Students in 2015 March 31, 2007
Posted by mgonzalez02 in Themes.trackback
What technologies will students carry and use in 2015?
The Robotics Challenge – By George Loftus: read this article about the robotics challenge to give you a new perspective on what technologies students could be carrying and using in 2015.
In a Fall 2006 article in Educause Review, Pablo G. Molina and colleagues epxlore “Pioneering New Territory and Technologies”
http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/erm0659.pdf .
(c) 2006 Pablo G. Molina and the 2006 EDUCAUSE Evolving Technologies Committee
In his opening paragraph he states, “iPods and podcasting are not groundbreaking technidal realizations of new physical theories. But they are cool (and that’s official)! Their humanized and stylish approach allows users to easily manage multimedia content.
This changes a paradigm. In the past, campus technologists had the primary role of leading their communities in the intelligent use of technology by adapting whatever resources were thought to be efficient and appropriate. Now, however, one of the main roles is to scout, identify and intelligently sponsor technologies that their constituents may already have adopted.”
So, what are we doing to train more “scouts”? How do we stay abreast of these new technolgies beign adopted by our ever changing, ever youthful constituencies appearing on our campuses each year? And how do we learn to distinguish between a fad, and a real trend that could lead to better ways of teaching and learning? How will be help faculty adopt these new tools?
It’s time to start thinking about how to reach students, whatever they are carying on campus.
We were all sitting in a large room on small steel chairs at the New Commons office last November. Technologists from throughout the OSHEAN membership, gathered as we do each Fall to hold our member strategy session – the event where we plot out our endeavors for the next twelve to twenty-four months.
John Smithers of Johnson & Wales University was addressing the question of what areas should we investigate for the future by saying; “I’d like to know what students will be carrying on campus in five years.” All of us technologists in the room immediately began to think of cell phones and PDA’s, iPods and other portable wireless devices that seem to be everywhere on our campuses today. None of us thought about guns.
Yet we all think about guns on campus now – after Monday. And the questions are being asked. Why didn’t the Virginia Tech administrators do a better job of notifying their community about the impending danger? I for one believe the Virginia Tech administration did a good job with the limited information they had at the time. We now know that faculty and counselors tried to reach out to this very troubled young man. While the media looks to technology for answers for how we might prevent such a tragedy from being repeated, we must all resign ourselves to the fact that this is really a very complex societal problem that mere technology can not adequately address.
It is a well known fact on most college campuses that students do not use land-line telephones in their rooms on campus. The ubiquitous cell phone is the communication tool of choice. Many schools have stopped putting phones in student rooms. Original concerns were that students would not be able to place a call in an emergency, I had not thought much about not having the phones available to reach the students in their rooms. Some schools like Bryant University have installed Voice over IP (VoIP) phones that actually have the capability to receive a text message that scrolls across the LED screen on the phone. This type of technology is only emerging on campuses.
So what about emailing students? Many of us know that students view email from the administrators of a college with the same disdain as email from a bill collector. Such emails are simply relegated to the bottom of the in box. Besides, what percentage of college students do we think have enough time first thing in the morning to read an email from the school administration? It is all they can do to get dressed and get to class. A recent blog I read by dana boyd, a MacArthur Foundation fellow, described how college students today view IM and SMS text as their communications lifeline. They treat email the way we treat junk mail in our U.S. Mailbox at home.
We must now seek ways to deploy technology that will allow us to reach our students wherever they are located, whenever the need arises – via email, or text message, or on any phone they choose. OSHEAN and its members have begun to explore technology on the market that will enable school administrators to send a message (voice or text) instantly to the phone number that people have registered with the school. Several K-12 school districts in Rhode Island already use such a service to contact parents when there are early school closings, etc. Ironically, we had just spoken about pursuing such technology at a recent meeting of OSHEAN CIO’s. It was “on everybody’s list” of things to address. I’m afraid it has a whole new priority and for all the wrong reasons.
I am confident the leaders of our Rhode Island schools will deploy technological tools that will help us better communicate with our communities. But is this just the beginning? Is my generation of technologists (the old grey haired guys) starting to think of how we begin an entirely new model of communicating with our students? If the cell phone is the student’s tool of choice for communications, what else will we need to deliver to that tiny device?
Several trends are emerging that will cast a significant shadow on the landscape of 2015. One is the current k12 statistics that report less the 50% of students complete high school, which in turn leads to an increasing proportion of young adults without college experience at all. These adults will have children whose homes will lack the advantages that accrue from parents who experienced at least some higher education.
Of those that do graduate from high school less than 40% believe that their school work will any bearing on their success in later life.
Other trends that must be recognized include:
· Bimodal income distribution: more high income and low-income groups
· Higher high school drop out rates, especially among minorities
· Weakening academic focus of families (both parents work, more single parent families, more parents chemically dependent, etc.)
· Only half of HS students are taking college prep programs
· College readiness rates (likelihood that HS graduate will achieve a C or better in 1st year college course) aren’t good (e.g., 42% for math, 27% for science)
Combating this are wonderful, creative and rigorous attempts to address these concerns occurring throughout k12 and higher education. But the challenges are daunting. For an example of just one school district trying to make a difference watch “Pay Attention” –
http://t4.jordan.k12.ut.us/t4/content/view/221/35/
(requires QuickTime)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEFKfXiCbLw
(YouTube version)
http://tinyurl.com/359lrj
(TeacherTube version – general link: http://www.teachertube.com/)
http://t4.jordan.k12.ut.us/t4/images/Podcasts-AdditionalFiles/Pay_Attention.avi
Download .avi format
Back to the Robot Challenge…any images/movies out on the web? Whatever happened to the Lego robot challenge that used to happen at CCRI. As the expression goes, “it’s not the destination, but the journey”. However without people coordinating some destinations, there aren’t any journeys for the kids.