Enriched Learning Environments

Patrick McAndrew
10:47pm 4 March 2009 (Edited 11:30am 2 December 2009)

Discussion on Enriched Learning Environments as an open fishbowl!

Peter: Youtube is a search engine. Open Education leads to people in this room. OER – leads to The Who. Youtube as search is showing switch to screen based culture. People want to provide AV resources – need to do three things: 1. Make old material accessible; 2. Make useful in the pedagogy; 3. Produce more material with education in mind.

Vic: mobile phone is good and widely available but a long way from OIPPC (One iPhone Per Child). Experience in using mobile across continents led to greater spontaneity and excitement. Extended classroom into environment. Mobile as data capture track what kids do to help: e.g. “SMS me the problems that you have with tonight’s homework”. For young people SMS dominates over email – email is for old people.

Mike: developed from own experience of a road trip as an educational experience. Book of the experience was not enough so http://www.roadtripnation.com helps students to take road trips where they go and interview and gather stories. Cheap video allows these to be gathered and made available.

Alex: Games are now everywhere. Education Arcade at MIT has started the Learning Games Network. Games are very enriched environment – involve emotion, collaboration, competing, Tried to simplify the technology (flash, Drupal, HTML) enough o build language learning games.

Natalie Lennon
11:25pm 4 March 2009

Peter Kaufman, Intelligent TV
- Opened with a quote from Kevin Kelly of Wired magazine: "From book literacy to screen fluency, where video is the new vernacular."
- Talked about YouTube becoming a search engine.
- Was part of a study at NYU, funded by the Copyright Clearance Center

* various disciplines were surveyed about their use of video (JSTOR, ARTstor, etc.)

Believes that three things must be done to satisfy the demand for audio-visual resources:
(1) old material needs to become accessible
(2) material accessible in pedagogy
(3) distribution done in a way to meet the growing education demand

 Alex Chisholm, Learning Games Network
- Did his Master's thesis on SMS-based technology
- Studied texting vs. e-mail in young people
- Young people text about 80% of the time, and when they e-mail, it's to communicate with "old people"
- Proposed considering ways to incorporate texting in the classroom setting; though it can make classroom management difficult, it's a means to communicate that young people are using, that it's spontaneous and done in "real time".
- A lot more coming up on the iPhone platform: Google maps, rich context of things that pop up relevant to where you are at a certain point in time.

Mike Marriner, Roadtrip Nation
- 7 years ago, shortly after graduation, Mike and his friends were having a hard time finding relevance in their high school education
- The solution?  Take a roadtrip across America.  A purpose-driven trip, not solely for travel.  They got into a motorhome and asked a wide variety of people (lobstermen, environmental scientists, the founder of Dell computers, small bookstore owners, etc.) where they were at 18-20 and how they got to where they are now.
- It was the ultimate enriched learning environment with everything their classroom was lacking and had a profound impact upon them.
- Forbes magazine heard about their trip and chronicled it, which led to a book deal with Random House.  Also led to a lot of public speaking engagements in schools.
- Students were responsive and interested, but the content was still not enough and lacking a real-world connection.
- Led to the birth of Roadtrip Nation, an experiential learning program taking thousands of students on national roadtrips.
- Focus was on students from disadvantaged schools; areas with high gang violence/unemployment.  Allowed these students with no exposure to opportunities a chance to pursue their passions/interests and find relevance in their education.
- Student interests were a starting point driving the program, rather than standards and content being the starting point.
- A question was posed to Mike regarding skeptics who may look at a program like Roadtrip Nation and say "Where's the real learning?"  He wanted to know if any of these nontraditional mediums of learning could scaffold into traditional learning.  Mike ran into that problem with the CA Dept. of Ed., and had to convince them that Roadtrip Nation connected to Califoria State Standards.  He says it fit most snug with language arts standards (reflective writing, journaling), but that it also tied with job-seeking skills and career exploration.

Vic Vuchich, Hewlett
- talked about gaming as a way to connect with students
- cost of development is pricey
- great way to support language learning piece

* Miss Natalie Jeanne