Notes on AERA

I was able to attend the first two days of AERA (American Educational Research Association) last week in San Diego and came away with some interesting ideas. I have attended the conference for the past 4 years and though have not yet presented, it is a goal... Anyway, I generally see the same group of people, the techies from UW Madison and MIT, Linda Darling Hammond and other Stanford folk like Pea and anything related to K-8 tech integration. Kurt Squire is always interesting and this year he presented a big game program he's been working on at UW that uses the iPhone to turn the real world into a video game environment. Using the GPS function he build a game based on an ficticious medical mystery: several children have been swiming in lake Mendota and now they are all in the hospital with mysterious symptoms. Student charged with figuring out what caused their ailments. Using maps built into the software the students head out to the lake taking virtual water samples, searching for sewage that may be spilling into the lake and doing virtual interviews by finding a tagged location that activates the interview stored in the software. A new feature he's working on has to do with barcode like posters that the camera software can recognise. When a student find the poster he can point his iPhone camera at it, unlock the information stored on his phone and progress through the game. If another student comes to the poster they cannot get the same info because the first student has already activated it, forcing the student to develop a new strategy or colaberate with with first student.

In the largest session I attended, Linda Darling Hammond and 3 other past heads of AERA gave a talk on constructivism. While the consensious was that learning is by definition constructivist, teaching is a mix designed by teachers who have to select the best set of techniques for their students. The most interesting thing she said was that much like the "Whole language vs Phonics" debates of the 90s, the new big political debate in education will have to do with 21st century skills. Her opinion was that any this vs that debate is a waste of time and that the important discussion relates to integration.

I wish i had been able to spend the whole week at the conference but no such luck this year. I encourage everyone to work to get their employer (or TC department) to fund the trip to Denver next year.