My first computer was a HP Pavilion. I was working in a town about 2 hours from Seoul, South Korea. When I got my first paycheck I went to the bustling metropolis in search of a laptop. I arrived home late Sunday night but couldn’t resist playing with my new purchase. I turned it on and while it booted up I prepared myself a cup of tea. I returned to the pristine new computer, humming contentedly, and promptly spilled my tea all over the keyboard. I tipped the computer up and waited as a cup of tea poured out from between the keys. It was a blessing in disguise. I took apart the computer and the world inside opened up to me. Today I install my own hardware when I need to. That is why I believe that tinkering can be a positive experience for kids.

If you haven’t taken something apart to see how it works, I suggest you do so today. Richard Feynman was a tinkerer. As a child he took apart and fixed radios and as an adult he had a fascination with locks and locksmithing. He also excelled in theoretical physics. Perhaps he was just a curious kid. A group at Harvard University believes, however, that it is the process of tinkering that affects the individual in a positive way. 

The idea of tinkering dovetails with the Constructionism ideas of Papert and is closely related to the Maker Movement. It does not just have to be taking thing apart, either. Consider the multitude of apps that are out there for our smartphones. They have cameras, sensors, accelerometers, and other gadgets that inventors, young and old, utilize in novel ways. What would be the results if schools provided the materials and allowed children to tinker with them? There are a growing number of sources that provide materials and know-how to would be tinkerers, often free, in a growing community based around the ironically named DIY phenomenon. 

​Now we, as educators and citizens, are faced with a question. Is tinkering something that could be beneficial to students? Is it something that should be taught in schools? Can we build progressive curriculum based on hands-on, self-directed projects that encourage the tinkerer in all of us? The research is slowly but surely finding out, and this tinkerer will be closely watching the results. 

This post references the articles by Anderson, Fudge, and the video by White. 

The Fudge et al. (2008) article outlines research that attempts to increase the internal and external validity of the behaviourist practice of using the Color Wheel class management system (CWS). The authors fully disclose the limitations of their study from the beginning which weakens the validity of many of the results they produce from their study. They state that “The current study provides strong empirical evidence that the CWS caused increases in OT behavior. The current study does not show that the CWS is more effective that the independent, group-oriented, response-cost system” (p 589). So the Color Wheel system is effective, but perhaps no better than other behavior management systems. Nevertheless, this type of research is difficult but important and I believe their results, though still weak in internal and external validity, add to the growing body of research concerning this behaviourist practice. Incidentally, the most salient ramification of their study might be the reassertion of the importance of research design in conducting experiments.

The color wheel is a visual representation signifying expectations at any given time. I see this as essentially a primary/elementary tool. Students with special needs could have an individual wheel, the transitions could be indicated by a chime or a change in the intensity or type of light in the room, or by a rearrangement of seating. In a classroom with one-to-one computing or an effective BYOD policy, messages could be sent to individuals, certain programs/functions could be enabled/disabled at certain times, or color schemes could be manipulated remotely. For older students perhaps more subtle methods could be used. Different genres of music could indicate different expectations, for example. 

Emily White uses a variety of techniques in her class. My colleagues have done a great job summarizing and analyzing her methods, both behaviourist or otherwise, in previous posts. I will simply add my observations and the time in the film that they occurred. White uses visual tracking of goals, both class wide (0:24) and individual (0:58). She also utilizes checklists (2:03) and “next steps” (5:52) to help students monitor their own progress. The use of snapping (0:30 and 1:52) is a novel approach to group praise although she employs plenty of verbal praise (0:55 and 5:50), encouragement (4:10), and self praise (0:52 (‘Raise your hand if you are proud of yourself’)). She calls an individual’s name to get them on task at (0:39) but also uses check in a “Behaviour Box” (1:15) to encourage desired participation (in this case, sharing of work). She provides plenty of feedback, whether it be written (0:45), verbal (2:13), or leading questions (2:30). She provides time for students to share their work with the class (1:10) and facilitates peer work (5:40) and writer’s conferences (0:49 and 5:57). Finally, she uses music (4:51). Whether the music is a reward for some prior behavior or to indicate a certain set of class activities, similar to the colors of the Color Wheel class management, is unclear. I have used music in my class during partner or group work as a kind of noise reference. When it gets too noisy, I simply say ‘music’ and everyone tunes into it for a moment before continuing more quietly.

​Watching the video through the lens of behaviourism was instructive because it helps us see how these theories play out in the real world, one that most of us teachers will recognize as ordinary. The Anderson (2008) article, however, encourages us to think about how these theories and practices can translate into the online world. White’s use of self monitoring and feedback could easily translate to an online writing course, as could the sharing of one’s work with peers and the class. The writer’s conferences could conceivably be facilitated online, though resources and bandwidth still represent roadblocks to that ideal. 

