Well here I go again. A number of people who read this blog are fellow students from E-learning and digital cultures, an excellent MOOC from Coursera. As an educator in an organization looking at making more of online learning and working for a government that wants to move to open government - why not do an online course on open education?
For h817open students, if you didn't do EDCMOOC, have a look over my past few posts to get a feel for my thinking (and as an ad for a MOOC well worth doing next time around).
I won't be doing every activity I don't think in my limited time with other MOOCs going on, writing projects and oh yes, my job. I will aim for the badges though (jealous of my son who is a cub scout lol).
Showing posts with label elearning. Show all posts
Showing posts with label elearning. Show all posts
Friday, March 15, 2013
Thursday, February 21, 2013
Human learners in a less than human world: EDCMOOC digital artefact
Human learners in a less than human world
I think, therefore I amby: cloudcounter
I've been lucky enough to do three MOOCs, the E-learning and Digital Cultures, Introduction to Philosophy and Astrobiology and the Search for Extraterrestrial Life. In a sense all three look at what it means to be human, how do we define ourselves, what is our significance, and how do we go about asking fundamental questions. In order to educate ourselves and others, it helps to understand who we are so we can understand how we learn.
The short video above illustrates the path we've taken since the reductionism of de Leplace, Newton and others, called the Galilean Spell by Stuart Kauffman in his book Reinventing the Sacred, led to the foundationalism and dualism of Rene Descartes. This eventually led us to posthumanism.
So we are on the MOOC bandwagon, the latest in e-learning. We've all experienced poor online learning in various contexts, content, content, content, test. It's too easy to do. But EDCMOOC at least has been different. With a massive course, learning can't be simply a matter of content dictated from a lecturer's notes to those of a student. While the philosophy and astrobiology courses have had traditional video lectures, EDCMOOC forced us to think by looking at various resources, and documenting these using various social media. The contrast is interesting. I enjoy seeing a human lecturers on video (though the zooming in and out in the philosophy lectures was annoying and pointless) - because I want human connection. Yet in EDCMOOC, using Facebook and Twitter (and comments via Blogger), there has also been a valueable human connection. We need to be social learners.
Of course, what it means to be a learner requires us to think about what it means to be human. Abandoning the Christian idea of the imago Dei or image of God means human is harder to define. Cartesian skepticism is just the start (though Descartes was a Christian - hence his dualism to rescue the soul from a clockwork universe). Are we just brains in a vat? Could we become so? Connected to the Matrix? Uploaded into a collective consciousness? To what extent are we human-machine hybrids already?
It seems a lot of the posthuman/transhuman hype comes from some sort of intellectual elite who lack connection to the rest of the world, and are dissatisfied with the limitations of what it is to be human. Don't get me wrong, disease, premature death etc should be combated. But we are seeing the reaction to drugs in sport. People don't think every form of augmentation is good. Perhaps the frightening nature of the world and the direction in which it is headed force people into longing for a techno-heaven (that's uploading the brain, not the world's best dance party!)
Imagine never unplugging, seeing the world all of the time through electronically mediated eyes like some of the videos in the course (Day of Glass and Sight). While online gaming teaches some hand/eye skills, the ability to plan and think strategically, the disembodied state enlarges people's personalities at times in an unhelpful way. Trolling, spamming, mental infidelity, and in education, a lack of filtering and discernment skills, plagiarism and all of the symptoms of old school learning made more efficient and easier.
Of course the whole issue of what it means to be human is challenged on a number of levels. Aliens, animal intelligence, and whether or not computers could ever become conscious. Science Fiction deals with some of these themes, but it is worth remembering some of it is still very much fiction and experts argue about whether or not Robbie or Gumdrop are possible. Daleks and Cybermen who us that maybe some robots don't want to be human, even if Data does!
Of course, technology can provide us with multisensory experiences, and the best online learning should embrace sound, video, text, and of course active doing - as EDMOOC has done (indeed that's the point of this digital artifact, hence I 'made' some memes and the Xtranormal video). Note too our skeptical African is being left behind in a digital divide. Utopia must be all inclusive or else it is dystopia unavoidably.
Learning is doing, risking mistakes, honing the senses (I've been reading Think like Da Vinci by Michael Gelb, well worth it). Let's make the most of online learning and new technologies, but not accept them blindly in a way that warps, rather than simply augments our humanity and helps us to flourish.
Monday, February 11, 2013
Meat, metal and meaning
This entry looks at the week 3 videos from EDCMOOC, E-learning and digital cultures MOOC and more on what it means to be humans in an ever more virtual world.
The Toyota ad looks at a virtual world and being a virtual player in it. Everything is fake (think The Matrix, brain in a vat or demon argument from Descartes. The world is dystopic in that everything is artificial and any experience otherwise is forbidden. Enter the raw power, speed and control of a car (itself technology but without what they call gimmicks) and a violent escape, smashing out of the confines of what is deemed acceptable into the real world of real experience.
Considering what has been covered so far, Lowell Monke shows how abstract and sterile technologically related learning can be, not permitting the making of real connections and the formation of wisdom, truth, character, etc. He suggests that technology does not come value neutral but that it will always amplify and amputate, and not provide the full balance of ideas, explanations and reasons for why things happen (for example a game simulation of the American Frontier - itself a very problematic term in a post-colonial world - ends up missing out on the character, courage, etc of the pioneers in favour of strategy, rational decision making, etc).
It also makes me think of the Corning ad, where a trip to visit a redwood forest is technologically mediated. The recreation of the dinosaurs is interesting and exciting, but misses things like the actual forest, the connection the dinosaurs have and how that connection was reconstructed.
