Each month, the Resource Center for Cyberculture Studies (RCCS) publishes a set of book reviews and author responses. books of the month for April 2008 include:
Always Already New: Media, History, and the Data of Culture
Author: Lisa Gitelman
Publisher: MIT Press, 2006
Review 1: J. Patrick Biddix
Review 2: David Heineman
Review 3: Michelle Rodino-Colocino
Author Response: Lisa Gitelman
Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide
Author: Henry Jenkins
Publisher: NYU Press, 2006
Review 1: Susan Keith
Review 2: Anne Kustritz
Review 3: Darby Orcutt
Review 4: J. Richard Stevens
Author Response: Henry Jenkins
Everything Is Miscellaneous: The Power of the New Digital Disorder
Author: David Weinberger
Publisher: Times Books, 2007
Review 1: Lucinda Austin
Review 2: Geoffrey B. Cain
Review 3: Erika Pearson
Author Response: David Weinberger
Online Matchmaking
Editors: Monica T. Whitty, Andrea J. Baker, James A. Inman
Publisher: Palgrave MacMillan, 2007
Review 1: Trudy Barber
Author Response: Andrea J. Baker
Enjoy. There's more where that came from.
David Silver
david silver's blog
Tuesday, April 01, 2008
Wikis and Emergent Roles for Teaching and Learning
I was really pleased at the turn-out for this presentation. Wikis are being used for a wide variety of educational applications in many different kinds of educational settings.
Gail Burns and David Reed are using Blackboard, Moodle, and along with Moodle they are using Atlassian's Confluence wiki software. They use it for:
1. Building knowledge bases
2. Event planning
3. Collaboration on documents
4. Meeting minutes
5. Student collaboration
David Reed trains and manages Student Technology Assistants. The STA program is a year long program. Students are paid to participate. They spend semester in training learning about:
1. Web design
2. Office productivity
3. Graphic design
4. Software training
5. LMS support
They then spend the next semester helping faculty with projects, supporting the lab, and training the next generation of STAs in STA workshops. It is a brilliant idea.
At this point, the wiki was used to post meeting minutes and announcements.
They lost their workspace and to replace it, David divided their time between face-to-face meetings and posting on to a wiki. He decided that they needed some wiki projects to bring them together. These projects included:
1. An STA mission statement (an informal document)
2. An "Open House" project where they created posters, signs, and slogans.
3. The STA workshop wiki
STAs began to post to the wiki things they wished they knew about or wanted to learn. Other STAs began to post skills they had and this began to inform the direction of formal and informal workshops.
I think our eLearning Dept. at TCC could really learn from this program. I would love for those STAs to meet some of our student workers.
Next came Barbara Shroeder, the head of the Academic Technologies dept. She came up with a "best practices" list for wikis in education:
1. Create a culture of trust - students have to learn the risk-taking involved with writing and editing online.
2. Set up guidlines (http://wikipatterns.com)
3. Create a common goal for the wiki
4. Create meaningful assignments
5. Include explicit instructions
6. Remind students of deadlines
7. Define roles
8. Examples and models of collaborative activities should be modeled
9. Clear expectations should be provided
10. Patience - students may take a while to get the hang of new tech.
Tuesday, April 01, 2008
11:45 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.
Room of the Dons, Lobby Level
Speaker(s)
* Gayle Burns, Manager of Academic Technologies, Occidental College
* David Reed, Academic Technologist, Occidental College
* Barbara Schroeder, Instructional Designer, Boise State University
* Session convener: Crista Copp, Senior Director, Educational Technology, Art Center College of Design
Abstract
Institutions increasingly encourage students to take an active role in their own learning. Wikis can facilitate this process by offering many ways for faculty and students to collaborate and create content. This panel of wiki experts from Boise State University and Occidental College will discuss their experiences in using wikis, including emergent roles in the teaching and learning process, critical to the effective use of this new technology.
Gail Burns and David Reed are using Blackboard, Moodle, and along with Moodle they are using Atlassian's Confluence wiki software. They use it for:
1. Building knowledge bases
2. Event planning
3. Collaboration on documents
4. Meeting minutes
5. Student collaboration
David Reed trains and manages Student Technology Assistants. The STA program is a year long program. Students are paid to participate. They spend semester in training learning about:
1. Web design
2. Office productivity
3. Graphic design
4. Software training
5. LMS support
They then spend the next semester helping faculty with projects, supporting the lab, and training the next generation of STAs in STA workshops. It is a brilliant idea.
