College
of Education
University
of Washington
EDC&I
585
Technology and the Culture
of Education
|
Instructor:
Prof. Stephen T. Kerr |
Office: 122 Miller Hall, Box 353600 |
|
Course meets:
411 Miller Hall |
Telephone: (206) 685-7562 |
|
Tuesday, 4:30 - 6:50 p.m. |
E-mail: |
|
Office hours: By appointment |
http://faculty.washington.edu/stkerr/ |
|
Session |
Date |
Assignment for Session |
Topic in Class |
|
1 |
|
--- |
Introductions: Students, instructor, course Technology,
media, and the culture of educational institutions Scheduling
course events |
|
2 |
4/7 |
Paper/project descriptions;
Brown (2000; 2008)* |
Looking
critically at technology, education, and the future Discuss course projects |
|
3 |
4/14 |
Find
materials for non-traditional media exercise |
[NO CLASS MEETING - AERA] Non-traditional media
exercise – see description on course site. |
|
4 |
4/21 |
De
Zengotita*, Intro., Chs. 1-3 |
Discuss
non-traditional media exercise What does mediation mean? What do we do with it in education? |
|
5 |
4/28 |
De
Zengotita, Chs. 4-7, Coda |
Consequences
of mediation for young people, educators, institutions, society |
|
6 |
5/5 |
Gee*,
Intro., Chs. 1-6 Literature
review due |
The rise of gaming culture and its implications
for the culture of education |
|
7 |
5/12 |
Gee,
Chs. 7-10 |
Can games be made educational? Can education be made gameful? What would happen if…? |
|
8 |
5/19 |
Shirky*,
Chs. 1-6 |
Is there a "Web 2.0" and if there is,
what does it mean for education? |
|
9 |
5/26 |
Shirky,
Chs. 7-11, Epilogue |
"Schools?
Universities? What were those things,
anyway, and why did we think we needed them?" |
|
10 |
6/2 |
Final projects due |
Conclusions;
final discussion of individual projects. |
*Texts: Brown, John Seely. (2008).
Minds on fire.
and (2000). Growing
up digital. (Both available online).
de Zengotita,
Thomas. (2005). Mediated: How the media shapes your world and
the way you live in it. New York:
Bloomsbury.
Gee, James Paul. (2007).
Good video games and good learning: Collected essays on video games,
learning and literacy. New York: Peter
Lang.
Shirky, Clay. (2008).
Here comes everybody: The power of organizing without
organizations. New York: Penguin.
1. Course Rationale and Goals
Why
do we assume that technology and education naturally go together? Educational technology, whether we think of
it as the "things" of education, as a process for pre-specifying
hoped-for instructional results, or as the design of enabling educative
environments, has always had a powerful allure.
But why do we rush so rapidly to try to use in our schools and colleges
the technological systems that entertain, direct, help, and inform us in other
spheres of life? Why do we spend so much
money on those systems, only to discover that they frequently do not meet the
promises that were made for them? And
why do so many teachers and students have such difficulty figuring out what the
new systems are good for in their classrooms?
Or,
should the question be framed the other way round: Why do we think we still need schools,
universities, when these tools can allow us to do so many good and powerful
educative things, bring about much deep learning, in ways that are so much
easier and so much better?
Both
the problems and the potential feature prominently in current discussions of
educational technology. Some of the
issues are close to the surface – one has only to look at recent reports to
find references to "the problem of teacher training," "the need
for better coordination in implementing technology programs," "the
importance of improved media selection criteria," or "the problem of
institutional change." These are
perceived solutions to perceived problems.
But
it may well be that the real issues are further beneath the surface, in the
emerging patterns of influence that media and technology have on our
consciousness, in the assumptions that young people (as opposed to those over
25) make about how they interact with others and how they gather information
about the world, and in the implications all those patterns have for
institutions that we have come to take for granted. Newspapers disappear, book publishers no
longer print books, and states tell high school students they must take an
online course to graduate.
Do
schools and universities have a future in this sort of era, or will they too go
the ways of the newspapers and publishers?