We live in a real, embodied world as real, embodied people. Unless one is obsessed with the singularity, a secular eschatology or heaven (see Margaret Werthheim’s book on the subject, The Pearly Gates of Cyberspace), then we need to learn how to live in that real world. When technology mediates that to such a degree as to retard that learning - in the holisitc sense of knowledge, wisdom and character - then it needs to be quietly set aside. This is all the most important for young children.
The BT add picks up on similar ideas. The land-line does not have texting abilities and so the contact is voice to voice. This has a richer ability to communicate meaning, emotion, etc and is used as a vehicle to promote actual face to face contact. Even an ad promoting telephones doesn’t suggest that voice only is the end of the story - especially given the very physical nature of the issue illustrated at the end of the ad. Kolowich’s The Human Element speaks of the illusion of non-mediation, where seeing an instructor’s face promotes trust. Some aspects of that are present in this ad in that audio communication is able to communicate emotion better than texting and therefore there is a greater connection, but it is still mediated by a phone line when real presence is needed.
World builder is a somewhat enigmatic piece that looks at the role of simulation and virtual reality. it is not entirely clear in the end whether or not the main character’s wife (ok I’m making that assumption) actually enters into the simulation or if it was entirely for his benefit? The lack of interaction between the two makes it unclear. Does he create this world for someone in a coma, or to see an illusion of his wife alive and well? The interactivity of the interface used to create this virtual world is almost besides the point (although it is quite breathtaking). The fact that one section not properly filled in makes the whole thing unstable points to the vaguely dystopic nature of such technology, or perhaps simply to the fact that a simulation is simply that - and ephemeral. No computer simulation, no matter how realistic, is a replacement for real people, real life, even if the emotions invoked are real enough. In this movie it only serves to heighten the tension and tragedy.
They’re made out of meat seems to me to be the Descartian problem of reductionism without the dualistic solution. We are made out of meat. Weinberg’s nothing but. Meat thinks, speaks, communicates, eats other meat and reproduces (the kissing couple outside) - but it is just meat. I’m not sure what the aliens are made of that enables them to be so repelled by this vision. In a quirky sense, this movie goes to the heart of the question of what it means to be human, how we have (in some people’s minds at least) been deconstructed biologically to just meat. From a purely secular point of view, Stuart Kauffman’s Reinventing the Sacred tries to rescue us from being more than meat. This issue of what constitutes being human ties in with ideas of cybernetics, transhumanism and the singularity as meat and metal merge.
The Toyota ad looks at a virtual world and being a virtual player in it. Everything is fake (think The Matrix, brain in a vat or demon argument from Descartes. The world is dystopic in that everything is artificial and any experience otherwise is forbidden. Enter the raw power, speed and control of a car (itself technology but without what they call gimmicks) and a violent escape, smashing out of the confines of what is deemed acceptable into the real world of real experience.
Considering what has been covered so far, Lowell Monke shows how abstract and sterile technologically related learning can be, not permitting the making of real connections and the formation of wisdom, truth, character, etc. He suggests that technology does not come value neutral but that it will always amplify and amputate, and not provide the full balance of ideas, explanations and reasons for why things happen (for example a game simulation of the American Frontier - itself a very problematic term in a post-colonial world - ends up missing out on the character, courage, etc of the pioneers in favour of strategy, rational decision making, etc).
It also makes me think of the Corning ad, where a trip to visit a redwood forest is technologically mediated. The recreation of the dinosaurs is interesting and exciting, but misses things like the actual forest, the connection the dinosaurs have and how that connection was reconstructed.
We live in a real, embodied world as real, embodied people. Unless one is obsessed with the singularity, a secular eschatology or heaven (see Margaret Werthheim’s book on the subject, The Pearly Gates of Cyberspace), then we need to learn how to live in that real world. When technology mediates that to such a degree as to retard that learning - in the holisitc sense of knowledge, wisdom and character - then it needs to be quietly set aside. This is all the most important for young children.
The BT add picks up on similar ideas. The land-line does not have texting abilities and so the contact is voice to voice. This has a richer ability to communicate meaning, emotion, etc and is used as a vehicle to promote actual face to face contact. Even an ad promoting telephones doesn’t suggest that voice only is the end of the story - especially given the very physical nature of the issue illustrated at the end of the ad. Kolowich’s The Human Element speaks of the illusion of non-mediation, where seeing an instructor’s face promotes trust. Some aspects of that are present in this ad in that audio communication is able to communicate emotion better than texting and therefore there is a greater connection, but it is still mediated by a phone line when real presence is needed.
World builder is a somewhat enigmatic piece that looks at the role of simulation and virtual reality. it is not entirely clear in the end whether or not the main character’s wife (ok I’m making that assumption) actually enters into the simulation or if it was entirely for his benefit? The lack of interaction between the two makes it unclear. Does he create this world for someone in a coma, or to see an illusion of his wife alive and well? The interactivity of the interface used to create this virtual world is almost besides the point (although it is quite breathtaking). The fact that one section not properly filled in makes the whole thing unstable points to the vaguely dystopic nature of such technology, or perhaps simply to the fact that a simulation is simply that - and ephemeral. No computer simulation, no matter how realistic, is a replacement for real people, real life, even if the emotions invoked are real enough. In this movie it only serves to heighten the tension and tragedy.
