Technology with Intention

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How can technology make us more human?

By Jac de Haan On June 21, 2012 · Add Comment · In philosophy

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#flipclass live on-air hangout

By Jac de Haan On June 20, 2012 · Add Comment · In featured, philosophy

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ISTE Ignite sessions

By Jac de Haan On June 11, 2012 · Add Comment · In philosophy

The ISTE conference in San Diego will have over 1000 official events (lecutures, keynotes, workshops, meetups) over 4 days. One of my favorite additions to this year’s schedule is Ignite sessions, 5 minute presentations supported with 20 slides that auto-advance every 15 seconds.

Ignite sessions, started in Seattle by Bre Pettis (MakerBot fame) and Brady Forrest, are typically high-energy and inspiring. ISTE will have 2 sessions – one on Monday the 25th at 8am and the other on Tuesday the 26th at 3:45.

I’m honored to have been selected to present an Ignite session on Tuesday. I thought it would be fun to take screenshots of my presentation as I built it and turn them into a time-lapse video. The result is below for your enjoyment:

Hope to see you on June 26th at 3:45 in room 6A for ISTE Ignite!

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iPad open house – lessons learned

By Jac de Haan On May 16, 2012 · 2 Comments · In philosophy, resources

This is the slidedeck I recently presented to Northwest area educators and IT directors at Seattle’s first iPad Open House, hosted by the Westside School.

The topic was “10 months into a 1-to-1 iPad deployment: lessons learned.” Main take-aways:

3 things we did right

Scaffold for teachers – devices into teacher hands early in the summer. Professional development early in the summer. Regular check-ins to discuss discoveries and obstacles.

Scaffold for students – started the year with no iPads. Conversations around the purpose and benefits of technology. Worked up to single-class use of iPads, then multiple periods, then all-day, and finally students took ownership of the iPads and they move freely between school and home.

Scheduled reflections – students create e-portfolios that demonstrate learning at the end of each term. They use iPads to organize and present their reflections to peers, teachers and the parent community. Students also participate in periodic technology surveys that focus on using devices as a learning tool.

5 things we learned the hard way

Evolving curriculum – middle school is 1-to-1, lower school uses a cart-based system. Teachers will be required to re-envision curriculum every year as upcoming students have a greater fluency [...]

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Jobs from the future: Surfer Surrogate

By Jac de Haan On April 30, 2012 · 2 Comments · In philosophy, tech in the news

Editor note: discussing “jobs from the future” may be a creative compliment to high school classes studying economics, sociology, media literacy, entrepreneurism, etc.

We are currently preparing students for jobs and technologies that don’t yet exist . . . in
order to solve problems we don’t even know are problems yet.

In pondering the Fisch & McLeod’s quote from Shift Happens 2.0, I can’t help but imagine what these jobs will be. While social science fiction focuses on the more glamorous possibilities, the reality is many employment opportunities will be rather pedestrian – back in 1990, a full-time job as a bulletin board moderator seemed futuristic.
surfer surrogate: jobs from the future

Assuming capitalism & consumerism march onward, we still have electricity, and everything that can be outsourced will be, what are opportunities for recent grad employment?

Young people may turn to stints as Surfer Surrogates. A surfer surrogate effectively rents their online identity: travelling with high-profile clients (sports stars, movie stars, politicians, executives) and allowing them to use/tarnish the surrogate digital footprint and geo-location data.

The boss can use a surrogate’s interactive devices [...]

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The Flip – a complete picture

By Jac de Haan On April 25, 2012 · 6 Comments · In philosophy

This position piece was a response to a Learning & Leading prompt, submitted April 9, 2012:

While many teachers have been introduced to “the flip” via the video lessons of pioneers, video is just one example of an evolving flipped teaching sensibility. Flipping is the act of identifying rote or procedural elements of a lesson, shifting this repetitive content to a medium not bound by teacher availability, and empowering students to take an active role in their education.

