Digital default and the end of privacy

"Smartphone rituals" (CC BY-NC 2.0) by nicolasnova

There's a shoe repair shop in town that I visit now and again that is making a brave last stand against the compulsory digitalisation of our lives. Not only is the concept of repairing anything unthinkable for most people today, but the owner only accepts cash - no cards, no mobile payment apps. I wished him the best of luck but in the end the digital juggernaut will run him over. I still carry cash as a futile personal protest against everything I do being tracked and stored by corporations I have no control over. It's nice to be able to do something that is off the record. Digital products and services have totally changed our society and of course I benefit from them in so many ways but I'm increasingly uncomfortable about the abolition of privacy that we are happily consenting to as we accept terms and conditions that we never even read let alone understand.

Compulsory digitalisation is marginalising society's most vulnerable making even simple tasks almost impossible without a smartphone or laptop. It is becoming increasingly difficult to survive without at least a smartphone, devices that are not exactly free of charge. Many smaller shops and cafes here don't accept cash anymore. We are so dependent on our mobiles that we seldom dare to actually turn them off anymore. If the net went down for more than a few hours society would grind to a halt. I realise this sounds like typical grumpy old man behaviour, but this week I found solace in a couple of articles in the Guardian.

Firstly Jen Wasserstein writes about life without a smartphone, My life without a smartphone is getting harder and harder. She's a professional with a very digital working life but has decided to stick with an old-school mobile that only does phone calls and texts. She feels the world slowly shutting her out as even restaurant menus are now hidden behind QR-codes. Indeed parking a car, buying a bus ticket or even getting into unstaffed self-service mini-stores require apps. I admire her tenacity but I suspect that she too will soon concede defeat and join the digital captives.

At a recent dinner with friends, after some initial chatting, everyone stared at menus on their phones. I sat there for a minute looking around the table and then whispered to my neighbor, discreetly asking to look on. When I eat out alone, I show my flip-phone to the waiter and ask for a proper menu. After an eye-roll, they’ll either bring out a paper menu from some vault in the back or hand me their own phone to use.

We have become so dependent that we have forgotten how to do things without our digital devices. We often discuss all the new "21st century" skills we have acquired but we have probably lost just as many. This is the topic of a new book by Pamela Paul, 100 Things We’ve Lost to the Internet (Random House USA), What does tech take from us? Meet the writer who has counted 100 big losses. Some of the lost skills are now irrelevant anyway - finding people in gigantic phone directories or writing cheques for example - but Paul's book reminds us of many other skills and experiences we have lost in the digital takeover. She's not an off-grid type but simply wonders about the everyday experiences that fallen by the wayside in our hyper-connected lives, such as being bored, getting undivided attention from parents/children, finding your own way, writing letters etc. I particularly like this comment:

In general, when I hear the phrase ‘There’s an app for that’, my first question is: ‘Does there need to be?’

We should have a choice but we're choosing to not to. It's a combination of commercial and group pressure as well as a rather naive view of the benefits of technology. People are vaguely aware of the dangers of mass surveillance but seem to think that those are only issues in authoritarian countries - it can't happen here.

Here, perhaps, is a modern paradox. We embrace the internet because it seems to hugely increase our autonomy, but the online world soon gives us the sense that, when it comes to what it offers us, we have no meaningful choices at all. The only thing to do is to drop the old, embrace the new and live with the consequences.

Emotion and self-belief in online education

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

Confidence and self-belief are crucial elements in education. Your emotional attitude to what you are studying can strongly influence your chances of success. We all remember subjects we hated at school and how that attitude was often formed by a simple dislike of the teacher who taught it or maybe the way the subject was taught. Or the classroom, or your classmates; the list goes on. Even the most pedagogical and well-planned lessons can go wrong if the student simply doesn't feel like working today. It's a wickedly difficult factor to influence since emotion is so often irrational and unpredictable.

There has been considerable research in the role of emotions in online education, for example the work of Martha Cleveland-Innes and Prisca Campbell, relating emotional presence to the wider community of inquiry model (see Cleveland-Innes, M., & Campbell, P. (2012). Emotional presence, learning, and the online learning environment. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 13(4), 269-292.). They define the concept as:

Emotional presence is the outward expression of emotion, affect, and feeling by individuals and among individuals in a community of inquiry, as they relate to and interact with the learning technology, course content, students, and the instructor.

Online learning can be very emotional, especially when tools and resources don't work as expected and when technical problems outweigh the actual learning experience. It's important therefore to build a community of trust in the group and acknowledge the emotional ups and downs. The teacher can turn frustration into more positive emotions by tackling issues with respect, humour and understanding. Timely support can also soothe student nerves. Students can also learn to help each other and offer emotional support - even a well-timed smiley can help.

Another aspect of emotion comes in a new report from College Innovation Network, The New Digital Divide: How EdTech Self-Efficacy is Shaping the Online Student Learning Experience in Higher Ed, showing how students' perception of their proficiency in using digital tools and platforms, their EdTech self-efficacy, determined to a large extent their experience of online education during the pandemic. Those with a positive experience of and attitude towards educational technology also felt positively about their online learning experience during the pandemic. Furthermore, those who attended institutions where online education and the use of digital tools and platforms were already established found the transition relatively simple and were very positive to how online teaching had contributed to their learning process. Those who lacked experience of online education or had low confidence in their ability to learn in an online environment struggled.

The results of the survey further show the impact of EdTech self-efficacy on the student learning experience. Students’ reports of their EdTech self-efficacy was the most robust predictor of how they reported on a variety of aspects of their online learning experience this past year, including whether they felt they were learning effectively in an online environment, and how academically prepared they felt for next year.

