Thursday, October 30 2:20 p.m. - 3:10 p.m.
Point/Counterpoint Session: Virtual Worlds: Fad or Future?
Room W209C
* AJ Kelton, Director, Emerging Instructional Tech, College of Humanities
& Social Sciences, Montclair State University
* Cyprien P. Lomas, Director, Learning Centre, The University of British
Columbia
* Sarah Robbins-Bell, PhD Candidate, Ball State University
The education industry has grown weary of the "next big thing." Technology
has promised much over the years, but have virtual worlds finally
delivered on the promise? This session will focus on the major issues
facing teaching and learning in a virtual environment.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
These are my notes and NOT a transcription.
Second Life - why a proprietary product?
Cyprien: It is still modeling how to use virtual worlds
Sarah: Not comfortable putting eggs in one basket - we are seeing more open source worlds coming up - Croquet is difficult. These will let you learn how to teach in new ways and make you more comfortable in virtual spaces.
Cyprien: Difficulties of SL caused problems.
Sarah: It used to go down but there was a buy-in from users
How do we know that we are getting a return on investment?
Cyprien: Depends on your timeline. Creating faculty and student engagement when you look in the short time.
Sarah: You need to look at metrics of success. - if your goal is to create engagement or improve retention then your mesurements will be different.
What about the technical issues?
Sarah: If the tech people get in the way of teaching and learning, they need to be let go. It does not have to be installed institution wide. Rely less on IT - more on teachers and student learning groups.
Cyprien: Pedagogy first
What about the higher end technology requirements?
Sarah: Does not require the students to use the virtual world - students know what they are getting into.
How do you handle assessment? Should the virtual environment be assessed as a teaching tool?
Cyprian: That is a longer term goal - we are talking about emerging literacies.
Sarah: There are a couple of things we should keep in mind: we should play with them to see if there is an assessment value. What you do with the tool is what matters - we should assess the use of the tool. Assess them as communities and cultures as well.
Students in SL can take any form they want, communicate on the back channel - why would an instructor want to give up control?
Sarah: Why not learn to take advantage of this and learn to use this to learn about the students.
Cyprian: SL allows us to catch more people and different kinds of learners.
Why let the companies dictate what we use?
Sarah: Linden labs is pretty responsive.
Cyprien: There is a large element of play and flexibility. It is an on going iterative cycle.
Some people are not comfortable learning in MUVEs. Can you address learning styles?
Sarah: The models we use now do not accomodate all learning styles. We need to be cognizant of the ways these tools can shape learning. Let the students create projects that meet goals that suit their learning styles.
Cyprien: Learning styles need to be considered.
Are you aware of anyone using SL to model real world scenarios? Significant difference?
A discussion of the epidemic in WOW.
Sarah: There are epidemiology studies going on in SL: Loyalist College is doing this will heavy assessment. They got higher retention rates from their students.
How to deal with identity issues for purposes of assessment?
Sarah: We can't prove the avatar is the student anymore than we can prove it in any LMS. When she is in a face-to-face situation, she uses the notes tab on the student avatars.
Young kids are getting so used to using virtual environments...what do you think needs to happen...?
Cyprien: Once someone moves to a ne virtual world they do have to learn the new rules but they are able to take some of those skills and use them in the new one. The new students will have some idea about how it works from other games.
Sarah: Unless your subject matter is learning new software, ethnography, or virtual environments. A couple of weeks in SL for a class is too short amount of time. The tools are only as good as what they allow us to use. She sets aside one night for a "boot camp" - scavenger hunt, take pictures as they go.
Why would people call it a game? How do you overcome the game stigma?
Sarah: The environment is not a game scenario - no skills, points, conflict or goals. You can create games though.
What about portability to other worlds?
Cyprien: It is a concern.
Sarah: Each space has its own culture so something that is worth building in SL may not be something helpful for other worlds.
Immersive and engaging?
Sarah: Depends on how you use it. You ave to care to be engaged. I have been immersed in MUDs and they are just lines of text.
Cyprien: Being able to create and explore and being limited only by your imagination.
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Educause: a comic interlude...
There is a great story by Dostoevsky called "The Crocodile." It is a longish short story of four chapters. It has been coming to mind recently. It especially comes to mind at conferences. It allows me to laugh at others and also keeps me humble whenever someone refers to me as an expert on anything. This is one of Dostoevsky's extremely rare funny stories. In the story, Ivan Matievich decides to go to the Arcade with his wife to see the crocodile that is on exhibit. He winds up teasing the crocodile and getting swallowed whole. A big farce ensues when his wife tries to figure out how to get him out - Who does she go to? Who has the authority over the crocodile? The owner? The state? And there is this horrific bureaucracy to get through. In the meantime, he is miraculously still alive in the crocodile and they ocassionally ask him to speak to see if he is still alive. The crocodile becomes more popular than ever before and people come from all over to hear the man speak from inside the crocodile. Eventually the man begins to believe that they are not coming for the oddity but because he really has something to say.
I see this story as a metaphor for media and politics. People often confuse access to the stage with having something to say. For some people, it can be a real trap. People are often in the positions they are in for many reasons apart from having any deep insights - they can be good at a dozen things and still not really be insightful people. They can be knowledgeable and have some good ideas, but lets have some humility! Maiamonides used to say "Teach thy tongue to say 'I do not know,' and thou shalt progress." In education, no one says "I do not know," they say "Good question! I would say that the cross modal affordances of the matrices of these pedogogical dispositions are quite problamatic at this stage and will require further inquiry and research." Let's not take one another so seriously: journals, blogs, conferences - whatever your media, it can be your crocodile!
I see this story as a metaphor for media and politics. People often confuse access to the stage with having something to say. For some people, it can be a real trap. People are often in the positions they are in for many reasons apart from having any deep insights - they can be good at a dozen things and still not really be insightful people. They can be knowledgeable and have some good ideas, but lets have some humility! Maiamonides used to say "Teach thy tongue to say 'I do not know,' and thou shalt progress." In education, no one says "I do not know," they say "Good question! I would say that the cross modal affordances of the matrices of these pedogogical dispositions are quite problamatic at this stage and will require further inquiry and research." Let's not take one another so seriously: journals, blogs, conferences - whatever your media, it can be your crocodile!
The Facts of Life in the High-Tech Age
The Facts of Life in the High-Tech Age
Session Details
Thursday, October 30, 2008
9:30 a.m. - 11:00 a.m.
West Hall WE2
Session Type: General Session
Speaker(s)
* Moira Gunn, Host of Tech Nation and BioTech Nation, National Public Radio
Abstract
Moira Gunn provides a unique perspective into the wide field of technology by integrating her background as a software engineer, her early career at NASA, her current work at the University of San Francisco heading the information systems programs for working adults, and her many in-depth interviews on NPR Talk with the leading figures in technology. In addition, Gunn’s experience integrating podcasting, wikis, and more into the adult curriculum gives her insight into the nature of technology and what we can expect from it.
*********************************************
She says that she was one of the 200 people on Arpanet when she worked at NASA.
She is not going to talk about technologies but visions and attitudes about the future of tech.
Arcs, not trends in technologies - they all have a rise and fall
IT professionals are often forced to use the old technology long after its life cycle
How the arc of technology follows the arc of IT management.
The effects on IT management: They try to manage the old technology using what they learned from the last round of technology (cribbed from McLuhan?).
The previous attitude was all about control - because IT came out of the military. Control of technology was a power struggle in institutions. Small community colleges could handle the changes better - smaller scale. IT departments started to mesh into the telephony on campus because of modems. Personal computers began to change how they related to individual users.
All of this was a struggle between centralized control and the individual. She recounted a story about a nasa engineer who said that going up in the shuttle to fix a sattilite was a terrible idea because you are merely introducing another system that can go wrong.
She hates push technology such as Adobe updates (the catastrophe that is Adobe 10?).
Our dealing with server farms is now like what the old mainframe was like. We should not be concerned with control but with integration. Cloud computing allows us to gain the benefits of server farms without the "footprint." The "iron age" is over - computer services is off campus. IT management is meant to help us trust the systems. We had legacy systems and now we have legacy organizations.
Arc of information: what has lived through all of these changes, we have always had information.
Old Purdue college memories follow... She had a college chum who invented the wiki and he was not understood. This is related to the arc of technology. Our relationship to wikipedia is changing - it is as right as anything else out there. The same wiki that was once dissed and abused is now respected by Stanford.
Those who build the technology can never predict how it will be used. Innovation occurs whenever new technology gets in the hands of another person. She recounts the "beat inflation now" but it was actually called "whip inflation now." Ford asked people to call in and give suggestions for beating inflation which lead to the invention of the 800 number.
We can't control applications, hardware, or information. Cloud: Trusted third-party data storage, she then suggests 4th party encrypted back-up.
She is still focusing on the institutions of technology. "You resist the cloud at your own peril."
She discusses opensource - what is important about Linux is that Torvalds knew that if he wrote a kernal of an operating system that he would not have to pay anyone. He sent it out when it was 80% done and let his friends contribute. He rewarded them by liscensing the source code - created technology that people could make a profit from - it was an economic innovation as much as a technical innovation.
Command and control is no longer our friend.
More college memories follow...
There are professors who use notebook paper and those who use wikis - first to deliver information and now to share and collaborate with information. Students self-organizing their work.
Students are publishing what they want. But in the teaching process, it is a transformative experience.
She then plugs her book.
She then says that we are now getting fast readouts from genomes. We will soon be charged with protecting information that students are leaving everywhere. Some of the things that we are going to be dealing with is the genomics inovations being folded into tech.
HIPAA only protects your health records when they are in the care of a health care professional. Where is the legislation to manage cloud computing? Our laws will not catch up with the technology. An Eddie-Izzard-esque stream of rhetorical questions follow...ex-husband sailing story...how to ride comfortably in a sail boat. Information is the constant - let the technology roll around you.
Session Details
Thursday, October 30, 2008
9:30 a.m. - 11:00 a.m.
West Hall WE2
Session Type: General Session
Speaker(s)
* Moira Gunn, Host of Tech Nation and BioTech Nation, National Public Radio
Abstract
Moira Gunn provides a unique perspective into the wide field of technology by integrating her background as a software engineer, her early career at NASA, her current work at the University of San Francisco heading the information systems programs for working adults, and her many in-depth interviews on NPR Talk with the leading figures in technology. In addition, Gunn’s experience integrating podcasting, wikis, and more into the adult curriculum gives her insight into the nature of technology and what we can expect from it.
*********************************************
She says that she was one of the 200 people on Arpanet when she worked at NASA.
She is not going to talk about technologies but visions and attitudes about the future of tech.
Arcs, not trends in technologies - they all have a rise and fall
IT professionals are often forced to use the old technology long after its life cycle
How the arc of technology follows the arc of IT management.
The effects on IT management: They try to manage the old technology using what they learned from the last round of technology (cribbed from McLuhan?).
The previous attitude was all about control - because IT came out of the military. Control of technology was a power struggle in institutions. Small community colleges could handle the changes better - smaller scale. IT departments started to mesh into the telephony on campus because of modems. Personal computers began to change how they related to individual users.
All of this was a struggle between centralized control and the individual. She recounted a story about a nasa engineer who said that going up in the shuttle to fix a sattilite was a terrible idea because you are merely introducing another system that can go wrong.
She hates push technology such as Adobe updates (the catastrophe that is Adobe 10?).
Our dealing with server farms is now like what the old mainframe was like. We should not be concerned with control but with integration. Cloud computing allows us to gain the benefits of server farms without the "footprint." The "iron age" is over - computer services is off campus. IT management is meant to help us trust the systems. We had legacy systems and now we have legacy organizations.
Arc of information: what has lived through all of these changes, we have always had information.
Old Purdue college memories follow... She had a college chum who invented the wiki and he was not understood. This is related to the arc of technology. Our relationship to wikipedia is changing - it is as right as anything else out there. The same wiki that was once dissed and abused is now respected by Stanford.
Those who build the technology can never predict how it will be used. Innovation occurs whenever new technology gets in the hands of another person. She recounts the "beat inflation now" but it was actually called "whip inflation now." Ford asked people to call in and give suggestions for beating inflation which lead to the invention of the 800 number.
We can't control applications, hardware, or information. Cloud: Trusted third-party data storage, she then suggests 4th party encrypted back-up.
She is still focusing on the institutions of technology. "You resist the cloud at your own peril."
She discusses opensource - what is important about Linux is that Torvalds knew that if he wrote a kernal of an operating system that he would not have to pay anyone. He sent it out when it was 80% done and let his friends contribute. He rewarded them by liscensing the source code - created technology that people could make a profit from - it was an economic innovation as much as a technical innovation.
Command and control is no longer our friend.
More college memories follow...
