A Geographer Looks at EdTech in 2013 - Part 6 - Hardware

--- This post is the sixth in a ten part series examining top 2013 trends in education technology in the context of GIS and geography education. ---

Watters identifies 2013 as 2011 revisited when it comes to hardware. What she means is that two years ago was "the year of iPad" and this year is another such year. That said, she does note other players trying to get into the education tablet market, thought they've had little success. But her main conclusion is that despite the iPad's coolness and the demand from schools systems to have them in the classroom, issue far outside of actual teaching continue to get in the way: management, hacking, theft, cost…

Which brings me to geography and GIS education and iPads. I guess iPads are in use in geography and GIS education, but no one is shouting about it. Esri has a couple of posts from 2012 and 2013 about using ArcGIS Online (what else?) on the iPad, but otherwise, I see very little mention of them. 

I will share that I do see some iPad at education GIS events, but I see far more, proportionately, at generic education events like EdCamp.

If you know how iPads have revolutionized geography or GIS education, I'd love to hear about it!

What Interests Geography/GIS Educators?

I'm not sure, but I suspect this is one of just a few blogs that focuses on geography and GIS education in general and education technology and engagement in particular. So, what are readers of this blog interested in? Based on page views for 2012 so far, here are the top 10 posts:

A Geographer Looks at EdTech - Part 1 - the iPad
Esri Announces Significant Upgrade to Educational Site License
Going One Better on Google's University Mapping Contest
A Look at Esri's SpatiaLABS GIS Lab Projects
A Phd Candidate Argues Against ArcGIS
Help! How do I use iPads to Teach AP Human Geography
Flipping Bloom's Taxonomy in Geography/GIS
Central Pennsylvania Geospatial Technology Center to Support Experiential GIS Learning
Integrating Top Tech Skills for Students in GIS/Geography Coursework
NEARC Educators Day 2012: Successes but Challenges Ahead

Some observations/hypotheses:

• The widespread use of Esri technology likely skews the results.
• While Esri provides lots of details about licenses and new education products, readers come here for that information and/or opinion on them.
• Educators are interested in iPads. The sad truth about the plea for help? I saw no responses to this fellow's query here or on any blog!
• Few education journalists or journalists in general followed up on the Central PA Center. To date I believe I was the only one.
• Other conference coverage on the blog, besides the coverage of NEARC Educators Day, also received significant page views. I think GIS/geography educators are anxious to learn from one another, but few if any of those educators blog about or otherwise summarize what they learn at GIS/geography or education events. So, for example, I saw no coverage at all of the huge NCGE, save press releases and photos.

Will Multi-Touch Interfaces Really Revolutionize Education?

In an article titled One Tablet Per Child in District Administration, Susan McLester reviews the educational pros and cons of tablets. What's interesting is not their hardware limitations or their lower price in comparison to laptops, but what really makes them different from traditional desktop and laptop computers. The subhead identifies that feature:

Apps and digital content are on the rise, and the multitouch interface may prove to be a game-changer for K12 schools.

The key paragraph is this one with a quote from Vineet Madan, senior vice president of strategic services for McGraw-Hill:

But it’s the multitouch interface that remains the biggest draw for tablets in schools, especially for the youngest students, who can engage in a tactile manner with content that doesn’t require reading, writing or keyboarding skills. “The more senses we can engage students in using the better,” says Madan, who adds that the capacity to use two or more fingers on the screen at one time lets students manipulate objects in ways impossible with a laptop and keyboard. “If there’s a molecule on the screen, they can touch, pinch, zoom, spin it around on their fingertips,” he says.

Students who can't yet read need to spin molecules on tablets? I for one didn't need to tackle the spatial relationships of atoms and molecules until my sophomore year in high school, when my reading ability and spatial abilities were significantly more mature. And, how did I get those spatial abilities? Like most of my peers: by building with blocks and climbing up on the hood of Dad's car and interacting with the real world. What is it we hope pre-readers will learn from spinning molecules or dinosaurs or anything else?

My understanding of the Montessori curriculum for the pre-reader focuses on two things: developing motor and spatial skills and reading/writing readiness. I have no expertise in K-12 curricula but that sounds about right to me. Do students working with their fingers on tablets develop the same motor skills and coordination  acquired by blowing bubbles and digging holes and tapping golf pegs into clay with toy hammers? Do the gross maneuvers needed to spin and zoom fit that bill?

Further, can the tablet prepare students for writing with a pencil? I'm not sure what to make of this app:

Another example is Boreaal and PiMZ’s Letterschool, a $3 handwriting, letter and number app that lets preschool and elementary-age kids trace numbers and letters with their fingertips and receive instant instructive feedback.

Does tracing with a finger transfer to writing letters and numbers with a pencil? I don't recall tracing letters with my finger back in the day, but I do recall tracing "dotted" letters with a pencil before I tried to write my own. My five year old friend Theo did the same thing when I visited his class two month ago.