Another digital divide mentioned is that of access to and ownership of digital devices and broadband internet access. Here there is a clear divide where less privileged groups had difficulty accessing course material and were unable to fully participate in online activities because they couldn't afford the necessary subscriptions and devices. They suffer from both the lack of necessary technology and the lower self-esteem that results in.

When students are required to use new tools and software in their courses, they are not only learning new course content, but they are also learning how to use new EdTech. Our data show that substantial portions of students struggled to learn how to use new EdTech in their courses. It’s important to realize that the introduction of new EdTech results in a dual learning experience for students. This can be beneficial as students are learning how to use new technologies, but it is important to design courses to incorporate proper instruction of new technologies to students, and ensure that all students have the digital literacy skills they need to succeed in courses.

This may seem obvious but we need to be reminded of the digital divide that is present in most institutions and how this links to self-esteem and confidence. How many students drop out due to low self-esteem and lack of experience? How does previous bad experience of online education affect future performance? When faced with a difficulty a common reaction is to say "I knew I wasn't good enough to do this sort of course" and drop out. We need to learn to meet these pre-conceptions from the start and create a sense of trust in the group where concerns can be raised and resolved with understanding and respect. Often it's not simply technical issues but emotional responses that can be most damaging to the student's learning journey.

An article in Inside Higher Ed, Who Are the Students Struggling With Online Learning?, comments on the CIN report by advising that teachers spend time with a class discussing previous experience of educational technology and making sure that there is adequate support in helping them get familiar with the platforms and tools used on the course. Obviously this also means designing the course to avoid tech overload and providing scaffolding and support for the technology that is used on the course. Many students face a double learning load - the course content plus the course platform and tools. Recognition of the power of emotional presence can be decisive.

Why tech - the dangers of digital over-dependency

"Map Reading" (CC BY-NC 2.0) by Erik Schepers

In our rush to adopt all things digital we seldom pause to consider what we are discarding from our lives. Handwriting, navigating by map, calculating in your head, remembering facts, deep reading, dealing with silence and so on. Obsolete skills you may think but extremely useful if the digital alternative breaks down. For example, here in Sweden we have virtually achieved a cashless society and although cash still exists it is becoming extremely difficult to spend it. Public transport is almost completely cashless, many shops and restaurants refuse cash and even the banks don't want to touch the stuff. Many old and vulnerable people (asylum seekers and homeless people without bank accounts) are therefore completely marginalised, but that seems to be regarded as collateral damage in the rush towards a digital future. As a result, every step your take and every move you make are being stored and exploited. At the same time we are building an extremely dangerous vulnerability into our society. If there's a power or network connectivity failure, nothing works. You can't buy anything and there's no back-up.

I have been thinking about this for a long time and have consciously reverted to some old-school habits in an attempt to keep myself in touch with both worlds, trying to become functionally ambidextrous; able to handle both the digital and the analogue. This week I stumbled across a short interview with Kris De Decker, founder of Low-tech Magazine, ”Reconsider the thinking that everything should become digital”. He's a former tech journalist who has discovered the joys of low-tech. The magazine's slogan is "doubts on progress and technology" and questions the belief that technology can solve all our problems. It contains low-tech solutions to everyday problems and the website itself runs on a solar-powered server showing that you can be low-tech and still benefit from some aspects of the digital world. It also questions many technologies that we consider green such as electric cars, wind turbines and solar cells; they all rely on batteries and manufacturing processes that have a considerable footprint. But it's not about retreating into a cave and living off-grid, but reassessing our over-reliance on a technology that is becoming frighteningly vulnerable.

In the interview, De Decker explains why we shouldn't discard our old skills.

We also lose a lot of skills. As someone who doesn’t have a smartphone, I have noticed that I have become one of the few people who still knows how to navigate a city without staring at a screen. This makes us also very vulnerable. If our complex infrastructures falter, we are helpless. Just think about the infrastructure we need to do digital payments. Cash, on the other hand, is very resilient.

Maybe we should all challenge ourselves now and again to go retro for a while. Try visiting a city and see how well you can survive without TripAdvisor, Google Maps, Uber etc. See the sights with a map and find restaurants by asking people. It works, but just in a different way. If we lose that ability we lose our resilience.

Then there's the issue of the environmental impact of technology. I have been working enthusiastically with webinars and digital conferences as an answer to the need to reduce the carbon footprint of frequent flying but we also need to realise that technology has en enormous impact too. All our devices and gigantic server halls that store our data are extremely damaging to the environment, not to mention the ever-growing mountain of electronic waste that is all too seldom recycled.

But of course digital technology is just as physical as any other technology. There is an enormous infrastructure behind the internet. The production of computer chips requires complex factories and lots of energy and other resources.

I'm not going low-tech (yet) but I am attracted to the idea that we embrace digitalisation with more caution than before and dare to maintain contact with the skills that digitalisation is trying to make obsolete. We need to be able to work on both sides of the digital divide and develop a functional resilience. You never know when you may need to work out something for yourself again.

Platform literacy - an essential future skill

Photo by Burst from Pexels

The internet is increasingly becoming an arena for surveillance and unauthorised exploitation of users' personal data. We need to raise our awareness of what our favourite platforms and apps are doing with our data and develop strategies to limit the damage. This will mean spreading our risks by using a patchwork of different platforms so that no one platform completely "owns" us. Some really useful platforms and tools will have to be ditched and replaced by something less cool but much safer. Security and integrity must come before convenience and coolness. This discussion has to be tackled in education, both in schools and universities.

