Top 3 Topics in Education for 2023/24

We are back for the 7th year of potentially useful TCAPSLoop EdTech Podcasts. This week's episode set's up some of the topics we will likely be covering throughout the year as Danelle and I countdown our "Top 3 Topics in Education for 2023/24".

The Rundown

00:59 - Moment of Zen 

Maybe it’s not about trying to fix something that’s broken. Maybe it’s about starting over and creating something better.” – Unknown

 

01:21 - State of the Pod Address

 

03:42 - The Top 3 Topics in Education

 

04:38 - Danelle’s #3:  Accessibility - using research to ensure inclusion 

• TCEA Webinar last week
• captions
• accessible colors 10% of male population is color blind
• hyperlinks not saying “click here”
• Google Apps includes ALT text for images

 

07:35 - Larry's #3:  Microlearning -Microlearning is the delivery of learning content in a short, succinct way, typically 3-5 minutes. Condensing large quantities of information into bite-sized training drives better engagement and knowledge retention for learners, and saves valuable time and money for employers.

• Microlearning Strategies: https://www.edume.com/blog/what-is-microlearning
•  “Today’s employees (students)  are overwhelmed, distracted and impatient”. - Josh Bersin 
• Modern Learner  Infographic
• The Forgetting Curve
• Research shows that microlearning improves focus and supports long-term knowledge retention by up to 80%
• Learners are 95% more likely to retain information presented in video format.
• 68.1% of all global website visits in 2020 came from mobile devices
• Show students how to curate their social platforms to maximize personal learning and growth. Prune the feed toward specific content areas. It will give you those small doses of microlearning around the subject matter of interest.

 

11:02 - Danelle’s #2 - Digital Wellness - intersection of is widely known as digital citizenship with news literacy. 

• New report from Common Sense - Constant Companion: A Week in the Life of a Young Person's Smartphone Use | Common Sense Media
  • This year, Common Sense has focused our research efforts on hearing directly from young people about both the role and the impact of media and technology in their lives. This report fills a gap in our understanding of how teens actually use their smartphones, combining data from kids' phones themselves with feedback from our Youth Advisory Council. And they told us that the draw of their smartphone is both complicated and powerful. Here's what else we learned from this report:
    • Teens are fielding a barrage of notifications from the apps on their phones. On a typical day, participants received a median of 237 notifications. Of those, about a quarter arrived during the school day, and 5% at night.  
    • School phone use is common, and policies are inconsistent. During school hours almost all of the participants used their phones at least once, for a median of 43 minutes. But they also reported that policies about phone use in schools vary—sometimes even from classroom to classroom—and aren't always enforced. 
    •  Smartphones both help and hurt sleep. Over half of participants used their phones on school nights, often to listen to music to wind down or get to sleep. But sometimes their days are so busy that they only get to relax with their phone at bedtime, and that pushes sleep later. 
    • The good news is, many young people reported they have grown savvier about their phone's attempts to draw them in, and they're taking steps to protect their digital wellbeing, like setting time limits and prioritizing certain types of notifications. But the business model of these apps and devices hinges upon young people picking up their phones and engaging with them as much as possible, and it's clear that teens are struggling to set boundaries. Research like this helps shed light on what young people are really doing on their phones, and allows families, educators, and leaders to better understand where and when to provide support. But the industry can take steps to recognize that young people need to be able to use their phones for all of their important benefits but without the challenges that negative content, persuasive design, and aggressive business models pose to digital well-being.
• News Literacy in a time of AI - AI can be used to create videos, images, text that can easily fool you if you’re not on top of it. The News Literacy Project - https://newslit.org/  - is doing amazing work in this space, and I’m excited to highlight their offerings for our listeners this year. 

 

13:01 - Larry’s # 2 - Academic Recovery/Accelerated Learning - Accelerated learning may sound like a method for speeding through lessons to cover everything students didn’t learn in previous grades. It's not. Accelerated learning does not look back. It moves kids forward to tackle grade-level content, providing them with help when they need it. It’s not “just-in-case” remediation. It's “just-in-time” scaffolding.

 

• Techniques: https://www.hmhco.com/blog/accelerated-learning-techniques-for-the-classroom
•  High Impact Tutoring: https://annenberg.brown.edu/sites/default/files/EdResearch_for_Recovery_Design_Principles_1.pdf

 

15:25 - Consensus #1 - Artificial Intelligence - We’ve stepped on the gas instead of hitting the brakes.

• Stanford Graduate School of Education Dean Daniel Schwartz in his opening remarks. “I want to emphasize that a lot of AI is also going to automate really bad ways of teaching. So [we need to] think about it as a way of creating new types of teaching.”
• Eduaide
• Khanmigo
• https://www.unite.ai/10-best-ai-tools-for-education/

 

20:23 - Tech Tool of the Week:

FigJam - jamboard sunsetting in 2024

 

Thanks again for listening and inspiring!

 

Hosts: Danelle Brostrom, Larry Burden

Um and Ramble Editing: Larry Burden