News Bits: Nook vs. Kindle, Learning via wrong answers, ZoomIt tool
The following are just a few highlights from today’s news for online pedagogy:
Nook packaging image via Gizmodo
8 Reasons You Can Finally Love Ebook Readers
Technology blog Gizmodo gives an in-depth review of the new Nook ebook reader, which was just released. As Barnes and Noble’s foray into the ebook technology market, it apparently offers better features, more viewing options, and a lower price tag than similar ebooks. One of its more interesting features is a two-week lending period, that would allow users to share texts on other electronic devices (iPhone, iPod, PC, Mac) as well as “borrow” a title for a quick read. This seems much more open to the idea of social reading — sharing what you’re reading with friends or classmates, possibly — and much less proprietary than Kindle (which received quite a bit of negative attention a few months ago after it deleted titles that users had purchased.
It will be interesting to see how the Nook unfolds in practical use, and whether it can offer a viable model for mobile learners. If nothing else, the competition it brings to Kindle might encourage more advances in pedagogical apps, meaning better uses for students (and lighter backpacks).
ZoomIt v4
This is a screen room and annotation tool that lets you type and freehand write or draw as part of a screencast presentation. Users can zoom onto specific parts of the screen and customize hotkeys for action shortcuts. This tool might work best for demonstrations or lectures in math or sciences, where a freehand grid would help explain the information much easier than an audio podcast alone. The following demo was created by Greg Friese:
Getting It Wrong: Surprising Tips on How to Learn
This is a brief article in Scientific American that addresses a recent study conducted at UCLA on the merits of guessing incorrectly in order to cement new information to permanent knowledge. As part of the study, participants were given a short quiz with answers that were designed to be almost impossible to get correct. Afterwards they were told the answers and given some time to study, then retook the test. Most of the participants scored better on the second test than a control group, which was only tested after given time to study the answers.
The authors of this study (below) concluded that students will better commit new information to long-term memory if they are given the chance to fail phenomenally before learning. This makes sense — most people are probably going to be more curious about an answer if they are first pressed with difficult questions about it.
How might you use this concept with your students? This might best be a “quiz first, answer questions later” approach to pedagogy. Begin the lesson by hitting them with a quiz on information they haven’t learned, or a problem they shouldn’t know how to solve yet. Let them puzzle over it for a few minutes; maybe put them in synchronous groups to chat and bicker about how unfairly you’re treating them…then teach them what they need to know to get it right. Have you tried this method? Share your story in the comments section below!
Original article: Unsuccessful retrieval attempts enhance subsequent learning (via APA PsychNET)
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