This is the theme of a series of articles by Bryan Alexander on EdSurge, Follow Along With a Grad Seminar About Edtech. He describes a course he's running that gets students to discuss and investigate the pros and cons of digital technology in both society and education. Part five of the series interested me the most, Students Size Up Edtech’s Dark Side, focusing on the key problems we face today in terms of digitalisation. They identified three main areas of concern:

• Tech addiction - social media and gaming are designed to keep us hooked.
• Digital divides - inequalities in internet access, devices, support, digital literacy etc.
• Privacy and digital "colonialism" - exploitation of personal data, provoking outrage as a business model, largely western and white corporations dominating the global digital space.

There are no simple answers here, not even complex answers, but we all need to become more aware of what is going on and be able to make mature decisions about which technologies, platforms and tools we should embrace and which we should steer clear of. For educators, it's about striking a balance.

The students hope to infuse an awareness of these issues into their professional practice, driving them to seek to address them through their thoughtful and creative work. Ultimately we remained committed to exploring technology in education—but with a more balanced attitude, greater concerns and a deeper awareness of edtech’s social dimension.

As a footnote to this I have recently installed a privacy app called Jumbo on my mobile devices that alerts me to possible vulnerability in Facebook, Google, Twitter and others. Seems to do the job so far but if anyone knows better please share your thoughts.

Learning to live with edtech skepticism

"Skeptic" (CC BY-SA 2.0) by string_bass_dave

We all have a tendency to read articles and research that support our own preferences and ideas. We may try to achieve a healthy balance, but somehow any research that criticises our own standpoint is just a little harder to accept. Cognitive bias is always a factor and pure objectivity is extremely hard, if not impossible.

Those of us who believe that educational technology can play a vital role in making teaching and learning more collaborative, empowering and inclusive are often frustrated by other teachers who simply chose to continue teaching the way they always have done. How can they ignore all the seemingly convincing articles and research findings that we recommend? Maybe we need to realise that all those articles are not going to win them over and that other tactics are needed. This problem is illustrated well in an interview in EdSurge with Lauren Herckis, an anthropologist at Carnegie Mellon University, Why Professors Doubt Education Research (listen to the audio file of the interview below). She discusses the problem of why many educators show little interest in the findings of research into the use of technology in education. It may be a frustrating standpoint for those of us who believe in the benefits of educational technology, but we should maybe see it simply as a pragmatic approach to teaching.

Then there are people who will say, "I've been teaching since I was a graduate student. My students are very happy with the teaching. I feel pretty good about my teaching. I understand that you have a PhD in curriculum design, but I don't really need that.”

There's also the suspicion that the modern research is too much theory and too little practical experience. If you've been teaching for 20-30 years and feel good about it why complicate things? You can certainly be an excellent teacher without embracing technology.

For faculty who believe that teaching is an art, that it is just something that you develop with experience and time, that you can't learn from a book, you need to learn by doing more or learn from your students, no amount of exposure to learning science research is going to disrupt their sense that this is something they learn by doing, or that they need to follow their gut on.

Given the lack of time many teachers have for course development, the prospect of completely overhauling a perfectly good course is not particularly attractive, no matter how well grounded the changes may be in current research. Good teaching does not need technology and we need to remember this. Instead of trying to win them over, we should try to see if there are any elements of their course that they feel could be improved or any time-consuming elements that they would like to cut down. Maybe there's a digital tool that could help somewhere? Take it from there.

Here's the audio interview with Lauren Herckis.

Students and educational technology - it's complicated

"Lessons from the Mathboard" (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) by Bernie Goldbach

A recurring narrative in educational technology is that students are driving the change. They are using the creative and collaborative opportunities offered by today's social media and demanding that universities and faculty do the same. This is used as a powerful argument by edtech companies when selling their solutions. This narrative is strongly linked to the idea of students as digital natives and is often the reason for institutions rushing head first into hasty and largely unplanned technology projects. No one wants to appear out of touch with student demands and so major technology projects are launched without first discussing the pedagogical implications and how the technology can be used to enhance teaching and learning. Of course students are using digital tools and arenas in their learning but not as widely and proficiently as the edtech narrative claims.

But are students really demanding change? My own experience leads me to question this to a certain extent. Furthermore, digital literacy is not a simple generation issue but more about whether or not a person is interested in the use of technology. Many students are highly proficient at using digital devices and social media for socialising and entertainment but are unaware of how to use them for work and learning. It would be extremely dangerous to assume that all students are proficient at information retrieval, source criticism, collaborative learning and media skills and most institutions are now integrating these soft skills into all parts of the curriculum. However, this change is not due to student demand but due to teachers becoming aware that these skills are missing and taking action to remedy the gaps.

Sometimes students can be more conservative than faculty and this issue is raised in an article in EdSurge, What If Students Are the Biggest Barrier to Innovation? Even if many students have used a wide range of digital tools and learning spaces in their high school years, whenever they arrive on campus they are told that university is different. Students are generally very pragmatic; they want to get their grades and then a degree in the most efficient way possible. They will adapt to whatever the institution demands. They also have the traditional image of university in their heads and are disappointed if their experience doesn't match it.

... the “metaphor” of the old and wise professor pouring knowledge into students through class lectures is what many graduate students expect. When they don’t get that experience because they are forced to do group work and interact with peers (who they do not view as subject-matter experts), they don’t feel like they are learning.

“I have had students tell me. I am not paying to listen to my neighbor's thoughts, I am paying to hear you,” says Pickett.

