21st Century Learning Styles and Mobile Technologies

Mon. 11:00 AM
21st Century Learning Styles and Mobile Technologies
Chris Dede, Professor, Learning Technologies, Harvard University, MA

Where are we going with all technologies and the opportunities thye represent.
Evolution of Education
Shifts in knowledge and skills
Development of new teaching methods
Changes in learnings
Emerging information tech is changing all of these.

He showed an animoto type film that was part of a Panasonic commercial.

The World is Flat by Thomas L. Friedman
Emerging interactive media
New work uses new tech but we are teaching with old tech.
Changes: thinking is now distributed (across space, time, and media).

Showed another video from Microsoft. (Annoying, loud and long.)
Microsoft also makes crap films.

Jenkin’s Framework for New Literacies
Don Leu’s “Characteristics of New Literacies”

“Next Generation” Interfaces for Distributed Learning
WorldDesktop
Multi-user environments
Ubiquitous Computing

“River City Project” website was mentioned.

Question: Why ubiquitous computing?
Student ratio
Cost
Wireless mobile computing
Equity and effectiveness
“Animistic environments for learning”

There were a series of unaddressed buzz words in quotation marks.

He made the point that microprocessors are everywhere. A possibility of an “animistic world.” “Smart objects and intelligent contexts” enable “augmented realities.”

Harvard’s hand-held devices projects
Good for portable research assistants and traveling conduits for learning.

Lecture is a weak form of teaching.

“Handheld Augmented Reality Project” Another video was shown. This project used handhelds to engage students in roleplaying and problem solving using language and math. Used pocket PCs with GPS devices. He wants to do the same thing in the future with GPS enabled phones.
Each team has a GPS
Virtual characters
Video
Maps

Pedagogical models
Constructivism
Apprenticeship and mentoring
Collaborative learing

How People Learn 1999

“Situated Learning”
A culture of learning where everyone brings something to the table to contribute to the learning.

Mediated, situated, immersed

There is the challenge of being able to get students to work as a team, assessment is not based on tests and papers, but with data mining.

We can’t expect students to learn the way we teach; we must teach the way they learn.

Learning modalites should also include media intelligence.

“Neomillenial” Learning styles

He teaches a distributed learning course

Implications for professional development
Codesign, coinstruction, guided social constructivism, assessment beyond tests and papers.

Professional development and communities of unlearning
Developing fluency in using emerging interactive media
Unlearning assumptions about teaching

Closed with McLuhan.