There are professors who use notebook paper and those who use wikis - first to deliver information and now to share and collaborate with information. Students self-organizing their work.
Students are publishing what they want. But in the teaching process, it is a transformative experience.
She then plugs her book.
She then says that we are now getting fast readouts from genomes. We will soon be charged with protecting information that students are leaving everywhere. Some of the things that we are going to be dealing with is the genomics inovations being folded into tech.
HIPAA only protects your health records when they are in the care of a health care professional. Where is the legislation to manage cloud computing? Our laws will not catch up with the technology. An Eddie-Izzard-esque stream of rhetorical questions follow...ex-husband sailing story...how to ride comfortably in a sail boat. Information is the constant - let the technology roll around you.
Social Media and Education: The Conflict Between Technology and Institutional Education, and the Future
Thursday, October 30 8:10 a.m. - 9:00 a.m.
Featured Speaker: Social Media and Education: The Conflict Between
Technology and Institutional Education, and the Future
West Hall WF5
* Sarah Robbins-Bell, PhD Candidate, Ball State University
Today's technology enables users to form and join communities of common
interest to learn and share information. In opposition to the privileged
learning spaces of higher education, social media encourage learners to
seek out their own answers and construct knowledge as a community rather
than as individuals. Twitter, Flickr, Facebook, and Second Life offer new
learning spaces, but how do they fit into the learning expectations of
institutions?
____________________________________________
Schools and Social Media all offer:
Dialogic communication allows for more community, exchange of ideas.
Social media technologies allow everyone in class to have a voign
Social media creates new ways to learn without the communities and structures created by institutions. Self-motivated people with some critical literacy can replace the kind of learning that institutions provide.
What is the educators role in a world where production and consumption of information is now:
She told an IT person that they need to be the people that create faculty self-support structures to support the new ways of learning. She said that she does not believe in "digital natives" but students today have a voice in all arenas of their live except school. Give students ways to collaborate better.
An audience member pointed out the irony that she is talking about independent learners and self-direction, yet she is getting a Phd from the very institutions that dole out the status quo. Another asked about the "campus commons that we all grew up with" - Ha! some students worked full-time while going to school. We are really talking about privilege. Another audience member talked about her film class that used expensive film stock instead of digital - again it is a class of students that - many would perfer the opportunity to just express themselves .
Notes: I have always thought that online learning and alternative education are revolutionary. Schools are a privileged silo, a barrier to learning for those without the social background or money to succeed in the academic world.
Featured Speaker: Social Media and Education: The Conflict Between
Technology and Institutional Education, and the Future
West Hall WF5
* Sarah Robbins-Bell, PhD Candidate, Ball State University
Today's technology enables users to form and join communities of common
interest to learn and share information. In opposition to the privileged
learning spaces of higher education, social media encourage learners to
seek out their own answers and construct knowledge as a community rather
than as individuals. Twitter, Flickr, Facebook, and Second Life offer new
learning spaces, but how do they fit into the learning expectations of
institutions?
____________________________________________
Schools and Social Media all offer:
- Self expression
- Sharing enthusiasm for common interests - self-organized communities
- Access to experts and personalities
- Enhancing person and professional reputation (school- the rep of the college. The online world- your portfolio in social media
- Build and share skills - "You suck at photoshop"
- who we can reach
- how many people we can reach - we used to have to go through a school to meet mentors
- our methods of expression
Dialogic communication allows for more community, exchange of ideas.
Social media technologies allow everyone in class to have a voign
Social media creates new ways to learn without the communities and structures created by institutions. Self-motivated people with some critical literacy can replace the kind of learning that institutions provide.
What is the educators role in a world where production and consumption of information is now:
- Democratic
- Amateur
- Distributed - information is crowd-sourced
- Educators are no longer the Gatekeepers of knowledge (this is the value of ins
- The role of educators is changing
- how to learn in an information economy (Henry Jenkins)
- the importance of contributing to a community (Mike Wesch's webpage)
- how to relate as more experienced co-creators rather than employers
- we need to serve as guides as students shape their paths
She told an IT person that they need to be the people that create faculty self-support structures to support the new ways of learning. She said that she does not believe in "digital natives" but students today have a voice in all arenas of their live except school. Give students ways to collaborate better.
An audience member pointed out the irony that she is talking about independent learners and self-direction, yet she is getting a Phd from the very institutions that dole out the status quo. Another asked about the "campus commons that we all grew up with" - Ha! some students worked full-time while going to school. We are really talking about privilege. Another audience member talked about her film class that used expensive film stock instead of digital - again it is a class of students that - many would perfer the opportunity to just express themselves .
Notes: I have always thought that online learning and alternative education are revolutionary. Schools are a privileged silo, a barrier to learning for those without the social background or money to succeed in the academic world.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Teaching and Learning: Teaching Nurse Educause2008: Anesthesia in a Second Life Operating Room Simulation
Wednesday, October 29 3:50 p.m. - 4:40 p.m.
Teaching and Learning: Teaching Nurse Anesthesia in a Second Life
Operating Room Simulation
Room W230CD
* David M. Antonacci, Director of Teaching & Learning Technologies, The
University of Kansas Medical Center
* Stephanie Gerald, Educational Technologist, The University of Kansas
Medical Center
An operating room simulation was developed in Second Life to teach KUMC
Nurse Anesthesia students basic operating room procedures. This
presentation will describe the design, development, usability testing, and
outcomes of this simulation. It will also examine how to adapt our
simulation method to teach procedural content in your courses.
________________________________
David first started in Second Life in 2004. They are on KUMC Isle.
They began with simple projects:
* Scavenger hunts
* Student poster sessions
* JayHawk Community Living Center
* Virtual Home Assessments
Their goal was to add interaction to courses. Their trajectory was startlingly similar to ours, but why shouldn't it be? They are also a nursing college. Why Second Life?
* low cost
* rapid development
* secure space
Problems of Solutions
* Buying, modifying, or building objects
* Level of realism and functionality
* Visual cues
* Life sized objects too small for Second Life
* Feed back to the user
* Performance evaluation
* How do we assess it?
* Things that the students do are captured automatically and emailed to the teacher
Five Objects
* Main controller - records what avatar clicked on
* Primary objects
* Secondary
* Tertiary objects
* Backgrounds - photographs of real objects pasted into SL
Demonstration in Second Life
Objects email instructor the exact sequence of events that the students selected in setting up the anasthesia.
Teaching and Learning: Teaching Nurse Anesthesia in a Second Life
Operating Room Simulation
Room W230CD
* David M. Antonacci, Director of Teaching & Learning Technologies, The
University of Kansas Medical Center
* Stephanie Gerald, Educational Technologist, The University of Kansas
Medical Center
An operating room simulation was developed in Second Life to teach KUMC
Nurse Anesthesia students basic operating room procedures. This
presentation will describe the design, development, usability testing, and
outcomes of this simulation. It will also examine how to adapt our
simulation method to teach procedural content in your courses.
________________________________
David first started in Second Life in 2004. They are on KUMC Isle.
They began with simple projects:
* Scavenger hunts
* Student poster sessions
* JayHawk Community Living Center
* Virtual Home Assessments
Their goal was to add interaction to courses. Their trajectory was startlingly similar to ours, but why shouldn't it be? They are also a nursing college. Why Second Life?
* low cost
* rapid development
* secure space
Problems of Solutions
* Buying, modifying, or building objects
* Level of realism and functionality
* Visual cues
* Life sized objects too small for Second Life
* Feed back to the user
* Performance evaluation
* How do we assess it?
* Things that the students do are captured automatically and emailed to the teacher
Five Objects
* Main controller - records what avatar clicked on
* Primary objects
* Secondary
* Tertiary objects
* Backgrounds - photographs of real objects pasted into SL
Demonstration in Second Life
Objects email instructor the exact sequence of events that the students selected in setting up the anasthesia.
Teaching and Learning: Mashups, Remixes, and Video Culture: Engaging the YouTube Generation in the Classroom
Wednesday, October 29 11:40 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.
Teaching and Learning: Mashups, Remixes, and Video Culture: Engaging the
YouTube Generation in the Classroom
Room W230CD
* Peter Decherney, Assistant Professor, University of Pennsylvania
* Renee Hobbs, Professor, Temple University
* Susan Simon, Senior Learning Technologist, Dartmouth College
* Anu Vedantham, Director, Weigle Information Commons, University of
Pennsylvania
Undergraduate video creation at American University, Dartmouth College, and University of Pennsylvania engages students from a campus-wide mashup contest to courses in several disciplines where videos replace research papers. New-media assignments have ramifications for copyright and fair use, for viral marketing, and for best practices in media education.
------------------------------------------------------------
Session Link
Links are to the examples and includes presentation links. The students made the videos in the lab or at home. Freshman writing seminars at Penn use video projects in small groups. They use three minute films. Groups of students use voice commentary over video to discuss race in films. They also create podcasts: interviewed restaurant owners about the best philly cheesesteak. The students are creating mashups based on anthropological studies. They have an annual mashup contest. Penn reading project: the students are required to read a book before they come back on campus over the summer. There is now a national video contest. Students are spending hours on these videos and sharing them on YouTube - there is a high level of engagement and student ownership of the learning. Teaching them to do this allows them to be critical viewers of the media and therefore critical citizens - conscious of how consent is manufactured. Cautions: they provided a lab, training, and equipment - there is no pressure on faculty - faculty do not have to train the students. How to assess? There is a link to this conversation on the webpage.
Susan Simon: They have a Student Center for Research, Writing, and Information Technology. She showed the Student Video Projects at Dartmouth website. They have an online form to help the faculty create assignments. There are also collections of previously built assignments and the student final projects. The site contains testimonials from students about the projects. "Visual argument" assignments. This website is very thorough - includes assessment, handouts, training, everything we would need at a community college to create assignments like this. They do a video project survey - we can view the questions. She discussed the benefits of group learning.
Rene Hobbs: Questions of copyright. Founder of the "Media Education Lab" at Temple University and Center for Social Media. Creating a code of best practices in copyrighted media. She asked "What is the purpose of copyright?" She said that the Const. says it is for promoting creativity. There is too much confusion in educational use guidelines. This is why they are creating this "code of best practices." "Transformative use is fair use" and favored by the course. Five principles Code of Best Practices in Fair Use - they claim that we can use any copyrighted material for educational purposes.
Peter Decherney: Talked about the DRM issues. DRM limits media tighter than the law would call for. We do not properly understand the Digital Millenium Copyright Act. They proposed a class of works to be exempted. Proposed an exemption to college libraries for DVDs in their collection. Copyright as censorship. The exemption was granted to educational use in the classroom by media studies film professors. 2009 will see a number of exemption proposals.
Teaching and Learning: Mashups, Remixes, and Video Culture: Engaging the
YouTube Generation in the Classroom
Room W230CD
* Peter Decherney, Assistant Professor, University of Pennsylvania
* Renee Hobbs, Professor, Temple University
* Susan Simon, Senior Learning Technologist, Dartmouth College
* Anu Vedantham, Director, Weigle Information Commons, University of
Pennsylvania
Undergraduate video creation at American University, Dartmouth College, and University of Pennsylvania engages students from a campus-wide mashup contest to courses in several disciplines where videos replace research papers. New-media assignments have ramifications for copyright and fair use, for viral marketing, and for best practices in media education.
------------------------------------------------------------
Session Link
Links are to the examples and includes presentation links. The students made the videos in the lab or at home. Freshman writing seminars at Penn use video projects in small groups. They use three minute films. Groups of students use voice commentary over video to discuss race in films. They also create podcasts: interviewed restaurant owners about the best philly cheesesteak. The students are creating mashups based on anthropological studies. They have an annual mashup contest. Penn reading project: the students are required to read a book before they come back on campus over the summer. There is now a national video contest. Students are spending hours on these videos and sharing them on YouTube - there is a high level of engagement and student ownership of the learning. Teaching them to do this allows them to be critical viewers of the media and therefore critical citizens - conscious of how consent is manufactured. Cautions: they provided a lab, training, and equipment - there is no pressure on faculty - faculty do not have to train the students. How to assess? There is a link to this conversation on the webpage.
Susan Simon: They have a Student Center for Research, Writing, and Information Technology. She showed the Student Video Projects at Dartmouth website. They have an online form to help the faculty create assignments. There are also collections of previously built assignments and the student final projects. The site contains testimonials from students about the projects. "Visual argument" assignments. This website is very thorough - includes assessment, handouts, training, everything we would need at a community college to create assignments like this. They do a video project survey - we can view the questions. She discussed the benefits of group learning.
Rene Hobbs: Questions of copyright. Founder of the "Media Education Lab" at Temple University and Center for Social Media. Creating a code of best practices in copyrighted media. She asked "What is the purpose of copyright?" She said that the Const. says it is for promoting creativity. There is too much confusion in educational use guidelines. This is why they are creating this "code of best practices." "Transformative use is fair use" and favored by the course. Five principles Code of Best Practices in Fair Use - they claim that we can use any copyrighted material for educational purposes.
