Podcast Reflection #5: EdTechTalk Weekly

Another EdTech Talk podcast is EdTech Weekly with Jeff Lebow, Dave Cormier (mentioned in the earlier blog), Jennifer Maddrell and John Schinker
    In Episode #183, they start with a discussion about the website Needlebase.com which takes content that normally a username/password combination would be necessary for in order to access and makes it available to link for users of Needlebase. It’s an interesting concept that is beginning to catch on but here the issue of privacy again arises, however. Dave mentions that at Purdue they use this to go through the LMS (Which I’m still looking for more info on, but it sounds like it’s their student database) and the administration looks at the kinds of connections people are making as well as how many people are going through it and from there can make a rating of how hard students are trying in their courses compared to peers. Basically, what it sounds like to me is Needlebase takes large amounts of data and makes it easier to reference. It can be used for how people learn online in online courses and such because, as Dave mentions, it can count clicks of links as well as tell how long people might be on certain pages like the "Help" page. This offers vast opportunities in the future to make computer learning and computer-based courses much more tailored to specific needs students and people have.
    Where the interesting discussion begins to take place is when Maddrell poses the question Are K-12 requirements giving students the necessary education, the necessary skills, to properly prepare them for the college level? The problem is one suggests is possibly too much knowledge and comprehension-based curricular education and not enough synthesis and analysis. A look at Bloom’s Taxonomy may help here. This is a hierarchy of learning and effective steps to learn and process information in the best way. Achieve.org is referenced by Maddrell also, specifically Closing The Expectations Gap in 2011. This fact is also thrown in, 40 to 50 years ago 6% of the U.S. population went to higher college level education. Now it is 44%.
    A Harvard study the EdTech hosts bring up addresses that maybe “not every is cut out for college and not everyone should be cut out for college.” DISCUSSION TOPIC IN ITSELF that could get everyone talking. I’m really going to have to find the time to read deeper into this. The hosts ask “Who decides?” Some kind of education, the hosts say, are hard to come by with just a high school diploma. Yet, some of them argue our society is built to where some people lead and others are set up to work the labor jobs. Can this be combated? How will this change in the future?
    Also interesting is the mention of the Horizon Report. This takes into account the technology up and coming for next year, 2-3 years down the line and even 4-5 years. SO, as educators we can look at what we will have at our disposal before we even begin educating, even while we are still in school?! This is intense. Why not be ahead of the game and begin to pick up what you can learn on these new facets of technology that will soon be delivered instead of being left to learn it all at one time once it hits the scene.