EDU 807 Spring 2018 - Week 6 - Education Technology: Revolutionizing Personalized Learning & Student Assessment Group 3
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While the video is lengthy -- and I recognize that sections can become a bit tedious -- I have tried to mark segments that I think are particularly useful for discussion. Please try to listen to the entire session, and attend closely to the segments that are marked.
What are private companies doing to encourage innovation in the education area, and what are you finding works best, in terms of personalizing learning and assessing students?
I find that vendors from private companies are very interested in personalized learning. There are not many, but smart sparrow and realizeit are key vendors that communicate with the LMS via LTI protocols. Additionally, LMS vendors are starting to adopt adaptive technologies. Desire2 Learn I know has been at the forefront of this as an LMS.
As the video mentions, assessment is a key point for these systems to function effectively. If the learner is not assessed accurately, the content cannot be personalized in a meaningful way.
On the ground, this is challenging though, because faculty members need to create assessments that meaningfully judge the level of understanding in a universal way.
Adam,
I agree there is a lot more wiggle room now for innovation. The LMS environment is growing and with that comes the companies with the right innovation and not just a module.
Assessments are a challenge in and of itself. The learning a student receives as mentioned in the video may be well above their comprehension level. But because we have rules that leave no child behind the age does not compensate for the knowledge the student may possess. Assessments should be based on the level of mastery and not the assumed proficiency.
Today private companies are more learner-centered. The virtual learning focuses on the mastery of the student as opposed to current curricula. The current curricula focuses and test on proficiency that does not take into account the level of acumen for each individual student.
… how would you describe Mr. Hughes’ description of “personalized learning?”
What are the values and assumptions embedded in his description of personalized learning?
Think about Coiro’s argument… in this case, is “personalized” learning the same as or different from “personal” learning?
I think the point they are discussing here is that since no two learners are the same, the educational experience should be differentiated as well.
This may have been a mute point in previous generations where an individual teacher managed a classroom in the traditional way. However, we are reaching a point with technology where this personalization is possible.
What is the Department of Education doing to expand the adoption of technology and education, and how can the Federal Government encourage new models of personalized learning and student assessment?
The Dept of Ed. is shining a light on what others states are doing. The Federal government is supplying some grants like race to the top and other grants rewarding others for their innovation. As an innovator the fed is not doing much of anything.
On the global scale, the US federal government is missing in action. Sometimes I think Bill Gates does more for global education than the entire US government itself.
There are a few ways that I think government can support personalized learning. The first is to support research initiatives that look at the results of current integrations. This is discussed in the talk and the mention of turning the government into an engine of innovation is novel.
Also mentioned in the video is standards. I think this is a critical component of developing personalized learning. No it might not be sexy but protocols like SCORM and Tin Can API have been around for a long time and aren’t cutting it in many ways. LTI integrations are more popular at this time but need further government support to really drive adoption.
Last, I would love to see government support open source initiatives to drive an adaptive or personalized project. All current systems that I have seen are proprietary. For a system to scale, open source may be the way to develop a freely available platform.
What do you see as the opportunities for scalability, and then also, what are the risks and
barriers to scaling up innovative local projects?
Scalability is good at this time because we can get information out quickly and efficiently and disseminate it to most educators. The module has to be tried and true in nature, but one that can be used in the current educational environment. The great news is that you can use the innovation inside or out of the traditional learning environment. The platform can be scaled to individuals and produce better learner-centered results.
I was really interested at the idea of a gaming platform providing more data for research. This is effect makes research more valid as the sample size would be so much larger. This would be a great thing if you had a game that was truly engaging and used by large numbers of students.
In my experience, this is hard to do though. We a have a team of two developers at my institution and they work on developing game-based education apps. These are very time consuming to develop and have not ended up having the reach many had hoped.
So while the idea is that the popularity of these games might make research more scalable, the creation of games is not something that is easy to do in my opinion. It’s great in theory, but I have not seen it happen in practice.
… Ms. Weiss describes a number of initiatives that the DoE is engaged in to help lessen the effects of the digital divide. here, unpack the words that she uses and share your thinking on what she means by: access, equity, innovation, partnerships, or other key terms you heard in her description.
Ms. Weiss speaks about giving internet access to everyone in all areas. She explains the partnership between Comcast and the the DoE to allow citizens in low income or undeserved communities access to broadband. Leveling the playing field and using current digital devices to serve as learning devices with the addition of internet access. She speaks about innovating an meeting learners where they are and with what they have as a learning device. The utilization of share equity to level the playing fields of education.