Peter Decherney: Talked about the DRM issues. DRM limits media tighter than the law would call for. We do not properly understand the Digital Millenium Copyright Act. They proposed a class of works to be exempted. Proposed an exemption to college libraries for DVDs in their collection. Copyright as censorship. The exemption was granted to educational use in the classroom by media studies film professors. 2009 will see a number of exemption proposals.
Assessing the Student Experience in Second Life
Wednesday, October 29 10:30 a.m. - 11:20 a.m.
Teaching and Learning: Assessing the Student Experience in Second Life
Room W230AB
* Tanya Joosten, Lecturer and Educational Technology Consultant,
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
* AJ Kelton, Director, Emerging Instructional Tech, College of Humanities
& Social Sciences, Montclair State University
* Deborah Keyek-Franssen, Director of Academic Technologies, University of
Colorado at Boulder
* Wendy Shapiro, Senior Academic Technology Officer, Case Western Reserve
University
For several years, educational innovators have experimented with using
virtual worlds such as Second Life to enhance student learning. Though
many of these implementations seem successful, few have incorporated
structured assessment. This panel brings together practitioners from four
institutions that have conducted such assessments to discuss their
results. This session will be simulcast in Second Life.
************
I was surprised at how many sessions were here in Second Life. I am really interested in assessment in SL. We need to do this at Tacoma Community College. We use it mostly for a social learning space and as a simulator.
They played a film that introduced SL to those who are not familiar with SL.
Evaluating virtual worlds using social media theory with seven variables. Survey challenges - only two classes returned surveys. High degree of neutral responses. Failure to build online learning community. They did not have enough time to build the assignments (?). 50% thought is was a rich media experience. I will need to look at the numbers to really see how meaning full the statistics were.
http://umwsecondlife.wikispaces.com
Cleveland has 8 islands. Partnering with the city - museums, libraries and clinics. Classes, office hours and building. They discussed a digital storytelling course. They had a culminating experience in Second Life to show their work and discuss it with others. Gathering data on how many people show up and class reflections. They hire actors to be patients in clinical classes and they decided to do that in Second Life.
66 dental students involved in a study - a comparison of real life patients and virtual patients. They gave a lot of qualifications to their assessment!
CU Boulder: discussion of use of island. No real unity of their work. They are evaluating one course. Problems: cost, updating the program in the lab. It is best to have the person who is using SL "passionately" to do the assessment. Did not get access to the island until 2/3rds into the semester. They asked 5 questions and got three students to respond. There was a disconnect between the subject being taught and SL. They started to ask other students in other classes. The "assessment" is informal and includes emails to lab personnel.
The problems that they encountered - lack of structure and no connection to teaching and materials is a problem not only in SL but in face-to-face classes.
Faculty at another institution said that "they never set up a formal assessment process." His evaluations are based on two classes he taught. They had an undeveloped and a faculty developed island. They divided up part of the island to 22 parcels for faculty. Again, it is "informal assessment." Problems: overcoming technical issues. They are teaching science fiction in SL, two English writing classes, cyber law, and ed dept is using it for media in the classroom and meetings. Next year they will have better assessment. Hired 6 students to work 8 hours a week in Second Life. He says that it is easy to use as long as you have a good orientation. They need to be properly acclimated. When the tool is used just because it is cool it is not relevant. There has to be a reason you are using this particular tool rather than anything else. He used it as a virtual classroom - replacing the classroom experience. Students did not care for that. He asks "why assess one tool differently than any other tool?" Answer: this costs money, we should evaluate all the tools we use. Why not assess it when we evaluate other learning platforms.
Teaching and Learning: Assessing the Student Experience in Second Life
Room W230AB
* Tanya Joosten, Lecturer and Educational Technology Consultant,
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
* AJ Kelton, Director, Emerging Instructional Tech, College of Humanities
& Social Sciences, Montclair State University
* Deborah Keyek-Franssen, Director of Academic Technologies, University of
Colorado at Boulder
* Wendy Shapiro, Senior Academic Technology Officer, Case Western Reserve
University
For several years, educational innovators have experimented with using
virtual worlds such as Second Life to enhance student learning. Though
many of these implementations seem successful, few have incorporated
structured assessment. This panel brings together practitioners from four
institutions that have conducted such assessments to discuss their
results. This session will be simulcast in Second Life.
************
I was surprised at how many sessions were here in Second Life. I am really interested in assessment in SL. We need to do this at Tacoma Community College. We use it mostly for a social learning space and as a simulator.
They played a film that introduced SL to those who are not familiar with SL.
Evaluating virtual worlds using social media theory with seven variables. Survey challenges - only two classes returned surveys. High degree of neutral responses. Failure to build online learning community. They did not have enough time to build the assignments (?). 50% thought is was a rich media experience. I will need to look at the numbers to really see how meaning full the statistics were.
http://umwsecondlife.wikispaces.com
Cleveland has 8 islands. Partnering with the city - museums, libraries and clinics. Classes, office hours and building. They discussed a digital storytelling course. They had a culminating experience in Second Life to show their work and discuss it with others. Gathering data on how many people show up and class reflections. They hire actors to be patients in clinical classes and they decided to do that in Second Life.
66 dental students involved in a study - a comparison of real life patients and virtual patients. They gave a lot of qualifications to their assessment!
CU Boulder: discussion of use of island. No real unity of their work. They are evaluating one course. Problems: cost, updating the program in the lab. It is best to have the person who is using SL "passionately" to do the assessment. Did not get access to the island until 2/3rds into the semester. They asked 5 questions and got three students to respond. There was a disconnect between the subject being taught and SL. They started to ask other students in other classes. The "assessment" is informal and includes emails to lab personnel.
The problems that they encountered - lack of structure and no connection to teaching and materials is a problem not only in SL but in face-to-face classes.
Faculty at another institution said that "they never set up a formal assessment process." His evaluations are based on two classes he taught. They had an undeveloped and a faculty developed island. They divided up part of the island to 22 parcels for faculty. Again, it is "informal assessment." Problems: overcoming technical issues. They are teaching science fiction in SL, two English writing classes, cyber law, and ed dept is using it for media in the classroom and meetings. Next year they will have better assessment. Hired 6 students to work 8 hours a week in Second Life. He says that it is easy to use as long as you have a good orientation. They need to be properly acclimated. When the tool is used just because it is cool it is not relevant. There has to be a reason you are using this particular tool rather than anything else. He used it as a virtual classroom - replacing the classroom experience. Students did not care for that. He asks "why assess one tool differently than any other tool?" Answer: this costs money, we should evaluate all the tools we use. Why not assess it when we evaluate other learning platforms.
Notes from Educause: Ramachandran
I am interested in Ramachandran and neurology lately because of claims made by George Siemens and others that there is a direct correlation between how the brain physically functions and how we learn (neurons connecting = learning). I think that there is a lot of psychology that happens between someone firing a neuron and writing an email. There are things that are happening in the brain (including neurons firing) but things like memories are distributed through out the brain. George sent out an interesting article on this called "Memories Are Made of This."
There are 100 billion neurons in the brain and there are ten thousand connections per neuron. The different possible states based on these connections out number the elementary particles in the entire universe. Despite that complexity, we can isolate particular parts of the brain by function based on what we learn from people who have had accidents that slightly damage the brain (strokes or accidents).
Different areas of the brain have different functions but that is different than making a judgement about what is happening at the level of the neuron.
Ramachandran studied the phantom limb syndrome. This happens because the brain maps out the nervous system in a particular part of the brain. The brain remaps the hand into the another portion of the brain. A physical event like amputation doesn't just change the body but rewires the brain. Learned paralysis carries over into the phantom limb. He had shown the connection between visual feedback and relieving pain and paralysis in phantom limbs. Used a mirror in his experiments - having patients move their functioning limb in a mirror and the patients are able to remap the state of their phantom limb with the illusion.
There are things called "mirror neurons" "empathy neurons" - they fire when we reach out and grab something but they also fire when we watch someone grab something. There is a malleability of connections. There is someting in the brain that tells us not to feel pain when someone else is poked but that goes away when we have phantom limbs.
He also studied "synesthesia." Theorie about why people see colors is that they are crazy, on drugs, or something that someone has done in childhood, or that they are being metaphorical. He says that it is a concrete phenomena in the brain - one in 50 are synesthetic. Color and number synesthesia is the most common and the areas are right next to one another in the brain. There is increased "white matter" between the areas. It is genetic, why? Our genes are involved in pruning excess connections in the brain in fetal brain development. In higher sysesthetes days and weeks are colored.
Poets, novelists, and artists are good at creating metaphors - making connections - linking concepts in the brain. Artists are 8 times more likely to be synesthetes. Not everyone has this.
The metaphorical allows us to engage in abstraction. Vision, hearing and touch section of the brain are involved in creating metaphors and abstraction.
Are there unique brain structures from other animals? We do have specialized brain structions the are of the brain that engages in cross modal abstraction. He called personality a neural phenomena.
My sense from this presentation is that we are still a long way off from making generalized statements about teaching and learning from brain imaging studies.
There are 100 billion neurons in the brain and there are ten thousand connections per neuron. The different possible states based on these connections out number the elementary particles in the entire universe. Despite that complexity, we can isolate particular parts of the brain by function based on what we learn from people who have had accidents that slightly damage the brain (strokes or accidents).
Different areas of the brain have different functions but that is different than making a judgement about what is happening at the level of the neuron.
Ramachandran studied the phantom limb syndrome. This happens because the brain maps out the nervous system in a particular part of the brain. The brain remaps the hand into the another portion of the brain. A physical event like amputation doesn't just change the body but rewires the brain. Learned paralysis carries over into the phantom limb. He had shown the connection between visual feedback and relieving pain and paralysis in phantom limbs. Used a mirror in his experiments - having patients move their functioning limb in a mirror and the patients are able to remap the state of their phantom limb with the illusion.
There are things called "mirror neurons" "empathy neurons" - they fire when we reach out and grab something but they also fire when we watch someone grab something. There is a malleability of connections. There is someting in the brain that tells us not to feel pain when someone else is poked but that goes away when we have phantom limbs.
He also studied "synesthesia." Theorie about why people see colors is that they are crazy, on drugs, or something that someone has done in childhood, or that they are being metaphorical. He says that it is a concrete phenomena in the brain - one in 50 are synesthetic. Color and number synesthesia is the most common and the areas are right next to one another in the brain. There is increased "white matter" between the areas. It is genetic, why? Our genes are involved in pruning excess connections in the brain in fetal brain development. In higher sysesthetes days and weeks are colored.
Poets, novelists, and artists are good at creating metaphors - making connections - linking concepts in the brain. Artists are 8 times more likely to be synesthetes. Not everyone has this.
The metaphorical allows us to engage in abstraction. Vision, hearing and touch section of the brain are involved in creating metaphors and abstraction.
Are there unique brain structures from other animals? We do have specialized brain structions the are of the brain that engages in cross modal abstraction. He called personality a neural phenomena.
My sense from this presentation is that we are still a long way off from making generalized statements about teaching and learning from brain imaging studies.
Friday, October 24, 2008
Instructional Design in a Connected World
In reading discussions and listening to George Siemens and Stephen Downes speak in our class, Connectivism and Connected Knowledge, I have heard and read a lot of narrow and overly simplistic definitions of instructional design. Much of what has been said characterizes instructional design as mechanistic, linear, and formulaic. To an extent, there is some truth to this because instructional design has many problems to solve - one of them, for instance, might be that factory workers may need to know how to operate a specific piece of equipment or billing coders in hospitals may need to know some legal procedures. In cases like these, the important thing is that the information is being given clearly, in sequence, and in a way that will ensure that everyone is on the same page. An added bonus would be if you had a good instructional designer who could also include in that training:
The other problem that instructional designers have to solve is the unifority of curriculum. I know that the "throw the kids in a bucket of clay and watch them sculpt the Pieta" crowd flinches when they hear this. But the problem goes something like this: if English 101 is a requirement to succeed in Philosophy 110, how do ensure that students are getting the same level of education in all English 101 classes? Now lets say you have a teacher who follows her instincts, doesn't believe in standards and thinks that the students will learn more about writing if they keep a journal, read "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenence" and just "be here now." In an ideal world, a teacher like that would get on fine, even without tenure, but we do not live in that world yet. Creating that world is not the work of instructional designers. For me to say, "I do not agree with the current standards so everything I design is fundamentally flawed" means that I should be doing something else. It would be as if someone were to hire an engineer to build a bridge and that engineer said "we really should be flying over this river, not driving." I do not particularly like multiple choice tests, for instance, but my job as an instructional designer is to help instructors design the most effective multiple choice tests. I have found that by scaffolding the questions using Bloom's Taxonomy to be a demonstrably effective way to create those tests. Not every theorist likes Bloom, but not every theorist out there is tasked with making a multiple choice test work! And I can't wait around for the Rousseauist utopia to come before I work on the test.