This is reinforced by the vocabulary of higher education so if we call the teachers lecturers and the lessons are called lectures then a lecture is naturally what the students expect. Teachers who focus on student-centred learning and concepts such as collaborative learning, flipped classroom, problem-based learning and so on risk negative evaluations from students who expect to be fed with wisdom and knowledge. Expectations, tradition and attitudes are major barriers to change and cannot be overcome simply by logical argument, no matter how much research evidence is available.

I would say that the main drivers of change in terms of educational technology are teachers who are using the technology successfully, often due to a desire to widen their professional skills and a genuine interest in pedagogical innovation. The problem is, however, that many of these teachers have developed their digital skills on their own initiative, usually outside working hours. This ad hoc approach means that teachers' digital skills are not evenly distributed and there is often an alarming digital divide within the teaching staff of most institutions.

This inconsistency is a concern for many students as discussed in an article from JISC in the UK, It’s official - higher education students want staff to be better with digital, not to use more of it. Students in this national survey state clearly that they want all staff to be trained in using digital tools and demand more consistent use of technology rather than more variety.

Don’t allow academic staff to pick their own ways of using digital resources. At the moment each academic uses the virtual learning environment (VLE) in a different way, making it very time consuming to keep switching approaches. It’s also obvious that academic staff have not received adequate training in using these systems.

They are not demanding more technology but a more strategic approach to technology use and fewer bottom-up ad hoc initiatives. Interestingly the survey reveals a concern that online learning lacks a face-to-face element and a fear that more technology means less classroom contact with teachers.

However, when asked what their institution should do and not do, students requested a better use of digital systems, not more, fearing it could be used to replace face-to-face time with staff.

What seems to be missing here is a realisation that online collaboration is an essential skill in many companies and organisations today and that this skill must be developed at university and integrated into all programmes. Sadly online work is still seen as a substitute for "real" contact instead of a valuable skill in itself.

The conclusion is that technology can enhance teaching and learning but to succeed it needs to be explained and introduced gradually. Both teachers and students need to change their perspectives and this takes time. Above all the process requires skilled management and leadership and only when all these conditions are fulfilled will we see successful implementation and integration of technology in education.

Meeting the tech-skeptics

"Focused portrait DSC_0009" (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) by farouq_taj

Why do so many educators still feel daunted by technology and avoid using digital media as far as possible in their teaching? Of course you can teach very well using only traditional methods and and I would never say that those methods should be abandoned. However since our students are preparing for life and career in an increasingly digital world they need to develop the necessary skills and literacies and if we do not address these in our teaching our courses will not be fully relevant. Digital tools can enhance classwork, extend discussions and practice outside the classroom and facilitate collaborative learning. So why is there still so much reluctance to engage with technology, despite years of initiatives, funding and development?

An interesting project called Unfolding the arms took a new approach to understanding why many educators avoid technology. The project title refers to the posture we all use when we simply don't want to do something, folded arms, and the aim of the project was to find ways of unfolding those arms and finding a way forward. They interviewed a number of teachers who were negative towards using educational technology and tried to analyse why.

So this is our idea. Talk to six (or seven, or eight) educators, who feel any sense of dread, impostorship or resistance when thinking tech. Ask some carefully crafted, genuinely open questions, shut up and listen ... Then, whilst the data is being analysed, offer each person generous enough to give of their time some one-to-one coaching with the Digital Nurse, to help them break through something that’s holding them back. Finally, ask them how they are doing and present the findings in some technology-enhanced way.

Two major lines of resistance were described, The first is termed Untrue Limiting Assumptions often centred around the belief that you are "no good at technical things" or are too old to start. Then there is the Impostor Syndrome, the fear of being "found out" and therefore avoiding the issue completely. I think many are well aware that they have fallen so far behind that the effort of trying to catch up now seems simply impossible, especially due to all the other pressures they have and the lack of time for competence development. The key to this experiment was letting the interviewees talk and voice their concerns and then letting them talk to a digital nurse who would offer help for them to overcome some of the easiest hurdles. Getting one-to-one support and taking small practical steps at a time seems to be a way of winning round many skeptics. Often the root cause is a lack of confidence and a fear of not being good enough. Many had tried to use digital tools but had encountered problems or complete failure and this created an aversion to the whole area. If no support is available, teachers who feel alone in the face of daunting technology will understandably retreat to traditional methods instead of persevering. The article focuses on digital resilience as a prerequisite and this only comes when professional, hands-on support is provided.

Looking over the fence

  by  born1945

I read so many articles and reports on issues around the integration of technology in education and nearly every one singles out professional development for teachers (or the lack of it) as the key issue. It's not enough to just hope that teachers keep up to date with the latest pedagogical theories and the latest trends in educational technology. This has been the general policy for many years and the result is a widening digital gap between teachers who are already using technology in innovative ways and those who simply haven't even investigated the qyestion at all. It's not enough either to offer the occasional training day in the hope of inspiring action. There needs to be a coherent strategy for professional development for all teachers to ensure that they are all able to take advantage of new methods and tools in a pedagogical way.

This is the theme of an excellent post by Tom Whitby, How do educators get to know what they don’t know?. He remarks that professional development (PD) needs to be radically rethought, needs investment and needs support. It must be seen as simply an integral part of the job and time must be allotted for discovery, testing, collaboration and discussion. Teachers need time to look over the fence at what's going on outside the classroom.