​The three sources, the Anderson chapter, the Fudge et al. study, and the White video, all fit nicely together as Theory, Research, and Practice, respectively. It is our job as educators to utilize these three domains in the most effective way possible. 

This post references Sugata Mitra's TED talk, "The child-driven education." It also refers to articles by Gee, Godsey, and Kafai & Peppler. It is a response to the quesiton, "Does Mitra offer a form of 21st century learning? Or is child-driven education suspended in the 20th century?"


Does Mitra offer a form of 21st century learning? The short answer is yes. His experiments show that even with minimal input and direction from a teacher students are able to demonstrate problem solving and content retention. It deviates substantially from the paradigm of the 20th and 19th centuries in which a teacher was the focus of attention and emulation. Furthermore, technology has finally reached a level of sophistication to bring his SOLEs to every corner of the planet. 

I believe Mitra’s statement that “children will learn to do what they want to learn to do” is corroborated by the work of Kafai and Peppler, and that of James Paul Gee. Kafai and Peppler show how online Do It Yourself (DIY) communities demonstrate that children are willing to put in significant amounts of time learning, doing, and teaching the things that they are interested in. Gee points out that children voluntarily invest time in video games to solve complex problems, often collaborating with others to share hints or give assistance. Both articles stress that design is the important impetus that will turn the student’s natural enthusiasm into meaningful educational experiences. This is where we, as some of Mitra’s 100,000,000 mediators, come in. 

Child-driven education is not without its problems, however. Mitra certainly offers a form of 21st century learning, but probably not the only one. I believe children can be self-driven to learn things that interest them and Mitra’s experiments benefited from the novelty of the delivery. Will governments really invest in an education system that cultivates the interests of children over one that prepares them for the myriad demands of a modern economy? At some point, I believe, students need to learn from the masters. The Godsey article points out how some nascent entities are facilitating forms of 21st century learning that are threatening to co-opt the traditional classroom teacher. These same distributing and facilitating organisations seem to be simultaneously reinforcing the expert’s important role in education. 

I experienced a range of emotions while dealing with this material. On the one hand I feel like our way of life as teachers is at risk and all the training I have accrued is becoming obsolete. On the other hand I think the skills gained from the MET program will help me maintain my relevance in the changing landscape of pedagogy. (If education becomes child-driven, the word “pedagogy” itself will become a misnomer).  But in the end, I feel that the 21st century will be, and is, the century of diversity in the realm of education. As technology facilitates innovative teaching methods and exacting data collection and interpretation, we will see that a variety of methods are effective and feasible. It is an exciting time to be a teacher. 

This post is based on Lisa Nakamura's TED talk, "When internet shaming crosses the lines: racial spectacle and memetic culture."

I was glad to hear Lisa Nakamura talk about memes because it is a phenomenon that I have been interested in for some time. When I read Richard Dawkins “The Selfish Gene” many years ago, I didn’t realize that he coined the term “meme” because it seemed like an idea that had been around for quite some time. Now we use the term to talk about pictures and ideas that circulate the internet and carry some meaning for the initiated. Nakamura uses the word trope to describe the same thing. 
    Nakamura describes how memes are related to other media and ways in which it can go viral. Memes need to be funny, shocking, surprising, odd, weird, or otherwise pleasurable or intriguing in order for the consumer to ‘like’ it or pass it on. She also notes that, like a virus, we can pass it on without knowing what we have. In this way cultural stereotypes get passed around and fortified by the viral nature of memes. 
    I began to think about racist and prejudiced jokes while I was listening to Nakamura on YouTube. It is interesting how every culture seems to have similar jokes but the butt of those jokes are a different race or culture, usually one more localized. Every culture has some group that they disparage as lazy, stupid, cheap, or inbred, in the form of jokes. It is the type of thing that only works with a cultural context. If we were to remove the name of the group being mocked, the joke loses its punchline because the cultural context is needed. The racist or prejudiced trope is understood by most, even if they are not themselves prejudiced. 
    I think a point that Nakamura is trying to make is that the visual nature of media that abounds on the internet operates on a less overt level than other forms. With jokes, we must use words and elicit ideas in our interlocutor. With visual memes on the internet we need not even understand the underlieing racism in order to pass it on. 
    Between the article and the video I have come to realize that there are power struggles in the media that we consume on the internet that I never before considered. I think I need to consider what I watch, hear, and see, with a more critical lens in the future.