At NECC 2009, one of the sessions I sat-in on was regarding the iPod Touch/iPhone platform. It’s available now as a UStream video.

Davis & Co. did a satisfactory job of brining in various perspectives, from that of Steve Dembo, Dr. McLeod, and Kevin Hunicutt making music. Seeing some new iPhone/iPod Touch apps was of course good too, and it was great seeing some folks who are writing for this platform with kids and learning in mind.

But so much of what was presented, in an off-the-cuff, whirlwind style had me thinking a bit about the benefits some of those presenting really saw. Yes, hands down, this platform is powerful and exciting. I own an iPhone and love the thing. Check out the website iear.org.

I learn with my iPhone (in mostly passive ways). But back to the session I attended:

Vicki Davis talks about the QR codes (13 minutes into the video), she says “this is a very important… QR codes do something called hard linking… I learned about it 2 weeks ago… you can generate them for free… these codes… who’s going to demonstrate our QR code reader? How many of you taken kids to a field trip to a museum? What do the handheld devices do? I was in the national portrait gallery… George Washington… people who are progressive are never appreciated in their generation… I was crying at this painting… if I had a QR code at this painting, and I would have had a hyperlink delivered to my iPhone, with the text. It could pull the text, the text into my phone. This types stuff into your phone for you.”

“This is where Twitter was three years ago… I am still trying to understand QR codes, and I will use them in my classroom this year…”

Okay, talk about un-scripted. It’s evident Ms. Davis is so incredibly enthusiastic about breaking and upcoming technologies. QR or Quick Response codes are Japanese-created barcodes created in…. 1994.

Is it really the next Twitter?

Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s great that people are sharing their new discoveries with their colleagues at places like NECC. And while taking a snapshot of a barcode and using that as a link to a webpage, media file, or Wikipedia entry is an interesting concept, I have to stop and question the whole thrust at this point.

1. Ms. Davis has professed that she will use this technology (QR codes) next year, no doubt, because why? Do we ever get why this is going to help our students?
2. Are iPod Touches being used in schools for their novelty?
3. Why are we using these things? What are the benefits/drawbacks/cautions using iPod Touches with students?

Personally, I’d like to have a few class sets of iPod Touches to use with students because I think having ready access to the Internet in your pocket, alongside rich media playback capability is rich. And that’s without all the fancy educationally-designed apps.

But if my class went to the art museum and learned about Washington and is un-popularity, I’d want them using some developed inquiry and research skills to come up with answers to guided questions. Simply being led to a webpage seems a little pedestrian in comparison. Second, an audio and video enhanced podcast tour of a museum (with embedded hyperlinks) would likely make a better tour experience than scanning/photographing QR codes to visit single websites.

Sure, the promise of taking something in the physical world (printed on the wall) and making that into a virtual link or URI is interesting, but instead of pointing to a really practical, constructionist activity, this shows me that some folks are still applying technologies in schools for the sake of technology.

I am criticizing the approach, but sometimes I think we, as educators, also see a new technology and recognize its power before we fully interpret its full learning potential. It’s not necessarily unethical to show a student an iPhone (yes, don’t forget you need the camera—kids can’t really do this with iPod touch) and QR codes. You never know what the kids (or you) will come up with that eventually leads to some really powerful learning.

But it’s also a cautionary sign that we ought to not put technology before pedagogy. But thankfully we also got to hear a middle school principal tell us that she’s begun a 1:1 program with iPod Touch and they have some data and things to share on their experience thus far. For me, this type of sharing typifies what makes educational blogging so valuable: sharing your experience, not just your enthusiasm for what’s new.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 7th, 2009 at 9:34 pm and is filed under Reflection. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.