Welcome! Project Tomorrow annually conducts Speak Up surveys (since 2003), collecting and analyzing data from 18,000 schools across the US, Canada, Mexico and Australia. (You can find many more reports at the Project Tomorrow site).
This Expert Voices blog is a question/answer and discussion forum for the NSDL community resulting from two recent presentations by Project Tomorrow Director Julie Evans. The first was a short presentation to NSDL Pathways projects PIs in May 2009, the second was a June 8 presentation to NSDL staff.
See presentation: Speak Up 2008 National Findings - NSDL 06-08-2009
You can also view Project Tomorrow’s Speak Up blog
Some key findings from Speak Up 2008:
-Speak Up surveys clearly indicate a digital disconnect between student expectations and teacher/parent expectations around use of technology in K12 settings. This disconnect is alive and well, and thriving…
-Students comprise a kind of Digital Advance Team -> they are forward and quick-moving, in both adoption and (perhaps more significantly) adaptation, in the way they utilize technology to enhance their education experience
-”Email is just for grandparents” -> students have moved past email (primary communication tool is social networking); whereas teachers almost universally use email as their primary communication and networking mechanism
-Lower elementary grades are the leaders in virtual and gaming experiences in classroom settings
-Student criteria for evaluating online credibility: .com = not good, don’t use; .edu = good to use; .org = maybe, maybe not; .gov = not to be trusted
-Teachers are accustomed to viewing tech in education as a method of engagement for students. Is it time to move on from this notion? Students have gone way beyond ‘engagement’. They are already engaged - they characterize the use of tech in education settings with a more business-like approach: as a means for achieving productivity gains (e.g., students want to get alerts/reminders via their mobile devices for classroom assignments, homework, projects)
Curious? Bewildered? Fascinated? Explore the information, ask questions, and get answers from Project Tomorrow’s Julie Evans and Laurie Smith. Carry on!
The Middle School Portal 2 Pathways project has started a social network - at this point we have 205 registered users. We started asking people that register to provide us some demographic data - one of the questions is Are you a teacher? and If so, how many years have you taught?
We have this data from 107 users and I have really been shocked at the number of teachers that have over 20 years of teaching (and some have way more than 20 years!) - 32 out of 107. I really did think that there were going to be very few veteran teachers that registered for the social network.
I know you ask teachers what technologies they use - do you ask years in the classroom? Have you been surprised at the age of teachers that are using these new-fangled web 2.0 technologies?