"We need to change PD. It must be part of an educator’s work week, and that includes administrators. We need educators to connect with other educators to collaborate and maintain relevance. Educators need to explore their needs and address them with solutions of their choosing after exploring the options. Faculty meetings can address procedures in shared documents with educators, while using the time in meetings to discuss pedagogy, methodology, best practices and new ideas. Educators need to be supported in trying new endeavors. When we address PD as evolving and continuous, and not as a teacher workshop day, we will begin to bring relevance back to education. Schools that do this now will be the first to tell us this. Of course, we need to connect with them for that to happen. Connecting educators is a first step."

It is of course important that technology meets the needs of teachers. But needs are generally based on past practices and if a teacher is happy using tried and tested methods then there are no needs that technology can meet. However there are often new opportunities available to enhance teaching and learning that the individual teacher has not even dreamt of. If we simply based all development on meeting present needs we would never have invented television, cars, computers, mobiles etc etc. No-one actually needed those things. We were all perfectly happy with horses, radio, landline phones and so on.

We need to develop a learning environment at work where people are encouraged to look over the fence and see what is happening in the world outside. New technologies and methods should be met with curiosity instead of being dismissed offhand. "What if ..." instead of "Yes but ...". Words like curiosity, innovation, entrepreneurship and creativity are often used in schools' and universities' glossy strategy documents but the hard part is creating a climate for such qualities.

Mind the digital gap

The potential of the net for education, cooperation and communication is clear to many of us but we are reminded daily that we are in a minority. Even in a country like Sweden with high broadband penetration there are over a million people who either lack internet access or who do not know how to get online. No matter what advances are made in net technology and service development we must ensure that everyone is able to benefit. Otherwise we are creating a new and potentially dangerous class divide. As more and more services like banking, travel, education, healthcare, shopping and government go digital there is often little regard for those left behind, often the elderly and low income families.

An article in Mashable, Digital Divide: If You’re Reading This, You’re One of the Lucky Ones, discusses this issue and includes the infographic below that summarizes the digital divide in the USA. The vital factor is access and that should not be an economic issue (though it generally is). Net access is today a democratic issue and if the price is too high you create a new class divide. The second key factor is education to help everyone participate in the digital society. If we can offer low cost (or free) basic net access and provide basic digital skills training through adult education, libraries and schools we can build a common digital platform. On top of that there will of course be for-profit applications, tools and services but if we can keep the digital threshold as low as possible we can still avoid a dangerous divide in society.

   
Created by: OnlineITDegree.net

Preparing for the future

There seems to be a wide gap between how young people use technology in their spare time and how they use it in school. A year ago I saw a report on this comparing computer use at home and in school (sorry I can't remember the reference this time) and the gap showed up very clearly with Sweden having one of the widest gaps in Europe. Kids who are intensive users of the net outside school hardly use it at all in school. It seems that some people consider the net as purely for entertainment and therefore not for use in an academic setting. Learning is of course a serious business. This compartmentalisation is rather convenient because it means that schools don't have to teach digital skills since the kids know that already (due to the myth of digital natives/net generation).

There's a new report now that looks into this alarming gap,
21st-Century Classroom Report: Preparing Students for the Future or the Past?. It studies student and teacher attitudes to IT and tries to summarize what students expect of their teachers and schools. Around 1,000 high school students, faculty and IT staff were involved in the study and the results show a worrying mismatch between technology use in school and in society in general.

The key findings are:

• "High school students say technology is vital to their education and their future, but schools are not meeting their needs
• Faculty members use technology to teach, but many students lack opportunities to use technology in class
• To improve, districts should focus on developing 21st-century skills and bringing technology to class."

Often the technology is in place but not fully implemented or understood. I've seen examples of institutions buying in learning management systems that are then used as digital notice boards whilst assignments and material are still rolled off on the photocopier and students submit print versions of their work for marking. The tools are all there but old habits seem to die very hard. especially in education.

Another interesting statistic is that there is a considerable gap between teachers' use of technology at home and in school. Many have smartphones and use instant messenging and e-meetings at home but very seldom at work. So it's not a simple problem of teachers not using the net. They use it but don't seem to see the connection with education. Does school inhibit innovation in some way?

About half of the students felt that school was preparing them adequately for their use of technology in their future careers. In many cases the technology is present in the school in the form of wireless access, smartboards, learning management systems and so on but it simply isn't used to its full potential. Much of the teaching is still based on the communication norms of the past rather than using the media and methods that students are likely to use in the future.

The report concludes by offering practical suggestions on how to improve the situation. Teachers must encourage technology use in student assignments and make sure that material is always available in digital form. The key is to use technology wisely and as a natural and integrated part of all course activity. The net is already an integral part of our lives, both at work and at home. Why then is the educational sector still hesitant? Aren't we responsible for preparing students for a future career?

Let's all be careful out there

We're all very worried about what our children are getting up to on the net. At least that's the angle that sells newspapers and magazines and turns up repeatedly on TV. There are indeed many things to be worried about on the net, as there are in society in general. The dangers our children face on the net are part of the real world we live in and as long as society works as it does those crimes will take place on or off the net.

However it's strange how we worry so much about what the kids are doing without examining our own behaviour on line. Adults are often less security conscious than their children - look at how many fall foul of get-rich-quick e-mails or other net scams (see article in New York Times). Many parents are worried simply because they don't know much about internet themselves and believe the scare stories they read. As a result we get calls for bans on net access in schools and other draconian measure instead of learning to use the net in a responsible manner.

This is covered in an excellent presentation by David Truss who advocates a more balanced and enlightened attitude to our children's net habits. They're actually doing just what we did when we were young but in a different environment. We watched too much TV, listened to too much pop music, were out too late without saying where we were etc etc. In some ways children were left more to their own devices in the past than today where the concept of the over-protective "curling parents" has become so common.