Good instructional designers keep up on the latest learning theories, teaching methods, and instructional technology. We do this not to tell a teacher how to teach, but to help instructors solve problems. Most teachers do some things really well. There are other things that teachers may not like to do, like deliver the same lecture in their history course semester after semester. This teacher would benefit by having someone who could show him how to record lectures and put them online, reserving the classroom for the discussions that he enjoys moderating and participating in. Or an institution wants their employees to be more productive at their work and have the fore-sight to see that it might be a training issue. People often do not do the work you want them to do if you have not told them (or don't know) what that work really is! An instructional designer can look at a job, interview the management and workers, and by bringing everyone together, discover what they need to know and how to build training for that.
Teachers and administrator often do not have the time to keep up on the latest developments in instructional design and technology. Why should they? They have enough cut out for themselves in teaching and staying current in their field, they cannot be expected to wade through all of the commercial hype and rapid changes in technology from day-to-day. An instructional designer is a contact person into the meta-disciplines around instruction. This is not telling anyone how to teach but being a resource of information, tools, and techniques that can increase the interactivity, communication (both in breadth and depth), and community of a course.
In my own day to day work, I wear many hats: counselor, teacher, researcher, education historian, data analyst, administrator, artist, etc. I use a wide variety of methods and tools that are carefully matched to the problems being solved. There are times when I have to think like a Cognitivist ("What would be the most efficient way for students to memorize this information?"), or a Constructivist ("Where in this course can we increase opportunities for students to communicate and share with one another?") or a Connectivist ("How can we create a network that will allow the students to learn now and continue their professional growth?"). Teachers do a lot of things really well, but they don't always know why some of the things they do in the classroom work. An instructional designer can map out the successes to help instructors reproduce it in other areas of their teaching. That mapping out process can then be turned around to help create an institutional course development process: one that does not tell someone how to teach, but how to manage all of the processes that can (or even should) go into a face-to-face or online course.
Instructional designers also create networks: they can connect with other instructional designers, bring new teachers together with experienced teachers, they link instructors to learning opportunities, and help connect students with more experienced students or graduates who are working their professions. Each one of the problems above require communication skills and network building. The work of the instructional designer will always be relevant because ultimately their job is making connections and managing change.
- problem-solving skills,
- practice sessions that helped users remember the sequence of procudures,
- interactivity with other learners,
- attention to multi-modal learning (e.g. visual or aural learners)
- and a community of professionals where learning would continue
The other problem that instructional designers have to solve is the unifority of curriculum. I know that the "throw the kids in a bucket of clay and watch them sculpt the Pieta" crowd flinches when they hear this. But the problem goes something like this: if English 101 is a requirement to succeed in Philosophy 110, how do ensure that students are getting the same level of education in all English 101 classes? Now lets say you have a teacher who follows her instincts, doesn't believe in standards and thinks that the students will learn more about writing if they keep a journal, read "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenence" and just "be here now." In an ideal world, a teacher like that would get on fine, even without tenure, but we do not live in that world yet. Creating that world is not the work of instructional designers. For me to say, "I do not agree with the current standards so everything I design is fundamentally flawed" means that I should be doing something else. It would be as if someone were to hire an engineer to build a bridge and that engineer said "we really should be flying over this river, not driving." I do not particularly like multiple choice tests, for instance, but my job as an instructional designer is to help instructors design the most effective multiple choice tests. I have found that by scaffolding the questions using Bloom's Taxonomy to be a demonstrably effective way to create those tests. Not every theorist likes Bloom, but not every theorist out there is tasked with making a multiple choice test work! And I can't wait around for the Rousseauist utopia to come before I work on the test.
Good instructional designers keep up on the latest learning theories, teaching methods, and instructional technology. We do this not to tell a teacher how to teach, but to help instructors solve problems. Most teachers do some things really well. There are other things that teachers may not like to do, like deliver the same lecture in their history course semester after semester. This teacher would benefit by having someone who could show him how to record lectures and put them online, reserving the classroom for the discussions that he enjoys moderating and participating in. Or an institution wants their employees to be more productive at their work and have the fore-sight to see that it might be a training issue. People often do not do the work you want them to do if you have not told them (or don't know) what that work really is! An instructional designer can look at a job, interview the management and workers, and by bringing everyone together, discover what they need to know and how to build training for that.
Teachers and administrator often do not have the time to keep up on the latest developments in instructional design and technology. Why should they? They have enough cut out for themselves in teaching and staying current in their field, they cannot be expected to wade through all of the commercial hype and rapid changes in technology from day-to-day. An instructional designer is a contact person into the meta-disciplines around instruction. This is not telling anyone how to teach but being a resource of information, tools, and techniques that can increase the interactivity, communication (both in breadth and depth), and community of a course.
In my own day to day work, I wear many hats: counselor, teacher, researcher, education historian, data analyst, administrator, artist, etc. I use a wide variety of methods and tools that are carefully matched to the problems being solved. There are times when I have to think like a Cognitivist ("What would be the most efficient way for students to memorize this information?"), or a Constructivist ("Where in this course can we increase opportunities for students to communicate and share with one another?") or a Connectivist ("How can we create a network that will allow the students to learn now and continue their professional growth?"). Teachers do a lot of things really well, but they don't always know why some of the things they do in the classroom work. An instructional designer can map out the successes to help instructors reproduce it in other areas of their teaching. That mapping out process can then be turned around to help create an institutional course development process: one that does not tell someone how to teach, but how to manage all of the processes that can (or even should) go into a face-to-face or online course.
Instructional designers also create networks: they can connect with other instructional designers, bring new teachers together with experienced teachers, they link instructors to learning opportunities, and help connect students with more experienced students or graduates who are working their professions. Each one of the problems above require communication skills and network building. The work of the instructional designer will always be relevant because ultimately their job is making connections and managing change.
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Its Eduriffic!
To be an effective blogucator, each sentence you write must coin or use a neologism. If what you are trying to communicate seems unclear to the uninitiated, ransack the inherent neologuisti
c confabulator, that rich stew of Greek and Latin that simmers away in the mind of the scholars, for just the right matrix of insinuation and suggestion. Speaking protoparaphrastically in every sentence can be difficult at first but gets easier with every education paper you read. Just replimeme a bit of Descartes and Kant, add a splogin of Lewis Carrol and you are merrily on your way. Edubloggers can combine words at random and immeasurably enrich the language like describing a new WidgetWare2000 program as "ednutechnotainment." Blogucation requires a new blogagogy that will require a new blogabulary.
c confabulator, that rich stew of Greek and Latin that simmers away in the mind of the scholars, for just the right matrix of insinuation and suggestion. Speaking protoparaphrastically in every sentence can be difficult at first but gets easier with every education paper you read. Just replimeme a bit of Descartes and Kant, add a splogin of Lewis Carrol and you are merrily on your way. Edubloggers can combine words at random and immeasurably enrich the language like describing a new WidgetWare2000 program as "ednutechnotainment." Blogucation requires a new blogagogy that will require a new blogabulary.
Sunday, October 12, 2008
Everything REALLY Old is New Again
Image via WikipediaIf we are going to make claims about how people think and learn, I think we also need to show that it is not really a new idea. In other words, you can't just say that people think differently because technology has changed us. The human mind can only think the way that it does. The internet is not going to change millions of years of evolution. What we really have to show is that we have thought this way all along and that currently technology is possible only because of the way that we think. Technology is changing the way that we teach, learn, and communicate but we created the technology because we are hard-wired to do it. Current technology (and scientific research) is only a pale metaphor for the actual processes of the human mind. As westerners though, that is not good enough. We have to make truth statements that reflect the facts. Never mind that those facts will change, and one of the reasons why Connectivism is so important is that the facts are changing so fast. No one person, group, or institution will be able to manage all of it. But this is not a new situation, throughout history people have been attempting to manage information that was beyond the limits of our comprehension while enjoying the advantages of collective intelligence through technology. This technology has included art, oral transmission, writing, printing presses, telegraph, radio, television, and computers. The metaphor of knowledge networks has existed even within the earliest stages of technology.The Tibetan cosmos mandala, for instance, shows a network of jeweled nodes that is probably an image from the Avatamsaka Sutra:
"Far away in the heavenly abode of the great god Indra, there is a wonderful net which has been hung by some cunning artificer in such a manner that it stretches out infintely in all directions. In accordance with the extravagant tastes of deities, the artificer has hung a single glittering jewel in each "eye" of the net, and since the net itself is infinite in dimension, the jewels are infinite in number. There hang the jewels, glittering like stars in the first magnitude, a wonderful sight to behold. If we now arbitrarily select one of these jewels for inspection and look closely at it, we will discover that in its polished surface there are reflected all the other jewels in the net, infinite in number. Not only that, but each of the jewels reflected in this one jewel is also reflecting all the other jewels, so that there is an infinite reflecting process occurring."
This is an oft quoted section of the sutra. What is more interesting to me is the effect of the net. Later in the sutra it says: "Clouds of radient jewels reflected one another...they expounded the vast perspective of the enlightened ones, their subtle tones extending afar, their being no place they did not reach." In other words, there is a synergistic experience in the collective intelligence. We experience the sum of the parts as greater than the whole. This is certainly true in the most recent iteration of knowledge networks and connective knowledge.
Tuesday, October 07, 2008
edublogs: UK Government Research: Web 2.0 does improve learning
edublogs: UK Government Research: Web 2.0 does improve learning: "New research from Scotland and the UK Government shows that Web 2.0 and gaming can and do make a difference to educational attainment and student experience."
Monday, October 06, 2008
Connectivism: Learning Theory or Learning Modality?
Connectivism is one of the latest and important steps in the evolution in thinking about teaching and learning. The ideas in Connectivism account for the changes in teaching and learning that have occurred since the expansion of network culture. We live in a new world of connections: cell phones, texting, Facebook, MySpace, computers, and other developments in technology have changed the way people learn and think. The research shows that students who are able to create networks tend to more successful. According to Barnes and Mattson, more and more Fortune 500 companies are using social media in one form or another to conduct business. Change is occurring at a rapidly increasing pace and there are no signs that it is going to slow down anytime soon.
But is it really a learning theory? One could argue that Connectivism is a learning modality. My main critique of Connectivism is that Connectivism runs the risk of being a return to cognitivism where we become more concerned with an information processing model of the brain that does not adequetely address the complex social and psychological relationships involved in teaching and learning. There is already a body of research into learning modalities that has been tested in the classroom. A simple definition of learning modalities is given by Hutinger who says that learning modalities refers to how learners process and retain information. That doesn’t mean Connectivism can’t be other things than a learning modality as well, but we do well to remember Wittgenstein when he said “it is not a question of whether or not there is life after death but what problem this actually solves.” In other words, what problems does Connectivism being a learning modality actually address? If it is a learning modality:
• It is something that can be assessed like other learning modalities.
• We can then design a Connectivist rubric for learning objects or assignments.
• We can identify it as a new dominant modality on a cultural level. (We went from oral, to written, to Connectivist culture ala McLuhan.)
Does it need to be an epistemology? What if someone harnesses electricity to create light? Does the invention of the light bulb require Thomas Edison to know how photons work? When engineers landed astronauts on the moon, they relied more on Newton than on Einstein although the latter’s theory of gravity is more accurate.
I am impressed with what we can do with Connectivism and how it can shape pedagogy – I don’t know if it can answer the deepest underpinnings of human consciousness. Or let me put it this way, maybe it doesn’t need to yet. If it is the answer to life, the universe, and everything, then let the research be done and then the declarations made. If one has a theory of being, one can then extrapolate an ethical theory from that theory of being. The question right now should be to ask if that is really the best use of Connectivism. Is that the most significant application of this theory? According to Dorin, et al as quoted in Mergal:
• A theory provides a general explanation for observations made over time.
• A theory explains and predicts behavior.
• A theory can never be established beyond all doubt.
• A theory may be modified.
• Theories seldom have to be thrown out completely if thoroughly tested but sometimes a theory may be widely accepted for a long time and later disproved.
To really test this as a theory, we need a clear statement of the unique claims of connectivism, we need to back up the claims of Connectivism with research that will demonstrate its observations and predictions, it needs to suggest a direction of on-going research, and its proponents must be willing to modify the the theory.
Theorists should be comfortable with the questioning their theories. That is part of the scientific process. And that process has to be valued more than the theory. Some people are of a temperament as such that when they are handed magnets and wire, they build a motor; others contemplate the quantum mysteries of the nuclear forces, neither are right or wrong. I am comfortable not knowing – I won’t stay in that position, but finding the answers is not the most important thing when we are in the stage of discovery where we are really first learning what the questions are.