Popovic’s argument is that game-based learning will be more engaging than traditional modalities. Therefore, since students are more engaged, they will spend more time in the learning environment.
His next argument is that since there will be so many students spending so much time in the platform, researcher will have more data to draw from. The second argument I found more interesting and have not heard before. I think that these are valid arguments, if you truly have a game that engages students.
Given Mr. Popovic’s contention that we could look at “education as a data-driven science” and that games hold the potential for a “self-adaptive way of
game discovering,” what ideas and assumptions are evident in his description?
What does this approach assume about teachers and teaching? About students and learning?
Mr.Popvic expresses that learning happens when students are engaged no matter where they come from or there particular background. He makes it known that students like games and introducing education through games in an informal environment is key. The gaming platform can also provide mass data on many sample points with the amount of students that participate.
what are the key elements of a digital learning environment that fosters personalized learning?
The key elements are reading, thinking and communicating. With the digital learning environment this as to be communicated in scale. The information to be disseminated must be safe, integrated that is at scale from an international perspective. The DLE has to be collaborative across all learning environments asynchronously and synchronously.
When I think of the key elements of the a digital learning environment, I immediately think of the NGDLE from educause. I know I have brought this up a few times, but I have seen no better blueprint for a flexible vision of the features a digital learning environment should contain. I find this to be a very exciting prospect. Personalization is also a key component of the NGDLE.
Given Ms. Zolt’s ideas on “personalized learning and
assessment” what are her core values and assumptions? How does her perspective align with/differ from the other speakers, especially Hughes and Popovic?
Ms. Zolt is speaking about assessments based on the knowledge the students have learned as a core group. Hughes and Popovic are looking at individual learning and assessments geared toward mastery as opposed to group proficiency.
I think Zolt wisely spends this portion discussing collaboration in various formats.
This is a topic that doesn’t occur to me right off when I consider personalized learning. I think of it more as individualized, however the multi-layered considerations of having a platform be both personal and group-centric, while adapting content is a unique challenge.
She also discusses open APIs I think this is important to begin to harness the creativity of small developers around the globe.
What are the policy barriers that you currently see, either at the state or the Federal level? And then, what are the policy recommendations that you think would help enable some of the innovations that’s we’re talking about?
The policy areas that were addressed consisted of the anytime, anywhere virtual school attendance issue. Some state participate in the anytime attendance and some states do not.
The accountability systems at the state and federal level are proficiency based and some virtual programs are mastery based. The no child left behind and age causes issues with assessments and student progress.
I found this comment interesting as well. I actually was not aware that these virtual schools were so prevalent in K-12 before starting this program. I think it is important to have standardization that enables this flexibility for parents. While I understand that states and localities may want to have differentiated policies I think kids in all states should have the same opportunities.
… one last time…
Based on the policy ideas each panelist shared — and the language that they used to describe those policies (24/7, personalized, etc), what is your current thinking about assessment and educational technology?
Who do you agree with the most? The least? Why?
I agree with both Hughes and Popovic with respect to open learning and personalizing student education. Popovic is looking at scaling models that workfor the benefit of the student. Zolt wants learning outside the halls of traditional schools and preparation for the future. Weiss pushes her DoE and dancnes around a lot of issues and can suggest the necessary changes at the fed and pass that down to the states. However DoE shines a light on state achievements and lets the states run their own state policy.
I think an interesting portion of this section is the discussion of innovation in the US. When framed by the policy conversation, we see that policy can stifle and misunderstand how innovation will happen. As Popovic mentions, policy cannot predict innovation, but our leaders can work more diligently to understand it.
It is a delicate balance. While I would not want the federal government dictating archaic policy for the entire country, I think some states need to be brought into line with, well, reality. For example, climate change should be taught based on scientific fact, not on the majority political leaning in a municipality.
This discussion of policy and innovation is also difficult. Small pockets of innovation are great but that innovation should be able tp propagate as policy throughout the country.
At this point, I encourage you to keep listening, but you do not have to write any additional responses to the video… unless, of course, one or more of the questions strike you as particularly relevant and interesting.
There is one particularly interesting comment from Ms. Weiss about technology use in Finland, which will likely be of interest to those of you who are K-12 educators.
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