Edtech
At Imagine K12, the edtech incubator where I work, we have seen several examples of this already. Companies such as ClassDojo, Remind 101, Socrative, and Educreations have achieved widespread classroom adoption by distributing their products online to
- Select from subject area classification, state standard tree or your own set of questions.
- Select questions using a question catalogue, which can be purchased through our EduStore.
- Word Search finds questions with key words or phrases.
- Random feature will add random questions from a subject of your choosing.
- Replace with similar feature will substitute the selected question with a similar question.
Wherever the appropriate margin is identified for technological innovation, the climate within the margin needs to be such that teachers and students are supported in exploring the edges of uncertainty. This is critical because uncertainty and experimentation are perceived as a waste of time within the current model because there is curriculum that needs to be covered and tests that need to be taken within a prescribed schedule. One can't begin to have more time and space for innovating in class unless one loosens the reigns on traditional objectives and creates more flexibility and leverage within classrooms and schools.
She conducted a usability study in which students compared versions of video lectures in which diagrams were presented either as digitally rendered PowerPoint slides or as shaky hand drawings that took shape as the professor lectured, much as they might on a classroom blackboard.
Students preferred the hand-drawn diagrams by a substantial margin. “It lets you pace yourself,” Agarwal says. “The PowerPoint is going to flash a picture on the screen, and you don’t develop the idea in the same way that you develop the idea by drawing a picture on the chalkboard.”
Similarly, Agarwal says, several weeks into the course, after canvassing student responses to the course, the MITx team begin posting videos in which the course teachers worked problems out onscreen, rather than just presenting students with completed solutions — a feature that is certain to become a staple of future edX courses. “We learned a lot about how to do a course like this,” Agarwal says. “Clearly, that is influencing us a lot in where we go from here.” http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2012/mitx-edx-first-course-recap-0716.html