Works Cited:
Barnes, Nora Gainem & Mattson, Eric. (2007) Social Media in the Inc. 500. University of Mass. http://www.umassd.edu/cmr/studiesresearch/blogstudy5.pdf
Connecting the Corporate Dots. (2006). Knowledge@Wharton. http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=1500
Huttinger, Patricia. (2001). Learning Modalities: Pathways to Effective Learning. PBS Teachers. http://www.pbs.org/teachers/earlychildhood/articles/learningmodalities.html
Mergel, Brenda.(1998) Instructional Design & Learning Theory. University of Saskatchewan. http://www.usask.ca/education/coursework/802papers/mergel/brenda.htm
But is it really a learning theory? One could argue that Connectivism is a learning modality. My main critique of Connectivism is that Connectivism runs the risk of being a return to cognitivism where we become more concerned with an information processing model of the brain that does not adequetely address the complex social and psychological relationships involved in teaching and learning. There is already a body of research into learning modalities that has been tested in the classroom. A simple definition of learning modalities is given by Hutinger who says that learning modalities refers to how learners process and retain information. That doesn’t mean Connectivism can’t be other things than a learning modality as well, but we do well to remember Wittgenstein when he said “it is not a question of whether or not there is life after death but what problem this actually solves.” In other words, what problems does Connectivism being a learning modality actually address? If it is a learning modality:
• It is something that can be assessed like other learning modalities.
• We can then design a Connectivist rubric for learning objects or assignments.
• We can identify it as a new dominant modality on a cultural level. (We went from oral, to written, to Connectivist culture ala McLuhan.)
Does it need to be an epistemology? What if someone harnesses electricity to create light? Does the invention of the light bulb require Thomas Edison to know how photons work? When engineers landed astronauts on the moon, they relied more on Newton than on Einstein although the latter’s theory of gravity is more accurate.
I am impressed with what we can do with Connectivism and how it can shape pedagogy – I don’t know if it can answer the deepest underpinnings of human consciousness. Or let me put it this way, maybe it doesn’t need to yet. If it is the answer to life, the universe, and everything, then let the research be done and then the declarations made. If one has a theory of being, one can then extrapolate an ethical theory from that theory of being. The question right now should be to ask if that is really the best use of Connectivism. Is that the most significant application of this theory? According to Dorin, et al as quoted in Mergal:
• A theory provides a general explanation for observations made over time.
• A theory explains and predicts behavior.
• A theory can never be established beyond all doubt.
• A theory may be modified.
• Theories seldom have to be thrown out completely if thoroughly tested but sometimes a theory may be widely accepted for a long time and later disproved.
To really test this as a theory, we need a clear statement of the unique claims of connectivism, we need to back up the claims of Connectivism with research that will demonstrate its observations and predictions, it needs to suggest a direction of on-going research, and its proponents must be willing to modify the the theory.
Theorists should be comfortable with the questioning their theories. That is part of the scientific process. And that process has to be valued more than the theory. Some people are of a temperament as such that when they are handed magnets and wire, they build a motor; others contemplate the quantum mysteries of the nuclear forces, neither are right or wrong. I am comfortable not knowing – I won’t stay in that position, but finding the answers is not the most important thing when we are in the stage of discovery where we are really first learning what the questions are.
Works Cited:
Barnes, Nora Gainem & Mattson, Eric. (2007) Social Media in the Inc. 500. University of Mass. http://www.umassd.edu/cmr/studiesresearch/blogstudy5.pdf
Connecting the Corporate Dots. (2006). Knowledge@Wharton. http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=1500
Huttinger, Patricia. (2001). Learning Modalities: Pathways to Effective Learning. PBS Teachers. http://www.pbs.org/teachers/earlychildhood/articles/learningmodalities.html
Mergel, Brenda.(1998) Instructional Design & Learning Theory. University of Saskatchewan. http://www.usask.ca/education/coursework/802papers/mergel/brenda.htm
Saturday, October 04, 2008
iJury
The iJury RevolutionBeing in the middle of jury duty, I have had a lot of time to sit in the waiting room and think about the experience and I have come up with a web 2.0 solution to the jury problem that I think readers of this blog would be interested in. This is your opportunity to get in on the ground floor of the next latest, greatest web 2.0 innovation and REVOLUTION in the United States criminal justice system.
What is the problem?
American citizens do not serve on juries. It is their civic duty yet 2/3rds of them do not serve on juries (about the same amount that don't vote either). It is a misdemeanor crime but we do not have the resources to enforce this law. The court system is over-burdened. Those who do come in for jury duty are put on multiple trials and are kept in waiting rooms between being assigned to trials. The jurors are then in terrible moods and this can't be good for defendants! Also, jurors are only paid ten dollars a day. Mos
t Americans wouldn't sell their vote for twice that much (okay, maybe twice that but there had better be beer involved).The iJury Solution
iJury will lobby to have a thousand dollar fine attached to missing jury duty. We will also lobby to have the pay be raised to $20 a day. All of that may seem harsh to modern Americans, but we will also allow you to chose to have a proxy for $20 dollars a day and all of that will be paid by the govt. Why lose a couple hundred a day at work when for $20 your time is your own? iJury will represent you in court with a virtual representative from one of your international call centers.
How iJury Works
Each of our iJury associates will have gone through the curriculum of a 7th grade civics class and have a rudimentary understanding of the U.S. constitution. They will also be encourage to watch old episodes of Perry Mason, LA Law, and Ironsides. You will fill our a profile online and your personal associate will vote based on your particular prejudices. Your iJury associate will attend the trial virtually and participate in all deliberations.
You Still Come Out Ahead!
Of the $20, half goes to iJury, 1/4th goes to the international call center and $5 goes to you. Everyone wins! America has always been strengthened by those from other countries, why should we limit that opportunity only to immigrants? Shouldn't citizens of other countries have an opportunity to participate as well? Act now and get in on the next web 2.0 bonanza.
Oliver Sacks and Music
A few days ago, I was thinking about Connectivism (the theory of life, the universe, and everything) and was trying to think about how such a theory would account for music: nothing huge, a simple theme from the aria in the Goldberg Variations, for instance. I am not talking about anything complex - something that any child could pick out on the recorder. There isn't anything in my experience of music that suggests a linear, sequential, experience of music that could be plugged in successfully to a concept map. What I mean by successfully is that it would account, even partially, for the experience. I experience music with my whole body and mind (are they really separate?) emotionally, intellectually, and with some music, even a simple tune, to the deepest psychological core of my being. I don't know if I can really account for all of that. Maybe a Buddhist monk has the awareness, time, and focus. I am fully ready to admit my intellectual short-comings. How much of this kind of exercise is an attempt to lift one's self up with one's bootstraps? How does the knower know the knower or the act of knowing? Why are we reading materials that name-drop philosophers and their theories like so many baseball cards? I do not believe that anyone can "simply read modern epistemology" and find anything evident (not with a simple reading). Our knowledge of ourselves and the world around us is much too dynamic for that anyway.
Okay, so in a not impossible but highly improbable coincidence, I turn on the radio and there is Oliver Sacks talking about some of the same issues. He was talking about what our experience of music tells us about the human brain. He talked about what the brain experiences when we experience music. He says that MRIs show that there is no one place in the brain that is active when we are listening to music. There are 20 to 30 places in the brain that show activity: auditory, analytical, temporal, etc. and what is more interesting is that he says that it is never then same areas in any one person. My point about this, and I have made it before, is that the human brain may be too complex to be reduced to a neuron+neuron=learning formula. That a two dimensional, or three dimensional representation can at best only be a metaphor and not a wiring diagram of the mind. But what is wrong with admitting that it is a metaphor? The one of the messages of some of the sutras (and some western philosophers) is that we are metaphors for Being-Itself.
For me, Connectivism answers questions about networked relationships, how learning occurs between conscious beings in a network, how technology is changing the way we learn and think. Those are huge concerns. I think the idea that it is going to account for psychology, semiotics, and epistemology is a little ambitious - especially for a single class! I am not here to "influence" (unless it means to annoy the credulous, then yes) or to be a nay-sayer. I think that before we say something is the Ultimate Answer, we had better be clear about the questions we are asking and answering. You also don't get to pick and choose what questions are in or out of the realm of Connectivism's concern - that is too convenient. If it is a theory of knowledge, then it has to account for all the ways that we know things.
Okay, so in a not impossible but highly improbable coincidence, I turn on the radio and there is Oliver Sacks talking about some of the same issues. He was talking about what our experience of music tells us about the human brain. He talked about what the brain experiences when we experience music. He says that MRIs show that there is no one place in the brain that is active when we are listening to music. There are 20 to 30 places in the brain that show activity: auditory, analytical, temporal, etc. and what is more interesting is that he says that it is never then same areas in any one person. My point about this, and I have made it before, is that the human brain may be too complex to be reduced to a neuron+neuron=learning formula. That a two dimensional, or three dimensional representation can at best only be a metaphor and not a wiring diagram of the mind. But what is wrong with admitting that it is a metaphor? The one of the messages of some of the sutras (and some western philosophers) is that we are metaphors for Being-Itself.
For me, Connectivism answers questions about networked relationships, how learning occurs between conscious beings in a network, how technology is changing the way we learn and think. Those are huge concerns. I think the idea that it is going to account for psychology, semiotics, and epistemology is a little ambitious - especially for a single class! I am not here to "influence" (unless it means to annoy the credulous, then yes) or to be a nay-sayer. I think that before we say something is the Ultimate Answer, we had better be clear about the questions we are asking and answering. You also don't get to pick and choose what questions are in or out of the realm of Connectivism's concern - that is too convenient. If it is a theory of knowledge, then it has to account for all the ways that we know things.
Wednesday, October 01, 2008
Histories of the Internet
This is an expansion of the a posting I made in the Moodle forum for Connectivism and Connective Knowledge.
In any discussion of the "history of networked learning" I think we need to look at learning networks in a broader, historical sense that is not really covered by the "march of progress" time-lines we usually see on the internet concerned with the history of the internet; maybe it is because I began my education as an English major with an interest in psychology and history. The technology that facilitates the current version of learning networks is only that: the current version. It is important to remember the milestones of the traditional history but they always leave out pornography, spam, games, advertising, conspiracy theorists, hackers, crackers, d&d, and the nigerian scams as forces that significantly shaped the networks as we know them today. I think we need a history of the internet that includes that.
All of that may sound like I am being funny but lets just take hackers for instance. You cannot go to hacker school. Your success as a hacker will depend on the networks you create with other hackers and what kind of information those networks provide.
I am still trying to wrap my head around the idea of a knowledge existing in a network as something empirical: it is suspect (as all "scientific" theories should be). I wonder how much of seeing the mind as a network may have more to do with our mammalian bilaterial symmetry and breaking the world into a three-dimensional order based on the limitations of our perception in the face of randomness and chaos of the world than any actual truth about the nature of mind. What does a learning network look like to a being with radial symmetry?
One of my favorite "histories of the internet" is Philippe Codognet's The Semiotics of the Web which includes hints of the proto-internets that lay archetypically in the human mind throughout history.
In any discussion of the "history of networked learning" I think we need to look at learning networks in a broader, historical sense that is not really covered by the "march of progress" time-lines we usually see on the internet concerned with the history of the internet; maybe it is because I began my education as an English major with an interest in psychology and history. The technology that facilitates the current version of learning networks is only that: the current version. It is important to remember the milestones of the traditional history but they always leave out pornography, spam, games, advertising, conspiracy theorists, hackers, crackers, d&d, and the nigerian scams as forces that significantly shaped the networks as we know them today. I think we need a history of the internet that includes that.
All of that may sound like I am being funny but lets just take hackers for instance. You cannot go to hacker school. Your success as a hacker will depend on the networks you create with other hackers and what kind of information those networks provide.
I am still trying to wrap my head around the idea of a knowledge existing in a network as something empirical: it is suspect (as all "scientific" theories should be). I wonder how much of seeing the mind as a network may have more to do with our mammalian bilaterial symmetry and breaking the world into a three-dimensional order based on the limitations of our perception in the face of randomness and chaos of the world than any actual truth about the nature of mind. What does a learning network look like to a being with radial symmetry?
One of my favorite "histories of the internet" is Philippe Codognet's The Semiotics of the Web which includes hints of the proto-internets that lay archetypically in the human mind throughout history.
Sunday, September 28, 2008
Learning Networks: Theory into Practice
For readers of this blog who are not in the Connectivism class, I highly recommend this short but brilliant presentation. I listened to the audio and followed along with his slides.
