Advanced Distributed Learning

"Learning Anytime, Anywhere: Advanced Distributed Leraning and the Changing Face of Education"

So is this the article, then? Lifelong Learning Anytime, Anywhere - the mantra of the TIE program at National-Louis. The article was unique in that it is talking about networking computers and the WWW and distribution of created materials for the computer without actually trying to use specific product names. Sort of talking about it at arm's length, or defining it from afar. Although they broke down and used World Wide Web.

I agree with the article that in the last few years, education has seen the value of individualized instruction through computers, especially for those with special needs. They used general terms, like "learning objects" to describe the variety of products created by computers, from images to complete courses. Having these objects available to all who can use them, or like the internet, available all the time, is beneficial in all forms of learning.

I think that we are already there, though, and getting in deeper: "ADL is building toward a future in which human knowledge, held in instructional objects, is identified and collected from the global information grid (currently the Web) and is then assembled on demand for real-time interactions tailored to each learner's knowledge, goals, interests, and needs. We anticipate that learning in the future may take place through goal-driven, tutorial, and problem-solving conversations involving handheld (or perhaps worn) devices wirelessly linked to one another and to the global information grid." We have that now; especially with iPhones and Blackberries.

I agree that education can be affordable and globally accessible with computers. I like how they described programs like Star-Online, that keep track of student progress through a course so they can see how far they've finished, and how much they have left to do. There are many, many sites that fit the bill for online educational discussions, from chatting to Second Life. It is affordable in that it is cheaper than a real tutor, FAQs can be created for recurring problems or when there is no viable real-life support. All the options open can be used by teachers or by students, whether the classroom is traditional or not.

Education over the past decades seems in some cases to be the slowest to modify itself and keep pace with the business world. Rather than be a leader, schools have been followers, waiting for clear-cut, well-defined outcomes with the use of technology before using it. It is clear that with ADL, a redefinition of administrative roles, as well as students and teachers, has to take place. I don't think this will happen anytime soon.

Business has always been the first to embrace technology because it cuts costs and improves productivity. Business always wants to be bigger, better, faster. The government and schools have been slow to follow.

Politics of Curriculum

Should be called Politics IN Curriculum.

I once read/heard somewhere that the reason schools were created was to indoctrinate children; so that the students would all think/reason alike, and understand/accept the current views of the government. This was the “hidden curriculum/hidden agenda” of schools.

With the industrial revolution, and the need for more skilled labor, I see the bottom-up structure of moving from the base to the superstructure.

I think that yes, the school system has evolved to ideology, However, I have a real problem with McLaren’s quote. “Dominant culture was described as those "social practices and representations that affirm the central values, interests, and concerns of the social class in control of the material and symbolic wealth of society" (McLaren, 1989, p. 172).” I think the government, of the individual state or the central government, has always had and wanted complete control of the content. Even now I heard Pres. Obama put out a statement that teachers are only allowed to teach curriculum from a specifically sanctioned list, and although we can “supplement” our curriculum with unsanctioned material, we still have to teach what’s on the list. True or not, there is enough truth in that statement to make us have to deal with it as teachers. However, I don’t see the government as a social class. At least, it’s not supposed to be.

An yet, I suppose that if you look at the government in terms of their salaries and power, they certainly are the “social class in control of the material and symbolic wealth of society.” I don’t know how symbolic that wealth is – it’s more concrete!

I highly agree that the students are resistant to anything you want to teach them, and that teachers are control freaks in some respects or we wouldn’t be teachers, so there is a bit of resistance there as well. However, there is less resistance by teachers because they either believe in what they are teaching or they need the job. So they will reluctantly teach the curriculum in the way proposed.

Elaboration of intervention strategies – certainly this article seems to follow fairly accurately the evolution of schools. RTI is the latest buzzword that everyone has bought into.

There are still days that I feel I am indoctrinating the children; teaching good citizenship, evangelizing for the Church so the students feel a sense of stewardship, having to teach internet safety to 3rd through 8th graders, having to teach keyboarding to Kindergarten and 1st graders so they don’t create their own version that they have to “unlearn” later – who says their own ways of keyboarding aren’t better?

I think politics has and always will be intertwined with education because we are teaching those easily swayed and influenced. Indoctrinating those with open minds and willing hearts. I know race, class, gender, social structure, family, society and government all play deeply influencing roles in education today. It is incredibly complex and interwoven and plays out daily in each classroom across the country.

Assistive Technology and Universal Design for Learning: Two Sides of the Same Coin

I agree with this article in all but one respect; the curriculum will still first have to be retrofitted before it can then be universally designed. You have to know what the technology is currently and see where it is going before you can use it to look ahead to creating the possibilities. Just like they used the example of building, you have to retrofit some while seeing how the new ways of building can be standardized in new construction. We had to see how XML worked and try retrofitting some of the curriculum before we could see what works and universally design curriculum that utilizes it and expands on it to include the possibilities of what it can become and be used for in the not-so-distant future.

I attended a seminar within the last year, and I have read ACM News that discusses how computers may at some point in the future be an implanted interface in our brains to be quick enough to respond to our commands. However, this has to be realized before we can use it to create/enhance curriculum. And at that point, we may be able to more accurately help learning disabled as well as disabled people with a more complete map of the brain.

Designing Educative Curriculum Materials to Promote Teacher Learning

Thoughts…

Materials that promote teacher learning while teaching the students are Educative Curriculum Materials. Technology comes to mind. However, I still see technology as having to be learned first and the teachers have to become comfortable with it before they use it in front of the students. Then there’s still always the possibility that it won’t work anyway, for one reason or another, and the teacher always has to have a backup plan.

The article went into how a teacher brings their perspectives to the material before they ever teach it. It is a complex interaction, especially when bringing the student into the equation, and given the fact that the teacher makes decisions in a constantly changing real-time dynamic effecting upwards of more than 20 students at a time.

The article touched upon nine design hueristics to help create and determine educative curriculum materials. If the features of the curriculum materials are based on these, the article suggests that teacher learning will take place. “Curriculum materials that incorporate all three components (i.e., instructional approaches, rationales for using the approaches and recommendations for their effective use) may promote teacher learning and help teachers overcome challenges that they face…” (7). I highly agree with this statement. I have found that the majority of teachers like to do things a certain way, yet if you give them a reason why doing something differently might work, they are much more receptive to trying it and seeing the outcome for themselves. Teachers also like concrete, practical materials/ideas they can try immediately, and like it better when others have tried it and discussed the pros and cons of using it in a classroom. This is the difficulty when government, state and local district authorities make decisions that sound good but are impossible or ineffective at best to carry out in a classroom environment. Take teaching the Holocaust to Kindergarten through eighth graders. How do you get a Kindergartener to understand this? Or how about whole language? Sounded good, but now we have a section of a generation that had to relearn how to read when it was discovered that they couldn’t decode new words without phonics. Effective, efficient and thoughtfully designed – words that should be taken into consideration, and appear to be the underlying idea behind the hueristics. Although created with science in mind, they do appear to be adaptable to a certain extent to other curricula.