Class 2 - Wednesday, April 9, 2014
The class of April 9 was very fast paced and hectic. We did spend some time examining the concept of "Presumed Competency". For me this is a key concept in education in general. I think we should err on the side of caution by taking a more positivist stance around the competency of all of our students. As the video of Susan Rubin demonstrated, appearances and actions can be deceiving. We often will want to believe one thing until proven otherwise but in education a lot of crucial developmental time can go by until this happens and as a result alot of damage can be done. I am seeing that it may be more prudent to exercise a principle of presumed competency in all our interactions with all students.
An article for further reading on this concept;
http://sssresourcelibrary.wikispaces.com/file/view/Presuming+Competence+EE_article_6_06__3_.pdf
Another from the Journal of Intellectual and Developmental Disability
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13668250701704238?journalCode=cjid20#.U0refPldWSo
One with a view from Autism
http://emmashopebook.com/2013/03/07/presume-competence-what-does-that-mean-exactly/
We began the night with a presentation on assistive technology. The information from the presentation was basically that the student in the video felt he performed much better in school with the use of an Ipad then without. I am not sure if I an entirely buy into that just yet. I think the Ipad can revolutionize education but good teaching will always be good teaching - an Ipad cannot replace that. You can get an app for taking notes but a student still has to be taught how to derive the important information from the text - the app will not do that for them. I am wary of the Ipad being regarded as good because it is "fun" to use.
One comment from the class in response to the presentation was that schools should make a call for "Bring Your Own Device" -BYOD or at least respond to the requests to do it as some other schools have done. My school has attempted this and did not lay down any guidelines for proper use and responsibility of the devices and no find themselves on the hook to angry parents because a grade 9 student had their IPhone 5 stolen. The parents have argued that if the school has been inviting the use of the device in the classroom there was as assumption on behalf of the student and parents that it would be safe to do so. They were not given due caution that the device could be stolen and so assumed that the school had put protocols and policies in place that would minimize the risk - the school did not do this and in their zealousness to be "innovative" the administration find themselves now in a very uncomfortable place. I believe the Iphone 5 is about $600.00- $800.00 - I would not encourage my child to bring one - nor would I attempt to have such valuable items be brought to school without parents realizing the risk so they could properly decide themselves.
I really like the idea that every classroom should have a set of IPads. As an instrumental music teacher I would love to be able to have all of our band music on them - a student will never forget their music binders again. I also like the idea that Ipads require less Tech support than the desktops we have. I have to research some apps that were mentioned in class: Typo, Playaways, Read Iris. I will add to this post later this week.
Hi Victor! Thanks for your post! I always appreciate that you think critically about information presented in our Masters courses.
ReplyDeleteRegarding BYOD, I've only ever taught one student who consistently brought a device (an iPad) to school and used it for educational purposes, and he was a very responsible grade 11 International Baccalaureate student. It was great for him, but I'm not sure I would want to encourage grade 9 students to bring this expensive technology into my classroom.
While I also think it would be great (and an ideal world) if every classroom could have a set of iPads and students could use the dropbox to "carry" documents from class to class (or every student could have a iPad), I've been thinking about some of the iPad limitations as well. For instance, I wonder about investing such a large amount of money into a technology that is upgrading very quickly and might become obsolete. I also worry about this technology replacing reading and writing because Siri and the speech selection reading feature allows everything to become oral. While this may be helpful at a senior high level, when students are meant to be learning to read and write, could an iPad interfere with the process? Additionally, I'm thinking about the limitations of typing everything. There are people who might say that handwriting is no longer a necessary skill, but if students can't read handwriting, what happens to our study of historical documents?
Hmmmm. Food for thought!
Victor I appreciate your perspective however if a teacher is thinking about access for students with disabilities to your curriculum that teacher is considering Assistive Technology, the easiest to use AT, the AT that does not stand out as "different" and AT that is most effective to utilize and access despite the cognitive, physical or sensory barriers...today that is the iPad. I agree that just an iPad doesn't mean good teaching. That is where UDL and accessible curriculum design comes into play. With the appropriate AT, ALL students can access UDL structured curriculum/activities ...that is designed by the teacher. Thanks for sharing your thoughts and insights. It is always good to have all perspectives.
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