I was going to wait until I had finished more of the readings before I wrote about this but I am pretty excited about this presentation and need to write about this and get some things out of my notes and into my network. Stephen Downes presented on Learning Networks: Theory and Practiceon March 8, 2005 to the International Conference on Methods and Technologies for Learning, in Palermo, Italy. Maybe I am so excited by this because it is more about practice than it is theory. This is a clear explication of how Connectivism works. There are still seeds of Constructivism in this presentation. In the beginning, he talks about how Connectivism gives people the "capacities" and allows them to create their own learning which is one of the central tenets of Constructivism. But Downes emphasis is on how technology shifts the view of learning from a controlled and managed deliverable to people creating their own learning. Learning is not something you get from the library "and put in people's heads." He says that "Learning is a conversation." And this has been missing from the discussions of Connectivism in the first couple weeks of our class, the social dimension of Connectivism. According to this presentation, meaning is not inherent in the signal - it must be "received and interpreted" by an entity. (This is why I think knowledge is more than a network.) From this perspective, there is a small but significant overlap in the Venn diagram between these learning theories. His description of a network is useful. It actually shows that some entity has to be in there somewhere for learning to occur.
Okay, here is the really useful part, this is brilliant - his Network Design Principles. As a teacher and instructional designer, I am always looking at the why behind how something works. If something works, we want to be able to reproduce it or to facilitate the conditions that allow learning to happen in that particular way for others. At Tacoma Community College, we are in the middle of teaching what we boldly call a "Connectivist class." Downes eight principles will allow us to build a Connectivist rubric that we will be able to apply to our assignments and materials just as we would apply a rubric that measures interactivity in our course development process in the eLearning Department. His principles are:
One of my goals for this class will be to take this list and put it into some kind of rubric that will allow us to ask of each assignment "to what degree does this assignment allow us to implement X principle?" I think I may rework some of the language: what is the positive action behind "disaggregating"?
His talk ends with the observation that there is no one person that knows how to build an aircraft - that it is a network of people with diverse skills that are all working within a network that creates the aircraft. This is one of my problems about traditional English classes (I also teach English): what are we teaching the students when we look at the ten page paper as an end to itself? What context do this papers exist in? I have never been asked in my entire working life to write a ten page paper. I have been asked to contribute to the learning of a group and that has sometimes involved writing but there was some connection to the collective intelligence of others.
I was going to wait until I had finished more of the readings before I wrote about this but I am pretty excited about this presentation and need to write about this and get some things out of my notes and into my network. Stephen Downes presented on Learning Networks: Theory and Practiceon March 8, 2005 to the International Conference on Methods and Technologies for Learning, in Palermo, Italy. Maybe I am so excited by this because it is more about practice than it is theory. This is a clear explication of how Connectivism works. There are still seeds of Constructivism in this presentation. In the beginning, he talks about how Connectivism gives people the "capacities" and allows them to create their own learning which is one of the central tenets of Constructivism. But Downes emphasis is on how technology shifts the view of learning from a controlled and managed deliverable to people creating their own learning. Learning is not something you get from the library "and put in people's heads." He says that "Learning is a conversation." And this has been missing from the discussions of Connectivism in the first couple weeks of our class, the social dimension of Connectivism. According to this presentation, meaning is not inherent in the signal - it must be "received and interpreted" by an entity. (This is why I think knowledge is more than a network.) From this perspective, there is a small but significant overlap in the Venn diagram between these learning theories. His description of a network is useful. It actually shows that some entity has to be in there somewhere for learning to occur.
Okay, here is the really useful part, this is brilliant - his Network Design Principles. As a teacher and instructional designer, I am always looking at the why behind how something works. If something works, we want to be able to reproduce it or to facilitate the conditions that allow learning to happen in that particular way for others. At Tacoma Community College, we are in the middle of teaching what we boldly call a "Connectivist class." Downes eight principles will allow us to build a Connectivist rubric that we will be able to apply to our assignments and materials just as we would apply a rubric that measures interactivity in our course development process in the eLearning Department. His principles are:
- Decentralize
- Distribute
- Disintermediation
- Disaggregating
- Dis-integrating
- Democratize
- Dynamize
- Desegregate
One of my goals for this class will be to take this list and put it into some kind of rubric that will allow us to ask of each assignment "to what degree does this assignment allow us to implement X principle?" I think I may rework some of the language: what is the positive action behind "disaggregating"?
His talk ends with the observation that there is no one person that knows how to build an aircraft - that it is a network of people with diverse skills that are all working within a network that creates the aircraft. This is one of my problems about traditional English classes (I also teach English): what are we teaching the students when we look at the ten page paper as an end to itself? What context do this papers exist in? I have never been asked in my entire working life to write a ten page paper. I have been asked to contribute to the learning of a group and that has sometimes involved writing but there was some connection to the collective intelligence of others.
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Technology Lesson
In our class, Connectivism and Connective Knowledge, we were subjected to Barry Wellman's powerpoint presentation as if it were an actual paper. What is wrong with that? Well, it is 116 slides long, has migrane inducing color combinations and will use more than 30 bullet points on one slide. It is enough to make one retire to a monastery in the Alps and dedicate ones life to recopying the works of Tufte on vellum. Without his notes, voice, or narrative it reads like a brief outline of network theory that also trots out some pretty hateful made up words like "glocalization." Must we do this to the language? It opens portentiously enough with the slide that says that there are three ways of looking at reality (yes, Michio Kaku, only three) and they are "categories," "groups," and "networks" with no explanation why any of those three would need to be exclusive of one another. Some views and theories actually feed and replenish one another. Jung himself would admit that he would be no where without Freud and would say that Freud's theories best explained human development. And Freud's later theories are certainly informed by Jung's exploration of mythology.
Wellman needs toready read Tufte!
Wellman needs to
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Wake Up Mr. Chips its the 20th Century!
Mark Edmundson, English teacher at the University of Virginia, has written an anti-educational technology essay in the New York Times called "Geek Lessons." His major claim against technology is that it is merely an attempt for teachers to become popular: they are just pandering to the students. He has a lot to say about what good teaching is - predictably, it is all about the professor. It is clear from the article that he has no experience with technology in the classroom or what teaching with technology is about. He says that "good teachers perceive the world in alternative terms, and they push their students to test out these new, potentially enriching perspectives." Why can't someone do that using technology?
We use technology not because it is new, cool, or fun (although it can be all three), but because it is an opportunity to teach multi-modally (visual and audio learning), extend the community of the classroom beyond the walls of the brick and mortar classroom, to democratize education by making it available to those in remote areas or who must work and raise families.
One of the reasons why there are so many grants around for technology and fewer to send professors off to Europe for a semester is that technology can, for instance, solve real problems like making education accessible to those with disabilities. Other reasons that administrators may like technology is that the research shows that the higher the interactivity of a class, the higher the retention rates; technology can be a tool for making courses interactive.
I find teachers like Edmundson a bit sad - if their teaching style is such that it would not survive a laptop in their classrooms, what does that say about what is being taught and most importantly, how it is being taught. Edmundson gets that the culture is changing and the students expectations are changing. They are no longer satisfied with the "sage on the stage" style of teaching. They are no longer satisfied having to learn using three hundred year old methodologies. Does Edmundson accept handwritten papers? I doubt it. He does himself, tech-friendly faculty, and his students a great disservice by dismissing these cultural changes as merely selfishness on the part of the students.
I agree with Edmundson when he says that "Good teachers...can induce to struggle to affirm intelligently what you've previously believed in indolent, unconsidered ways." This includes an uncritical relationship to technology. By leveraging new technologies in our teaching, in thoughtful ways, we show the students that technology can be used thoughtfully. Edmundson's essay assumes that technology is a tool of passive consumption. He does not have that thoughtful, critical relationship to technology so he assumes that others don't either.
I hope that the editors of the Times will seek to balance this perspective by talking to other professors out there who have this critical engagement with educational technology like David Silver at the University of San Francisco or George Seimens at the University of Manitoba.
We use technology not because it is new, cool, or fun (although it can be all three), but because it is an opportunity to teach multi-modally (visual and audio learning), extend the community of the classroom beyond the walls of the brick and mortar classroom, to democratize education by making it available to those in remote areas or who must work and raise families.
One of the reasons why there are so many grants around for technology and fewer to send professors off to Europe for a semester is that technology can, for instance, solve real problems like making education accessible to those with disabilities. Other reasons that administrators may like technology is that the research shows that the higher the interactivity of a class, the higher the retention rates; technology can be a tool for making courses interactive.
I find teachers like Edmundson a bit sad - if their teaching style is such that it would not survive a laptop in their classrooms, what does that say about what is being taught and most importantly, how it is being taught. Edmundson gets that the culture is changing and the students expectations are changing. They are no longer satisfied with the "sage on the stage" style of teaching. They are no longer satisfied having to learn using three hundred year old methodologies. Does Edmundson accept handwritten papers? I doubt it. He does himself, tech-friendly faculty, and his students a great disservice by dismissing these cultural changes as merely selfishness on the part of the students.
I agree with Edmundson when he says that "Good teachers...can induce to struggle to affirm intelligently what you've previously believed in indolent, unconsidered ways." This includes an uncritical relationship to technology. By leveraging new technologies in our teaching, in thoughtful ways, we show the students that technology can be used thoughtfully. Edmundson's essay assumes that technology is a tool of passive consumption. He does not have that thoughtful, critical relationship to technology so he assumes that others don't either.
I hope that the editors of the Times will seek to balance this perspective by talking to other professors out there who have this critical engagement with educational technology like David Silver at the University of San Francisco or George Seimens at the University of Manitoba.
Monday, September 15, 2008
Learning Modality vs Learning Theory
I have used learning theory, Constructivism, to create course materials and assignments. I have used the theory to produce particular results. As quoted in Mergal's paper:
What is a theory?
* A theory provides a general explanation for observations made over time.
* A theory explains and predicts behavior.
* A theory can never be established beyond all doubt.
* A theory may be modified.
* Theories seldom have to be thrown out completely if thoroughly tested but sometimes a theory may be widely accepted for a long time and later disproved.
(Dorin, Demmin & Gabel, 1990)
I have seen all of this at work in one way or another with Constructivism and I haven't yet with Connectivism. This class is one experiment and what Char Gore and I are doing in HIM101 is another. It is to new of a theory to say it has been adequately tested - one can't reject an untested theory, one has to test it!
This is not a defense of Constructivism or a Constructivism vs. Connectivism aaproach. I just think it is important to talk about what people do as teachers and instructional designers and put Connectivism into that framework. In a simple form, Constructivist teaching is teaching that provides students the opportunity to put the information being taught in their own words and apply it to their lives. How is that not "connecting"?
I think the same thing is happening in a way with Connectivism, but it does not help that the vocabulary around it all has not really been nailed down. What do George and Stephen mean by "knowledge"? Berkeley? Hume? Kant? Buddha? Never mind how knowledge can exist in inanimate objects; how can you have knowledge without a knower? How can inanimate objects contain "learning"? There are some phenomenal changes happening in technology and culture and those changes are changing how I teach in some dramatic ways, but it is not clear yet if we are looking at technology, a new learning modality, or a theory. If students have visual resources available to them in an unprecedented way (movies, overhead projectors, photography) do we need a new learning theory to account for that learning modality (visual learning vs, traditional read/write) or do we adapt theories for the new media?
Any "scientific" picture of the mind has wound up not being how the mind actually works but being a model or metaphor that accounts for our current understanding of how we think it works. Connectivism will have to be able to account for the changes in that metaphor if it is going to keep the claim that it is a learning theory that reflects how the mind actually works.
A book doesn't even contain learning. Learning is what someone can do with information. Someone can read a book and not learn anything. There are no people in my telephone either, I have to actually call them.
Mergel, Brenda.(1998) Instructional Design & Learning Theory. University of Saskatchewan. http://www.usask.ca/education/coursework/802papers/mergel/brenda.htm
What is a theory?
* A theory provides a general explanation for observations made over time.
* A theory explains and predicts behavior.
* A theory can never be established beyond all doubt.
* A theory may be modified.
* Theories seldom have to be thrown out completely if thoroughly tested but sometimes a theory may be widely accepted for a long time and later disproved.
(Dorin, Demmin & Gabel, 1990)
I have seen all of this at work in one way or another with Constructivism and I haven't yet with Connectivism. This class is one experiment and what Char Gore and I are doing in HIM101 is another. It is to new of a theory to say it has been adequately tested - one can't reject an untested theory, one has to test it!
This is not a defense of Constructivism or a Constructivism vs. Connectivism aaproach. I just think it is important to talk about what people do as teachers and instructional designers and put Connectivism into that framework. In a simple form, Constructivist teaching is teaching that provides students the opportunity to put the information being taught in their own words and apply it to their lives. How is that not "connecting"?
