My goal here is to show at a high level some aspects of a vision for a transformation of my teaching practice and my future classroom. This is a designed future where I envision students with greater autonomy and agency who are able to benefit from personalized education in a smart classroom.
Given my belief that smartphones have become students’ constant digital companions and like body parts, I also believe that students’ smartphones are an ever present tool that can be used for learning.
This then brings forth the issue of smartphone distraction when students already have their smartphones in their hands.
I envision my classroom being a smart classroom where my goal is to use adaptive learning and active learning to set the stage for my students to benefit from personalized learning. The version of the future I present here is a designed one. It is not a prediction, but a hope, a vision. It is what my classroom should be and could be but it requires effort. Here my use of the term smart classroom has the same meaning as “technology-enhanced learning environment” that I acquired from my studies in the MET UBC program.
What I present here is in my mind a low hanging fruit, the design of a software agent to combat smartphone distraction when students have their smartphones in their hands.
My A3 media property is HERE.
(I am trying out a new presentation software for the benefit of my students so please be kind. Thank you.)
Hi Ram.
I guessed you used Twine (and I found I was right in the comment) to create this presentation. It is a very informative and detailed project which proved that you had spent a long time thinking about it.
I want to add something to Benjamin’s comment that a link of “back” is needed, but a link that sends viewers back to each milestone page (a page with diverse links to different subtopics) is necessary. Your presentation includes many concepts and important flows. It would be great that viewers can go back to check out those important ideas. It is doable technically, however, it is going to spend a lot of time.
I have some thoughts if you are looking for suggestions. First of all, in the Task List, we may need more selections than “doing, partly done and done,” for example, Pending and Cancel are needed.
To the Distraction dialogue model (it is a very interesting function), we should set a limit to how many times a student can use “break” and “let me be” to prevent the abuse.
You said something like a blacklist of distractive websites and applications running in the back end to monitor students’ windowing activity. Why don’t we just prevent those websites and applications? Can students customize the list? How can we prevent them from abusing the customization?
I hope these questions can offer some help. It is a very educational project.
Yi
Hi Yi, Thank you for your feedback. You made some very good suggestions. Thank you. Your suggestions for the blacklist is excellent. I will consider it. Thanks. Ram.
Hi Ram, you did a great job of creating a detailed scenario of your vision for your practice change. As I have a personal interest in the use of smartphones in the classroom, I was particularly intrigued by GoodHope- A software agent. The design of if is brilliant. I appreciate how you were able to add different aspects to it like audio, video and wearables, all aspects of mobile technology that we have discussed in this course. I think teachers would find the agent very useful. I would make them feel more in control of what is happening in their classroom and make some teachers more open to allow students to have their phones in class.
On the other hand, I was wondering if you had considered the privacy aspect of the agent given that it will access some of the student’s data on their phone? Would their parents have to first give consent?
On a technical note, the display of your project was not responsive on my phone, so I had to zoom in and zoom out a lot. I also made the mistake of hitting the back button in my browser at one point and I had to go through the whole presentation again. There was no way of skipping ahead.
Thank you for sharing your vision with us.
Hi Veronique, Thank you for the great feedback. I agree with you, privacy is always a concern and when fully implemented parents consent would be necessary. My thoughts are that the first versions of the agent can be simple where the agent only manages task lists with no personal data of the student. The agent is added to the student’s smartphone in a similar manner to how a student add other apps to their devices and if they require parent’s consent for doing so then the same applies to the agent. In the final versions of the agent when the agent does more for the student then parent’s consent would be required. The assumption is that the teacher and parents would need to negotiate this in exchange for the benefits that the agent offers to the student and parent.
Hi Ram, thanks for sharing your A3 project. You did a good job of informing the viewers of your task and how transforming a classroom with smartphones. I have to ask what program you used to create this? I think you did a good job using it and I would like to try this program in the future. I really enjoyed the music to the slides as I was reading. I also liked reading the different definitions of what a “Smart Classroom” is. I liked hearing about your take on smartphones as a distraction. This one spoke to me because I teach younger students and when I bring out the tablets they already know what they want to do as they have had so much free time at home with them. I feel its a big distraction when you have students not interested in what you are wanting to teach them because its already below their learning level. You put a lot of time and energy into this project, well done! Thanks for sharing!
Hi Tyler,
Thank you for your comments. The program I used is Twine https://twinery.org/
I plan to use it with my students. Yes, I would encourage you to try it with your students. I believe your students would like it. Thanks! Ram
Twine is awesome I learned about it in the Digital Literacy course. Only wish there was a “back” option.
Hi Benjamin,
I understand what you mean. I imagine you could make a “Back” option by adding a link back, but yes, there is no “Back” like on web browsers.
Hi Ram, I had no idea that was twine! Good job. I first started using twine this year and it still amazes me. I was hoping my students might enjoy learning twine this upcoming year. It could go over their heads being little kids but maybe some. Thanks again!