Initial Draft/Working Outline

I have tweaked my topic a bit from tablets and education to how tablets can help children with disabilities-- specifically those with Autism. I’ve focused my outline mostly around sources and quotes that I want to use to help me organize them. If all goes well, am planning on having a complete draft up by tomorrow night.

This is my working outline:

1. Thesis: New technologies such as tablets can help students with learning disabilities--specifically those with Autism.

2. The OED Defines Autism as "A condition which has its onset in childhood and is marked by severely limited responsiveness to other persons, restricted behaviour patterns, difficulty with abstract concepts, and usually abnormal speech development." 

3. Autism has since been recognized as a broader condition. The term "Autistic Spectrum Disorder" was first used in the late 1980s. This term acknowledges that there is a spectrum of Autism. The term is defined "Any disorder in which the subject displays autistic characteristics (esp. impaired communication and social interaction and restricted activities and interests) (OED).

4. Tablets can be used to help autistic students learn in ways that build on their strengths rather than their weaknesses.

5. Author Temple Grandin, who has experienced Autism herself, lists some benefits of tablets for people with Autism. She writes, "These devices are an improvement over previous computers because the keyboard is right on the screen; autistic viewers don't have to move their eyes to see the result of their typing." She then adds, "First, they're cool. A tablet is not something that labels you as handicapped to the rest of the world. Tablets are things that normal people carry around. Second, they're relatively inexpensive...And the number of apps seems limitless."

      a. One website lists 78 free iPad apps for students with disabilities (http://www.slideshare.net/elearningindustry/78-free-ipad-apps-for-students-with-special-needs). Of the 78 apps, 12 are created specifically for users who have Autism.

6. One useful feature of tablets is that they can play videos. Plavnick explains why this is so useful for children with autism, "Explicit instruction in attending to video can be an important skill to teach children with autism as it can lead to the acquisition of new skills via video modeling." 

       a. Plavnick cites a study of video modeling that was done in 2000 which had hopeful results. Out of 5 participants, four children learned desired behaviors more quickly when the behaviors were modeled via video. The fifth child learned at the same pace regardless of whether behavior was modeled in person or via video (Charlop-Christy, Le, and Freeman, cited by Plavnik).

      b. A similar study by a school librarian found, "In our small sampling, every child with autism improved when using the iPad and interactive e-book over text books, except one. However, that student answered 100% of the comprehension questions correctly on all four assessments. There were no students whose comprehension decreased when using the iPad and interactive e-book. The rate of increase in comprehension when using the iPad and interactive e-books was 21% in students in middle school grades, 25% in students in the high school grades, and 21% in students ages 18-22. All three groups showed statistically significant improvements in information acquisition when using the iPad, interactive e-books" (Price).

7. Howard Shane warns, “Caution must continue to be exercised to ensure that the dazzle of this impressive technology does not replace a methodical, clinical process that matches a person with communication assistance needs with the optimal communication technology available” (1229). However, he later adds, “The widespread uses of innovative technology across every segment of society bodes well for persons with ASD” (1234).

Works Cited:

"Autism, n.". OED Online. September 2013. Oxford University Press. 6 December 2013 <http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/13363?redirectedFrom=Autism>.

Grandin, Temple and Richard Panek. "Excerpt: Author Temple Grandin Reports on The Autistic Brain." Time. Time Magazine, 19 May 2013. Web. 6 December 2013.

Plavnick, Joshua B. 1., plavnick@msu.edu. "A Practical Strategy for Teaching a Child with Autism to Attend to and Imitate a Portable Video Model." Research & Practice for Persons with Severe Disabilities 37.4 (2012): 263-70. Web.

Price, Amy. "Making a Difference with Smart Tablets." Teacher Librarian 39.1 (2011): 31-4. Web.

Shane, Howard1, howard.shane@childrens.harvard.edu, et al. "Applying Technology to Visually Support Language and Communication in Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorders." Journal of Autism & Developmental Disorders 42.6 (2012): 1228-35. Web.

Finding the Middle Ground: Balancing Technology and Traditional Education

Working Thesis:
Technology can be helpful in education when used in moderation. However, it should not replace traditional instructor-taught learning, but should supplement it.

Preliminary Exploration:
-Posts on Disrupting Class
-Playlist on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJ0uEtt00EyPudmz-nUsBBwcMmJgplv8v
-I made a list of helpful sources in my post that I created before reading Disrupting Class: http://teamstarbuck.blogspot.com/2013/10/education-and-digital-culture-in.html

Relevance:
-To Digital Culture: Technology is a hot topic in education right now. This topic is very relevant.
-To Specific Audience: Sometimes it's easy to get caught up in how to use all of the new tools that are available. My project will allow educators to take a step back and realize that technology is best used as a means to an end rather than the end itself.

Format:
Editorial or Editorial-style blog post

Outlet:
Potential outlets include:
DHQ Editorial (http://www.digitalhumanities.org/dhq/submissions/index.html)
Guest Blog on Edutopia: (http://www.edutopia.org/contact-us)
Guest Blog at Edgital: (http://www.edgital.org/guest-blogging/) Note: This outlet would require that I focus in more on informal education. Right now my focus is on public education.

