Education Week - August 21, 2013 - C6

MOOCs Provider Targets K-12 Teacher PD
By Sean Cavanagh
In attempting to bring “MOOCs” to the
world of teacher training, the Silicon Valley
company Coursera and its partners at universities
and other institutions are courting
a new and potentially vast audience, one that
is becoming increasingly accustomed to receiving
professional training via the Web.
The decision marks the first time that
Coursera—a major provider of “massively
open online courses”—has moved into K-12
education. Until now, the company has provided
free content in higher education, a
landscape also served by providers such as
edX and Udacity.
At this point, seven universities have
agreed to provide free online coursework
through the venture, along with five other
institutions that provide educational content.
The courses will not be offered for credit, but
rather as content that can meet teachers’
requirements to obtain ongoing professional
development through continuing education
units, Andrew Ng, the co-founder of Coursera,
said.
Twenty-eight free online courses are being
provided initially through the program. Topics
range from direct academic content in
such areas as evolutionary biology and literacy
to broader pedagogical lessons, such
as how to structure discussions to promote
learning and how to survive the first year of
teaching.
While the primary audience for those
courses is practicing teachers, including
those in foreign countries, who are trying to
improve their skills, Mr. Ng predicts the online
courses will appeal to others, including
parents curious about the instruction their
children are receiving and online visitors who
are considering a teaching career and want to
understand its demands.
“There’s a huge need out there” for high-
quality professional development, Mr. Ng
said. And “for someone trying to see if [teaching]
is their profession, this would give them
an entrée into what the profession looks like.”
Tapping Resources
Teachers and aspiring teachers are already
tapping online resources for professional
training, evidence suggests. Seventy-four
percent of teacher colleges offered some kind
of online for-credit courses as of the 2009-10
school year, a survey released this year by the
American Association of Colleges for Teacher
Education found.
And the number of teachers using online
professional-development resources, including
social networks, webinars, and professional
learning communities, has risen over
the past few years, according to nationwide
survey results published recently by Project
Tomorrow, an Irvine, Calif.-based nonprofit.
Forty-one percent of the teachers surveyed
reported having taken at least one online
class, up from 33 percent in 2008, according
to the organization, which promotes the in-
novative use of math and science resources
in schools.
The higher education institutions partnering
with Coursera are the University
of California, Irvine; Johns Hopkins University’s
school of education, in Baltimore;
Match Education’s Sposato Graduate
School of Education, in Boston; the Relay
Graduate School of Education, in New
York City; Vanderbilt University’s Peabody
College of Education and Human Development;
the University of Virginia’s Curry
School of Education; and the University of
Washington’s college of education.
In addition, five museums and other institutions
will provide course content: the
American Museum of Natural History and
the Museum of Modern Art, both in New
York City; the Commonwealth Education
Trust, a British organization focused on improving
education and teacher training; the
Exploratorium, a museum in San Francisco;
and the New Teacher Center, a Santa Cruz,
Calif.-based group that focuses on improving
teacher skills.
Leveling the Playing Field?
Coursera forged agreements with the
universities and other institutions after researching
institutions the company believed
were taking innovative approaches to teacher
training, Mr. Ng said.
“We heard a fairly consistent [list of] organizations,”
he said. Other universities and
institutions could join the venture, he said.
Mr. Ng said the new arrangement for
teacher professional development will follow
the same free model his company has used
so far. The only potential cost to users would
be a fee they are charged if they want a certificate
stating they have completed a course.
That revenue would be shared among Coursera
and the institutions, he said.
Robert Pianta, the dean of the Curry school
at the University of Virginia, said his institution
does not expect to receive any revenue
from the Coursera arrangement through fees
or other means. The school is offering an online
course through Coursera to help educators
understand how effective teacher-child
interactions boost early-childhood development.