We all need to learn to work and play more responsibly on the net and that starts both at home and in school. Banning, blocking and dismissing modern communication is not the way forward.

'Parenting in the digital age' on slideshare

View more presentations from David Truss.

"Net generation" not so open

You read a lot these days about how young people are using social media recklessly and revealing their entire private lives to the world. I'm not sure and although I can't link to any conclusive research in this area I suspect that this problem is as relevant for the over 30s, if not more so. In fact I would claim that teenagers actually prefer relatively "closed" social networks to wide open ones and that their parents are the ones who share with everyone. Texting, Skype and MSN are the dominant means of communication and there you only communicate with friends. Many are wary of open apps like Facebook and Twitter since you don't know who will be reading (often parents and teachers!).

Contrary to popular belief, social networking appeals to all age groups. 64% of all Twitter users and 61% of Facebook users are 35 or older (Study: ages of social network users). It's a similar story in many other apps normally associated with the so-called net-generation. Most users are no doubt relatively unaware of their own security settings and that in many cases the default setting is that everything is public. You have to take the initiative if you want to restrict access. There's been a lot of public debate about how much information Facebook in particular owns about each one of us and what that information may be used for in the future. Read, for example, a recent blogpost Top ten reasons you should quit Facebook.

An article in the New York Times, The tell-all generation learns to keep things offline takes up the growing privacy concerns of many young people and confirms my suspicion that they are more concerned than their parents' generation:

"In the Pew study, to be released shortly, researchers interviewed 2,253 adults late last summer and found that people ages 18 to 29 were more apt to monitor privacy settings than older adults are, and they more often delete comments or remove their names from photos so they cannot be identified."

Basically you have to assume that whatever you publish will be seen by more people than you might wish and therefore be careful what you publish unless you're sure of the security settings. Maybe it's time to move some activities away from Facebook and suchlike and on to more secure or more relevant networks. Many people mix work and play on, say, Facebook, resulting in unfortunate consequences. Decide what you want to do on each network and who you want to communicate with and be consistent. Use different identities or even different networks (eg Facebook for private and LinkedIn for work) to avoid work contacts learning all about your family life and vice versa. This is nothing new really, it's just that we have new and exciting settings for interaction today and we have to relearn a few common sense principles.

Change management

I thoroughly recommend an excellent post by Adam Thierer entitled Are you an Internet optimist or pessimist? He presents a very balanced analysis of the whole debate about technology's impact on society. Will the social web result in a dumbing-down of public discussion or does it foster diversity and wider participation, is it the end of professionally produced content and news or the beginning of true democracy, is it wisdom of crowds or mob rule, is it empowerment or hopeless fragmentation?

Adam traces the history of opposition to technical innovation and states the case for both the internet optimists and the pessimists with plenty links to key texts over the last decade of debate. His conclusion is that cautious optimism wins the day on points. However he warns both sides of the dangers of ignoring the oppostion's arguments. Many of the sceptics' fears are highly valid and it's no good dismissing them by saying that they are out of touch with reality.

"The sensible middle ground position is “pragmatic optimism”: We should embrace the amazing technological changes at work in today’s Information Age but do so with a healthy dose of humility and appreciation for the disruptive impact and pace of that change."

He closes the article with a fine statement of belief, The pragmatic (internet) optimist's creed. Well worth reciting once in a while.

To see ourselves as others see us

I meet a lot of people who are sceptical about the possibilities offered by technology in education. My enthusiasm to explain and encourage the use of open educational resources, wikis, blogging, social networking and social bookmarking is sometimes met by a lack of interest that I find hard to counter. How can they not see the benefits that are so obvious to me? Are they not even curious to see what the fuss is all about?

I read two very relevant reality checks last week. One was a discussion thread on Cloudworks, Motivating teachers to use technologies, and the other was a post on the excellent blog The Tempered Radical entitled Why teachers "give up". Both stressed the problem of getting a reasonable return on invested time and that in many cases new shiny technologies just end up taking too much valuable time to be worth the effort. As Bill Ferriter writes on The Tempered Radical:

"Like professionals in any field, teachers judge the transaction costs that change requires before taking action. When new practices or strategies require tons of investment - complicated planning, intensive research, sophisticated interactions with colleagues, specialized resources or tools - teachers must be convinced ahead of time that the benefits are going to outweigh these new costs of action".

I've been lucky to have had the opportunity to spend time learning new tools as part of my work. However there have been cases when I've given up with some technologies that just didn't live up to expectations. One fine example at present is Google Wave which I had a look at but didn't get hooked on and that lies cast into a dark corner waiting to see if I will return. I like the idea but have no need for it for the time being. I'm sure many tech-sceptical colleagues will recognize the feeling. You have to see the immediate benefits.

One comment on the Cloudworks discussion interestingly compared the use of ICT in education with losing weight in that, to be successful, you need a supportive environment and a permanent change in your way of life:
"For long-term weight loss the changes have to become "standard practice" - their way of life - for the person. If they don't become their way of life, the change won't last. They will revert. If the environment doesn't help, encourage and support people to maintain this way of life, the change won't last. The environment within higher education is not conducive to help achieve and maintain long-term weight loss".

The key is the supportive environment. If technology is seen as an integral part of everything that goes on at an institution and there's plenty of support and encouragement amongst colleagues even the most reluctant will get involved. The opt-out choice is simply not interesting any more. The most innovative groups/departments/schools are the ones that have reached this level. Getting there is the hard part.

