In similar news lifehacker ran an article today about managing tasks and your calendar from Gmail. They recommend using RTM but also suggest adding a script that will link your Gmail directly into your Google Calendar. I took some time today to re-evaluate the RTM plugin for Firefox and was impressed with how it let me connect contacts and events in my Google Calendar to tasks in RTM. That led me to an interesting conundrum: what do I consider task worthy and what do I consider event (re: a date in my calendar) worthy. Currently I enter things like ‘pay credit card bill’ as reoccurring events in my calendar, along with the obvious birthdays (actually a dynamic iCal feed from Facebook), weddings etc. I added a task (via the plugin) that reminds me to ‘email Jane (automatically links to her email address) 5 days before her wedding’ (automatically identifies the event in my calendar and links to it), but I could see that being just as useful as an event in my calendar — so that I get all my reminders from one place.

If I do find use in RTM I imagine it will be more as a quick note taking/reminder tool: create test by Friday, write post about Evernote and lesson planning, etc., leaving me with Google Calendar for everything else that comes up.

(source MacDailyNews)

I view this is as great learning opportunity for teachers in K-12 environment. A number of teachers have begun posting their notes online, along with useful links to further resources and readings. If students lose a handout they know they can get it online, and if they are away from class they know they can obtain the notes — look over them — then bring their questions to their teacher the next time they see them. We have to be mindful that when we start putting what used to be the ‘meat’ of a lesson online we need to supplement our classroom instruction with deeper learning opportunities. I think this is one of the benefits of technology, it allows us to streamline knowledge transfer, providing more time to understand, internalize and apply that knowledge.

Moving resources online provides a great opportunity to engage students in the classroom, and encourage greater communication and understanding of the topics we as teachers enjoy teaching, so let’s embrace this benefit and not fall into the trap that has provided great frustration for Lee Rimer.

I’ll bet too, that a teacher doing this unit would overwhelmingly get very positive feedback from the students’ parents, especially any that volunteered to help with it. So would the teacher most likely do the same “unit” again next year? Even if they moved grade levels because they were told what a great job they did and how much the children SEEMED to learn?

I think this is a major problem with most attempts to integrate technology into education. Educators find out about something ‘cool’ and integrate it into their program, then have to scramble to find a way to link it with meaningful assessment. It’s a completely backwards way of thinking, and counterintuitive to creating a meaningful learning environment. I subscribe fully to the ideas presented in ‘Understanding by Design’ where, in a nut shell, they suggest all program development be started at the end (what am I trying to assess and how will I confirm those goals have been reached) and planned toward the beginning (now that I know what proof I require for assessment, what learning activities will provide the students with the knowledge and opportunities to apply this knowledge in meaningful ways).

Technology in education shouldn’t be the end goal, it should be the means to help students gain useful skills and enhance learning and understanding. In my classroom I focus on technology that allows students to share their experimental data (as access to larger data sets can provide stronger evidence for their hypothesis, while also requiring the consideration of other forms of experimental error), tools that let students collect and analyze data in ways not easily replicated with pen and paper, and ways to share with a wider audience, as this ‘authentic’ audience tends to cause students to take greater care in the creation of their final products.

The rub in all this is: at what point in time are students going to be exposed to these tools so that they can use them effectively? Curriculum’s are already bursting at the seams with ‘required content’ making setting aside time to engage students in useful technology a great challenge. What is needed is a school wide commitment to technology integration, with identified subjects where certain skills will be taught and assessed. With this foundation students can build upon their skill set and learn to figure out new technologies on their own — which I feel is one of the fundamental goals.

I concede that this is easier said than done, but I think that is in line with learning. Learning is hard, and learning takes time, effort and commitment. Too often we seek the easy ‘quick-fix’ solutions.

In reality all this data already exists in one form or another, so this plan is more about collecting and sorting the data into useful reports. Is it too much? That’s tough to tell. As a teacher I know that it could be useful to search for a students favourite baseball team, but if I have to look it up instead of knowing it from conversations with them I don’t think it would mean as much during future interactions.

This is an interesting idea, but it seems to have a few problems that all large database projects have: who is in charge of collecting the data and who is in charge of keeping it current and relevant? Besides, is it really useful to know that at the age of 12 Adam wanted to be a golf professional like Tiger Woods, then at age 13 he wanted to be a bioengineer? I agree this is interesting historical data, but how useful is it really?

I’ve previously posted briefly about ‘Helping children create a positive online presence‘ and continue to wonder how the current generation, who conducts a large amount of their social interactions online, and who do share questionable content with friendly strangers, will change the culture of acceptance of these forms of interaction in the next 5-10 years. Will they learn to conduct their lives within the set of rules the current generation suggests? or will they usher in a change in culture and understanding. I don’t think anyone is arguing that previous generations didn’t do the same things, they just didn’t have the misfortune of digital cameras and the Internet to document their activities. Their antics memories are stored safely in a dust covered shoebox on a long forgotten shelf in a closet.

Some thoughtful comments have been made on the original article.

“If we differentiate our instruction to meet the needs of all the learners, why aren’t we differentiating the test?” ~Stephen Dunbar

I’d be one of the first people to concede that current assessment techniques are archaic and misleading representations of a students understanding of a specific topic. Being able to select the correct answer out of a list of four possible answers, for a topic discussed 5 months ago, does little else than enforce rote memorization. It is an often stated point of view, but what we as a society are currently creating is a generation of individuals who are good at taking tests. As a student I made it my business to know how the test was being marked, what type of questions would be on it, then worked to answer them how I was expected to answer them. This had nothing to do with demonstrating what I had learned, it was all about getting a good grade on a test, because that number determined a heck of a lot — choice of University, scholarship money, and prestige in graduation.

I’m not sure what the answer is to the assessment debate, but the suggestions in this article are a great place to start. New assessments still need to gauge if a student knows the fundamentals — if you can’t answer a multiplication question then you won’t have much luck applying that skill to future applications. It’s not going to be as simple as changing the test. New assessment techniques will require us to develop a new perspective about how we view achievement, test scores, and the understanding and application of knowledge by students.