F.R. “Fritz” Nordengren (beta)

The (Hand)writing on the wall

For all of the discussion of technology, there is room to find perspectives about the low tech and no tech tools for learning. Vanderbuilt University professor Steve Graham published a study which brings to mind something we’ve all seen, and maybe experienced ourselves. The importance of handwriting, even though our penmanship skills may be diminishing.

But what Graham’s study shows seems to be a relationship between the quality of penmanship and the quality of work provided by students. Coincidentally, and perhaps only vaguely related, is the rise of online discussions surrounding the use of paper journals and other low tech devices as a replacement for the personal digital assistant (pda). There are some things that can be done with paper and pen that are just not easily accomplished with a pda, laptop, or software.

So the Moleskines are flying off the shelf at Barnes and Nobel, Borders and Amazon, hipster pdas pop up on college campuses, and there is a slight renaissance in handwriting. (disclosure: after suffering from poor handwriting most of my adult life, and recently being embarrassed by a poorly handwritten noted given to a professional colleague, I’ve taken to practicing handwriting again in my own Moleskine.)

And practice is what Graham advocates. The penmanship curriculum of the turn of the 20th century was 45 or more minutes a day. That has been reduced by the beginning of the 21st century to less than 10 minutes. Graham related that speed and fluidity in handwriting are critical during our K - 4 years as young students have not separated the process of physical writing and thinking.

Which is why promoters of handwriting shared this in a recent Newsweek article:

Emily Knapton, director of program development at Handwriting Without Tears, believes that

“when kids struggle with handwriting, it filters into all their academics. Spelling becomes a problem; math becomes a problem because they reverse their numbers. All of these subjects would be much easier for these kids to learn if handwriting was an automatic process.”

The National Education Association quotes some grim statistics about the cost of poor handwriting:

• the health of at least 1 in 10 Americans is endangered by the poor handwriting of their physicians
• up to $95,000,000 in tax refunds are not delivered because of unreadable tax-forms
• $200,000,000 in time and money is lost because poor handwriting results in such problems as confused and inefficient employees, phone calls made to wrong or non-existent numbers, and letters and packages delivered to incorrect addresses — or not delivered at all

Finally, a study by Thompson Healthcare said, among other things, in a survey of 1,656 physicians

“more than 30 percent of respondents said illegible handwriting was the leading cause of miscommunication between medical personnel — a prime example of low-tech problems adversely affecting the high-tech world of medicine. “

FAQ

Learning Partners,

As many of you know, this is my first official blog in my new role as Education Technology Strategist. Without a doubt, the longest job title that will physically fit on a business card.

First, what exactly is an Education Technology Strategist?

Let me see if I can answer that by using examples from other practices and work worlds:

The role of a strategist is part architect, part engineer, and at times, part day laborer. Most everyone who reads this has learned and discovered that the rate of change of technology in our learning environments is accelerating…perhaps exponentially. Just like the role of an architect and engineer is to translate the client’s wants and ideas into a plan that can lead to a finished space, the role of an education technology strategist is to translate the clients wants into a virtual learning space.

That makes sense, why is this the best time for an Education Technologist Strategist?

There are hundreds (maybe thousands) of technology solutions marketed to both students and to faculty. Many, if not most, are excellent products….but like people…not all “play well with others”. Equal with the number of solutions is the number of expectations. There are probably as many different technology expectations on campus as there are people.

Those of you who saw my interview presentation saw the Apple® Macintosh® television commercial from 1995 where the presentation won’t load and the audience starts shouting out “tips” (“try typing sysedit.exe”). 12 years later, the audience is still shouting out ideas: “try this software”, “we need to be like Facebook”, “we need more Flash®”…So where do we turn?

This is what I hope to bring to the table ….

my role is to help all of us, as learning partners, choose the path for our use of technology in the learning environment.

Just as Mac® and/or Windows 95® were not the perfect answer in 1995, there are few perfect answers today in 2007. Some learning situations, indeed, should be totally self paced and available on-line. Other learning situations, are difficult if not impossible for most people to learn without one to one in person contact.

So what you can expect from me:

Weekly (or so) I’ll publish a blog covering learning environments and technology. I’ll try to include a tip to two along the way. I can send it to you by email so it arrives in your Outlook. If you want a different way to receive the same information, you can subscribe to the blog as an “RSS” feed (RSS is a way you can have information sent to you when a web site changes.) Many people use RSS to receive updates on news and their favorite sites. If this all sounds like hi-tech mombo jumbo…..no worries….. for now you’ll get this via email. and if you choose later, we can spend some time sharing how RSS works and you can decide it it will make your world any easier.

I’m also working on a series of digital media presentations that help explain the basics of digital media so that you can understand how to make better use of clip art, photos, video, and some common software tools.

I’ll seek your help and guidance on what you are interested in learning and working with. (Seriously, some of it is pretty dull like pixels, and lossless or lossy compression algorithms) but in the end, it helps explain why your photo suddlely looks awful in PowerPoint, or why it takes 12 minutes to download a video that taks 30 seconds to watch.

Trivia.quiz contest question of the week: the first DMU learning parter to email me the correct answer wins this week’s prize: a beverage of their choice delivered to their desk, courtesy of me!

QUESTION: If MySpace was a country, it’s membership population would place it between which two countries in world ranking?

• Between Brazil and Pakistan ( 7 and 8 )
• Between Japan and Mexico ( 12 and 13 )
• Between Turkey and Congo ( 19 and 20 )