Flipping is a natural compliment to a 21st century learning environment. The teacher moves through the roles of manager, coach, facilitator & mentor. Class time is spent exploring, discovering, succeeding and sometimes failing. Students work on project-based work and collaborate as appropriate to share information and successes. When a common vocabulary or foundational concept is required, the teacher (or students) can choose how to provide that information in a way that is archived for future reference.

Flipped instruction today is defined by a teacher’s willingness to help students learn how/when they see fit, release control of the classroom experience, and engage in a process of finding the best way to reach and respond to students individually. The appropriate medium to convey information [...]

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Google Glasses + Emotiv = the future

By Jac de Haan On April 16, 2012 · 2 Comments · In philosophy

Spoiler alert: many of us are addicted to connectivity and hyper-awareness of the data streams surrounding our physical world. Manners & cultural values currently create cognitive dissonance as we suppress the urge to look at a smartphone while having a face-to-face conversation, which results in distraction, which results in not being fully present with the person we are speaking with.

Google takes a step towards reducing this internal struggle with the introduction of its Project Glass – a heads-up smartphone display that provides information by projecting onto a lens while you pretend to be fully engaged with whatever you are looking at.

The issue with Project Glass in its current interation is that it requires vocal commands to navigate the interface. What will it take to get from Google’s vision all the way to the vision that Cory Doctorow presented in Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom?

The missing link is a technology that already exists. Emotiv has been working on an product to detect EEG brainwaves and translate them into computer commands. Users can manipulate computers just by thinking.

We [...]

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Music as technology

By Jac de Haan On April 13, 2012 · Add Comment · In philosophy

On Tuesdays & Thursdays I get to hang out with a group of amazing middle school technologists who recently crowd-sourced the following definition:

“Technology is the use of new knowledge to improve our lives by solving problems or making us more productive.”

These world are the culmination of hours worth of discussion about the benefits and consequences of technology. At one moment in a conversation, a fifth grade student dropped this gem:

“Even music can be technology, because it uses knowledge to make our lives better.”

It took me a few seconds of bumbling to wrap my head & heart around the comment – such a profound and innocent statement that fuses the desire to create with technology’s potential to connect us with each other and the world around us.

There’s a beautiful illustration of this concept in Alive Inside, a new documentary that sits at the intersection of technology, music and therapy. Get past concerns of the word “iPod” dropping a bunch of times and watch through to the 5-minute mark where music reveals itself as technology, based on the above student definitions.

“It gives me the feeling of love, romance. [...]

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Growing up digital: parent community conversation

By Jac de Haan On April 9, 2012 · Add Comment · In philosophy, tech in the news

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Learning, feedback, validation

By Jac de Haan On April 2, 2012 · 2 Comments · In philosophy

Researchers say feedback should be timely in order to maximize effectiveness1. Animal trainers understand this – clickers and treats are shared as close as possible to desired behavior. Software developers get it too; agile developers build, test & deploy in quick iterative cycles to figure out what works and what doesn’t.

As a student blogging my own learning experiences, I was reminded of the importance of feedback as validation this week through the very kind words of others around the interwebs. What’s triggering my Pavlovian response this week?

eSchoolNews.com published an article entitled, “Flipped learning: A response to five common criticisms,” in which authors November & Mull reference one of my flipped instruction tutorials in the same on the same page as the incredible work of Dr. Eric Mazur and the ground-breaking process of Ramsey Musallam.
EducationWorld.com names techwithintent.com one of the “Top 25 Blogs for Educators in 2012.”
Alltop decided to add www.techwithintent.com to their list of the “the best sites [...]

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learning in public with technology and education

How can technology make us more human?

#flipclass live on-air hangout

ISTE Ignite sessions

iPad open house – lessons learned

Jobs from the future: Surfer Surrogate

The Flip – a complete picture

Google Glasses + Emotiv = the future

Music as technology

Growing up digital: parent community conversation

Learning, feedback, validation

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