They’re made out of meat seems to me to be the Descartian problem of reductionism without the dualistic solution. We are made out of meat. Weinberg’s nothing but. Meat thinks, speaks, communicates, eats other meat and reproduces (the kissing couple outside) - but it is just meat. I’m not sure what the aliens are made of that enables them to be so repelled by this vision. In a quirky sense, this movie goes to the heart of the question of what it means to be human, how we have (in some people’s minds at least) been deconstructed biologically to just meat. From a purely secular point of view, Stuart Kauffman’s Reinventing the Sacred tries to rescue us from being more than meat. This issue of what constitutes being human ties in with ideas of cybernetics, transhumanism and the singularity as meat and metal merge.
Thursday, February 07, 2013
MOOC-HING about
I'm doing a MOOC on e-learning and digital cultures, as well as two other MOOCs (philosophy and astrobiology) and now find myself pontificating on the nature of MOOCs. It's kinda meta-MOOCing which is hard! What does it mean to be open? What difference does it make that the course is online? How does it being massive make it hard to navigate? What's the point anyway?
One of the MOOCs I'm doing (astrobiology) because I'm interested in the topic, because I'm preparing two papers for a colloquium and hopefully paper-based publishing, and because (and kind of as an afterthought) it intersects with something I teach on paleoclimate. The MOOC on philosophy is pure indulgence I guess, but it may find a place in my thinking - I mean who doesn't want to think about how to think rightly (well ok plenty of people). This MOOC on e-learning and digital cultures I'm taking because in some way I'm meant to be an e-learning guru (well no, and I don't think that as such) or more properly a guide or adviser and tech-head.
Two of the MOOCs are a straight transfer from trad ed to web with vid lectures and quizzes. Kinda yawn but material is of good quality, of interest to me and at least in some cases inspiring (well done Dave Ward for making thinking about thinking worth thinking about). But is that it Clay Shirky? Is this all I can expect? Is Aaron Bady right that a MOOC is one step better than nothing? After all, I can read, Google, get hold of a book, find a web article etc? Why does a video make it any better? Can and will MOOCs evolve beyond this? As Gardner Campbell challenges, will we move up the scale of hierarchies of learning?
As I intimated before, the videos at least can inspire. I like a passionate teacher and I try to be the same - without the illusion that the act of teaching means learning will occur, and yet there is no reason to expect it won't. Information is communicated (though only one way) and the good thing about video is the pause button (think time). In real life face to face teaching, questions, learning activities, exercises and (if they can be done) problem based learning provide the real grist for the mill.
But most MOOCs for now run well short of this, learning in a small class with a mixture of modes (my class I have for 10 months is 15 this year). Yet this is better than nothing if I can hear what an expert has to say on a topic. Expertise takes time, it just doesn't appear to be some freely floating object on the WWW that is then freely available. Much talk of open access seems to miss the point that facts are discovered, knowledge constructed and wisdom hard fought for, some times ex nihilio, but that it just doesn't pop up on the net without cost at some time, to some one. At some point it is culturally shared by the world (all IP issues aside) but it came from sweat and toil and experience. The WWW flattening of knowledge should not be reduced to the nonsense spouted in the NMC Horizon report - 2013 Higher Education Edition which said 'As authoritative sources lose their importance'. Such crap has resulted in climate change denial, the spread of childhood diseases in the vaccination boycotts and the ID/evolution debates on school boards!!!!
But the e-learning and digital cultures MOOC is something more, a level up. Videos that illustrate ideas and themes rather than simply teaching them; articles that real people read rather than just academics and discussions using a variety of social media. I've had many Twitter adds and really feel like I'm building a PLN in the process (and I hope others are when they add me!). The chat groups for philosophy (perhaps at a stretch the astrobiology course) extend me as a learner well beyond the material by connecting me with other learners and helping me to think (about thinking). Now that is metacognitive. This isn't replacing experts but placing me into a rich web of experts in the making.
So MOOCs need social media - not because videos of experts are wrong but because learning comes in communities of learners and practitioners reflecting on their learning and what the experts have said. After all, if teaching is sharing expertise then learning is gaining that expertise by practicing what has been shared, reflecting on it and sharing it ourselves.
Ok, I'm rambling now - but I do think MOOCs have a future. I don't know that they are the future.
One of the MOOCs I'm doing (astrobiology) because I'm interested in the topic, because I'm preparing two papers for a colloquium and hopefully paper-based publishing, and because (and kind of as an afterthought) it intersects with something I teach on paleoclimate. The MOOC on philosophy is pure indulgence I guess, but it may find a place in my thinking - I mean who doesn't want to think about how to think rightly (well ok plenty of people). This MOOC on e-learning and digital cultures I'm taking because in some way I'm meant to be an e-learning guru (well no, and I don't think that as such) or more properly a guide or adviser and tech-head.
Two of the MOOCs are a straight transfer from trad ed to web with vid lectures and quizzes. Kinda yawn but material is of good quality, of interest to me and at least in some cases inspiring (well done Dave Ward for making thinking about thinking worth thinking about). But is that it Clay Shirky? Is this all I can expect? Is Aaron Bady right that a MOOC is one step better than nothing? After all, I can read, Google, get hold of a book, find a web article etc? Why does a video make it any better? Can and will MOOCs evolve beyond this? As Gardner Campbell challenges, will we move up the scale of hierarchies of learning?
As I intimated before, the videos at least can inspire. I like a passionate teacher and I try to be the same - without the illusion that the act of teaching means learning will occur, and yet there is no reason to expect it won't. Information is communicated (though only one way) and the good thing about video is the pause button (think time). In real life face to face teaching, questions, learning activities, exercises and (if they can be done) problem based learning provide the real grist for the mill.