Before we get too "sold" on the multi-touch interface as a game changer, let's get back to the skills we are trying to teach. We need to ask more than if children are engaged, but if in fact this multi-touch interaction, or interaction via body movement a la Kinnect, helps educators teach and students learn. They may may well, but I am still looking for the research to support higher achievement, rather than just anecdotal comments about engagement.

Help! How do I use iPads to Teach AP Human Geography?

I saw the same plea, from the same individual, on two different social media sites in the last few days. First I read:

Moving to a new school that just received tons of iPads for their students. I am totally unfamiliar with them or how to use them in a AP Human Geo class. Any tips? Will ESRI's web based ArcViewer work or the download? I don't recall any issues from Portland last summer with Mac v PC. Help!

Then I read:

moving to a new school that will have new iPads for students and am totally unfamiliar with them. Anyone have a guide for use in the High School Geography classroom? Will ESRI web and downloads work? Apps for ed and geo?

I applaud the instructor for reaching out to others for input and wish him well in his new school. His query, to which I've seen no public responses, raises even more questions about the use of the iPad for education in general and for geography education in particular.

• If there are iPads, must instructors use them?
• How do instructors without an iPad prepare themselves to use them in class? Do they buy their own?
• Are there specific resources for using iPads in any K-12 subjects? AP subjects?
• Would educational content vendors want to develop a curriculum for a single hardware platform?
• Are there "tips sites" for using iPads in education? Would tips for elementary school students necessarily translate to high school? College?
• Does Esri offer tips/special content for using iPads in schools?
• Where do geography/high school/iPad/AP instructors go for help in curriculum development?
• Who would build a guide for high school geography with an iPad? NCGE? Private companies?
• Who will find and curate educational iPad apps for geography? (I have yet to find any worth mentioning...)
• Isn't an iPad, at one level, "just" a computer? How different is it from using a laptop or desktop in the classroom? Or at home?
• Can/should instructors "port" their "old" paper or computer-based lessons to the iPad? Would there necessarily be a benefit?

It's still early in the iPad education revolution, so it's not surprising there are still so many questions and so few answers.

Which Comes First in EdTech: Ed or Tech?

Don Boyes, who teaches GIS at the University of Toronto, wrote a thoughtful post last week about his current work preparing to move one of his face to face GIS classes to an online format. He addresses the key areas he needs to explore: content, pedagogy and technology. It's the last one that interests me. Boyes writes:

Technology
Teaching GIS in general, and certainly online, requires more than a passing familiarity with a host of technologies.  I have been thinking about the software I use, or might use for my online course.  Just off the top of my head, the list includes: PowerPoint; Adobe Photoshop, Captivate, Presenter, Premiere, and Connect; Blackboard; and Citrix XenApp.  I also have to understand issues concerning bandwidth, mobile devices, podcasting, open learning, etc.  As a technophile/early adopter, I love learning about all these things, but it takes a lot of time.  For every technologic tool or solution, I have to be mindful of the actual benefits for improving communication, teaching, and learning and judge whether the invested time will be worth it.

I am pleased Boyes has such a long list of tech tools in mind. And, I'm pleased he's aware that it's possible to get swept up in the tech and perhaps lose site of the goal, that is, learning.

That brings me to the question in the title: In the development of a course (residential or online), which should come first: the full syllabus with course and lesson objectives or the tech that will enable to objectives?

In an ideal world, educators would have the luxury of paid time to consider the content and pedagogy and develop a course. Then and only then, they'd have the resources (skilled instructional designers, hardware, funds, time to test implementations, etc.) to weave in the appropriate technology. I'm sure I'm not the first to notice it rarely works quite that way.

Still, I think it's valuable to try to work that way, especially now when education technology tools are exploding. Why?

• While the tool you may want may not be available when you begin to develop the course, it might be in beta by the time you start to select technology. And, if technology literacy goals are among of the course, why not consider new or beta offerings? Students can learn a lot from how software is tested and input collected. Moreover, you can often use such products for free as part of a beta program or the like.
• You can't possibly keep up with both educational technologies and your discipline. Don't try; rely on others to help identify and select appropriate technology. 
• It's so easy to get swept away by new sexy software and hardware. Just consider the big rush to the iPad when most of the research on its impact on learning is still anecdotal. Hold tight to your educational objectives; don't be swayed by flashiness. 

Education technology is supposed to enhance learning. Thus, by definition, an educator must know what is to be taught and learned before such tools are selected. Be sure Ed comes first when considered EdTech.

A Geographer Looks at EdTech - Part 1 - the iPad

--- This post is the first in a ten part series examining top 2011 trends in education technology in the context of GIS and geography education. ---

I've only been writing about GIS/geography education for a few months now, so I'm not ready to identify a top ten of any kind for the year. Thankfully, I found Audrey Watters blog Hack Education (and podcast). She's been counting down the top ed tech themes of the year. I want to visit each one for two reasons: (1) to be sure those who are "heads down" in teaching GIS/geography are aware of these themes and (2) to add in my thoughts on how GIS/geography educators might take advantage of them.