Curation:
-Disrupting Class-- I feel like this book argues for too much of an emphasis on technology, rather than a balance.
-TED Talks: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJ0uEtt00EyPudmz-nUsBBwcMmJgplv8v
(The )TED talk by Paul Anderson was especially relevant.)
-Anderson's website: http://www.bozemanscience.com/about/
-I made a list of helpful sources in my post that I created before reading Disrupting Class: http://teamstarbuck.blogspot.com/2013/10/education-and-digital-culture-in.html
-A personal interview with a middle school teacher who received a grant for each student in her classroom to receive iPads
-Independent Study's website: https://is.byu.edu/site/about/coursetypes/tl.cfm (explaining a balanced course model that integrates both technology and the influence of a teacher)

Social Proof:
-My roommates have given me a lot of input into ways that they have seen technology successfully and unsuccessfully used in classes (one of them hates Powerpoints; the other has found that technology has hindered her attempts to research (she says that she needs to become more familiar with it before it will really be useful to her))
-Interview with a middle school teacher: She has found that increased technology in her classroom has pros and cons, but she says that overall she likes having more technology in her classroom.
-I also plan to speak with a public librarian tomorrow evening to get her input.

Next Steps:
My next step will be to write a draft of my editorial. I'm interested in seeing how I will be able to talk about this in an Editorial or guest blog rather than a more traditional scholarly source. I think I will need to rely more on personal experience and insights with minimal external sources, which will be tricky. Because of this, I want to run my draft by someone before I finalize it.

Youtube Curation Follow Up Post

I have written a post previously about how I feel about Youtube as a curation tool (for those of you who didn't get a chance to read my work, I found Youtube to be distracting and not terribly helpful. I would not recommend it.) This post will be taking a look at some of the content that I have found on Youtube regarding education and technology.

As I mentioned, the videos that I have found the most helpful have been TED talks. My favorite TED talk was by Paul Anderson. Paul Anderson talked about how technology in the classroom can be very useful. However, he pointed out the dangers of relying too much on technology by comparing that type of technology-reliant classroom to how young Spock learns in the Star Trek reboot movie. He reminds us that most students would be bored out of their minds by just watching videos all day and reciting memorized facts. In his experimenting with using more technology in his own classroom, Anderson also found that there is a great danger of neglecting of reading. It is easy to forget how important reading is, but videos and technology cannot replace the benefits that come from reading. I feel that Anderson's views on technology and education address some concerns that I had after reading Disrupting Class. He does not advocate separating students by learning style, but rather gamifying the classroom so that each student can learn at his or her own pace while still being able to work with one another. There was a link in the video description to Paul Anderson's website with more information on the topic.

Raj Dhingra also gave a TED talk about education and technology. He recommends what he calls blended learning, in which teachers function as coaches/tutors rather than the traditional teacher who is in charge of deciding what students learn. This is also called student-centric learning. This philosophy about teaching reminds me of the recommendations made in Disrupting Class. For my thoughts on the problems inherent in this type of system, feel free to take a look at my previous blog post on the topic.

In summary, while I did not find YouTube to be a helpful curation tool overall, I am glad that I used it because I likely would not have found Paul Anderson's philosophy on gamifying his classroom without using Youtube specifically.

Youtube as a Curation Tool

I chose to try to use Youtube as a curation tool to organize videos as I learned more about education and technology. I have come to the conclusion that Youtube has potential, but perhaps I don't have the self-control to use it.

I just want to point out that I generally do not have a short attention span. In fact, I think I'm rather good at sitting down and focusing on one subject for decent amounts of time. However, using Youtube as a curation tool ended up being a lot more challenging than I had anticipated.

I initially chose to use Youtube because I liked the idea of using it for academic purposes. I was interested to see what types of videos people had posted about education and technology. As I searched, I found a variety of videos-- many of which were not worth saving to my playlist. The most useful videos that I found all seemed to be TED talks, which was interesting. I had never really taken the time to watch TED talks before, so it was interesting to do so now. I thought many of the presenters had interesting ideas about how to improve the use of technology in education.

One of the biggest problems that I had with Youtube was my attention span. I will admit that I was distracted by advertising that popped up before I could watch my videos (the extended version of The Hobbit is coming out next month!) By the time the video started, it took a great deal of effort to re-focus on my subject again. Most of the videos that looked promising were over ten minutes long, and I found that sitting down and watching an entire video before adding it to my playlist slowed me down significantly. After struggling with this for a while, I started saving videos to my playlist to watch later. That has helped me to work on this project a little at a time by breaking it into more manageable chunks.

The conclusion that I have come to as I've used Youtube as a curation tool is that it has potential. However, I think that other curation tools would be more useful for me personally. If any of you are interested, here is the link to the playlist that I have been compiling (keep in mind it's still a work in progress!)

Have any of you had greater success in using Youtube as a curation tool?