Author: Sobehrad
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Technology isn’t Always the Answer: Unpacking an Ed Tech Ad
Plato has some wise words to be explored in the context of educational technology: “Will a man, if he picks up a shield or any other weapon or tool of war, on that very day be an adequate combatant in a battle of heavy-armed soldiers, or any other kind of battle in war, even though…
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Rules of Engagement: The Battle Against Ennui
This is my last major assignment of my first semester in my journey toward a PhD. The project was designed to be an individual project to give students a reason to practice synthesizing information and written communication. We were to engage in self-reflection on the topic of “motivation and engagement in blended and online learning”…
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Three Initial Research Questions
Recording: Three Initial Research Questions The essay below is a transcript of this recording, which outlines three initial research questions that, at the moment, seem like good choices moving forward. It will be interesting to revisit these topics at the end of each semester to see if these questions are still intriguing. My research interests…
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Multimodal Assessment in Higher Ed: An Annotation
According to Ross & Bell (2020), multimodal assignments are increasing in frequency across the higher ed landscape. However, they claim that many of the rubrics are rooted in “print-based culture” and don’t “always address the richness and complexity of multimodal work” (Ross & Bell, 2020, p. 3). The nature of multimodal texts means that students…
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Mistaking Interest for Ability: An Annotation
Steinkuelher (2010) makes a case for increasing student choice in the classroom. Steinkuelher prefaces this summary of an extended research project with the observation that secondary students exist in a “complex information ecology,” and that video games are a small part of that larger picture. Gaming is first described as a “narrative space that the…
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Usable Assumptions for EdTech Research: An Annotation
According to Dede (2011), reliable and valid research on educational games should be based on five assumptions: usable knowledge, collective research, what works when and for whom, an expansion beyond comparing traditional practice to game implementation and scalability. Dede states that in addition to building theories, researchers should share the new knowledge in a way…
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Social Media Use and Creativity: An Annotation
In this article, Sun describes creativity as the tendency of a student to generate novel ideas, through interaction and knowledge sharing with others, that are useful in product or service. Sun goes on to define social media as a set of interactive technology tools designed to encourage networking and dialogue in virtual communities. Sun suggests…
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Establishing Dialogic Co-Creation: An Annotation
Digital spaces can be used as a dialogic interface for student discourse and collaboration and to promote creativity. The research outlined in this article collected data from both small and large group interactions as students worked together to solve a problem using a common digital space. The researcher (Pifarre, 2019) found that there were seven…
Cultivating Creative Thought 