“This is an opportunity for us to innovate,”
Mr. Pianta said. “It’s a good idea for us to
be experimenting in this way. ...We think
it’s going to help us go out there to a much
broader audience.”
Sharon Robinson, the president of AACTE,
said the Coursera venture reflects the increasing
demand for timely, flexible course
offerings. She said she did not regard it as
a threat to the institutions her association
represents.
“This would help us bring some really im-
portant content to a wider group of users
than would be possible otherwise,” Ms. Robinson
said. “It levels the playing field.”
This article originally appeared in Education Week.
Getting Real About
Educational
Technology
By Kyle Redford
Educational technology enthusiasts regularly make a case
against teachers who refuse to get on the tech bandwagon.
They quickly dismiss anyone who does not wholeheartedly
embrace every element of this new educational frontier. They
raise questions regarding the professional flexibility of these
“resisters.” I actually have a different complaint: I am beginning
to lose patience with the simplicity of the conversation
around classroom technology.
When it comes to discussing the potential of technology in
the classroom, I am neither cheerleader nor denier. But I am
wary of being labeled a technophobe when I occasionally express
skepticism about the educational value of a computer
game or an app. To think critically about technology is not an
automatic dismissal of its potential value. Why are we looking
at educational technology as a monolith—something that
teachers have to absolutely embrace or reject?
I can’t be the only teacher encountering dilemmas related
to the uses of iPads in the classroom. For example, not long
ago, my class was sprawled across the room writing essays on
their iPads during writer’s workshop. I was conferencing with
individual writers while trying to keep an eye on the others.
With a small class of generally independent and invested 5th
graders, this is not typically too much of a problem. However,
something about the way a group of boys had gathered on
beanbags in the class library exuded odd energy, so I moved
in to investigate. As I approached, it was clear that they were
nervously scrambling to close out of something on their de-
vices. One student, less nimble than the others, could not
move quickly enough to hide what had been distracting this
group for the past 25 minutes: Minecraft. After questioning,
I found out that they had been lured down the rabbit hole of
an engaging session of dopamine-rich computer play with
this game, all of them so wired and distracted that they had
pretty much forgotten they were even at school. And this was
not the first time: We had been through this game of cat and
mouse just the day before.
Inevitable Trade-Offs
First let me explain. These kids are not troublemak-
ers. They are not bored. And they are not lazy. They are all
highly intelligent, curious, earnest, hard-working students.
They were devastated to be caught ... again. They were worried
about the consequences, but they were also horribly
ashamed. Two cried. One boy said, “Take the iPad away from
me. I can’t handle it.” A few others blamed Minecraft, complaining
that it was so addictive they couldn’t resist it, even
knowing that playing it would get them in trouble.
As frustrated as I was, I knew that we teachers had our
fingerprints on this problem as well. Why did I expect 10- and
11-year-olds to resist the siren song of the iPad’s distractions
when my adult colleagues and I are struggling with the same
compulsions?
It is time to end illusory thinking connected to educational
technology. I do not have anything against Minecraft or other
digital games. I acknowledge their potential for inspiring creativity,
engagement, and collaboration. But I also want to talk
about real trade-offs. My students need to learn how to write,
and as their teacher, I need to stop suspending disbelief about
the distracting allure of games on their learning devices. Is
it fair to put dessert on their lunch trays and then tell them
that they can only look at it and smell it, but they cannot eat
it until they get home (assuming their parents permit dessert)?
By having gaming apps on their iPads, I am concerned
that I am setting them up for unnecessary failure and shame.
Accuse me of being a tech resister, a slow adopter, or an
“old school” educator for raising these questions. But I am
not afraid of technology. In fact, I am a big fan of educational
technology’s potential to help my students explore ideas or
express themselves more creatively, efficiently, or effectively.
Several of my dyslexic students have recently mastered
speech-to-text software, and it has transformed their abilities
to demonstrate their understanding and align their oral
and written expression. They are now passionate “readers”
because of the accessibility of audiobooks and they connect
with their favorite children’s authors through Twitter. As a
professional, I am grateful to social media for making educational
conversations, resources, and professional-development
opportunities more accessible.
But we need to stop oversimplifying the role tech plays in
our students’ lives. A deeper, more thorough, look at tech’s
benefits and trade-offs is needed. What are we potentially
sacrificing when we do not carefully guide our children’s use
of their devices? Student engagement is an empty notion if
we are not asking how they are being engaged. Are outcomes
enhanced because of the addition of a specific technology,
or hindered? We should be filtering our use of technology
through this kind of inquiry. As a teacher of 26 years, my
central question has always been: “What is the most effective
way to teach this material?”
Daniel Willingham, a cognitive scientist from the Univer-
sity of Virginia, recently did a survey of the research looking
at the learning benefits of gaming. Considering this is relatively
new territory, it is not surprising that the conclusions
raised more questions than they answered. I am not arguing
that we have to wait until we know all the answers to explore
the benefits of gaming in the classroom. But we owe it to our
students to have more honest conversations about the accompanying
untidiness.
Technology in schools is here to stay. Consequently, it is
time for educators to begin to have more sophisticated conversations
about best practices and to explore the inherent
challenges. The learning potential of educational technology
is infinite, but as with every learning tool, platform, or approach,
educators need to sift through the tensions and talk
about the challenges and trade-offs. It’s time to give educators
encouragement to apply critical thinking to technology
without the fear of being labeled a Luddite.
Kyle Redford is a 5th grade teacher at Marin Country Day School, a
K-8 school in the San Francisco Bay Area. She is also the education
editor for the Yale Center for Dyslexia and Creativity. This essay
originally appeared on the Education Week Teacher website.
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Education Week - August 21, 2013

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