{"id":4539,"date":"2018-01-14T15:18:38","date_gmt":"2018-01-14T22:18:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/stem2018\/?p=4539"},"modified":"2018-01-14T15:19:06","modified_gmt":"2018-01-14T22:19:06","slug":"4539","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/stem2018\/2018\/01\/14\/4539\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;Good&#8221; Digital Tech for STEM"},"content":{"rendered":"<ol>\n<li class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">My &#8220;good&#8221; STEM tech wish-list&#8230;<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<ul class=\"ul1\">\n<li class=\"li1\"><span class=\"s1\">What is\u00a0a good use of digital technology in the math and science classroom?<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><i>I think good use of tech in Math and Science needs to be purposeful, either for the reinforcement of foundational skills and concepts, or the exploration of ideas and themes, or the expansion\/presentation of student ideas and learning. \u00a0<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n<ul class=\"ul1\">\n<li class=\"li1\"><span class=\"s1\">What would such a learning experience and environment look like? What would be some characteristics of what it is and what it isn\u2019t?<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">T<i>his means any program or app used should allow students to have their own account in which to save their progress and review it as needed. \u00a0It should not be a \u201cone size fits all\u201d generic drill and kill. \u00a0It should include aspects of game-based learning to inspire motivation, including containing a relevant or engaging narrative, rewarding accomplishments, and allowing users to continue to replay \u201clevels\u201d until they have successful solved that area. \u00a0The best tech will also have the ability to assess or have inputted as a starting level, the content students are working with, connected to the curriculum. \u00a0If used to reinforce or build on ideas, it will track and be responsive to whether students are correctly choosing their answers, in Math for example, and tailor the next questions to them, limiting (and rewarding!) ones they appear to have already mastered and focusing on the ones they still need to develop skills in. \u00a0Finally, it will allow any on-screen text to be read aloud to students in a variety of languages, as well giving them a place to make notes and share their progress or findings with others.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n<ul class=\"ul1\">\n<li class=\"li1\"><span class=\"s1\">How might a learning experience with technology address a conceptual challenge, such as the one you researched in the last lesson?<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><i>In order to address a conceptual challenge, the technology must provide a narrative scenario that requires a concept-linked problem to be accurately solved. \u00a0It must therefore allow for verbal or textual responses rather than just number-punching or clicking pre-provided multiple choice answers. \u00a0Where misconceptions become evident through failed attempts to successfully answer or solve the problem, the tech must have embedded or linked video and audio content that relates to that misconception or reiterates the problem in a relevant way that encourages the student to rethink her position and reasoning based on questions or new information.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">2. Reflection and reality&#8230;<\/span><\/p>\n<ul class=\"ul1\">\n<li class=\"li1\"><span class=\"s1\">What makes this a good use of digital technology?<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><i>This would be a \u201cgood\u201d use of digital technology because it enhances the thinking of the student and allows for differentiated content and responses, as well as receiving relevant and real-world feedback, encouraging motivation, and allowing for collaboration and sharing.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n<ul class=\"ul1\">\n<li class=\"li1\"><span class=\"s1\">Is this a vision or is it possible in real classrooms? What makes this vision a challenge to implement and what might be needed to actualize it?<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><i>Honestly, this is probably a vision at this point. \u00a0There are some techs that do some of these things, for example <\/i><a href=\"https:\/\/ca.ixl.com\/math\/\"><span class=\"s2\"><i>IXL Math\u00a0<\/i><\/span><\/a><\/span><i><\/i><span class=\"s1\"><i>aligns to curriculum and provides elements of gamification, <\/i><a href=\"https:\/\/www.prodigygame.com\/\"><span class=\"s2\"><i>Prodigy\u00a0<\/i><\/span><\/a><\/span><span class=\"s1\"><i>does an excellent job including narrative and game-based learning into its skill and drill design, with their video claiming to use diagnostic tests presumably to place students in proper content-levels, and platforms like <\/i><a href=\"https:\/\/www.edmodo.com\/\"><span class=\"s2\"><i>Edmodo\u00a0<\/i><\/span><\/a><\/span><span class=\"s3\"><i>or <\/i><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classcraft.com\/\"><span class=\"s2\"><i>ClassCraft\u00a0<\/i><\/span><\/a><\/span><span class=\"s1\"><i>allow for collaboration, rewards and sharing of student created content which could easily include Math or Science lessons. Furthermore, some\u00a0BBC website simulations for beginning Science concepts (see <\/i><a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/bitesize\/ks2\/science\/materials\/material_properties\/play\/\"><span class=\"s2\"><i>here<\/i><\/span><\/a><i>) do a good job allowing students to experiment with ideas and reading aloud the text to them or providing a problem-based scenario to guide their explorations, but to my knowledge there is nothing out there that meets all of these things on my wish-list. \u00a0<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><i>This vision is a challenge because differentiated technology requires immense human planning and front-loading beforehand, not to mention 1:1 device access and reliable, high-speed Internet, teachers who are on-board with the idea, taking the time to set things up and become somewhat comfortable with the tech and the interface itself, and who actually possess, or are willing to make, the time in the school day to promote at-home use or provide at-school use to introduce, train, troubleshoot, use, and follow-up with this technology. \u00a0I don\u2019t think we\u2019re ready for something like this yet on several different levels.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>My &#8220;good&#8221; STEM tech wish-list&#8230; What is\u00a0a good use of digital technology in the math and science classroom? I think good use of tech in Math and Science needs to be purposeful, either for the reinforcement of foundational skills and concepts, or the exploration of ideas and themes, or the expansion\/presentation of student ideas and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51923,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1669385,1839],"tags":[3167193],"class_list":["post-4539","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-a-unpacking-assumptions","category-e-folio","tag-good-digital-tech"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/stem2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4539","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/stem2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/stem2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/stem2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51923"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/stem2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4539"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/stem2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4539\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4541,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/stem2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4539\/revisions\/4541"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/stem2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/stem2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/stem2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}