Thursday, November 17, 2011

Google, Memory, Free Range Learning, and The Learn Button

Last week we considered Wikipedia's place in the classroom. Given Wikipedia's vastness AND the incredible amount of information available from other sources, the idea of "information overload" is experienced by each of us and our students almost daily.

Today I stumbled upon this infographic which does a  nice job of summarizing our current information culture and how it affects memory. Take a look. (If you want to see it bigger, just click on the image and it will take you to the original.)
Google and Memory
Research and Design by: Online Colleges Site
(Sidenote: I love infographics. Don't know about info graphics? Check out the Cool Infographics blog and I bet you may find one related to your content area.)

So, this infographic does a nice job of capturing the information environment we live in. Yet, what can we do about it?
Dr. Maria Anderson has an idea. Watch her 5-minute talk below, then share one or two ideas that gave you pause to think. How might the way she talks about learning, the Internet, and information impact your work with students?
Posted by Kimberly Allison at 8:14 AM

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Marie A Page's avatar

Marie A Page · 698 weeks ago

Wow - very interesting and thoughtful information. I don't know what I would do - but it leads me to say that I need to slow down and truly think about the information I ask my students to find on the internet and how they should remember it.
1 reply · active 695 weeks ago
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Jennifer Dunham CH's avatar

Jennifer Dunham CH · 695 weeks ago

I agree with you Marie, but I don't think it is only the stuff they find on the internet. I think we need to be really thoughtful about anything we ask students to "remember". I know there are definitely equations that I don't expect my students to memorize in Algebra. They would definitely be able to find them if they needed them outside of my class. I would much rather they remember there is a formula and how to use it than worry about making them memorize it. (Unfortunately standardized testing has a different veiw on what they need to memorize than I do).
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Joelle Tweit's avatar

Joelle Tweit · 698 weeks ago

Very interesting speech and a different way to see our informational world. When she talked about the information nowadays like a waterfall it made sense. We are so overwhelmed nowadays with all of the information we have, ways to access, that our memories are not like they use to be. The think button is a great idea so we can remember what information we got and be able to review it.
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Hilary Ledford (CH)'s avatar

Hilary Ledford (CH) · 698 weeks ago

I love what she said about the difference between information and wisdom/understanding. It is very easy to recite facts, which is a lower level of thinking, but to be able to understand the information, apply it, analyze it, etc. takes a lot more work. The "learn this" button is a way to get information stuck in your brain for a longer amount of time- to store it in memory. I think this is equivalent to an active learning strategy- using the information to ask questions and then providing an answer to that question.
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Kimberly Allison's avatar

Kimberly Allison · 697 weeks ago

Hey there, I just wanted to let you know that I created a "Learn This!" activity for the high school class I'm teaching this semester. Students have already watched a longer version of Dr. Anderson's speech and this will be their first attempt at applying the idea with a topic of my choice. After this assignment, we'll review the Three Story Intellect model and they will practice writing better questions. Then they will practice with their own topic. Here's the link if you want to check it out: https://sites.google.com/site/freerangelearningma...
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Jennifer Dunham CH's avatar

Jennifer Dunham CH · 697 weeks ago

I really had to think about this for awhile. I believe this is a great thought for upper level students and adults. I struggle a little more with its application for younger students though. I think that introducing the idea of how to determine what is relevant and not in realtionship to learning is great, but I am not sure that all students in junior high and below are quite ready to be that in control of what is necessary and not. As an Algebra teacher there are many things that I know students will need to be able to do later even if they don't see the relevance right now. I would want something attached to the learn this button that allowed me to make sure that the students have actually pushed it. That way if I know if is something they need to know I can make sure that it is pushed versus relying on them to determine if it was necessary or not.
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Rhonda Ham CH's avatar

Rhonda Ham CH · 697 weeks ago

I really liked the distinction Maria Anderson made between information and wisdom, understanding, and knowledge. I was having a difficult time figuring out how this could be used in a classroom until I looked at Kimberly's "Learn This!" example. After reviewing Kimberly's Learn This! I thought one way it could be used in an English classroom would be as a Reader Response assignment. The students would create questions about a concept in a novel or story that they would like to discuss with the class or need more information about and after the discussion, they would enter the highlights of the discusssion to help further their own understanding of the story or novel they were reading. I could also see it being used as a study tool for a test in any class where the students create questions and answers from their notes and/or research and then they use it to review the info to determine what they need to continue studying.
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Scott Hagensen CH's avatar

Scott Hagensen CH · 697 weeks ago

This was very informative. I like how it is a good way to organize our information. I like how she called us digital hoarders. I think that really applies to my students. When they are researching they want to save everything. They need a good way to organize their information and only keep what is important. Students need to understand the information they are reading and gain some insight. It seems like most of the students read the information but they do not truly understand or gain wisdom. The think button is a great for students to remember the information and go back and review it.
1 reply · active 696 weeks ago
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Joelle Tweit's avatar

Joelle Tweit · 696 weeks ago

Interesting, they do like to keep every thing the find. But need to find a way to decifer what is important and they should keep and what is not:) Not something I have found a way to do yet with our students:)
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Scott Hagensen CH's avatar

Scott Hagensen CH · 695 weeks ago

It seems like my students what to keep everything they find. They do not pick out only the important things. A good example of this happened the other day. We hand a packet called "Tomb Raiders" , I wanted them to find the main points of the article. They had to highlight the main topic and some supporting points. When I got there articles back, most of the students had highlighted the entire page. It is even worse when we do reasearch on the computers. They want to save every document or copy it down word for word. As a district WE need to teach students how to decifer what is important and what is not.
1 reply · active 695 weeks ago
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Rhonda Ham CH's avatar

Rhonda Ham CH · 695 weeks ago

I agree this is a skill we need to teach students because they don't understand how to analyze what is and isn't important. Teaching students summarizing skills helps but this skill needs to be taught in all subject areas so students begin to see what is and what isn't important. Maybe using something like the think button with a limitation on the number of characters that could be added with each entry would help students learn the concept of important vs. unimportant but interesting info.
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Francis Jequinto CH's avatar

Francis Jequinto CH · 689 weeks ago

Great talk from Dr. Anderson - I watched another web video about how to attempt to gamify a classroom and got very jazzed up about the idea, and what Dr. Anderson talks about is essentially a platform that lends itself very well to gamifying learning.

When she mentioned a "learn this" button, I instantly thought "That would be incredible, but how would that even work?" Then she started to walk through the ideas and really pushed the concept that the desire to truly learn something has to be intrinsic, but that everybody is helped by a little accountability and self-reflective metacognition.

It may be possible to have a low-tech "Learn this" method with my students based on note-cards and having them create & file the items themselves. I'd have to see if the benefits would outweigh the costs, and more so determine what the time costs would be to develop such a method, but it's a fascinating concept.

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