At this point, the wiki was used to post meeting minutes and announcements.
They lost their workspace and to replace it, David divided their time between face-to-face meetings and posting on to a wiki. He decided that they needed some wiki projects to bring them together. These projects included:
1. An STA mission statement (an informal document)
2. An "Open House" project where they created posters, signs, and slogans.
3. The STA workshop wiki
STAs began to post to the wiki things they wished they knew about or wanted to learn. Other STAs began to post skills they had and this began to inform the direction of formal and informal workshops.
I think our eLearning Dept. at TCC could really learn from this program. I would love for those STAs to meet some of our student workers.
Next came Barbara Shroeder, the head of the Academic Technologies dept. She came up with a "best practices" list for wikis in education:
1. Create a culture of trust - students have to learn the risk-taking involved with writing and editing online.
2. Set up guidlines (http://wikipatterns.com)
3. Create a common goal for the wiki
4. Create meaningful assignments
5. Include explicit instructions
6. Remind students of deadlines
7. Define roles
8. Examples and models of collaborative activities should be modeled
9. Clear expectations should be provided
10. Patience - students may take a while to get the hang of new tech.
Tuesday, April 01, 2008
11:45 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.
Room of the Dons, Lobby Level
Speaker(s)
* Gayle Burns, Manager of Academic Technologies, Occidental College
* David Reed, Academic Technologist, Occidental College
* Barbara Schroeder, Instructional Designer, Boise State University
* Session convener: Crista Copp, Senior Director, Educational Technology, Art Center College of Design
Abstract
Institutions increasingly encourage students to take an active role in their own learning. Wikis can facilitate this process by offering many ways for faculty and students to collaborate and create content. This panel of wiki experts from Boise State University and Occidental College will discuss their experiences in using wikis, including emergent roles in the teaching and learning process, critical to the effective use of this new technology.
Space Defines Destiny: assessment of a learning studio
This presentation at the Western Regional Educause conference was particularly interesting to me because of the struggles we have gone through to get Second Life working in a lab and classroom environment, and because of conversations we have had in our department about learning spaces.
* Jim S. C. Tom, Associate Vice Chancellor for Information Technology, University of Missouri-St Louis
"This session will present the planning, use, and assessment of our first flexible technology-enhanced classroom or learning "studio"—an immediately useful yet also provocative and experimental space. We will show how the completed space itself challenged our faculty and students to redefine what learning at UMSL could mean."
They wanted to create a learning space that would challenge the typical teaching space model that includes fixed seating, "sage on the stage" teaching, and a culture of discomfort that does not invite engagement or participation.
They created a discussion group on innovative classroom design called the "Provost's Forum" that included staff, faculty, students, facilities and planning. The result was a working paper on classroom design. They decided that a learning space should be flexible, comfortable, social, and accessible. They created a team to design the space that included their IT department, faculty, a systems integrator (I want that job), and interior designer (what a relief! don't the IT dept. choose the colors!), and facilities. This is really a radical idea: get teachers to help design learning spaces with those who have to build and use this space.
They built a prototype classroom that would have assessment of the project built into its use. This is different from a culture that builds spaces but does not follow up on how they are used.
Assessment included:
1. Faculty observations
2. Blogs
3. Video recordings
4. Surveys of all users
5. Debriefing meeting with faculty
The room included two projectors facing opposite walls, a plasma screen, white boards, an area with couches, circular tables that were made of moveable quarters on wheels, a cart of laptops, sympodium, and a document camera. Their budget for the one room came in at $222,000!
They found that the rooms promoted engagement. The comfortable space was less threatening to students who said that it felt like a privilege to use the room and that it made them want to learn and participate. Faculty said that "the space is the message." Space not only determines how the students feel about learning but it also communicates how the institution feels about teaching and the students as people.
Spaces reflect the values of the institution.
The classroom had no obvious front or back. It encouraged the faculty to circulate among the students.
They learned that training teachers how to use the space was important.