But most MOOCs for now run well short of this, learning in a small class with a mixture of modes (my class I have for 10 months is 15 this year). Yet this is better than nothing if I can hear what an expert has to say on a topic. Expertise takes time, it just doesn't appear to be some freely floating object on the WWW that is then freely available. Much talk of open access seems to miss the point that facts are discovered, knowledge constructed and wisdom hard fought for, some times ex nihilio, but that it just doesn't pop up on the net without cost at some time, to some one. At some point it is culturally shared by the world (all IP issues aside) but it came from sweat and toil and experience. The WWW flattening of knowledge should not be reduced to the nonsense spouted in the NMC Horizon report - 2013 Higher Education Edition which said 'As authoritative sources lose their importance'. Such crap has resulted in climate change denial, the spread of childhood diseases in the vaccination boycotts and the ID/evolution debates on school boards!!!!
But the e-learning and digital cultures MOOC is something more, a level up. Videos that illustrate ideas and themes rather than simply teaching them; articles that real people read rather than just academics and discussions using a variety of social media. I've had many Twitter adds and really feel like I'm building a PLN in the process (and I hope others are when they add me!). The chat groups for philosophy (perhaps at a stretch the astrobiology course) extend me as a learner well beyond the material by connecting me with other learners and helping me to think (about thinking). Now that is metacognitive. This isn't replacing experts but placing me into a rich web of experts in the making.
So MOOCs need social media - not because videos of experts are wrong but because learning comes in communities of learners and practitioners reflecting on their learning and what the experts have said. After all, if teaching is sharing expertise then learning is gaining that expertise by practicing what has been shared, reflecting on it and sharing it ourselves.
Ok, I'm rambling now - but I do think MOOCs have a future. I don't know that they are the future.
You can't stop the signal
Not that I've ever watched Serenity (and people who know me have told me I should), but apparently there is a line often used 'You can’t stop the signal'. This seems to be a big theme in the videos from this weeks EDCMOOC resources. Let's have a think about some themes that are being suggested
Ubiquity
Technology is already ubiquitous. You only have to step onto public transport in Australia to see iPods, iPhones, smart phones and MP3 players in use, also tablets (iPads and others) as well as older school hand held game consoles. Australians (and I suspect English and Americans) love technology. I spend the day in front of a PC, use the cloud (Google Drive), and ponder and pontificate on technology.
In A day made of glass 2, technology is everywhere, from opening our eyes to closing them. I admit often the first and last thing I do is check my email on my iPhone (something maybe I should change). What this movie projects is that the technology is even more tightly integrated and incredibly easy to use. I'm typing now on a keyboard, but it almost seemed in the movie that text had a much lesser role. In an image rich culture this is not surprising, but we lose the written word at great cost to issues like fact, truth, value and so on. Some have suggested that the loss of handwriting skills is also a great loss (when did you last send a letter in the post?).
One of my concerns in the movie was the field trip. While the ability to share the experience with family is seen as a bonding experience, as was the girl doing her homework - does this come at the loss of verbal skills and storytelling 'mum you should have seen it ...'. It's also interesting (and I'm thinking Google glasses too) that the field trip was a natural location but technologically mediated, as if one becomes incapable of experiencing even the outdoors without a veneer if not a whole thick layer of technology. Guide books are replaced with etools and imaginations with animations.
This mediation in Productivity future vision took the form of glasses allowing translation and guidance, no doubt useful but also illustrating an Accidental tourist view of travel - as if you hadn't left your home with all the tech support. Efficient yes, and it also makes borders disappear with well run online meetings. This highlights the tendency of technology in many ways to warp time and space, but leaves me with lingering doubts about the flattening of the world - the goal of market capitalism I guess. The idea of a virtual busker is kind of contrary to the point of busking, which is not just a financial transaction. Maybe this movie is dystopic in that it makes us all part of an economy rather than a society.
Invasive
In Sight, the ubiquity of technology becomes invasive and cynical. If Productivity future vision is about making money (Mammon) then Sight is about Aphrodite: getting laid. While many technologies enforce a kind of societal ADHD, Sight is about technology mediated Autism; that lack of ability to pick up on social cues properly, or at least to manipulate them cynically for sex. Mammon and Aphrodite are two great Western idols.
The technology is invasive, becoming part of our bodies so that unlike A day made of glass 2 where technology can be put down (and put to good use when it is picked up), we are Borg. Our technology is there all of the time. This is no more clearer than in Charlie 13, a not untypical (pardon the double negative) theme of invasive tracking devices (think Demolition Man with Wesley Snipes and Sylvester Stallone, itself a spin on Brave New World). With security cameras, smart travel cards and voluntary identification like checking in with Facebook, we are part of the way there.
So do we use technology or do we use ourselves by using it that way, and will we end up with others using us (hang on, online advertising) with our technology. The choice is ours.
Sight from Sight Systems on Vimeo.
Ubiquity
Technology is already ubiquitous. You only have to step onto public transport in Australia to see iPods, iPhones, smart phones and MP3 players in use, also tablets (iPads and others) as well as older school hand held game consoles. Australians (and I suspect English and Americans) love technology. I spend the day in front of a PC, use the cloud (Google Drive), and ponder and pontificate on technology.
In A day made of glass 2, technology is everywhere, from opening our eyes to closing them. I admit often the first and last thing I do is check my email on my iPhone (something maybe I should change). What this movie projects is that the technology is even more tightly integrated and incredibly easy to use. I'm typing now on a keyboard, but it almost seemed in the movie that text had a much lesser role. In an image rich culture this is not surprising, but we lose the written word at great cost to issues like fact, truth, value and so on. Some have suggested that the loss of handwriting skills is also a great loss (when did you last send a letter in the post?).
