Citation: First published in the SENGVine, February 2012.
The SENG Director’s Corner column gives board members opportunities to share passions and insights that relate to supporting gifted, talented, and creative individuals. Because I am currently teaching children, I enjoy exploring emerging education technologies and learning how new technologies can best help a wide range of students.
In this article, I share my thoughts about how new technologies might provide gifted, talented, and creative children with the high levels and speed of learning they often crave.
Two Caveats
Before I begin, two caveats. First, not all education technology is created equal. Some education technology is merely slow-paced, low-level content dressed up with computerized bells and whistles. In my opinion, the best education technology includes:
- high quality and attractive content as well as hardware and software,
- embedded rewards similar to those that make video games irresistible,
- pretesting so students do not have to pretend to learn what they already know, and
- differentiation to accommodate different learning speeds and levels of thinking.
The last two elements—pretesting and differentiation—are particularly important for gifted, talented, and creative children.
My second caveat is that the technology I describe in this article is new. Research should not stop with the invention of a new technology, but rather should continue apace as real people—including children—incorporate the technology into their lives. Anyone using new technology has an obligation to keep up-to-date with research about its best use.
Writing Technologies
Many gifted children suffer from a discrepancy between their high and fast thinking skills and their slow and young fingers. Speech-to-text and text-to-speech software can help bridge the gap between thinking and writing speeds. All students, especially those whose thoughts run faster than their fingers, should have access to speech-to-text software.
Speech-to-text software allows students to use their voice to take notes and to record thoughts in electronic form. Even when students speak their thoughts, they need to proofread and edit their work; advanced grammar-checking features help with editing and proofreading chores. I recommend that an adult or older child sit beside young children as they first learn to grammar-check their writing.
Reading Technologies
Whatever device children use to read e-books—Kindle, iPad, laptop, or smartphone—teachers and parents should help students use the technology to its fullest potential: annotate e-books, create hyperlinks, and use automatic dictionaries to build vocabulary. The electronic book is a learning experience in itself.
Get ready for a surprise: scientists are developing e-books that can see you reading them. As reported by h+ magazine: Their technology is capable of monitoring your eyes in order to define words if you stare at them puzzled, eliminating non-essential information when you’re skimming, helping you pick up exactly where you left off, swapping images based on what you’re reading, surfacing relevant reference materials and more.
If you read the entire article, see wired.co.uk and the full piece.
Online Courses
The blossoming of online university courses gives gifted, talented, and creative children opportunities for learning at high levels without regard to age. Some online university courses are free or low-cost. In December 2011 MIT announced online graded courses with videos and quizzes; non-graded options remain available via OpenCourseWare.
Stanford’s free computer science courses drew more than 150,000 students; professors deliver short interactive videos, live quizzes with instant feedback, and technologies that let students rank questions for instructors. See Stanford news and Stanford annual report.
Western Governors University offers low-cost, mentor-supported options for older teens seeking college credit. For discussions about online education disruption see theNextWeb.
Khan Academy
Khan Academy has become a major transformative force. For more information see Khan Academy. Some worry it allows students to advance far above classmates, but if technology lets each student advance as far as possible, that is beneficial.
The 2012 BETT Show in London
The BETT Show showcases new education technology—QWERTY clickers, Kurzweil cloud-based tools, Lego robotics, multi-media resources, and multi-touch Smart Notebook software. For a taste of the show see bettshow.com.
Conclusion
This article scratches the surface of how education technology might provide gifted children with the high levels and speeds of learning they often crave. For more information see the Hoagies Technology and the Gifted Child page: hoagiesgifted.org/technology.htm.
Epilogue
Apple announced new iPad-related education tools in January 2012; while iBooks Author and e-textbooks are useful, some educators favor exploratory and project-based learning over textbooks. More information about Sebastian Thrun, Udacity, and the future of online courses appears in coverage such as Reuters blog. Hopefully, the fast-changing landscape of education technology will result in better learning for all children, including gifted children.
