Reflection of the Article ‘Revolutionizing Learning in the Digital Age’

Last decade the slogan was the converting society from industrial age to information age. New slogan is that computer should not only use for information, but also should use for transmitting and accessing information. The revolutionary potentiality of technology is transforming learning and education. Near future the digital divide will be eliminated, but digital fluency will be the issue. Computer works like children’s finger paint not like the television (Resnick,2001). People develop a creativity attitude by using the computer. They can create their own web page, create their music and create their own simulated world like the second life where the participants in a virtual world are able to create a virtual person and they can personalize to look however they want. Children can create new video game. Therefore our children’s learning, playing and communicating are changing very rapidly.
Computers have been seen as important productivity tools for adults in the workplace. However, for children, productivity is not when children spend hours playing with the computer games. When they develop a skill like designing a web page or drawing a picture, it is productivity. Computer can foster creativity and social skill for children. Technology can provide a rich medium where children can be expressive, to become artists, musicians, writers. With computer tools they can be what they want to be today. Educational researchers recognize that getting to be a scientist, poet or artist is an important component of creative learning.
The future vision of our world includes objects and places which will become infused and augmented with computational power. Children will be freed from their desks to actively engage in play with real world objects merged with technologies. We have to go beyond adult center technology and create personal technologies that enable children to be who they want to be.
Therefore, according to Resnick, we need to update curricula for the digital age in order to prepare students with the new skills and ideas needed for living and working in a digital society. We should encourage our students to engage in collaborative projects and simulation software and cognitive tools rather than only memorizing the subject matters.

References

Resnik, M. (2001) Revolutionizing Learning in the Digital Age .Publications from the forum for the future of higher education. Boulder, CO: Educause. www.educause.com/resources.

The Virtual World of Second Life. Retrieved November 19,2006. from http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5182759758975402950

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Reflection on Assessment

Assessment is a powerful and continuous process that helps students to improve their learning as well as help teachers to monitor their performance that how well they can help them progress. Assessment is a measurement and evaluation of students’ learning. Today’s teachers have to face more challenge than before regarding assessment strategy. Today’s students need 21st century skills which creates an urgent demand on learners to acquire and practice the higher order thinking skills from the top of Bloom’s Taxonomy, analyzing, synthesizing and evaluating. Standardized test are not the only way of gauging student achievement.(www.edutopia.org) Performance assessments like collaborative projects, portfolios in that compile writing samples offer a richer, more holistic approach to evaluating what students know and can do. However traditional paper pencil test is also necessary to memorize the basic knowledge and apply by recalling the knowledge in the test. I think both are necessary to monitor student’s actual progress effectively. Some students are good in memorizing facts and express their thoughts in writings, but they are not good at performances. On the other hand some are not good in memorizing or writing, but they are good in performance based tests. However, I think, there is not much impact on the real world workplace for a person who has a good academic result, but it is completely depend on the capability of handling practical works.
Another thing always reflects on tests which is students’ socioeconomic background particularly in America. Educators always think about how to narrow the educational inequities. In this perspective language is one the issues for preventing higher achievement score. That’s why educators have to think about alternative assessments in order to ensure equity.

References:
North central Regional Educational laboratory.(1995). Critical Issue: Rethinking assessment and its role in supporting educational reform. http:/www.ncrel.org/sdrs/areas/issues/methods/assment/as700.htm.

North Certral Regional Regional Educational Laboratory.(1995). Critical Issue: Ensuring Equity with Alternative Assessments. http:/www.ncrel.org/sdrs/areas/issues/methods/assment/as800.htm.

Snowman, J. & Beihler, R. (2006). Psychology applied to teaching (11th edition).Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin

The George Lucas Educational Foundation. www.edutopia.org.

Thought of Learning for Mastery

Learning is continuous and complex process. Traditional belief that a child who is born with very low IQ, can not develop mastery in any subjects or area, has been changed. Teacher must completely involve in the student’s learning process. First, he or she has to define a strategy how each and every student of a class can develop mastery in every subject. Mastery in subjects depends on five criteria. Achievement test or aptitude test can judge students’ mastery in subjects. So this test can motivate students to involve in subjects. The more they involve, the more they develop in the mastery in subjects. Teacher can develop students in mastery through presentation, explanation and home task. Teacher need to evaluate how much student understand his or her instruction. If it is not, he or she has to define a new way of instruction. Frequent feedback, reward can increase the students’ perseverance in a learning situation. For example, if one student does not get a good grade in mathematics, sometimes it means that he or she does not like to involve in that subject area, whenever that particular student gets a reward for some task related to that subject, he will be motivated and will push to continue his learning on that area and it will result to mastery. Again student can achieve mastery if they devote the amount of time needed to the learning (Bloom, 1968). When student achieve mastery in subjects, obviously they can develop lifelong interest in learning.
With the advent of instructional technology today’s teachers can meet the individual problem and solve their problem in a scientific way, in order to develop students’ mastery in subjects. Nowadays innumerable computer software is available to help them mastery in different subjects with the guidance of teacher though. Now teacher as a facilitator and computer as an intellectual partner provide students at every level materials and guidance to develop optimization of the learning process.

References:

Bloom, B. S., (May 1968). Learning for mastery. Evaluation Comment, 1(2), 1-12

Atkinson, R. C., (1967). Computerized instruction and the learning process. Technical Report No.122, Stanford, California. Institute for Mathematical studies in the social sciences.

Bloom, B. S. (Ed.), (1956). Taxonomy of educational objectives: Handbook 1, cognitive domain, New York: David McKay Company.