To answer this question, we need to become more aware of how our
educational institutions are structured, what social roles and expectations
define their activities, and how technology is used and is coming to be used
there. Meanwhile, technological change
itself continues at an increasingly rapid pace, and this change often suggests
deeper shifts in our culture, our values, and in the underlying shape and
purposes of our institutions, shifts that we can barely perceive as they
happen, let alone manage or direct.
Why
these questions are so pressing today, and what they may portend for education
in this country and around the world are our topics in this course. We will begin by reviewing a couple of recent
pieces from John Seely Brown, a well-regarded thinker and entrepr4eneur in the
fields of both business and education.
We will move along to examine the ideas of Thomas de Zengotita, a writer
and thoughtful observer of the ways in which "mediated culture" is
changing our lives and our perceptions of the world. We will continue by reading James Gee's
provocative analysis of video games, their relation to literacy and to
education, and their place in the universe of young people today. Finally, we will think with Clay Shirky about
the implications of "Web 2.0" technologies and social networking for
the educational system.
Part
of the purpose of this course is to encourage us to examine new technologies,
new systems and services, new software and games, and to examine how those may
relate to education, or how they might change it. While this will be part of the conversation
throughout, we will feature it in two specific ways: first, at the start of every class session,
we'll devote at least 10-15 minutes to new sites, services, software, etc.,
that you have identified and that you feel might have some implication for
education. (It might not only be
positive impact – negative is also interesting!) We'll have a GoPost site, and you can post
links there, or on Delicious. We'll also
have a non-traditional media exercise in which I invite you to locate
interesting online materials, text based or otherwise. These might come from YouTube, Flickr,
Twitter, or from any number of different blogs, wikis, or other "Web
2.0" tools. You'll have the
equivalent of one class session (April 14) to work on this, and we'll discuss
the following week.
2.
Requirements
There are four basic requirements
for this course: (1) do the readings and
come to class prepared to discuss them; (2) make a brief oral presentation on
the readings for that week (concentrating on assumptions and implications,
rather than providing a summary); (3) make a brief oral presentation on your
proposed paper or project (as a separate exercise, you'll identify relevant
literature); and (4) prepare (and discuss briefly, during our final class
session) a project or paper dealing with some aspect of the interrelationship
between technology and the culture of education.
a. Readings and class discussion. I assume that you will do the assigned
readings and observations and come to class prepared to discuss them. As you read, try to evaluate the author's
positions and conclusions, and come to class ready to analyze these in detail.
CONTRIBUTION
TO CLASS GRADE: 5%
b. Oral presentation on the readings. Once during the
quarter, come to class prepared to critique the readings for that week and set
the stage for a discussion. This will
involve a careful reading of the assignment for that week, and preparation of a
one-page outline to distribute in class when you do the presentation. In the presentation, spend a maximum of 10 minutes doing the
following:
i. "Big ideas": Characterize the author's "big
ideas" in a kind of one-paragraph summary of the major points made (1-2
minutes). (NOTE that the point here is
not to spend a lot of time summarizing the author's positions; you assume that
the other class members have read the material).
ii. Assumptions: Identify the author's underlying assumptions,
biases, starting points, "givens."
What is being assumed? What
positions does the author see as "sacred"? (3-4 minutes).
iii. Questions:
Raise significant questions for
discussion: What are the implications of
the author's points for society generally and education specifically? If the author is not writing specifically
about education, in what ways could the main concepts be extended to apply to
education, or could they? How likely is
it that the "culture of education" might change significantly as a
result of the author's ideas? Introduce
your thoughts as questions for general class discussion (4-6 minutes).
Once
you've finished your presentation, the questions you have posed should provide
the basis for further class discussion, so try to make these as
thought-provoking and interesting as possible!
FORMAT: One page outline of topics raised and
questions introduced.
EVALUATION: Graded.
CONTRIBUTION
TO COURSE GRADE: 20% (oral presentation in class [10%] and outline [10%]).
c. Oral presentation on
your project. At some point during the course, make a brief
presentation on your paper or project.