One of my concerns in the movie was the field trip. While the ability to share the experience with family is seen as a bonding experience, as was the girl doing her homework - does this come at the loss of verbal skills and storytelling 'mum you should have seen it ...'. It's also interesting (and I'm thinking Google glasses too) that the field trip was a natural location but technologically mediated, as if one becomes incapable of experiencing even the outdoors without a veneer if not a whole thick layer of technology. Guide books are replaced with etools and imaginations with animations.
This mediation in Productivity future vision took the form of glasses allowing translation and guidance, no doubt useful but also illustrating an Accidental tourist view of travel - as if you hadn't left your home with all the tech support. Efficient yes, and it also makes borders disappear with well run online meetings. This highlights the tendency of technology in many ways to warp time and space, but leaves me with lingering doubts about the flattening of the world - the goal of market capitalism I guess. The idea of a virtual busker is kind of contrary to the point of busking, which is not just a financial transaction. Maybe this movie is dystopic in that it makes us all part of an economy rather than a society.
Invasive
In Sight, the ubiquity of technology becomes invasive and cynical. If Productivity future vision is about making money (Mammon) then Sight is about Aphrodite: getting laid. While many technologies enforce a kind of societal ADHD, Sight is about technology mediated Autism; that lack of ability to pick up on social cues properly, or at least to manipulate them cynically for sex. Mammon and Aphrodite are two great Western idols.
The technology is invasive, becoming part of our bodies so that unlike A day made of glass 2 where technology can be put down (and put to good use when it is picked up), we are Borg. Our technology is there all of the time. This is no more clearer than in Charlie 13, a not untypical (pardon the double negative) theme of invasive tracking devices (think Demolition Man with Wesley Snipes and Sylvester Stallone, itself a spin on Brave New World). With security cameras, smart travel cards and voluntary identification like checking in with Facebook, we are part of the way there.
So do we use technology or do we use ourselves by using it that way, and will we end up with others using us (hang on, online advertising) with our technology. The choice is ours.
Sight from Sight Systems on Vimeo.
Wednesday, December 05, 2012
Joining the dots
In his book, Reinventing the Sacred, Stuart Kauffman talks about complexity and emergence, and uses an interesting example I think can be used to examine how we learn and construct knowledge. So here goes....
Imagine you have a large collection of buttons and some thread. You choose two buttons at random and join them together with the thread, choose another two buttons, and so on. At each time step, count the maximum number of buttons that are connected together. Apparently this number initially grows slowly, but at some point in the process there is a sudden explosion when a lot of buttons are connected together.
Now let's replace buttons with discrete areas of knowledge, key ideas or skills, facts or statements about reality etc. The thread represents logical connections, theories, narratives etc. Unlike the above illustration, we already have preconceived ideas of some of these connections, others we discover with intent, and some are a matter of serendipity. We can think of the buttons as websites, pre-linked by threads through hyperlinks, though not necessarily linked in our minds before hand. To get old school, there are scientific papers with references or books with quotes, allusions, footnotes, etc.
So when it comes to life long learning, we want to continue to make connections, joining the buttons together into an every complexifying (sic) understanding of the world. Connections hit us as we follow up that reference, that weblink and so on. However, in a world of ever increasing complexity and need (global warming, socially connected online etc) it seems to me that picking up widely disparate buttons (or seemingly so) and trying to stitch them together is a good thing! Why not read literature and science, economics and environment. Life is not and should not be compartmentalised, neither should our knowledge. New and interesting connects, to say nothing of useful ones could be made.
This makes me reflect upon the goal of learning. Is it just picking up useful knowledge and skills for a career? That will certainly influence the buttons we seek to join up, or indeed whether we ever really want to or succeed in joining them together to construct a meaningful worldview. It seems to me that knowledge and skills are never enough without right attitude, or becoming virtuous knowers who build a view of life, knowledge and vocation (as opposed to career) that helps us to become better people who are more enriched and better citizens who enrich others.
As for teaching or guiding learners in the classroom, we sometimes draw connections first and then demonstrate them or get students to examine the world for themselves to look for connections - hopefully guiding them towards those that are right and away from those that are wrong (I'm thinking particularly of science here but I suspect there are other areas where this is also true - in some universally shared areas of morality), and sometimes joining them in discovering new connections.
So, read widely, listen and watch broadly and make as many connections as possible. You may be surprised by what emerges.
Imagine you have a large collection of buttons and some thread. You choose two buttons at random and join them together with the thread, choose another two buttons, and so on. At each time step, count the maximum number of buttons that are connected together. Apparently this number initially grows slowly, but at some point in the process there is a sudden explosion when a lot of buttons are connected together.
Now let's replace buttons with discrete areas of knowledge, key ideas or skills, facts or statements about reality etc. The thread represents logical connections, theories, narratives etc. Unlike the above illustration, we already have preconceived ideas of some of these connections, others we discover with intent, and some are a matter of serendipity. We can think of the buttons as websites, pre-linked by threads through hyperlinks, though not necessarily linked in our minds before hand. To get old school, there are scientific papers with references or books with quotes, allusions, footnotes, etc.
So when it comes to life long learning, we want to continue to make connections, joining the buttons together into an every complexifying (sic) understanding of the world. Connections hit us as we follow up that reference, that weblink and so on. However, in a world of ever increasing complexity and need (global warming, socially connected online etc) it seems to me that picking up widely disparate buttons (or seemingly so) and trying to stitch them together is a good thing! Why not read literature and science, economics and environment. Life is not and should not be compartmentalised, neither should our knowledge. New and interesting connects, to say nothing of useful ones could be made.