* Jim S. C. Tom, Associate Vice Chancellor for Information Technology, University of Missouri-St Louis
"This session will present the planning, use, and assessment of our first flexible technology-enhanced classroom or learning "studio"—an immediately useful yet also provocative and experimental space. We will show how the completed space itself challenged our faculty and students to redefine what learning at UMSL could mean."
They wanted to create a learning space that would challenge the typical teaching space model that includes fixed seating, "sage on the stage" teaching, and a culture of discomfort that does not invite engagement or participation.
They created a discussion group on innovative classroom design called the "Provost's Forum" that included staff, faculty, students, facilities and planning. The result was a working paper on classroom design. They decided that a learning space should be flexible, comfortable, social, and accessible. They created a team to design the space that included their IT department, faculty, a systems integrator (I want that job), and interior designer (what a relief! don't the IT dept. choose the colors!), and facilities. This is really a radical idea: get teachers to help design learning spaces with those who have to build and use this space.
They built a prototype classroom that would have assessment of the project built into its use. This is different from a culture that builds spaces but does not follow up on how they are used.
Assessment included:
1. Faculty observations
2. Blogs
3. Video recordings
4. Surveys of all users
5. Debriefing meeting with faculty
The room included two projectors facing opposite walls, a plasma screen, white boards, an area with couches, circular tables that were made of moveable quarters on wheels, a cart of laptops, sympodium, and a document camera. Their budget for the one room came in at $222,000!
They found that the rooms promoted engagement. The comfortable space was less threatening to students who said that it felt like a privilege to use the room and that it made them want to learn and participate. Faculty said that "the space is the message." Space not only determines how the students feel about learning but it also communicates how the institution feels about teaching and the students as people.
Spaces reflect the values of the institution.
The classroom had no obvious front or back. It encouraged the faculty to circulate among the students.
They learned that training teachers how to use the space was important.
Monday, March 31, 2008
Educause Presentation
I was on a panel today at the Western Regional meeting of Educause speaking on Second Life. It was a very interesting presentation because the people we were presenting with originally had their presentation entitled "Second Life from the Slow Lane." Imagine their surprise when they found themselves on a panel with John Miller! But the really interesting part is that while we are working with simulations and models, these two are actually working out the human dimension to Second Life. Their work in SL is connectivity rich while we are programming rich.
Jeffery Lamb is using Second Life with his Spanish class to basically create a "semestre abroad" approach. In Second Life, his students go to a virtual Barcelona and Mexico and talk with native Spanish speakers. He also makes them use the Spanish "Segunda Vida" client so when they want to change their avatar's hair and such they have to learn the names of the various body parts and colors in Spanish. This is terrific because the students then have a natural, invested interest in learning the language. And then when their hair is right, they are hanging out with native Spanish speakers. I found this more exciting than any of the programming or widgets I have seen in SL. This is what it should really be about -- people working and learning together. I want to bring this to our college and to our state!
Here is the blurb from the program:
Teaching and Learning in Second Life
Session Details
Track 1
Monday, March 31, 2008
4:45 p.m. - 5:30 p.m.
Room of the Dons, Lobby Level
Speaker(s)
* Geoffrey B. Cain, Instructional Designer / English Instructor, Tacoma Community College
* Jeffrey Lamb, Spanish Instructor, Solano Community College
* John Miller, Nursing Instructor, Tacoma Community College
* Sandra Rotenberg, Librarian and Distance Education Coordinator, Solano Communityt
This panel discussion examines both the process and product of teaching in Second Life from the perspectives of instructors and an instructional designer. Participants will see how instructors use Second Life to teach foreign languages and nursing, illustrating the breadth of possibilities virtual reality offers to introduce students to other cultures and clinical procedures. The experience enhances students' critical thinking, decision making, and diversity awareness.
Jeffery Lamb is using Second Life with his Spanish class to basically create a "semestre abroad" approach. In Second Life, his students go to a virtual Barcelona and Mexico and talk with native Spanish speakers. He also makes them use the Spanish "Segunda Vida" client so when they want to change their avatar's hair and such they have to learn the names of the various body parts and colors in Spanish. This is terrific because the students then have a natural, invested interest in learning the language. And then when their hair is right, they are hanging out with native Spanish speakers. I found this more exciting than any of the programming or widgets I have seen in SL. This is what it should really be about -- people working and learning together. I want to bring this to our college and to our state!