The point here will be to introduce your focus to the class, and to
indicate the principal problem or issue you are trying to answer or
resolve. You may want to structure your
presentation using these rubrics:
i. Question or issue: What is the question or
issue you are trying to resolve, find out more about, or the puzzle you are
seeking to answer?
ii. Method: How are you attempting to
address or deal with the question? What
methods or approaches are you using?
iii. Problems or
road-blocks. What problems are you encountering as you
seek to address your question? What
information have you had trouble locating, what intellectual questions are you
having trouble resolving, what sorts of data do you need to find?
iv: Literature review. As a separate exercise
(see calendar), turn in five references you feel will be helpful for your paper
or project; use APA (or other recognized scholarly) format; provide full
citation; briefly summarize in one page or less why the reference is useful.
FORMAT: Oral presentation to class (and discussion of
literature review)
EVALUATION: Graded.
CONTRIBUTION
TO COURSE GRADE: Total of 20% -- Oral
presentation - 10%; Literature review - 10%.
d. Individual course paper/project. Choose a topic of interest to you and related
to the influence of technology on the culture of education. Many topics are possible: mini-studies, surveys of literature,
proposals, evaluations, or development projects that examine in a thoughtful
way technology's role. Check with me if
you have any questions about the appropriateness of topics. We will discuss your progress in defining and
working on the projects as we proceed through the quarter.
FORMAT: Printed, double-spaced, and submitted without
binder or cover (or other format, as dictated by the medium chosen). All papers should be prepared in accordance
with the guidelines contained in the Publication
manual of the American Psychological Association (5th ed.), or a comparable
authoritative model. Pay special
attention to the way you use headings to clarify the organization of your
paper. Length: no more than 15
pages.
CONTRIBUTION
TO CLASS GRADE: 40%.
e. Non-traditional Materials and Sources
Exercise – Guidelines. The
object of this exercise is to explore relevant resources on the culture of
education and technology that exist outside of the traditional scholarly
apparatus of books, articles, and reports.
The aim here is to explore current popular electronic resources such as
YouTube, Flickr, other social networking sites (Facebook, MySpace, etc.), blogs
and wikis, to find new ideas, new services, new technology-based approaches
that suggest changes in the function and activity of schools, universities, and
other relevant educational settings. You
might also find software, networked systems, sites, reports, or materials from
non-academic projects that have bearing on these questions.
Find
at least three items that you feel are especially interesting or relevant, and
post their URLs on the class GoPost before our class meeting. Be prepared to say a bit about:
(1)
How you found the item (how hard it was, how you searched, what you looked for,
etc.);
(2)
What you think is provocative or interesting about the item (what it says about
the state of education, new opportunities presented by technology, threats to
existing ways of doing business or models for new ways, etc.); and
(3)
What you feel are the "next questions" that the item suggests – in
other words, to try to figure out whether a particular new service or system
might have a significant impact on education, what else would you want to know
about it, about the operation of educational institutions, or about the ways
other similar changes have worked themselves out over time?
DUE: April 22
EVALUATION: Graded (leniently), based on quality of
material identified and analysis during class presentation.
CONTRIBUTION
TO COURSE GRADE: 15%.
A
word on the oral presentations and discussions. It is important to learn how to present ideas
clearly and briefly, and how to critique others' presentations incisively and
positively. It is easy to criticize
someone else's work; it is harder (and more important) to do so in a way that
preserves that person's self-image and dignity.
The most respected scholars are those who manage to combine helpful
suggestions for how things might be done differently with a tone that is
constructive and collegial. You should
strive to attain this kind of scholarly approach in your work here!
5. Other Resources
I
will post a list of links and other useful resources on the class web page;
find it on my site (go to “courses”) at:
http://faculty.washington.edu/stkerr/
There's
also a Catalyst Go Post at:
https://catalysttools.washington.edu/gopost/board/stkerr/10486/
I'll
also create a Delicious list and put the link information on the class site.
REVISED
STK