Horizon report 2010

The publication of the annual Horizon Report has become one of the highlights of the edtech year. Which technologies will be in the spotlight this time? What challenges does higher education face? This year NMC actually released a sneek preview version of the report in December to set the discussion in motion. Now the full version has hit the streets and this will no doubt be one of many reviews and summaries that appear in the coming weeks.

The format of the report is as ever: six technologies are nominated that will have a major impact on higher education in the short, medium and long term. However I find the most interesting parts of the report are the pages where they list the challenges facing universities today. In the face of the social web revolution of today the very role of universities is being questioned:

"Institutions must consider the unique value that each adds to a world in which information is everywhere. In such a world, sensemaking and the ability to assess the credibility of information are paramount. Mentoring and preparing students for the world in which they will live, the central role of the university when it achieved its modern form in the 14th century, is again at the forefront. Universities have always been seen as the gold standard for educational credentialing, but emerging certification programs from other sources are eroding the value of that mission daily."

Ubiquitous learning has become a reality with students able to access information anywhere, any time and in many ways. Informal learning and alternative education paths are challenging traditional forms. According to Horizon the critical challenges today are:

• Role of academy - adapting education and teaching methods to the needs of tomorrow. Implementing and integrating new technologies.
• New forms of scholarly publication using net-based collaboration
  
• Digital media literacy vital in all disciplines and levels
• Financial constraints hit higher education. How to innovate and adapt despite the crisis.

I'd like to add another major challenge and that is the growing digital divide in higher education; those who understand the social web and are trying new models and methods and those who still work with the tools of the last century. When Horizon talks of technologies becoming mainstream they are talking about the edtech front runners. I suspect the majority of institutions today are still grappling with establishing LMS, using one way web sites and use mostly e-mail for communication. How do we win over the edtech sceptics?

The technologies

It's no great surprise that mobile computing and open content are the two technologies that occupy this year's category Time to adoption: one year or less. The advent of the iPhone and Android have brought mobile computing to everyone's attention even if there are still concerns with security, privacy and classroom implementation. They symbolise the concept of ubiquitous education and are becoming the devices of choice for many students. The challenge is for universities to harness this potential and find ways of integrating this technology into courses. The report, as ever, provides plenty of inspiring examples of universities using these technologies.

Open content is another disruptive technology that threatens many traditional activities like academic textbook publishing but which is judged to have sufficient momentum to have a significant impact this coming year. Having so much open content available increases demands on digital literacy and so-called 21st century skills:

"Open content shifts the learning equation in a number of interesting ways; the most important is that its use promotes a set of skills that are critical in maintaining currency in any discipline — the ability to find, evaluate, and put new information to use."

On the 2-3 year horizon the report nominates e-books and augmented reality. E-books are of course already evident but as more versatile, attractive and reasonably priced devices appear they will become mainstream enabling students to store all course literature onto one device and forcing radical changes in the publishing business as well as libraries. The report gives links to universities that are already using e-books and e-journals and have encouraged the uptake of e-book readers amongst students.

Augmented reality is being driven by the mobile computing boom with apps available already in both the iPhone and Android. Pointing the camera at an object, building or person will activate icons on the screen that can be touched for information. Google's SkyMap allows the user to see AR information on stars and constellations by pointing mobile device at them. There are also apps (see video TAT augmented ID) that will show you information about people, such as which social networks they belong to. There is massive potential in this technology but already the personal integrity warning lamps are flashing.

On the far horizon are gesture based computing and visual data analysis both of which are already evident but which will take a few years to become everyday technologies. Gesture based computing is already available in gaming with Nintendo Wii and the new challenger Xbox Natal but will no doubt become the natural way for us to interact with devices.

"The kinesthetic nature of gesture-based computing will very likely lead to new kinds of teaching or training simulations that look, feel, and operate almost exactly like their real-world counterparts."

Visual data analysis deals with presenting complex data in advanced graphical representations and manipulated in real time. At present this is restricted to fields like physics, chemistry and advanced mathematics since it requires enormous amounts of processing power.

Participation literacy

Most social networks and discussion boards I know tend to be dominated by a handful of people contributing over 90% of all content. This small core group (sometimes simply one enthusiastic individual) keeps the site alive by providing input and trying to encourage everyone else to contribute. The big problem is how to foster active participation.

For example, I'm involved in a Swedish education network (Dela! - which means "share") which has gathered over 800 registered users since its inception last spring. The problem is how to create a critical mass of discussion. Most users log in and read the latest news but only a minority make regular contributions and the question is how to spread the workload of keeping the network as active as possible.

The same phenomenon appears in course discussion forums where a few students dominate the discussion unless some form of incentive is provided (eg. make at least 2 significant entries in the discussion in the coming week). Without such pressure the general rule holds; 90% are passive, 8% contribute occasionally and 2% contribute a lot. How do we spread the load?

The problem is, I suspect, that people are used to being consumers rather than producers of information. Some students are uneasy about greater participation in the classroom, preferring to simply listen to the teacher's words of wisdom. Larger meetings at work or in the community follow the same lines. Just because social media offer everyone the opportunity to contribute doesn't mean to say that everyone wants to do so. It's so much easier to listen and observe.

Of course people are contributing on a massive scale to Facebook but there's a gap between the chatty social interaction there and the ability to discuss and reflect more deeply in an educational context.

What we need to develop is a kind of participation literacy; the ability to discuss and develop arguments on line. In many ways traditional debating skills are needed but we also an awareness of the rules of engagement on the net; so-called netiquette. The ability to contribute constructively to a discussion needs to be learnt and practiced in school. Those who master this skill will succeed in tomorrow's job market. According to Seth Godin, The future of the library, this type of training could be a new role for libraries to adopt

For more on this theme have a look at Howard Rheingold's interview with researcher Mizuko Ito (see Video interview with Mizuko Ito).