Here is the blurb from the program:
Teaching and Learning in Second Life
Session Details
Track 1
Monday, March 31, 2008
4:45 p.m. - 5:30 p.m.
Room of the Dons, Lobby Level
Speaker(s)
* Geoffrey B. Cain, Instructional Designer / English Instructor, Tacoma Community College
* Jeffrey Lamb, Spanish Instructor, Solano Community College
* John Miller, Nursing Instructor, Tacoma Community College
* Sandra Rotenberg, Librarian and Distance Education Coordinator, Solano Communityt
This panel discussion examines both the process and product of teaching in Second Life from the perspectives of instructors and an instructional designer. Participants will see how instructors use Second Life to teach foreign languages and nursing, illustrating the breadth of possibilities virtual reality offers to introduce students to other cultures and clinical procedures. The experience enhances students' critical thinking, decision making, and diversity awareness.
Sunday, March 30, 2008
3-D Mind Mapping
I have always been, and probably always will be, a big fan of Inspiration. This is a fairly traditional (but extremely flexible) concept mapping software. I believe that the traditional uses of software such as this can be great for communication, brainstorming, and as presentation tools. But one claim is that such software somehow represents how we think. Software packages like this seem all too linear and flowchartish to really represent thought; especially with what we are discovering about the nature of memory, that memories are not held in single neurons or even tightly grouped neurons but are patterns distributed over the whole brain. A single part of the brain can be damaged and the brain can remap memories. I am wondering if concept maps that are movable in three dimensions are not a more accurate representation of thought. (Is there really a connection between how concept maps communicate and the structure of thought?) I am currently experimenting with Personal Brain and with some concept mapping in Second Life. What I like about Personal Brain is that the user organizes links in a 3-d virtual space where anything that is clicked on is brought to the center and the other links shift around the new center. I find that this captures my style of thinking (meta-tangential ADD?) -- I will create some films using this and Jing and see what I come up with. Ultimately what I am looking for is 3-d collaborative mind maps and I think I have found some solutions in Second Life.
Friday, February 22, 2008
Deschooling Web 2.0
I was in colleague's office this morning rambling about Ivan Illich's Deschooling Society. If you don't know who he was, he was a radical intellectual in the 60s and 70s and very popular with the alternative schooling types. One or his ideas is that schools are made to contain knowledge rather than share it. This is why school rooms in fascist, communist, and capitalist countries all look the same. Anyway, Charlie Crawford sent me a note this morning pointing to Chapter 6 which contains Illich’s “Four Networks” which is about the decentralization of knowledge but actually is also a good description of the ideal web 2.0 learning community (i.e. MERLOT and possibly some aspects of the future Tacoma Challenge?).
1. Reference Services to Educational Objects-which facilitate access to things or processes used for formal learning. Some of these things can be reserved for this purpose, stored in libraries, rental agencies, laboratories, and showrooms like museums and theaters; others can be in daily use in factories, airports, or on farms, but made available to students as apprentices or on off hours.
2. Skill Exchanges — which permit persons to list their skills, the conditions under which they are willing to serve as models for others who want to learn these skills, and the addresses at which they can be reached.
3. Peer-Matching — a communications network which permits persons to describe the learning activity in which they wish to engage, in the hope of finding a partner for the inquiry.
4. Reference Services to Educators-at-Large — who can be listed in a directory giving the addresses and self-descriptions of professionals, paraprofessionals, and free-lancers, along with conditions of access to their services. Such educators, as we will see, could be chosen by polling or consulting their former clients.
The thing that is so ironic about this is that Illich was not too keen on technology, but technology seems to be what is facilitating this vision now.
The purpose of the Challenge isn’t to be a reference service, but it could certainly be a hub where students share their learning experiences and connect to people and resources. The podcasting project and the blog tools in Drupal can facilitate this. In ancient Greece, the paideia, was not just one institution, but the whole community. The Challenge, and other open source content management systems, can be this connection.
