I'm a Senior Lecturer in Educational Psychology & Technology at the University of Luxembourg. I call myself a TechnoSage, i.e. somebody who loves to explore the use of "new" technologies to support, enhance, enrich and transform learning & teaching.
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Today I started a newly redesigned course in our Bachelor in Educational Sciences study program called 1.6.2 Introduction to Educational Technology.
And I had prepared two very nice and beautiful keynotes with inserted movies, etc. But, in a very tragically comical way (this year again), I had some technical issues, problems and mishaps… It’s somewhat un-/discomforting to launch a course on the integration of *new* digital (computer) technology into teaching and learning AND having to first handle a mass of tech problems… because ironically this demonstrates how vulnerable ICT-supported/-enhanced teaching and learning settings can be… If the computer does not properly boot, on which you have your slideshows and your movies, then how can you work decently..?
If moreover, that machine does not have the required presentation and movie player software (or movie codec plugins) to play your multimedia support materials, then you may start to feel somewhat desperate…
WELL, I didn’t… I simply told a joke (“I’m going to paint and draw all my slides and movies on the whiteboard for you, if the computer refuses to work”), kept confidently believing in my ICT-literacy and in Apple hardware 🙂 and finally everything was up and running…
Oh, I nearly forgot that, by surprise, I had to improvise in another area too. I had to switch to another language for the oral presentation, because I had 3 incoming mobility students in my class… Fortunately that was no problem for me… because I’m fluent in English, French, German and Luxembourgish… Moreover I think that this will create a good authentic foreign language environment for my other students (future teacher students!).
I’ve just “discovered” MANY EYES (thanxs Kristina!) an online tool developed by IBM that allows everybody to generate graphical representations of numerical data – without too much trouble! It’s really a nice tool that follows my motto: keep IT simple!
Explore it yourself! It’s really worthy IT… and yopu may discover some interesting visualizations created by other users around the globe.
Somehow the link to your visualization got lost: http://manyeyes.alphaworks.ibm.com/manyeyes/visualizations/speed-of-information-travel-to-lon This data set shows how technology can change…
Little Pim est une série de DVD d’apprentissages de langues étrangères par immersion destinée aux plus jeunes d’entre nous, de 0 à 5 ans. Little Pim a remporté de nombreux prix aux Etats-Unis où il a été initialement lancé. Nous offrons actuellement trois DVD développant chacun un thème précis (le réveil, le jeu, les repas) propre à la vie quotidienne de nos enfants. Nous y avons associé un personnage animé, notre petit panda Little Pim, et des enfants en situation réelle. Chaque DVD est composé de 7 séquences de 5 minutes, et propose plus de 180 mots et phrases à notre jeune public.
La méthode Little Pim associe son, image et effets de répétition pour des enfants qui ne savent ni lire, ni écrire. L’objet décrit dans chaque séquence est aussi écrit dans la langue étudiée afin de permettre aux parents de suivre! Des sous-titrages optionnels leur sont proposés.
Déclinés en anglais, mandarin, espagnol, japonais et hébreux, les DVD Little Pim sont accessibles via notre site marchand dans leur version import (telle qu’ils sont distribuée aux USA pour l’ensmble des langues existantes). La version anglaise adaptée aux parents francophones en France sera bientôt disponible dans les Fnac, les Centres Culturels Leclerc, et les sites marchands spécialisés.
Chaque DVD peut être utilisé indifféremment et sans suite logique. Ils sont disponibles à l’unité ou par coffret de 3 DVD à prix plus compétitif encore.
Pour vous renseigner vis-à-vis les droits de distribution de Little Pim en France veuillez contacter Mr. Jean-Bernard Tanqueray au 06.18.41.00.83 ou par courriel à jbt@rochebonne.com .
Clark Boyd interviews Greg Kulowiec, a high school teacher at Plymouth South High School in Plymouth, MA, USA, who is using all sorts of new technologies as learning and teaching tools in his very classroom… This is a very nice USE CASE example.
While cleaning my office desk I found a piece of newspaper I had “archived” because it depicts an ad for an educational tool that nicely illustrates a few crucial things about educational technology.
1) Educational Technology is praised.
2) Educational Technology is praised for its positive effects on learning (“making it easier” in this case).
3) Educational Technology is praised for its positive effects on learning in a very broad sense (“learning of foreign languages” here, although it merely helps the learner to better memorize words or expressions of a foreign language, which is of course a very narrow educational objective).
4) Educational Technology comes in different versions (A5 and A4 formats here).
5) Educational Technology does not have to be digital, new, computer-based or even very technical
6) Educational Technology implies a certain view of learning, i.e. there is an implicit theory of learning and teaching embedded in the “recommended use” of the tool
7) Educational Technology is praised to “replace” the teaching person (the tool is called a “trainer” here and it effectively eliminates the teacher, in a certain sense at least).
I cannot get rid of the impression that the ad tries to sell this low-tech tool as a miracle solution for foreign language learning, while its scope is certainly rather limited and it lacks some important features, which a computer-based tool may easily offer in the case of memorizing vocabulary, like keeping track of the learning progress, adaptative vocabulary presentation, error analysis, or giving access to the pronunciation of the foreign words.
To be fair, we should however acknowledge that this tool is really inexpensive and that it may be of some help to some learners, if they use it wisely…
During my online exploration, in search of resources on dyscalculia for a research project, I stumbled upon a software that was “designed for remediation of dyscalculia in children aged 4-8. It may also be useful for prevention of dyscalculia, or to teach number sense in kindergarten children without specific learning disabilities. The software was developed in our laboratory by Anna Wilson and Stanislas Dehaene, and is based on our current knowledge of the brain circuits underlying numerical cognition. Details of the design of the software are published in Behavioral and Brain Functions: Wilson, A. J., Dehaene, S., Pinel, P., Revkin, S. K., Cohen, L., & Cohen, D. (2006). Principles underlying the design of “the number race”, an adaptive computer game for remediation of dyscalculia. Behavioral and Brain Functions, 2(19).
I’ll have a look at it and keep you posted here about my impressions… I’d love to use it, or have my future students in the BScE use it for their educational technology research project, so that we could test its effectiveness. We’ll have to see…
