Doug Ward

An organization called Reclaim Open Learning held its first symposium last week. The organization promotes innovation in higher education through the use of technology, online resources and open learning in unconventional ways.

The approach and goals of Reclaim Open Learning aren’t for everyone, though I embrace most of the same principles in my course Infomania. I found the comments emerging from the symposium thought-provoking and useful. I created a Storify compilation of some of the tweets on learning, innovation, promoting change, and the role of education in a digital age. You’ll find that compilation on another site, Teaching with Technology. I’ve provided a taste of some of those tweets here.

Doug Ward is an associate professor of journalism and a fellow at the Center for Teaching Excellence. You can follow him on Twitter @kuediting.

Before you ban cellphones and laptops from your classroom, consider this: Students want to use those devices for learning and are looking to their instructors for guidance.

That’s one of the takeaway points of the latest study by the Educause Center for Analysis and Research on students and information technology. The center, known as ECAR, has conducted an annual survey of undergraduates since 2004, accumulating a wealth of data on students and technology. This year’s survey drew 113,000 responses from students at 251 colleges and universities.

Most of the key findings in this year’s study mesh with my own experiences with students. Among them:

Students value the social component of education. More than 40 percent of students have taken an online class, but most still prefer in-person classes that give them the opportunity to interact with instructors and fellow students. Older students who have jobs report a higher preference for online classes.

Students like classes that blend online and in-person components. They say that they not only prefer classes with a flipped, hybrid or blended approach but that they learn more in those classes.

Students want instructors to integrate technology into learning. Nearly three-fourths of respondents would like to have online access to recorded lectures, and slightly smaller percentages would like to see more use of learning management systems like Blackboard. They would also like to see more use of online collaboration tools.

Students’ ownership of technology is growing. Ninety percent of students own at least two Internet-capable devices, and 60 percent own three or more. This includes laptop computers (90 percent of students own one), smartphones (75 percent) and tablets or e-readers (48 percent). Students who own more technology are also more likely to see its potential for learning.

One of the most important points of the survey, I think, is that students want their instructors’ help in understanding how to use new software and new technology, and to use digital tools for learning. Not for texting. Not for watching YouTube videos. For learning.

Saying and doing don’t always go together, of course, and as the study points out, this is an ambiguous and often contentious issue. Students want to learn with technology, but most prefer to separate their social and academic lives. They value their privacy, and they express hesitation about software that tracks their academic work and gives them recommendations for course offerings. They also understand the distractions that technology can bring to the classroom, and many prefer to keep their phones stowed away. Others chafe at bans on technology in class, something that large percentages of instructors do, the survey says.

Despite the distractions that technology can bring, it is an integral part of students’ lives. It’s also an integral part of the learning equation. For instance, 60 percent or more of students say that technology helps them feel more connected to their college or university, and to their instructors. They also see it as important not only for their academic success but for their success in the workplace.

There’s no one size fits all approach to technology in the classroom, but it’s clear that we need to do a better job of harnessing the power of technology for what instructors and students say they want: more opportunities for learning.

Doug Ward is an associate professor of journalism and a fellow at the Center for Teaching Excellence. You can follow him on Twitter @kuediting.

I got a reminder this week of the value of collaboration.

In my 300-level hybrid class Infomania, I asked students to critique a hierarchical model of information and information processing explained by Gene Bellinger, Durval Castro and Anthony Mills.

The model, originally proposed by the organizational theorist Russell Ackoff, is often portrayed as a pyramid with data at the bottom and wisdom at the top. The model has come under criticism for being too simplistic, and yet I find it useful in helping students consider the complexities of information.

In Infomania, students work in one of five groups online and in person. We generally have one class period each week devoted to discussion and another devoted to project work.

At the start of discussion this week, I gave each group a different question related to the readings and then had students explain what their groups talked about and what conclusions they had reached.