1. Reference Services to Educational Objects-which facilitate access to things or processes used for formal learning. Some of these things can be reserved for this purpose, stored in libraries, rental agencies, laboratories, and showrooms like museums and theaters; others can be in daily use in factories, airports, or on farms, but made available to students as apprentices or on off hours.
2. Skill Exchanges — which permit persons to list their skills, the conditions under which they are willing to serve as models for others who want to learn these skills, and the addresses at which they can be reached.
3. Peer-Matching — a communications network which permits persons to describe the learning activity in which they wish to engage, in the hope of finding a partner for the inquiry.
4. Reference Services to Educators-at-Large — who can be listed in a directory giving the addresses and self-descriptions of professionals, paraprofessionals, and free-lancers, along with conditions of access to their services. Such educators, as we will see, could be chosen by polling or consulting their former clients.
The thing that is so ironic about this is that Illich was not too keen on technology, but technology seems to be what is facilitating this vision now.
The purpose of the Challenge isn’t to be a reference service, but it could certainly be a hub where students share their learning experiences and connect to people and resources. The podcasting project and the blog tools in Drupal can facilitate this. In ancient Greece, the paideia, was not just one institution, but the whole community. The Challenge, and other open source content management systems, can be this connection.
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Open Source Textbooks
I am in the middle of a conversation elsewhere on the net about open source textbooks and open source in education in general. I think this is certainly the way to go. The print industry moves far too slowly for the field of educational tech. anyway.
And speaking of educational technology; There is an article in the Feb. 15th Chronicle called "One Way to Rein In the Cost of Textbooks: Make Them Free." It is by Paul F. deLespinasse, who is from Adrian and has four textbooks available online. He says that given modern technology, "there is no reason why textbooks could not be extremely cheap, if not free." He says that most of the cost comes from things like printing, distribution and marketing. He also said that texts that are radically innovative never make it through the publication process. I love this point "...faculty members who do not wish to rely on miracles to produce texts based on new approaches to the subjects can post their materials on the Internet. That would increase the richness and diversity of materials that instructors can choose from as they develop courses, and would benefit students both intellectually and financially.
What is interesting about his take is that I assumed that true experts in the field, seasoned, experienced scholars like deLespinasse would not be interested in open source texts. I thought that adjunct faculty or up and coming scholars would be more interested in this, but his own work proves me wrong.
He points out in his article that some of the disadvantages of online publishing is that online texts are not subject to review and the editorial process. For myself, this just points out how crucial organizations like MERLOT are.
The article is worth checking out. (Unfortunately, the Chronicle is still a very commercial publication, and to read the article online, one must have a paid subscription.)
And speaking of educational technology; There is an article in the Feb. 15th Chronicle called "One Way to Rein In the Cost of Textbooks: Make Them Free." It is by Paul F. deLespinasse, who is from Adrian and has four textbooks available online. He says that given modern technology, "there is no reason why textbooks could not be extremely cheap, if not free." He says that most of the cost comes from things like printing, distribution and marketing. He also said that texts that are radically innovative never make it through the publication process. I love this point "...faculty members who do not wish to rely on miracles to produce texts based on new approaches to the subjects can post their materials on the Internet. That would increase the richness and diversity of materials that instructors can choose from as they develop courses, and would benefit students both intellectually and financially.
What is interesting about his take is that I assumed that true experts in the field, seasoned, experienced scholars like deLespinasse would not be interested in open source texts. I thought that adjunct faculty or up and coming scholars would be more interested in this, but his own work proves me wrong.
He points out in his article that some of the disadvantages of online publishing is that online texts are not subject to review and the editorial process. For myself, this just points out how crucial organizations like MERLOT are.
The article is worth checking out. (Unfortunately, the Chronicle is still a very commercial publication, and to read the article online, one must have a paid subscription.)
Monday, February 11, 2008
Open Source Resources for WA CTCs
I was in a meeting today with Cable Green on open source. Here are the opening notes that were posted on Injenuity's blog before the meeting:
Cable Green will lead a discussion on how the Washington Community and
Technical Colleges can actively participate in and contribute to the
Open Educational Resources (OER) movement.
He doesn’t have the answers but brings a host of questions that higher
education needs to wrestle with to increase learning opportunities,
lower costs, and form a more perfect global learning space.