I think the same thing is happening in a way with Connectivism, but it does not help that the vocabulary around it all has not really been nailed down. What do George and Stephen mean by "knowledge"? Berkeley? Hume? Kant? Buddha? Never mind how knowledge can exist in inanimate objects; how can you have knowledge without a knower? How can inanimate objects contain "learning"? There are some phenomenal changes happening in technology and culture and those changes are changing how I teach in some dramatic ways, but it is not clear yet if we are looking at technology, a new learning modality, or a theory. If students have visual resources available to them in an unprecedented way (movies, overhead projectors, photography) do we need a new learning theory to account for that learning modality (visual learning vs, traditional read/write) or do we adapt theories for the new media?
Any "scientific" picture of the mind has wound up not being how the mind actually works but being a model or metaphor that accounts for our current understanding of how we think it works. Connectivism will have to be able to account for the changes in that metaphor if it is going to keep the claim that it is a learning theory that reflects how the mind actually works.
A book doesn't even contain learning. Learning is what someone can do with information. Someone can read a book and not learn anything. There are no people in my telephone either, I have to actually call them.
Mergel, Brenda.(1998) Instructional Design & Learning Theory. University of Saskatchewan. http://www.usask.ca/education/coursework/802papers/mergel/brenda.htm
Saturday, September 13, 2008
Critiques of Connectivism
Constructivism represented a revolution in online learning. It changed the online classroom model from "sage on the stage" to "guide on the side" or course facilitator. What happened to online education was that the focus went from point and click online textbooks to people focusing on creating community (e.g. Paloff and Pratt). Despite that, there are people out there who call themselves "Constructivist" teachers who still use punishment and reward based learning. I think there will be a period like that with Connectivism. I do think that Connectivism will be better defined in the future and supported by research, an historical perspective, and a fully-realized pedagogy. You don't go from a single essay to fully realized idea overnight - Connectivism will have its version of "Being and Time." I think we are seeing the birth of a system of thought that will account for our new relationship to technology. Connectivism will have its different schools of thought just as Constructivism does.
The claim that Constructivism is some how vague is a little simplistic - that is like saying Existentialism is vague. There are a handful of principles one may take from Connectivism and transform a department or school -- people have.
Bill Kerr makes some good points about what Connectivism means to learning theory: There are other theories that account for Connectivism. Distributed cognition theories are over ten years old. There is a lot of re-inventing the philosophical wheel in Connectivism. Connectivism does not adequately account for social/psychological dimensions of learning (or YET account for). I think our HIM 101 class is an opportunity to create a Connectivist laboratory for working out for Constructivist curriculum and pedagogy.
There is a more philosophical account of Connectivism in one of Downes essays. The link to the version of the essay with citations is actually working so I will give a review of that article here later.
The claim that Constructivism is some how vague is a little simplistic - that is like saying Existentialism is vague. There are a handful of principles one may take from Connectivism and transform a department or school -- people have.
Bill Kerr makes some good points about what Connectivism means to learning theory: There are other theories that account for Connectivism. Distributed cognition theories are over ten years old. There is a lot of re-inventing the philosophical wheel in Connectivism. Connectivism does not adequately account for social/psychological dimensions of learning (or YET account for). I think our HIM 101 class is an opportunity to create a Connectivist laboratory for working out for Constructivist curriculum and pedagogy.
There is a more philosophical account of Connectivism in one of Downes essays. The link to the version of the essay with citations is actually working so I will give a review of that article here later.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Health Information Management 101
I am very excited about this syllabus I wrote with Charlene Gore for a class that we co-teach, Health Information Management 101. This course is a credit/no credit, two unit, student success course where we teach the students all of the technology they will need to be successful in the HIM program: their learning management system, web 2.0 tools, and Second Life (it is used on campus). The idea is to get all of the technology, formation of learning networks, and information access all in one class. This lets the teachers leverage the technology without having to teach it. We hope that this is rolled out campus-wide one day. The bump in the road is that it takes teachers willing to embrace web 2.0 technologies, a leaderless model ala "The Starfish and the Spider" (learning is lead by students in small groups facilitated by teachers), and portfolio assessment. The course is still in refinement and we would love feedback from others who share a similar vision.
Saturday, September 06, 2008
SLED CC '08 Presentation
View the presentation at Slideshare to get my notes. This was my small contribution to "Training for Medical Professionals in Virtual Worlds" with John Miller et alia.
Saturday, August 30, 2008
Ubiquitous Interfaces, Ubiquitous Functionality at Toolness
Ubiquitous Interfaces, Ubiquitous Functionality at Toolness
Ubiquity is a new plug-in for Firefox that integrates multiple tools as key commands right in your browser. When you are at a restaurant web page, for instance, you can bring up a map from Google, a review from Tripadvisor, and translate the page from the Spanish all by typing into your web-browser. When you are using the plug-in, you do not even see those other services, they all just get bundled into your browser in a way that you can send to other people.
This particular plug-in is not the future of web-browsers but it will be something very close to this. Most of the faculty I work with balk at all of the log-ins they must manage and this is not only a way to overcome that, but is a new way of using information on the internet.
Sidenote on Logophobia: So I do not believe that Web 2.0 is the future. I believe that seamless, user-generated mash-ups are. I need to teach Web 2.0 tools to help students and faculty learn to create content on their own and not wait for information and services to be delivered. In other words, someone who is taught how to use the net critically and knows how to use Web 2.0 tools will be ready for what's next. I am going to use the word "Web 2.0" because people know what I mean when I say that. They may not know what I mean when I say "social media tools" (media? really?), or "Meta-cognitive connectivist hyper-collaboratogy." The phrase "Web 2.0" is not a particularly elegant phrase: it does not concisely define anything, but we are talking about a broad collection of tools. When someone talks about Web 2.0, I know they are not talking about the old Yahoo!, web pages made with Netscape Communicator, or Compuserve. We can call the next stage Web 3.0 or what ever word falls into common usage. I have an education book from the 60s called "The Rasberry Experience." The name was an attempt to break out of the semantic games of educational research. They failed.
Ubiquity is a new plug-in for Firefox that integrates multiple tools as key commands right in your browser. When you are at a restaurant web page, for instance, you can bring up a map from Google, a review from Tripadvisor, and translate the page from the Spanish all by typing into your web-browser. When you are using the plug-in, you do not even see those other services, they all just get bundled into your browser in a way that you can send to other people.
This particular plug-in is not the future of web-browsers but it will be something very close to this. Most of the faculty I work with balk at all of the log-ins they must manage and this is not only a way to overcome that, but is a new way of using information on the internet.
Sidenote on Logophobia: So I do not believe that Web 2.0 is the future. I believe that seamless, user-generated mash-ups are. I need to teach Web 2.0 tools to help students and faculty learn to create content on their own and not wait for information and services to be delivered. In other words, someone who is taught how to use the net critically and knows how to use Web 2.0 tools will be ready for what's next. I am going to use the word "Web 2.0" because people know what I mean when I say that. They may not know what I mean when I say "social media tools" (media? really?), or "Meta-cognitive connectivist hyper-collaboratogy." The phrase "Web 2.0" is not a particularly elegant phrase: it does not concisely define anything, but we are talking about a broad collection of tools. When someone talks about Web 2.0, I know they are not talking about the old Yahoo!, web pages made with Netscape Communicator, or Compuserve. We can call the next stage Web 3.0 or what ever word falls into common usage. I have an education book from the 60s called "The Rasberry Experience." The name was an attempt to break out of the semantic games of educational research. They failed.
Friday, August 22, 2008
Translation Technologies in Second Life
I was really thrilled to find the "Simbolic Translator" in Second Life ( Simbolic Translator: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Cupo/102/120/36). About ten years ago, I worked with Lou Spaventa at Santa Barbara City College to help him use a MUD (text based virtual worlds) to participate in the United Nation's World Youth Day. We had people who were learning English from around the world all meeting in various "rooms." The rooms were listed by country and it was really eye-opening because we thought that all of the French people would be in the "France" room, etc. But it was much more dynamic and evolved that than. There were a lot of Egyptians and Israelis talking for instance, it became very political but all very positive. In a single day, a lot of friendships were made and email penpals made. It was a fascinating process. Lou Spaventa is an extremely dynamic and intelligent person. The technology, though, was a lot for him - probably most of us. It was very sophisticated for its time and Lou found it all very stressful. I see this all the time. The technology changes but our relationship to technology doesn't seem to change. It can be very stressful - it is new, complicated, resource-heavy, and you have to trust that a lot of people really know what they are doing to really make it work. And failure has to be an option. People today would probably laugh at that technology: terminal programs all logging in to a single server.
Anyway, in Second Life there is this program that will translate any text in and out of about 22 languages. It handles Asian, Slavic, Greek, Arabic and pretty much all of the romance languages. I have used it to communicate with Asian and French people and have invited some to participate in some of our projects at Evergreen Island. I think it is time to revisit an idea like "World Youth Day" but change it to something like "World Student Day" to include the wide-variety of ages that are represented in education. I wound up giving the creator of Simbolic Translator a thousand lindens which is about $5 American in Second Life. The creator, Tragix Wilder, made a big deal about my donation but I have paid for things in SL that did a tenth as much and work like his really deserves recognition.
Anyway, in Second Life there is this program that will translate any text in and out of about 22 languages. It handles Asian, Slavic, Greek, Arabic and pretty much all of the romance languages. I have used it to communicate with Asian and French people and have invited some to participate in some of our projects at Evergreen Island. I think it is time to revisit an idea like "World Youth Day" but change it to something like "World Student Day" to include the wide-variety of ages that are represented in education. I wound up giving the creator of Simbolic Translator a thousand lindens which is about $5 American in Second Life. The creator, Tragix Wilder, made a big deal about my donation but I have paid for things in SL that did a tenth as much and work like his really deserves recognition.
Sunday, August 17, 2008
Study: Fastest Growing US Companies Rapidly Adopting Social Media - ReadWriteWeb
Study: Fastest Growing US Companies Rapidly Adopting Social Media - ReadWriteWeb: "A one year follow up on a study of social media adoption at 500 of the fastest growing companies in the US has found that familiarity with and use of blogs, podcasting, wikis, online video and social networking has skyrocketed in 2008 to nearly double what it was in 2007. 77% of respondents now report at least some use of a social media tool in their business."
I did not find the results of this study surprising at all. I was talking to some people at Harcourt once about a new hire. They had two nearly identical candidates both with internships and a freshly minted degree. They went for the candidate who was comfortable with blogs. Creating a student success like our HIM 101 course at Tacoma Community College is not just an eccentric choice of technologies; using social media tools for teaching and learning prepares the students for the actual workplace. In all my years in the private sector as an employee or consultant, no one has ever asked me to take a multiple choice test or write a ten page paper. There are things that need to be written, but they are almost always written collaboratively. We do a great disservice by not including those skills in our teaching and assessment.
I did not find the results of this study surprising at all. I was talking to some people at Harcourt once about a new hire. They had two nearly identical candidates both with internships and a freshly minted degree. They went for the candidate who was comfortable with blogs. Creating a student success like our HIM 101 course at Tacoma Community College is not just an eccentric choice of technologies; using social media tools for teaching and learning prepares the students for the actual workplace. In all my years in the private sector as an employee or consultant, no one has ever asked me to take a multiple choice test or write a ten page paper. There are things that need to be written, but they are almost always written collaboratively. We do a great disservice by not including those skills in our teaching and assessment.
Monday, August 11, 2008
Everything Old is New Again
Something about these old books from the 60s makes me sneeze. They really don't make paper like they used to. Some salient quotes from R. Buckminster Fuller's Education Automation (1962):
"I would say, then, that you are faced with a future in which education is going to be a number one amongst the great world industries, within which will flourish an educational machine technology that will provide tools such as the individually selected and articulated two-way TV and an intercontinentally net-worked, documentaries call-up system, operative over any home two-way TV set."
This sounds like YouTube. I am sure though he was not thinking it also hosting re-runs of "Hogan's Heroes." There are some great pieces of film that are winding up on YouTube that you just can't find anywhere else (like "Why Man Creates").
"We would also find that generally speaking the geographically larger the physical task to be dome, the duller the conceptual brain that is brought to bear upon the integration of the scientific discoveries and their technically reaqlized applications."
The above is an early argument for open source. There is no way that one person, one company or even a handful of governments is going to bring education to those that need it most. The message that fuller has is that we need to give people access to the information and the networks (two-way TV set). Today's education is still a system of one-way delivery. The interaction that is inherent in the network is everything.
"I would counsel you in your deliberation regarding getting campuses ready now to get general comprehensive environmental controls that are suitable to all-purposes like a circus. A circus is a transformable environment."
This is why I like what Howard Rhiengold is doing with his "Co-Lab." It is an extremely flexible collection of tools. It can be added on to a commercial learning management system (the "duller conceptual brain" that Fuller was writing about) or be used as a stand-alone LMS itself. I like being able to chose what tools I use rather than having them chosen for me out of the box.
