, C. M. (2008). Multitasking: The good, the bad, and the unknown. The Journal of the Association for the Tutoring Profession, 1.(last accessed in June 2013)
• Rosen, C. (2008). The myth of multitasking. The New Atlantis, 20, 105-110.
• Judd, T., & Kennedy, G. (2011). Measurement and evidence of computer-based task switching and multitasking by ‘Net Generation’students. Computers & Education, 56(3), 625-631.
• Wang, Z., & Tchernev, J. M. (2012). The “myth” of media multitasking: Reciprocal dynamics of media multitasking, personal needs, and gratifications. Journal of Communication, 62(3), 493-513.
• Hembrooke, H., & Gay, G. (2003). The laptop and the lecture: The effects of multitasking in learning environments. Journal of Computing in Higher Education, 15(1), 46-64.
• Kraushaar, J. M., & Novak, D. C. (2010). Examining the Affects of Student Multitasking with Laptops during the Lecture. Journal of Information Systems Education, 21(2), 11.