Learning with Technology

Guest Blogger: Uzoma James Chikwem

There is no question that there has been unbelievable technological revolution in recent years that has changed our businesses, governments, travel and pretty much everything but our educational system, which for the most part, is still stuck in the past. There has been a silent but quick mobile apocalypse that have made most smart phone users, especially millennials, become almost like mobile zombies, or social media fiends, that live with an uncontrollable urge to be plugged into their smart phones at all times. In education, we always observe that it gets tougher each year to grab the attention or interest of students due to what’s trending on social media or some new technological announcement like the new iPhone coming out. Even after creating the best PowerPoint presentations or coming up with simple but profound handouts that explains everything about a topic, a majority of students will still be on their phones or passed out during class.  The fact that students have the internet in their palms on a mobile device that has more power and memory than some personal computers, makes them feel like genuine geniuses. Students can find out any answer or solution by asking Siri or Google or get the latest information on certain fields by following pages on social media. I believe this misleading intellectual feeling of being able to know it all by using their second brain, their smart device, is hindering or distracting students from paying attention or wanting to learn anything in the classroom.

With all the technological advances that has happened just in the last year alone, for example the use of Virtual Reality plus Augmented Reality on phones, students often feel like they are in an ancient dungeon when they come to the classroom and all they see are desks, blackboards or whiteboards; even books and smart boards seem old fashioned to them.  When Apple coined the phrase, “There’s an app for that” it literally revolutionized the way everything is done in our day to day lives; instead of reading books we can now just listen to them using audible; if one doesn’t know how to solve a math problem, they can simply take a picture using PhotoMath and it will quickly show the results and steps to solving the problem.  These two simple ideas for apps are making lots of money and made life easier for users but can ruin the fun of learning and the challenge of understanding how to get solutions to a problem. Through critical thinking, analysis, memorization and repeatedly practicing problems anyone can learn any subject or topic by putting time trying to understand it. Even though it seems like a lost cause trying to teach nowadays, I often get praised for how fun my classes are or get to view the excitement of students when they figure out a lab or project. All because I use technology to get students to learn, and if I can do it, we all can.

Since the educational problem we face isn’t just happening at Lincoln University but internationally, computer scientists, web designers and others are teaming up together to try and tackle this huge issue of lost interest in learning and education. There are tons of resources out there to assist in getting the interest of students in different topics. I would like to help by listing some programs and websites I use in my courses but would like to hear from faculty or students if there are other sites, apps or anything else they use to grab students’ interest in participating and enjoying the learning process.  First off, I’d like to mention that I am in Computer Science and my focus is Educational Game Technology so I am already at an advantage because most of my labs, projects and tutorials involve use of fun technologies and hands-on learning. Although, I have had a lot of computer science faculty just lecture the whole class and totally lost me because I wasn’t practicing or being hands on with the topic, I have had some great professors, like Professor Barimani, whose style of teaching I try to utilize every time and add my own flavor to it. He made sure that in every class he left room for students to practice what he just taught, then gave feedback plus projects before ending the class.  When using technology for teaching, just don’t throw it at students and expect them to pick it up easily; one should always give a tutorial or workshop on how it works, what you expect them to accomplish; guide them by giving requirements, labs and more and make sure they know it’ll be part of their final grade to complete plus participate.

Here’s a list of apps and website that can help students to Learn through Technology:

Name	Link 1	Link 2
Moodle rooms	Android Link	Apple Link
Khan Academy	Students	Faculty
Google Classrooms	Android Link	Apple Link
Kahoot	Android Link	Apple Link
Quizlet	Android Link	Apple Link
Prezi	Website	Mobile
Ted-ed	Website	Lessons
Science360	Android Link	Apple Link
Google Hangout	Android Link	Apple Link

Please research the names on the list, click on the links, download the apps and in Part 2, I will describe in more detail how to use them in classes.  Also, please leave a comment on how you utilize technology in your courses and any other tips you might have of grabbing student’s attention.

Teaching Diversity

Unlike the current White House administration, the average Lincoln classroom is tremendously diverse. A first glance through Lincoln’s gates, or at our Fact Book*, reveals a largely African American student body composed of more women than men (63% women at the undergraduate level, 71% at the graduate level), but you don’t have to dig very deep to find that our students come from different social, socioeconomic, geographic, religious and cultural backgrounds. Lincoln has a little over 3% international students, many of whom come from west African and Caribbean countries, and we draw American students from 30 states. Many of our student are first generation collegegoers with neither parent ever attending college. About a quarter of our students have parents that live together, more than half (64%) have parents who live apart, while a full 10% have lost one or both parents. Religious backgrounds vary (although a vast majority come from families that identify as Christian), as do cultural identity, sexual orientation and gender identity. Add to that the students’ physical abilities and disabilities, along with mental, emotional, and cognitive abilities, and you paint an even richer picture of diversity. We have students that are athletes, dancers, musicians, writers, visual artists, activists, leaders, followers – the list goes on. The point: our classrooms are diverse. 

With diversity comes strength; any ecologist, whether a biologist or sociologist will tell you that a diverse ecosystem is more stable, resilient to disturbances and recovers more quickly when catastrophe strikes. But diversity can also bring challenges including less cohesiveness and effective communication side by side with increased anxiety and unease. Both faculty and students are bound to make assumptions based on their own cultural frame of reference. For example, you may talk about parents as being married, or assume that a household has a mother and a father, but our Fact Book tells us that this only holds true for a quarter of our students. What if a student was raised by two moms or two dads? Changing the language in the classroom to be more inclusive may mean that more students feel valued, which translates to a sense of belonging. Anytime students feel like they belong, they are more likely to contribute to classroom discussion and to be engaged learners.

It is also useful to identify the assumptions that the students bring to the classroom and begin to deconstruct biases and beliefs that are obstacles to group discussions or projects. I must admit that I don’t always feel like I have the time or resources to talk about classroom diversity with my students. I often ask students to work in groups, and although I am aware of a few techniques for effective team-building, I don’t always use them to help construct functional groups where everybody contributes equally and diverse opinions are respected. These skills are so important that the World Economic Forum has listed them among the top ten skills required by future employees to be successful in a global economy. We don’t even have to look to outside sources for affirmation of the importance of diversity; our very own strategic plan lists Globalization and Diversity as Imperative 6 with the additional description:

   “While we remain committed to our legacy of providing the highest quality education to African American students, we recognize the importance of offering students a diverse environment and global collaborations which will prepare them for leadership in the 21^st Century.”

Have you developed effective tools to celebrate and draw on classroom diversity in discussions and projects? What are your thoughts around classroom diversity at Lincoln? Have you explored the biases that you bring to your classroom, and how those biases influence your teaching?

References:

The web offers a plethora of information on diversity in higher education. I found the following reference to be most concise and useful with several good references for further reading:

https://wiseli.engr.wisc.edu/docs/Benefits_Challenges.pdf

*Lincoln University Fact Book 2016: http://www.lincoln.edu/sites/default/files/pdf/institutional-research/2016-Factbook-Final-web.pdf