This makes me reflect upon the goal of learning. Is it just picking up useful knowledge and skills for a career? That will certainly influence the buttons we seek to join up, or indeed whether we ever really want to or succeed in joining them together to construct a meaningful worldview. It seems to me that knowledge and skills are never enough without right attitude, or becoming virtuous knowers who build a view of life, knowledge and vocation (as opposed to career) that helps us to become better people who are more enriched and better citizens who enrich others.
As for teaching or guiding learners in the classroom, we sometimes draw connections first and then demonstrate them or get students to examine the world for themselves to look for connections - hopefully guiding them towards those that are right and away from those that are wrong (I'm thinking particularly of science here but I suspect there are other areas where this is also true - in some universally shared areas of morality), and sometimes joining them in discovering new connections.
So, read widely, listen and watch broadly and make as many connections as possible. You may be surprised by what emerges.
Monday, October 22, 2012
Joining the MOOC wagon
A lot has been said recently about MOOCs. Some see them as the next greatest thing in education, the Messiah of bricks and mortar instutions. To others they are more of the naughty boy, ads instead of real content. To others still, while it is clear MOOCs more or less recreate on a larger scale the problems of traditional learning, they make it available to a wider audience.
Confession time; I found the Coursera website and was like a kid in a candy shop (lolly store to be more Australian). I've signed up to a slew of courses and am looking forward to doing things that really interest me and cost me nothing! Will I learn from it? No doubt because a) I'm motivated and b) I'll put in the extra time when I can, either at the time or afterwards. Hoping not bitten off more than I can chew, but looking forward to it both from the perspective of a learning and thinking about it as an educator.
Confession time; I found the Coursera website and was like a kid in a candy shop (lolly store to be more Australian). I've signed up to a slew of courses and am looking forward to doing things that really interest me and cost me nothing! Will I learn from it? No doubt because a) I'm motivated and b) I'll put in the extra time when I can, either at the time or afterwards. Hoping not bitten off more than I can chew, but looking forward to it both from the perspective of a learning and thinking about it as an educator.
Wednesday, December 07, 2011
Our journey to social inclusion through the lens of assistive technology - ASCILITE 2011
Many advances in ICT etc come from trying to make things accessible to people with disabilities (e.g. text to speech).
20% of general Aust pop can't read text - dyslexia, vision, etc! Wow not including ESL.
liberatedlearning.com
Speech to text loved by students - get to facts, skim through. ESL peeps love it too, transcript to put with audio to help understanding. But issues: accountability and fears, be quoted, lose control of information they own.
Text to speech. iPad useable by the blind with awesome speech guiding the interface.
Learning best occurs when multi-modal contexts are enabled - not just a disability issue.
20% of general Aust pop can't read text - dyslexia, vision, etc! Wow not including ESL.
liberatedlearning.com
Speech to text loved by students - get to facts, skim through. ESL peeps love it too, transcript to put with audio to help understanding. But issues: accountability and fears, be quoted, lose control of information they own.
Text to speech. iPad useable by the blind with awesome speech guiding the interface.
Learning best occurs when multi-modal contexts are enabled - not just a disability issue.
Unresolved issues about 'authentic' online learning
3 different interpretations of authentic learning
1. Making learning personally meaningful
2. Situated learning in the context in which is is surprised
3. Providing learners with authentic tasks (open ended and ill structured)
1. Linking learning to own personal situation - e.g. photographs linking chem to everyday life
2. Culturally situated context - where it will be applied. E.g clinical or professional placement, role play, etc
3. Authenticity of tasks rather than context (Herrington et al 2004). Real world relevance beyond domain specifics, ill defined, competing solutions, sustained period of time
Role of media 'skins' in a virtual world/environment. Context in which you learn heavily affects ability to recall information. Are learning environment skins window dressing? Taken too literally??? Representation of physical environments over-elaborate and missing cognitive and meta-cognitive tasks.
Are virtual worlds realising their potential as settings for authentic learning? E.g. surgeon in second life, are mouse skills really useful in what they can take into their career. Note too virtual patients have straightforward conditions with no red herrings, distractors, etc.
Whose authenticity and authentic to what? Rise in professional post-grad education. Educators often provide contrived contexts. The real world on a short leash.
Motivation - 1 & 3 intrinsic, 2 extrinsic. Personally meaningful especially benefits low (extrinsic) motivation students. 2 for students who know where they are heading (mature age etc). 3 for high ability students.
Transfer implications - near transfer to similar problems, far transfer is broader application.
1. indirect benefits to transfer via engagement and motivation
2. near transfer where context is simply a 'skin' around inauthentic tasks but potentially far
3. focus on far transfer due to higher order thinking require (Sweller & Clark 2006)
1. Making learning personally meaningful
2. Situated learning in the context in which is is surprised
3. Providing learners with authentic tasks (open ended and ill structured)
1. Linking learning to own personal situation - e.g. photographs linking chem to everyday life
2. Culturally situated context - where it will be applied. E.g clinical or professional placement, role play, etc
3. Authenticity of tasks rather than context (Herrington et al 2004). Real world relevance beyond domain specifics, ill defined, competing solutions, sustained period of time
Role of media 'skins' in a virtual world/environment. Context in which you learn heavily affects ability to recall information. Are learning environment skins window dressing? Taken too literally??? Representation of physical environments over-elaborate and missing cognitive and meta-cognitive tasks.
Are virtual worlds realising their potential as settings for authentic learning? E.g. surgeon in second life, are mouse skills really useful in what they can take into their career. Note too virtual patients have straightforward conditions with no red herrings, distractors, etc.
Whose authenticity and authentic to what? Rise in professional post-grad education. Educators often provide contrived contexts. The real world on a short leash.