"You don't need a detailed drawing; we do not make that kind of communication to craftsman anymore; but all of the schools go on teaching that we do. The data no longer goes to the craftsman; it goes to the tools...What we want is the man who gets the fundamental concept, the information significance, and can do some comprehensive thinking regarding that information. He will put the data into the information machines, and it will be processed by automation into physical realization of his effective thinking. We don't need many of the myriad of 'things' we have had in schools."
A side note about Connectivism: So whenever I am faced with a new theory of learning, the first question I ask is "So what?" How does this theory describe what we do? How can this theory tell me about how people learn, and therefore, how I should teach? I want any new theory to be like an information machine; I can give it my data and get out of it a realization of effective thinking. Knowing that some information is more significant than other information is currently one of the top critical skills. I know how constructivism approaches this problem: we apply information to our experiences and the experiences of others and we create new knowlege. The goal of education is to create places in space and time where this can happen. Teaching is to facilitate this interaction. This fits my experience in the classroom and online. My questions about constructivism (and they are questions because they are unanswered - there is nothing rhetorical about this) ask if the creation of a network isn't just the future of constructivism? Is it focusing on the network rather than the people and experiences? The connection rather than the connected?
"I would say, then, that you are faced with a future in which education is going to be a number one amongst the great world industries, within which will flourish an educational machine technology that will provide tools such as the individually selected and articulated two-way TV and an intercontinentally net-worked, documentaries call-up system, operative over any home two-way TV set."
This sounds like YouTube. I am sure though he was not thinking it also hosting re-runs of "Hogan's Heroes." There are some great pieces of film that are winding up on YouTube that you just can't find anywhere else (like "Why Man Creates").
"We would also find that generally speaking the geographically larger the physical task to be dome, the duller the conceptual brain that is brought to bear upon the integration of the scientific discoveries and their technically reaqlized applications."
The above is an early argument for open source. There is no way that one person, one company or even a handful of governments is going to bring education to those that need it most. The message that fuller has is that we need to give people access to the information and the networks (two-way TV set). Today's education is still a system of one-way delivery. The interaction that is inherent in the network is everything.
"I would counsel you in your deliberation regarding getting campuses ready now to get general comprehensive environmental controls that are suitable to all-purposes like a circus. A circus is a transformable environment."
This is why I like what Howard Rhiengold is doing with his "Co-Lab." It is an extremely flexible collection of tools. It can be added on to a commercial learning management system (the "duller conceptual brain" that Fuller was writing about) or be used as a stand-alone LMS itself. I like being able to chose what tools I use rather than having them chosen for me out of the box.
"You don't need a detailed drawing; we do not make that kind of communication to craftsman anymore; but all of the schools go on teaching that we do. The data no longer goes to the craftsman; it goes to the tools...What we want is the man who gets the fundamental concept, the information significance, and can do some comprehensive thinking regarding that information. He will put the data into the information machines, and it will be processed by automation into physical realization of his effective thinking. We don't need many of the myriad of 'things' we have had in schools."
A side note about Connectivism: So whenever I am faced with a new theory of learning, the first question I ask is "So what?" How does this theory describe what we do? How can this theory tell me about how people learn, and therefore, how I should teach? I want any new theory to be like an information machine; I can give it my data and get out of it a realization of effective thinking. Knowing that some information is more significant than other information is currently one of the top critical skills. I know how constructivism approaches this problem: we apply information to our experiences and the experiences of others and we create new knowlege. The goal of education is to create places in space and time where this can happen. Teaching is to facilitate this interaction. This fits my experience in the classroom and online. My questions about constructivism (and they are questions because they are unanswered - there is nothing rhetorical about this) ask if the creation of a network isn't just the future of constructivism? Is it focusing on the network rather than the people and experiences? The connection rather than the connected?
Saturday, August 09, 2008
Edupunk is Dead: Long Live Ednuwave
Who are you trying to kid? The era is over. Edupunk is fine but the insurance liability of the moshpit (workshop) got pretty stiff. And it got repetitious, the same old vomit into your keyboard and swing at the dean. And after the violence of the SoHo edupunk riots in the late 70s, I began to feel, as wikipedia puts it a certain sense of the experimental, a lyricism that I wasn't finding in my Sex Pistols approach to education technology. Those boots were killing my feet. I want the edgy creativity of the Talking Heads, the soulfulness and hair of Flock of Seagulls, and the emotional intelligence of the B-52s. The EdNuWave is 
Thursday, August 07, 2008
Favorite Recipes of HIM 101
We had a file sharing exercise in the Health Information Management class I am co-teaching and the files we shared were favorite recipes. Here are the results:
Armchair astronomer discovers unique 'cosmic ghost' - CNN.com
Armchair astronomer discovers unique 'cosmic ghost' - CNN.com: "During the last year, more than 150,000 armchair astronomers from all over the world volunteered their time, submitting more than 50 million classifications."
This is the story about one amateur astronomer who made a discovery. The discovery is important enough to warrant the attention of the Hubble Space Telescope and professional astronomers. But the real story is how the discovery was made. A couple of scientists were trying to classify one million images of from telescopes. They asked for help from the amateur astronomy community.
"The public's collective wisdom -- the same principle that guides jury trials, or Wikipedia -- proved remarkably astute, Schawinski said. For example, if 33 of 36 volunteers thought a galaxy appeared elliptical, then astronomers could be confident the classification was correct, he said."
This is similar to the same process that goes on with bird counts. Professionals rely on data collected from many amateurs to determine migration patterns, habitat health, and bird population levels.
The article goes on to describe the discovery but as I said, the real discovery is that scientists are learning to rely more on the collective intelligence of people.
This is the story about one amateur astronomer who made a discovery. The discovery is important enough to warrant the attention of the Hubble Space Telescope and professional astronomers. But the real story is how the discovery was made. A couple of scientists were trying to classify one million images of from telescopes. They asked for help from the amateur astronomy community.
"The public's collective wisdom -- the same principle that guides jury trials, or Wikipedia -- proved remarkably astute, Schawinski said. For example, if 33 of 36 volunteers thought a galaxy appeared elliptical, then astronomers could be confident the classification was correct, he said."
This is similar to the same process that goes on with bird counts. Professionals rely on data collected from many amateurs to determine migration patterns, habitat health, and bird population levels.
The article goes on to describe the discovery but as I said, the real discovery is that scientists are learning to rely more on the collective intelligence of people.
Monday, August 04, 2008
When a Syllabus Is Not Your Own - Chronicle.com
When a Syllabus Is Not Your Own - Chronicle.com
Okay, when I started teaching English, I would not have made it at all without the spirit of collegiality (the old school tie, insert secret handshake here). I had to teach a course I had never taught before and I asked an instructor for help and she gave me her syllabus. I said "you are just giving me this?" and she said "syllabi don't teach, teachers teach." In other words, the syllabus is merely a skeleton and the oh so delicate flesh makes all the difference. I freely hand out my syllabus online. I do ask that if you take a syllabus, workbook, or assignment that you send me a copy of your adaptations but if you don't - it is on you. I once wrote a manual that I copy-lefted to the world. It was a handbook on writing with computers for English students. I did not have time to update it every semester. By making it freely available, I had people update it for me, use it in their courses, give me the updates and suggestions for new assignments. The sage-on-the-stage attitude of the author of "When a Syllabus is Not Your Own" is elitist and demonstrates an ignorance of copyright law and is incredibly naive about how information moves in the modern world. Nobody's, and I mean nobody's, syllabus is all that.
Okay, when I started teaching English, I would not have made it at all without the spirit of collegiality (the old school tie, insert secret handshake here). I had to teach a course I had never taught before and I asked an instructor for help and she gave me her syllabus. I said "you are just giving me this?" and she said "syllabi don't teach, teachers teach." In other words, the syllabus is merely a skeleton and the oh so delicate flesh makes all the difference. I freely hand out my syllabus online. I do ask that if you take a syllabus, workbook, or assignment that you send me a copy of your adaptations but if you don't - it is on you. I once wrote a manual that I copy-lefted to the world. It was a handbook on writing with computers for English students. I did not have time to update it every semester. By making it freely available, I had people update it for me, use it in their courses, give me the updates and suggestions for new assignments. The sage-on-the-stage attitude of the author of "When a Syllabus is Not Your Own" is elitist and demonstrates an ignorance of copyright law and is incredibly naive about how information moves in the modern world. Nobody's, and I mean nobody's, syllabus is all that.
Sunday, August 03, 2008
Hyperpolitics, American Style (Live Version)
Hyperpolitics, American Style (Live Version)
Okay, the information in this video is astounding because it shows that the modern education system is headed for a significant failure if it does not account for the creation of networks as a part of education. We have to go from being a top-down hierarchical delivery system to a distributed network of learning. Humans sent 43 billion text messages to one another -- why aren't more educators tapping into this?
Okay, the information in this video is astounding because it shows that the modern education system is headed for a significant failure if it does not account for the creation of networks as a part of education. We have to go from being a top-down hierarchical delivery system to a distributed network of learning. Humans sent 43 billion text messages to one another -- why aren't more educators tapping into this?
Saturday, August 02, 2008
Slideboom Presentation on iTunes
This is a brief presentation on iTunes that I did for my class using Slideboom. It does not auto-advance, you have to click through it.:
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Our Online Course Development Process
This is a posting of an early draft of our online course development process. I am posting it here as an example of sharing documents for the Health Information Management class I am co-teaching this summer. BUT, if you have any questions or comments on our process, I would appreciate any input.
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Conceptualizations of Information
Luddites often fear technology because of the sense that it is something alien to human nature. There is this feeling that if we are using technology that somehow we are moving away from something essentially human. I would argue that our use of technology is part of our humanity and that the Rousseauist ideal of man in harmony with nature is a myth that never was. We invented fire as soon as humanly possible because it was damn cold. How do we communicate this new, vital information with others? We invented languages, drew pictures, and held workshops! Seriously though, our minds are so complex, they take in a huge amount of information at anyone time (consciously and unconsciously) that organizing information is probably the world's third oldest profession. I would like to look at one particularly early ordering of information. My wife, the most rational animal I know, hates hearing me talk about this because the idea sounds like I am saying that the ancient Chinese invented programming and computers. She believes, with little other evidence, that this is some marijuana-induced ramble from the 70s. Even if it were, it would only be additional proof of the archetypal nature of organizing information from chaos. Care for a brownie? Let us continue then.
The I Ching, the book of changes, consists of 64 chapters. The chapters contain cryptic poems describing our possible relationships to nature and one another. Each chapter is titled with two hexagrams made up of trigrams, each trigram is named after an element or a condition of an element (water, air, mountain, etc.). Each trigram is generated by three lines that are either yin or yang, female and male, dark and light, the bianary opposites. One is meant to randomly access the information using a stick gather method or the throwing of three coins to generate the lines. (The lines can be classified as static and moving as well.) The earliest methods of generating the trigrams come from the reading of heated tortoise shells thrown into cold water. The cracks were then interpreted and the appropriate poem or reading recalled or read. (A true master could see the cracks in a rock and refer them back to the I Ching!) So here we have a database of information, a formula or program to access the information (that even starts in a binary code!), and action taken based on the information. The idea was that the user was engaging in a random process (all randomness guided by the tao) and that by freezing that moment in time by the throwing of coins, one could get of sense of where it was going and where it had been.
You do not have to think that this is a computer. But it is a formal system for organizing and retrieving complex sets of information. It is probably 1200 years old and there are earlier examples than this. It shows that this is what the human mind does; this is what it was meant to do. Creating methods of visually communicating information is as natural to us as a walk in the woods.
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Connectivism is Nothing New
To quote Wikipedia "A hyperlink is a reference or navigation element in a document to another section of the same document or to another document that may be on or part of a (different) domain." The act of linking two things together is a critical act. The connection is first created (connectivism?) in our mind based on other connected thoughts that are in turn linked to our personal experience, social, and historical milieu (constructivism). Creating references between two "documents" is as old as recorded history. And what is a document? According to Wikipedia, "Anything serving as a representation of a person's thinking by means of symbolic marks." There are many instances of documents through out human history of containing "hyperlinks" to other documents. In the east, many of the sutras are actually written references or guides to mandalas and other art. One of my favorite chapters of the Illiad is the shield chapter (18:478) where I have long felt that the description of the shield is obviously a reference to another work of art, a sculpture perhaps, and in turn, the arrangement of images in the shield is a critique of the society and world that created it. So the Illiad was an oral tradition, referred to by a written document which also refers to a work of art (the Shield of Achilles). The shield itself was a graphical representation of the complex relationships of humanity and the cosmos. Now if that is not a hyperlinked text what is?
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