Emerging Tools

Discover and critically evaluate tools that just may be on the cutting edge.

Learning Objectives

  1. Define Web 2.0 in the context of education in the present day.
  2. Gather and evaluate new online tools.
  3. Write and publish a position statement on emerging tools.
  4. Read and discuss relevant articles on Web 2.0 over the span of the last fourteen years the term has existed.
  5. Cite readings and outside research in written position statement using hyperlinks and APA style formatting.

Raindrop.io tag: onidtools

Introduction

This assignment marks a period of exploration in this course. We’re going to search, try, evaluate, and share. We’ll try and find some new tools and have fun trying them out. Then we’ll take a step back and evaluate and reflect

This first week of the assignment will be for open-ended discovery and testing. The second week will be for criticism, evaluation, and reflection.

I have scheduled three different synchronous sessions during the first week to discuss some big questions: What is Web 2.0? What is your experience with emerging tools in the classroom? Do emerging tools exist that are truly revolutionary?

Lastly, because we will be gathering a great deal of recent resources and tools, we will be collecting those tools in a Google Sheet rather than in Raindrop.io (scholarly articles and blogs will still go in Raindrop.io).

Blooming cherry blossoms with a blue sky behind.

“I’ve come up with a set of rules that describe our reactions to technologies:

  1. Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works.
  2. Anything that’s invented between when you’re fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it.
  3. Anything invented after you’re thirty-five is against the natural order of things.’
Douglas Adams

-The Salmon of Doubt

Readings

Gupta, U. (2014, September 28). Education Technology: Could It Be Different This Time?  EdSurge News. Retrieved June 11, 2018.

Jenkins, H., Purushotma, R., Weigel, M., Clinton, K., & Robison, A. J. (2009).  Confronting the challenges of participatory culture: Media education for the 21st century. MIT Press. Retrieved 5/27/2018. Read pages 5-11.

Pacansky-Brock, M. (2012).  Best practices for teaching with emerging technologies. Routledge.

Optional Readings

Kirschner, P. A., & De Bruyckere, P. (2017). The myths of the digital native and the multitasker.  Teaching and Teacher Education,  67, 135-142. Prensky, M. (2001). Digital natives, digital immigrants part 1.  On the horizon,  9(5), 1-6. Singer, N. (2015, March 11). Privacy Pitfalls as Education Apps Spread Haphazardly. New York Times. Retrieved June 16, 2018.

Instructions

Undertake some exploratory research on the nature of adoption and implementation of emerging web tools in K-12 or post-secondary education. You may evaluate a range of tools in general or you may concentrate on a single tool or subgenre (i.e. curation tools or video chat tools). You may also choose to concentrate on implementation in a specific subject area (e.g., music, math, special education) or a grade/age level. Synthesize your findings in a blog post, title your choice, with the categories “ED431” and “Emerging Tools” (500-1000 words). Keep a record of the online tools that you discover in the Google Sheet titled “ED431 Emerging Tools Compendium.” You’ll be expected to collect no fewer than five online resources or web tools that could potentially be employed in a classroom environment. These can be blog posts, pages for web 2.0 tools, scholarly articles, or other online resources. Develop a position statement on the process of adopting emerging tools in K-12 or post-secondary education. Support your statement with examples the from the readings and from your research. How can web 2.0 tools, specifically those new to the market fit into K-12/post-secondary education? Are they beneficial? What are the potential downfalls? What are the pros and cons of implementing the tool or tool genre that you selected? Are there promising practices or exemplary programs that provide examples? Publish your statement in a blog entry titled “Emerging Tools.”  Remember to use the “ED431” category for your blog post.

Synchronous Sessions

I want to bring us together a bit more this week, as well as give you an outlet other than the Twitter void to engage in and build your PLN. I will synchronous sessions for the first week of this assignment to focus on three questions. Session schedule will be decided and shared in Slack.

  1. Slack #livechat channel. What is Web 2.0?
  2. Twitter using #ed431chat. Are there truly any revolutionary emerging tools? How much is hype?

Participation in these will count heavily toward your PLN assignment but will not count as extra credit sessions. These are pop-up sessions unrelated to course management. As you encounter new tools that you need guinea pigs for, ask your instructor and classmates. Schedule a time and invite us to your “tooljam.”  Organizing one of these would also assist you in clinching a target grade for the PLN assignment and provide you some interesting fodder for an additional blog post or two.

Scoring Guide

 0 Points  Not Acceptable  Acceptable  Target
Writing Standards Assignment is not completed Spelling, style, or usage errors are present; APA styles for  references  and  citations  are not followed No spelling or usage errors are present;  APA styles for  references  and  citations  are followed
Data   Topic is investigated superficially; shared resources are minimal and not always relevant; resources are not tagged properly Minimum number of resources is reported; resources are tagged properly; resources are narrowly focused Evidence of thorough investigation of topic through breadth and depth of shared resources; resources are tagged properly
Reflection Position statement is poorly supported by evidence cited; reflection does not show thoughtful consideration of the implications of K-12/post-secondary mobile tool use Position statement is adequately supported by evidence, but evidence is limited in breadth and depth; K-12 or post-secondary implications are addressed adequately Position statement is strongly supported by evidence from online resources; reflection is thorough and thoughtful; thoughtful consideration is given to potential positive and negative implications of mobile tools in K-12 or post-secondary education