Internet safety - who needs most help, children or adults?

The UK Council for Child Internet Safety has launched an initiative to introduce compulsory lessons in internet safety for all primary school pupils from 2011 (see also a BBC article, Internet safety for children targeted). Good to see coordinated action being taken in this important field but it's not just a case of simply warning the children. Adults must be much more aware of what goes on on the net and the key skill of digital literacy for all comes to mind.

In response to the news there's a highly relevant blog post, So shoot me.., that looks at the real dangers facing children on the net but also stresses the need for adults to learn to become better role models (be sure to read the comments to this post). The net is just a reflection of society and there's a sad lack of respect for other people's feelings and beliefs, not just on the net but in other media. Net bullying, hate campaigns and abusive comments are there for all to see on many websites and children absorb these impressions. Let's help the kids to use the net responsibly but we adults have to radically clean up our act too. It's like insisting on your kids wearing a seat belt or cycle helmet and then not doing so yourself.

The texting myth

One of the most prolific urban myths in recent years is that teenagers' cellphone texting is seriously damaging their writing skills. Tales of students handing in school assignments full of text abbreviations are passed around the net but is there any truth behind them?

It's refreshing to get the answer from one of the most respected authorities in language and communication, David Crystal in his new book; the aptly named Txtng: The Gr8 Db8. There's an interview with him in Visual Thesaurus, David Crystal on the myth of texting where he states that the texted assignment was really a hoax put out on the net to stir up feelings and then became a truth that people were only too willing to believe. Internet myths are much stronger than myths of the past since they can become global "truths" in a matter of hours.

Abbreviations are used in SMS-texting and, indeed, in the more adult arena of Twitter due to space restrictions. We're forced to cut out all embellishments and focus on the bare bones. Teenagers, argues Crystal, are able to cope easily with different registers of language and realize clearly when texting language is appropriate. Interviews with many teenagers reveal that they can't believe how anyone would use texting abbreviations in school work. It simply doesn't belong there and they all realise that. In addition, by analysing large amounts of text messages Crystal found that only around 10% of words were abbreviated at all, thereby deflating the whole debate.

There's nothing new with abbreviated forms of course. I certainly used them in my note-taking at lectures at university and they certainly didn't get reproduced in my essays. Property terms like des res, all mod cons (desirable residence, all modern conveniences) have been with us for many tears without any fears for estate agents' literacy skills. Somehow the use of devices that many adults still feel uncomfortable with makes old habits suddenly seem threatening.

Digital divide

In a recent Guardian article on the growth of open educational resources (Any student, any subject, anywhere) there was a quote from David Wiley of Brigham Young University in Utah:

"I don't know whether in future the people who answer questions, provide content and provide the degree will be in the same institution. It's likely that institutions will specialise in just one of those areas and then form partnerships with other institutions that play other roles."

There are already net institutions like Peer 2 Peer University and University of the People using open educational resources and building their courses around student-driven collaborative learning. Obviously there will be a need for universities or other organisations who specialize in examination, providing self-learners and collaborative learners with the opportunity to get academic recognition for their efforts. I now realize that such examination specialists are already up and running according to an article in e-Campus News, Credit by exams expands student options.

Evidently two institutions, Excelsior College and Pearson VUE already offer thousands of students the chance to sit exams without having attended classes. This is of course an extremely attractive way of saving considerable sums of money on tuition fees with exams at Excelsior costing a mere $85. This opens the way for students to study on open courses or simply by pure self study without having to put yourself deeply in debt. However, to be successful you will need to be highly disciplined, have excellent digital competence and have built up a wide personal learning environment to provide , reference, support and encouragement.

While there are plenty resourceful students who can meet these demands it is even more important to find ways of helping new students gain access to education and they need hands-on guidance in how to use the net and filter information. Those who do not have any experience of higher education and who are not so digitally literate need teachers/mentors who are close at hand, preferably face-to-face. If you feel intimidated by computers and the net there isn't much comfort in knowing that all resources and support are on the net. Local learning centres and libraries are already working with this in many countries but often with low funding or through temporary injections of project money. New learners are easily discouraged and if they meet technical difficulties they will drop out. Support must be local and accessible.

Collaborative net-based learning has enormous potential for those with the necessary skills but the majority of people who would benefit from open education lack the skills to get on board. The open courses and examination forms are great for the already initiated. I hope we can find equally creative ways of narrowing the digital divide so open education can benefit the majority.

Digital Nation

American PBS (Public Broadcasting Service) has produced an impressive website called Digital Nation. The project aims to showcase how the net has become an integral part of our lives and is reshaping the way we interact with each other. Most of the material consists of video interviews with experts, decision makers and members of the public on how they relate to technology and our increasingly net-based society. As the project progresses more films and other material will be added and this will all be the basis of a TV documentary later next year.

The site is divided into five main sections; living faster (daily life in an on-line world), relationships (friendship and socialising), waging war (training, simulation), virtual worlds (gaming, socialising) and learning. Predictably the obligatory stories about multitasking digital natives appear but hopefully that may be questioned by later contributions. Comments are of course invited on almost all the content. One quirky initiative asks you to write in only six words how the web and digital technology are changing the way you think, work, live, or love. Maybe the Twitter influence?

The idea is to create a digital collage reflecting different perspectives on life in the digital age. It'll be interesting to see how the project develops.