The Song Remains The Same

(or, The Medium Is Still the Message)

The linked video was passed to us earlier today via Twitter, from MyLearningSpace. It is the type of thing that usually crops up in Education and Technology sessions, pointing to the discrepancy between teaching styles and learning styles in the digital age, we recommend viewing it - but if you are familiar with Prensky's Digital Natives vs. Digital Immigrants, then you are already thinking along the right path.

However, what captured our attention in this video was the opening scene of an empty university lecture hall, with rows upon rows of seats, along with a caption mentioning how are 21st century students are sitting in 19th century institutions. It instantly reminded us of economic theories talking about how changes in modes of productions can bring about changes in social relations. Shouldn't changes in the storage, production, and transfer of knowledge bring about changes in educational relations?

Many writers on educational issues have discussed how the image of the lone authoritative speaker in front of the classroom suggests that the speaker has knowledge and the students do not. What this also supposes however, is that knowledge or information is scarce. It is the speakers' prior acquisition and mastery of information that grants him or her a privileged position. The explosion in information storage, production, and transfer that started with the printing press, radio, telephone, and computer has made information shockingly abundant. Many educational techniques centre around mastery of information retrieval, a skill that as practiced in the 19th century is no longer relevant. Instead, information retrieval for the 21st century needs to focus more on analyzing and judging value or worth.

Students intuitively understand something is wrong with the educational equation when they ask the perennial question "Why Do We Need To Learn This?" The question is likely to be directed not so much as the content, but the task - "Why do I need to learn how to remember this?" since the possession of a textbook, let alone web-enabled cellphone with online search capabilities makes memorization redundant. Instead, students are looking for a way to engage with the content, to explore its uses and relevance.

Many of the educational reform theories that we encounter deal with enhancing our current teaching technique - how to ask better questions, craft better activities, or assess better. What we need though, is not to refine our technique, but to develop a better one that honours a reality in which students have already mastered simple data retrieval.

Inquiry Schools

A request yesterday for the Inquiry Schools "Water Crossing" video, led us to revisit the Inquiry Schools website, where we discovered several more videos dealing with the Inquiry Process, chiefly one dealing with the topic of energy. Again, what impresses us with the work of Inquiry Schools is how clearly they lay out the Inquiry Process to be used in schools. In our own discussions with teachers we find that, too often, teachers underestimate the amount of time students need to think about the topic initially, and how much open exploration they ought to be allowed to do. Furthermore, these teachers tend to try to constrain the activity to their own class, or to a specific outcome. To us, ideally, Inquiry Projects are cross-curricular, grouped around very broad themes, such as water, energy, transportation, etc., allowing students to find their own area of interest within that. Furthermore, by extending the project across several subject areas, it not only increases the likelihood that students will find an area of interest, but also allows the teacher to increase the instructional time devoted to the early reflection and exploration stages. Rather than trying to shoehorn an introductory episode into a 45 minutes class, piggybacking on another subject class or two enables this precious time to be doubled, or even tripled. Of course, this raises the question of what kind of outcome ought to be expected, as a particular student might be working on the same topic for Social class, as opposed to English class. Any project outcome or rubric therefore needs to be developed in such a manner as it provides for elements common to all involved subjects, but also contains a subset that would respect specific knowledge, skill, or attitude outcomes of individual subjects.

A Friend in the Blogosphere

When the National Science Teachers' Association announced the release of their Lab Out Loud podcast series, we were naturally enough interested. The series comprises 52 episodes and contain extra notes for more in-depth information, with episode one being a look back at the impact of Sputnik on science education and a look forward at the types of skills necessary in the twent-first century.

More pleased however, was our discovery that one of the series' co-creators, Brian Bartel is running his own blog, www.explodingsink.com. Of course, we love the name, but were even more impressed to find that Bartel's Exploding Sink is very similar in intent to our own Exploding Beakers, though much more polished (hey, we're new!). We particularly loved his description of his "margarine lab" where students find percent of water in margarine, via heated composition. The activity serves as a good precursor to percent composition activities later in chemistry. We also appreciated his comparision of online media services, Discovery Education Streaming, and Safari Montage.

Bridgit

At Exploding Beakers we have long been fans of students collaborating with other students in different classrooms and schools. We are particularly impressed this morning with a trans-Atlantic project between a school in NewBrunswick and another in the Netherlands using Bridgit software. Try it out for yourselves!

Being SMART

We are currently spending the day in downtown Calgary at the SMART offices, home to the makers of interactive whiteboards, a rapidly growing classroom technology, as SMART hosts a delegation of teachers from the Netherlands who have partnered up with teachers from the Calgary Catholic School District.

The teachers have spent the last few days visiting schools and sharing thoughts and practices surrounding innovative uses of SMART technologies in the classroom.

Check back soon for some more in-depth information.

Wired Science Updates

Exploding Beakers is pleased to offer Twitter updates for PBS' Wired Science. You can find the updates on our right-hand sidebar. Not only do they give you a different slant on the show, but also link to preview videos. Plus, if you set yourself up an account at Twitter.com, you can sign up to receive your on Wired Science updates on your own webpage or even cellphone!

How To Build A New Science Classroom

A lot of new schools have been built lately, and even more are getting (slowly) renovated. Every so often we are asked for some input on how to make a good (usually meaning safe) science classroom. Such a talk always involves looking issues of best practice, latest technology, as well as fire and building codes. The National Science Teacher Association has recently released their own take on the endeavour, and The NSTA Guide to Planning School Science Facilities is a welcomed perspective.

Global Warming 101

The Global Warming 101 Artic Expedition was one of the initial inspirations for Exploding Beakers. Granted the Global Warming 101 website is much more detailed and comprehensive than a blog like ours, it was their steady updating of information about the Artic Circle that they gathered and posted routinely throughout their May-August trek that we found fascinating. You could come back to the site every couple of days and find something new, whether it was pictures, podcasts, or short interviews with the locals describing how the changing weather patterns were changing traditional living practices.

We encourage you to check out their website and ongoing activities.

LearnAlberta Online Gizmos

Like our students, we love to play, especially online. Sometimes, it's pretty amazing what you'll spend your time doing if it has a certain element of "fun" to it. For example, LearnAlberta has just announced several online interactive demos and assessment applets for Jr. High Science. Each grade level as about two units of study completed so far, each with ten or so "gizmos". Access to the LearnAlberta site is free to Calgary Catholic teachers so check out some of the applets, and use them in class the net time you have a SMARTboard or LCD projector handy.

We like the fact that the online assessment tools offer immediate marking and feedback, so students can tell right away how they're doing.