* How do we educate all stakeholders about open educational resources
(software, content, standards, publishing) and why they are an important
part of our system’s future?
* How do we make it easy to share learning materials, courses and
degrees?
* What are the policy implications of sharing content? Are we all so
unique that we can’t use one another’s courses? How many different
Algebra 101 courses do we need?
* Under what circumstances will faculty “receive” what has been built by
others? How do we collectively get past the issue of “I need to build it
myself?”
* Is content is a strategic advantage? Or do walled gardens wither and
die without the winds of collective input and continuous iteration?
* How much longer can our students afford traditional textbooks? Why
can’t we develop open textbooks?
* How much longer can our libraries afford buying access to articles our
faculty published? What is stopping us from an open publishing movement
for academic journal articles?
_______________________________________________________________________________
I have been interested in open source teaching materials since I have been involved in teaching or education support. We have really lost something in this age of "intellectual property" and copyright. I don't think I would be the teacher I am today if it wasn't for the other teachers who were gracious enough to share ideas, curricula and syllabi.
I am creating an open source developmental English textbook. I am going to offer it on LuLu.Com but the whole book will be in a Creative Commons rather than a restrictive copyright.
All of the teaching tools that we create in Second Life should be available to all teachers.
Faculty claim to be interested in the students welfare when they say that they do not want to have "their" students learn online because of the cost. Yet, they will assign textbooks that cost over a hundred dollars.
Cable Green will lead a discussion on how the Washington Community and
Technical Colleges can actively participate in and contribute to the
Open Educational Resources (OER) movement.
He doesn’t have the answers but brings a host of questions that higher
education needs to wrestle with to increase learning opportunities,
lower costs, and form a more perfect global learning space.
* How do we educate all stakeholders about open educational resources
(software, content, standards, publishing) and why they are an important
part of our system’s future?
* How do we make it easy to share learning materials, courses and
degrees?
* What are the policy implications of sharing content? Are we all so
unique that we can’t use one another’s courses? How many different
Algebra 101 courses do we need?
* Under what circumstances will faculty “receive” what has been built by
others? How do we collectively get past the issue of “I need to build it
myself?”
* Is content is a strategic advantage? Or do walled gardens wither and
die without the winds of collective input and continuous iteration?
* How much longer can our students afford traditional textbooks? Why
can’t we develop open textbooks?
* How much longer can our libraries afford buying access to articles our
faculty published? What is stopping us from an open publishing movement
for academic journal articles?
_______________________________________________________________________________
I have been interested in open source teaching materials since I have been involved in teaching or education support. We have really lost something in this age of "intellectual property" and copyright. I don't think I would be the teacher I am today if it wasn't for the other teachers who were gracious enough to share ideas, curricula and syllabi.
I am creating an open source developmental English textbook. I am going to offer it on LuLu.Com but the whole book will be in a Creative Commons rather than a restrictive copyright.
All of the teaching tools that we create in Second Life should be available to all teachers.
Faculty claim to be interested in the students welfare when they say that they do not want to have "their" students learn online because of the cost. Yet, they will assign textbooks that cost over a hundred dollars.
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Second Life for Educators
The above is a link to a presentation that I put together that discusses Second Life and teaching. As an instructional designer, I am trying to wrap my head around how this fits into the course design process. In all of my work, teaching and course development, I am interested in how interactivity is built into a course. Whenever I look at a course the first thing I think is: how are the students going to interact with the course materials, the instructor, and one another. I am putting together three presentations that focus on the pedagogy of virtual environments. This is the first. I am saving the "how to get cool hair" tutorials for YouTube and working on the boring stuff (teaching situations that do not immediately require a light saber).
Friday, January 18, 2008
Google Generation
Pioneering research shows ‘Google Generation’ is a myth: "Pioneering research shows ‘Google Generation’ is a myth.
* All age groups revealed to share so-called ‘Google Generation' traits
* New study argues that libraries will have to adapt to the digital mindset
* Young people seemingly lacking in information skills; strong message to the government and society at large
"A new study overturns the common assumption that the ‘Google Generation' – youngsters born or brought up in the Internet age – is the most web-literate. The first ever virtual longitudinal study carried out by the CIBER research team at University College London claims that, although young people demonstrate an apparent ease and familiarity with computers, they rely heavily on search engines, view rather than read and do not possess the critical and analytical skills to assess the information that they find on the web."