Motivation - 1 & 3 intrinsic, 2 extrinsic. Personally meaningful especially benefits low (extrinsic) motivation students. 2 for students who know where they are heading (mature age etc). 3 for high ability students.
Transfer implications - near transfer to similar problems, far transfer is broader application.
1. indirect benefits to transfer via engagement and motivation
2. near transfer where context is simply a 'skin' around inauthentic tasks but potentially far
3. focus on far transfer due to higher order thinking require (Sweller & Clark 2006)
Facebook in higher education
Nice study that looks at the difference between social and academic engagement. Study by psych lecturers who looked at ABC (affective, behaviour, cognitive) aspects. Found:
- Facebook is what people look to when they are bored, and those who are characterized as conscientious generally avoid FB
- Use of FB tends to be social and not academic, FB is actually a distractor to study
- Further, students see approaching an academic on FB like asking them a question at the pub!
- Best use appears to be a help desk like facility with an avatar or anonymous helper
- Worst use is 'Stalker' pages
- LMS actually applies necessary constraints unlike FB which is not a good teaching space, things like Stalker spaces
- LMS interface needs to be more friendly like social media interfaces (FB)
- Collaboration occurs in informal spaces (comments from the floor)
Tuesday, December 06, 2011
Teaching teachers for the future: TPACK
USyd Fac of Ed & Social work curriculum redesign using TPACK
Most common use of ICT tools - PPT & basic internet searches. TPACK to move teachers beyond technocentric approach. Pedagogy - connection between ICT and curriculum subject areas. Tech content knowledge - exposure to exemplars. Tech pedagogical knowledge - work collaboratively exploring affordances of ICT tools to address teaching/learning needs.
TPACK and Web 2.0 wiki here. Another Ascilite presentation here.
Student project - webpage along TPACK to use in student placement. Reflection on significant 'change moments' in ICT. Found students need genetic skills (wikis, blogs, etc) move beyond Word, PPT etc, need TPACK to use ICT properly, need support!!!!
TPACK in pieces. Viewing teacher's knowledge.
Beyond TPACK - needs extensions (Shulman's extensions) - need knowledge of curricula, outcomes, institutions, learner characteristics
Knowledge, knowing or being? Transformative view PCK is transformation of subject matter PCK into a unique form. Integrative view PCK does not exist. Teacher PCK construct this on demand. I.e. more knowing than knowledge. Experimental view: PTACK is a dynamic configuration of physical and mental resources. Diverse ontological roots.
Has implications for curriculum design.
Most common use of ICT tools - PPT & basic internet searches. TPACK to move teachers beyond technocentric approach. Pedagogy - connection between ICT and curriculum subject areas. Tech content knowledge - exposure to exemplars. Tech pedagogical knowledge - work collaboratively exploring affordances of ICT tools to address teaching/learning needs.
TPACK and Web 2.0 wiki here. Another Ascilite presentation here.
Student project - webpage along TPACK to use in student placement. Reflection on significant 'change moments' in ICT. Found students need genetic skills (wikis, blogs, etc) move beyond Word, PPT etc, need TPACK to use ICT properly, need support!!!!
TPACK in pieces. Viewing teacher's knowledge.
Beyond TPACK - needs extensions (Shulman's extensions) - need knowledge of curricula, outcomes, institutions, learner characteristics
Knowledge, knowing or being? Transformative view PCK is transformation of subject matter PCK into a unique form. Integrative view PCK does not exist. Teacher PCK construct this on demand. I.e. more knowing than knowledge. Experimental view: PTACK is a dynamic configuration of physical and mental resources. Diverse ontological roots.
Has implications for curriculum design.
Analytics
Now this is confusing stuff - how do changes in learning end up changing how we measure learning, i.e. analytics? Cloud (that word again), personalised learning, student centred learning, online learning, etc. See Shift Happens for these changes here.
Use of simple statistics to measure activity and usage of LMS etc don't do a great deal. Do questionaires do it? 7 dimensions of learning power is one such tool here, and here.
Effective Life Long Learning analytic here.
Analytics for learning conversations. Disputational talk (argument), cumulative talk (building positively), exploratory talk (joint consideration, challenges justified, thinking visible, all actively participate, opinions sought, decisions made jointly, reasoning visible in talk). Key words can be identified to measure exploratory convos.
Learning analytics paper here.
Dream - timely interventions, empowered reflective learners, living evidence-based
Nightmare - regressive pedagogy
Fairydust - not a magic bullet
solaresearch.org Slides at Slideshare
Blog here
Use of simple statistics to measure activity and usage of LMS etc don't do a great deal. Do questionaires do it? 7 dimensions of learning power is one such tool here, and here.
Effective Life Long Learning analytic here.
Analytics for learning conversations. Disputational talk (argument), cumulative talk (building positively), exploratory talk (joint consideration, challenges justified, thinking visible, all actively participate, opinions sought, decisions made jointly, reasoning visible in talk). Key words can be identified to measure exploratory convos.
Learning analytics paper here.
Dream - timely interventions, empowered reflective learners, living evidence-based
Nightmare - regressive pedagogy
Fairydust - not a magic bullet
solaresearch.org Slides at Slideshare
Blog here
Monday, December 05, 2011
Wins and hurdles: Proff development in e-learning
http://cel.curtin.edu.au - tip sheets, etc
Lab size puts people off. Mixed group so hard to cater for. No renumeration for training!
Training using Elluminate - demonstrates it, gives people ideas on how to use in teaching.
Allay fears by giving easy tasks to start with.
Two facilitators helps with late arrivals and people who start to fall behind.
