designing a new learning environment
TRANSCRIPT
Designing a New Learning Environment Professor Paul Kim, Stanford University Assignment 1 If the future of learning, as James Paul Gee puts it, will be about complex thinking and complex systems (human and natural), and the ability to collaborate on teams that are smarter than the smartest person on them, what sort of learning environments and education technologies can help teenagers and adults prepare for 21st century conversation and problem-‐solving? “Twitter is an online social networking service and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-‐based messages of up to 140 characters, known as tweets” (Source: Wikipedia) Educators are increasingly experimenting with social media to increase student engagement. Twitter in the physical, virtual or hybrid classroom setting is said to be helping to move significant numbers of people out of their comfort zones into discussions; and the 140-‐character constraint obliges students to hone arguments and strip their positions down to the essential points. It enables discussion physically and remotely. However, to date there is very little research examining the role of Twitter in an educational context. Monica Rankin, a professor of history at the University of Texas, Dallas, uses hashtag[s] to manage comments, questions and feedback posted by students to Twitter resulting in more dynamic class discussions. Similarly, a professor at Pennsylvania State, Cole W. Camplese, encourages back-‐channel interaction during his classes. Yet, research conducted at SUNY Institute regarding the use of Twitter in an online learning environment found a large portion of graduate students “preferring Twitter not to be used in future courses”. (Source: The Effects of Twitter in an Online Learning Environment by Logan Ruth by February 2011.).