I was reluctant to assign the question about information hierarchy, fearing that it would be too difficult. I was curious, though, so I asked students to consider this: What, if anything, is missing from Ackoff’s hierarchy of information?

When it was their turn, the students who had that question didn’t hesitate. They said the model needed a better explanation of how one moves from understanding to wisdom, the top two layers of the hierarchy. To truly gain wisdom, they said, you have to apply your understanding.

I was blown away. They had altered an established theory of information, making it not only more meaningful but more useful.

I asked another group to explain the components and importance of digital literacy, the focus of an article by Howard Rheingold. One of those components is collaboration. At one point in the discussion, I asked: What’s the value of collaboration?

One student replied: “Two heads are better than one.”

True, I said. But those two have to listen to each other, engage each other and share meaningful ideas.

That’s the real value of collaboration.

Doug Ward is an associate professor of journalism and a fellow at the Center for Teaching Excellence. You can follow him on Twitter @kuediting.

Notes by hand or with laptops? Sorry, wrong question.

Cathy Davidson raises exactly the right question in the debate about whether students should take notes by hand or with laptops in class. The real issue, Davidson writes, is that instructors should be working to avoid lecture and instead engage students in active learning. Even in a large lecture hall, instructors can use active-learning activities that help students learn far more than they would with lecture. Davidson’s suggestion doesn’t involve digital technology. Rather, she says, a simple notecard will do.

Tom Whitby, in Edutopia, reinforces Davidson’s argument by explaining the importance of collaboration in modern pedagogy.

If textbooks are dead, are universities next?

Educause, an orgranization that focuses on information technology in higher education, held its annual conference this week in Orlando, Fla. Most of the discussions were geared more toward IT than educators, but a few interesting nuggets caught my attention:

• The president of McGraw-Hill Higher Education declared that textbooks were dead and that adaptive learning was the future, EdTech magazine reported, and the Harvard professor Clay Christensen said that online learning was diminishing the importance of traditional universities.
• Blackboard announced a new cloud version of its learning management system and said that it had struck a deal with Lynda.com to provide easy access to Lynda’s online courses in Blackboard Learn, EducationDive reported.
• Reporting on their use of predictive modeling, representatives of Sacramento State University said that students who enrolled in summer classes after the freshman year of college, took freshman seminars, and took a full load of classes during their freshman year were more likely to graduate than those who didn’t.

Helping students take control of class discussions

In an article in Hybrid Pedagogy, Chris Friend shares some techniques for letting class conversations evolve organically. He writes, “A class discussion where the teacher pre-determines the outcome is just a lecture in disguise, dressed up to feel student-centered while still being instructor-directed.”

Making sure all group members pull their weight

Li-Shih Huang offers tips on making sure all members of a project group share in the workload. Those tips include designing projects so that students complete them in phases, allowing students to choose project topics that match their own interests, and helping students become better problem-solvers. You’ll find the full post at Faculty Focus.

Number of stay-at-home college students hits 20-year high

National Journal reports that the number of college students living at home has reached a 20-year high. Tuition increases and “an economy that still feels like a recession to many families” have played a role, National Journal writes, saying that the combination “may be turning more students into pragmatists.” That shift can make diversifying the student body more challenging.

What to do when a class has a wide range of skills

In an article on differentiated learning, Christina Yu offers suggestions on helping students with wide ranges of skills in the same class. She suggests avoiding a technique that is often recommended: having students who understand course material help those who don’t. I wish she had explored that area more. That approach can certainly help in some scenarios. Yu doesn’t dismiss it outright; rather, she includes it in a list of “what differentiated instruction is not.”

A trend worth watching

eSchool News reports that tablet use is growing increasingly common in grades 4 through 12. School tablet use has reached 66 percent in grades 4-5, 58 percent in grades 6-8, and 42 percent in grades 9-12, the publication reports. Moreover, 81 percent of students say that tablets help personalize learning. These are students who will be in college in the coming years.