Lab size puts people off. Mixed group so hard to cater for. No renumeration for training!
Training using Elluminate - demonstrates it, gives people ideas on how to use in teaching.
Allay fears by giving easy tasks to start with.
Two facilitators helps with late arrivals and people who start to fall behind.
Understanding the reasons academics use/don't use endorsed/unendorsed learning technologies
Why do staff adopt or not adopt learning technologies, whether they are adopted officially or not?
Key issues impacting uptake: workload and time, knowledge and skills, staff dev & training, tools and infrastructure, lack of recognition & reward, lack of scaffolding & leadership
More recent research says the same thing - nothing much appears to have changed!
Idea of endorsed/unendorsed: internal = LMS, etc, external = Web 2.0
Standard tools used, some staff were not aware of. Beyond online video most other technology not used in teaching.
Reasons for using using/not using. Value & workload factor highly - support and (lack of) skills! Innovation and improving learning outcomes, as well as convenience for staff & students.
Non-value laden labels (lol) - disgruntled pragmatists, warriors (worry about support but battle on), perfect citizens, average citizens.
Develop strategies to encourage: broader use of learning tech with recognition of local curricula and pedagogical approaches. Not everyone has to be an innovator.
Key issues impacting uptake: workload and time, knowledge and skills, staff dev & training, tools and infrastructure, lack of recognition & reward, lack of scaffolding & leadership
More recent research says the same thing - nothing much appears to have changed!
Idea of endorsed/unendorsed: internal = LMS, etc, external = Web 2.0
Standard tools used, some staff were not aware of. Beyond online video most other technology not used in teaching.
Reasons for using using/not using. Value & workload factor highly - support and (lack of) skills! Innovation and improving learning outcomes, as well as convenience for staff & students.
Non-value laden labels (lol) - disgruntled pragmatists, warriors (worry about support but battle on), perfect citizens, average citizens.
Develop strategies to encourage: broader use of learning tech with recognition of local curricula and pedagogical approaches. Not everyone has to be an innovator.
Sunday, December 04, 2011
Quality e-Assessment Workflows
Look at literature on e-Assessment workflows
Policy impolications
Issues around workflows
Demonstrations with Blackboard and Moodle with ReMarks
Processes must be simple and easy to use as people look for simplicity or give up on it!
Multiple chances to be re-assessed - much more likely to pay attention to feedback.
Large tasks - break into smaller stages with feedback at each stage and grade for work in total
Develop a grading rubric - very useful when multiple markers. Make students aware of this and what it means.
Calibration moderation - multiple staff mark same work using same rubric to test rubric
Royce Sadler (1989)
Students more interested in how they have performed more than comparison to other students!
Advantages of e-submission
Recent review placed emphasis on quality and standards - TESQA is now national quality regulator. Accreditation linked to standards.
Link between learning objectives, assessment methods and grading of attainment - need to understand relationship to understand and monitor standards.
Academic standards depend upon individual academic expert judgement. Based upon experience of students, their education, etc.
Nulty D D (2011) - paper on consensus moderation
Consensus moderation - about quality assessment and outcomes 'look like'
Consistency in time, place & marker
Process like peer review but consensus is the aim - like herding cats
Other ways of reaching consensus - experience of students, across multiple institutions, annotated exemplars, etc. Most academics do some form of this -having assignments vetted by colleagues, consistency with international textbooks, etc
Framework for consensus moderation
1. Course level assessment planning - ensure appropriate assessment items and patterns
2. Marking student work - ensure appropriate and consistent standards are applied to marking individual pieces
3. grading student work
4. standard across courses
5. standards over time
Griffith Uni has a website now on assessment - Assessment Matters!
TESQA - show us what you do and the difference it has made, on assessment, consensus moderation, etc.
Getting experts together to justify assessment as useful exercise not only for them but also new lecturers, tutors, etc...
Double marking from different institutions as a tool for consensus
Worth being able to look at mark distributions for multiple years - to see consistency of marking
Having assignments and spread of assessments (high, middle, low)
Map down to assessment from overall course goals
Policy impolications
Issues around workflows
Demonstrations with Blackboard and Moodle with ReMarks
Processes must be simple and easy to use as people look for simplicity or give up on it!
- Design of assessment must be planned as integrated part of course design (Kendle & Northcote 2000)
- Assessment tasks influence the direction and quality of student learning (Maclellan 2004)
- Students need to be given more responsibity for assessment process
Multiple chances to be re-assessed - much more likely to pay attention to feedback.
Large tasks - break into smaller stages with feedback at each stage and grade for work in total
Develop a grading rubric - very useful when multiple markers. Make students aware of this and what it means.
Calibration moderation - multiple staff mark same work using same rubric to test rubric
Royce Sadler (1989)
- Help students to recognise and clearly understand the desired goal to appreciate what high quality work looks like.
- Help them develop evaluative skills
- Explaining ways to close the gap between outcomes and expectations
Students more interested in how they have performed more than comparison to other students!
Advantages of e-submission
- copy for student appeals
- management for large courses
- saving on printing costs
- plagiarism detection
- security
- confirmation for students
- back up at organisation level
- toggling with data & feedback sheet (not with ReMarks)
- Laborious annotation of work
- Better planning required for managing paperless submissions
- Integration with LMS - issue for who has handed in, multiple markers, keeping track of who has submitted
- Data-matching software - do you need to be looking for plagiarism? Does it slow things down?
- Group submissions - pragmatism and group work, how to fairly assign marks and motivate participation
- Flow onto to policies, like late submission, data storage etc
- Return of marks and assessments - easier?
Recent review placed emphasis on quality and standards - TESQA is now national quality regulator. