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Temple University Center for Research
in Human Development and Education |
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Learning in the
21st-Century Classroom
123
by
Margaret Honey
Education Development Center's Center for Children and Technology
Socrates to Plato, Plato to Aristotle, Aristotle to
Alexander-the classic sequence of teacher to student to
teacher. But how will the teacher of a 12 year-old student
today get him or her to internalize the precept "Know
thyself," instead of "Know thy PowerPoint," especially in a
digital environment where the thrilling sound of screeching
tires is a mere mouse-click away?
The question is not rhetorical. During a typical unit on
ancient Greece, a student is given an assignment to write a
report on Greek philosophers. Comfortable with the computer,
he elects to create a PowerPoint presentation and eagerly
works on it for an entire weekend. When Monday arrives, the
teacher has difficulty assessing the content because of the
myriad special effects sprinkled liberally throughout the
slides. Wild color combinations and changing fonts make the
text almost unreadable, and the appearance of the noble
philosophers is accompanied by the screech of tires.
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Until
recently, most teachers have not had to deal with the
relationship of form and content in student presentations;
the issue seldom arises when the medium is 3 x 5 cards or
poster board covered with photographs clipped from
newspapers. But now, when various media are available to
students, how do teachers deal with the nature of form? What
teaching and assessment strategies does a teacher need when
operating in such a potentially rich learning environment?
How does a 12-year-old learn that technology is most
powerful when its use illuminates concepts, raising
understanding and communication to higher and more effective
levels?
In the
scenario described, the student might have opted to create a
series of slides featuring two of his friends enacting a
Socratic dialogue. He might have started his presentation
with a painted image of Socrates speaking with the young
Euthyphro, dissolved those images into still photos of his
friends in a similar pose, and then segued into a sequence
on the Socratic method. And had this been a group project,
different students might have contributed according to their
different strengths-acting, production, design, concept, and
direction.
While
technology offers a compelling medium for students to
express ideas, recognizing that learning begins not with a
focus on the technology, but on what the student wants to
say is key to this process. In the earlier example, students
might choose to illustrate the Socratic dialogue and what it
contributed to Greek culture and subsequent cultures. Once
that concept is understood, the technology can be employed
to figure out the best way to convey the message. Working
with students on hard questions about form and content can
enable them to gain an even deeper understanding of their
topics because the inquiry around form and content takes
place in a more complex context. This inquiry requires
students to make use of higher-order skills including
analysis, synthesis, and evaluation.
Fostering
Digital Literacy
During the past 10 years, we have witnessed an unprecedented
level of investment in educational technology. More than $37
billion dollars has been spent on bringing technology and
Internet connections to America's schools (Benton
Foundation, 2002). Legislators and the public now expect to
see returns. For example, the recently passed No Child Left
Behind education bill requires states to demonstrate that
"every student is technologically literate by the time the
student finishes the eighth grade, regardless of the
student's race, ethnicity, gender, family income, geographic
location, or disability" (U.S. Department of Education,
2001).
Teachers wishing to foster digital literacy in their
classrooms and states wishing to demonstrate digital
literacy in their students face the same challenge: Although
there is some consensus about the broad meaning of digital
literacy, there is no comprehensive approach to teaching,
learning, and assessing the full range of conceptual and
technical skills involved. Just as standardized spelling and
grammar were not always a part of universal education, we
find ourselves at a point where the mechanics and techniques
of effective communication with technology have yet to be
defined or standardized and where the elements of style for
new media are seldom understood or taught.
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