10) The Year of the iPad

Audrey Watters identified the iPad in her top ten list of ed tech for 2011. Even those on the fringes of education probably heard about how schools were buying iPads for students. More importantly, there's been significant coverage of how students of all kinds (very young, K-12, college, with disabilities, etc.) can't keep their hand off the devices! Hardware to me is simply something on which to run software, so I'm far more interested in what learners do on the iPads, than that they love them.

One of the top learning apps for iOS devices, per many observers, is called Motion Math, from a company of roughly the same name, Motion Math Games. It teaches key ideas about number lines and fractions. To learn about fractions, students move/tilt the device to "bounce" the fraction to the right location (3/5 the way, 1/2 the way, etc.) along a bar. A score of 100% moves a student to the next level. The short video below explains it far better than I can.



Now, I've never played or studied with Motion Math, but I want to! Why?

• It's active.
• It's focused on a very specific sets of skills related to fractions.
• There are hints to help you learn, not just get the right answer.
• It's not scary.

Could you teach calculus this way? Probably not. How about geography facts? How could you use the interface of the iPad to create a compelling "game" beyond the old "What country is this?" and "Where in the World is Carmen San Diego?" ones from the previous generation of educational computer and video games? Most of the educational geography apps/games for mobile devices including the iPad  are simple rehashes of these older ideas. I'm looking forward to the "Motion Math of geography facts" as a first big step into iPad learning tools for geography.

But lets jump to another type of geographic learning that's possible on the iPad: geographic problem solving. Let's face it, that's what we hope geography and geographic technology learners will take away from their studies. Could the iPad teach that? Could it allow such analysis in the field, say on a street corner? Could software walk students through the steps: identify the problem, gather data, analyze data, suggest a possible answer (that's my version of the steps in geographic problem solving; here are Esri's). I can imagine some great, very free form activities that teach and allow students to practice these steps, using tools and data from, say, ArcGIS Online. Once a project is complete, the output and discussion could be shared with other students via blog, social media, etc.

I am very excited about what's possible. Are you building or have seen anything like the apps I've envisioned?

Blackboard Goes Mobile ... with Many Questions

Last week I attended a session hosted by Blackboard, the learning management system company, at Babson College. It was titled Blackboard Higher Education Mobile Summit and there were schools represented from all over New England. Who from the schools attended? Mostly IT, web development, marketing, recruitment and development staff. I was the only educator there.

The goal of the day seemed to be two-fold: to get the attendees thinking about their mobile strategy (I think nearly 100% of the schools attending use the software in some fashion) and to help Blackboard figure how to better serve the schools.

Some parts of the day reminded me of talking about GIS software. Just like in discussion of enterprise GIS, the attendees could not keep all the pieces straight. What was Blackboard Connect? eLearn? What was free or for fee? I was lost since the only Blackboard software I ever used was Angel, which the company acquired a few years ago. I longed for a product map!

Another analogy to enterprise GIS was Blackboard's own suggestion that a mobile implementation needs a champion. Further, it needs buy-in from several departments and a pilot program and a plan to capture the low hanging fruit... it sounded just like GIS! That makes sense since mobile is really just another layer of an enterprise strategy.

There was significant confusion related to exactly what "content" was going mobile. Reps from Babson spoke about the school's rollout on mobile and had to explain more than once the plan to put its (1) public facing website type content in an app with (2) access into the learning management system as separate offering. The former had much of the content of a school website aimed mostly at admissions type questions. The latter allows registered students who logged in to do school work  (upload papers, participate in discussions, etc.). I was interested to learn it was the softest of soft rollouts, yet some several hundred students found, downloaded and tried the apps.

The question I brought to the event (and have held in my head for some time) is this: What kind of school work (not checking to see if class is cancelled) can a student do on a mobile device? Is it different on a tablet vs. a phone? How would I as a distance learning instructor formulate classes so students could "do work" on their phones? I gained no insight into those questions during the sessions because none of the schools were really at that point yet. Few had really engaged their faculty in thinking about the topic. Most of the schools were developing a mobile strategy, but it seemed actual learning was not part of it... yet. I guess that explains why I was the only educator in attendance.

My thought experiment is simple: How could I best formulate classes in say a GIS masters program to take advantage of the 30 minutes a professional might have on the train with his or her phone? Would they realistically read? Watch videos? Contribute to discussions via text or voice? Diagram the workflow for a GIS analysis? How could I make at least parts of the course "mobile phone friendly" to take advantage of that time in travel (or in a doctors office, etc.)?

The other presentation of note was from Assumption College, a small liberal arts school in Worcester. That school aimed to increase student retention in its Honors College by giving students iPads. These devices were in addition to anything the student might have brought to school. The devices were required for use for specific interview projects but otherwise could be used as the students wished. Detailed surveys kept track of how students used the devices (for reading, writing, entertainment, etc.) and it seems there is a correlation of ownership with retention. I found this an interesting experiment since it seemed like "tossing some tech" into a program to see what would happen. I'm curious to see what could happen with more thoughtful course/project development.

The good news seems to be that educators and instructional designers have some time to ponder the questions of course design and mobile "friendliness" since at least the schools in attendance are in the early stages of defining their mobile strategies.

Ian McBride from Middlebury also has a review of the event.