Blog Juice for Educational Technology

A few days ago, Doug Levin from Cable in the Classroom made a post about a recent report from Education Evolving that discussed what it’s like for technology-savvy students in text-dominated schools. I strongly encourage everyone to read that report - there’s lots of good stuff in there.

Doug’s post reminded me of an article I read a few years back. Michael Russell and Walt Haney from Boston College did some research and found that computer-using students do better in computerized testing schemes than in paper-based testing schemes. In other words, the medium of the assessment matters - students’ results are better when given in a medium to which they are accustomed. This is not that surprising, but it has important implications when most state and NCLB AYP decisions still rely on results from paper-based assessments. In contrast, for most students these days, digital technologies permeate everything they do.

David Warlick and others have been pounding the keyboards lately deriding schools’ current ability to prepare students for the technological future. And while digital divides still exist, there also seems to be a budding idea that, in their current state, schools today may actually be harming digitally-literate students, not just ignoring them. I don’t mean to make more of this than it is, but does anyone have any thoughts about this idea?