What fascinates me about these studies is that they never take into account what the students will need to know and what skills they will need after they graduate. The methods and techniques they are being taught with now will teach them how to be an early nineteenth cent. clerk or book-keeper's assistant (think "Bob Crachit"). I am not saying that critical thinking and information literacy are not important, I just seriously doubt they can be taught by people who do not understand the way information and technology is changing the way people think and process information.
* All age groups revealed to share so-called ‘Google Generation' traits
* New study argues that libraries will have to adapt to the digital mindset
* Young people seemingly lacking in information skills; strong message to the government and society at large
"A new study overturns the common assumption that the ‘Google Generation' – youngsters born or brought up in the Internet age – is the most web-literate. The first ever virtual longitudinal study carried out by the CIBER research team at University College London claims that, although young people demonstrate an apparent ease and familiarity with computers, they rely heavily on search engines, view rather than read and do not possess the critical and analytical skills to assess the information that they find on the web."
What fascinates me about these studies is that they never take into account what the students will need to know and what skills they will need after they graduate. The methods and techniques they are being taught with now will teach them how to be an early nineteenth cent. clerk or book-keeper's assistant (think "Bob Crachit"). I am not saying that critical thinking and information literacy are not important, I just seriously doubt they can be taught by people who do not understand the way information and technology is changing the way people think and process information.
Friday, January 11, 2008
elearnspace. Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age
elearnspace. Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age: "Behaviorism, cognitivism, and constructivism are the three broad learning theories most often utilized in the creation of instructional environments. These theories, however, were developed in a time when learning was not impacted through technology. Over the last twenty years, technology has reorganized how we live, how we communicate, and how we learn. Learning needs and theories that describe learning principles and processes, should be reflective of underlying social environments."
I just finished reading Seimens' book "Knowing Knowledge" and this article is a good summary and over-view of his ideas. His book clarifies a lot of this, although I am looking forward to asking him about how learning resides in appliances when he presents as the keynote in Spokane. His definition of "learning" must be different than mine. I am thoroughly entrenched in constructivism, but I think this is a necessary evaluation of our new relationship to information.
I just finished reading Seimens' book "Knowing Knowledge" and this article is a good summary and over-view of his ideas. His book clarifies a lot of this, although I am looking forward to asking him about how learning resides in appliances when he presents as the keynote in Spokane. His definition of "learning" must be different than mine. I am thoroughly entrenched in constructivism, but I think this is a necessary evaluation of our new relationship to information.
Monday, December 17, 2007
Second Life for Educators
This is a presentation I developed for the State of Washington that is an introduction to Second Life for instructors who have never heard of it before. This is for those faculty members who you know would benefit from this but don't really know what it is. I made this using Articulate Presenter. I have more presentations coming soon on developing curriculum in Second Life and how to design assignments.
Friday, December 14, 2007
Kapp Notes: Shooting Educational/Instructional Videos
Kapp Notes: Shooting Educational/Instructional Videos
We here are Tacoma Community College are going to be more involved in film making. I want to do more to capture on film things that teachers do in the classroom that works well for other teachers. This collection of of links for Karl Kapp showed up just in time!
We here are Tacoma Community College are going to be more involved in film making. I want to do more to capture on film things that teachers do in the classroom that works well for other teachers. This collection of of links for Karl Kapp showed up just in time!
Thursday, December 13, 2007
Second Life Extreme Make-Over
As strange as this sounds, people seem to care as much about how you look in Second Life as they do in First Life. You may remember what this is: it is a world filled with avatars who fly around, have jobs, socialize and meet for education projects. And Second Life is like this too. After talking with people in Second Life, some told me that my avatar was unprofessional looking -- it was too generic and too new looking. It was like representing the school in a dirty rain coat. I had a lot of lindens (Second Life money) because a paid account gets an allowance. I rarely spend any money because I spend most of my time in education sites and projects were stuff is free or very cheap. But I started to talk to people in and out of Second Life and they said "yes, it does matter." I shows that I don't care what I look like, have not spent anytime customizing my avatar, and that I must not hang out with regulars and veterans of the virtual world. I was stunned at first but why would it be any different in Second Life as it is in First Life? I went with an acquaintance who decided to help me shop for skin, hair, eyes and clothes (out of mercy for me and to preserve her reputation as someone who does not hangout with newbie dorktards). It felt like a cross between "Frankenstein" and "Queer Eye." We teleported to all of these shops looking at avatar bodies. We picked one that looked vaguely like me if you were looking into a Futuroscope with squinty eyes into an alternative universe in which I was reincarnated as a male model. The skin has raging muscles, tan, gorgeous, and the package comes with a flaccid penis. You can wear it or not just like a pair of sunglasses. I never thought I would ever live to say that I would PAY for a flaccid penis. I bought hair, eyes that look like they reflect light and move, nice clothes, and a Rolex watch. My old avatar had died and was reborn in Orange County.
It is strange looking at all this as a Buddhist. There in Second Life, avatars are born, live in an essentially immaterial world and crave material things.
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Sunday, December 09, 2007
CogDogRoo � StoryTools
CogDogRoo � StoryTools: "The Fifty Tools Below you will find 50 web tools you can use to create a story. Again, your mission here is not to review every single one, but pick one that sounds interesting and see if you can produce something. I have used each tool to produce an example of Dominoe story and links provided where available to examples by other people. Please share your products or thoughts in the discussion area of this wiki."
I beg to differ. I think we do need a review of each of these tools. Not all web 2.0 tools were created equal. I think this would be a good project for this blog as each one of these could certainly be used in my English classes.
I beg to differ. I think we do need a review of each of these tools. Not all web 2.0 tools were created equal. I think this would be a good project for this blog as each one of these could certainly be used in my English classes.
"You got Drupal in my Second Life!" "You got Second Life in my Drupal!" | Social Signal
"You got Drupal in my Second Life!" "You got Second Life in my Drupal!" | Social Signal
Rob Cottingham at Social Signal wrote a brief posting on the Second Life Framework project. This allows interaction between Drupal and Second Life. I work as a consultant for the Tacoma Challenge which is using the open source content management system Drupal as its platform. We are also using Second Life in the nursing program. This new module is exactly what companies like Blackboard have been looking for: a way to get projects and scripts in Second Life to speak to programs and databases outside of SL. Blackboard offered a $25,000 prize for anyone who could do this in Bb. I think it is extremely typical, funny, and ironic that the ones who do it first are the open source community. The state board in WA has just purchased an island in SL to host projects at the various community and technical colleges. This integration of Drupal and SL will certainly be on that list of projects.
Rob Cottingham at Social Signal wrote a brief posting on the Second Life Framework project. This allows interaction between Drupal and Second Life. I work as a consultant for the Tacoma Challenge which is using the open source content management system Drupal as its platform. We are also using Second Life in the nursing program. This new module is exactly what companies like Blackboard have been looking for: a way to get projects and scripts in Second Life to speak to programs and databases outside of SL. Blackboard offered a $25,000 prize for anyone who could do this in Bb. I think it is extremely typical, funny, and ironic that the ones who do it first are the open source community. The state board in WA has just purchased an island in SL to host projects at the various community and technical colleges. This integration of Drupal and SL will certainly be on that list of projects.
Friday, December 07, 2007
VoiceThread - Group conversations around images, docs and videos.
VoiceThread - Group conversations around images, docs and videos.
This is a very interesting new tool. We are gathering ideas for its use in education.
http://voicethread.com/share/26224/
This is a very interesting new tool. We are gathering ideas for its use in education.
http://voicethread.com/share/26224/
BBC NEWS | Technology | 'Virtual theft' leads to arrest
BBC NEWS | Technology | 'Virtual theft' leads to arrest
This story has a lot of interesting implications for virtual worlds. When the story first went around, it sounded like someone was arrested for stealing a virtual item, and in a sense, this is true. But the really critical issue is that the teens stole passwords to gain access to account that had money associated with them. This is just fraud.
This story has a lot of interesting implications for virtual worlds. When the story first went around, it sounded like someone was arrested for stealing a virtual item, and in a sense, this is true. But the really critical issue is that the teens stole passwords to gain access to account that had money associated with them. This is just fraud.
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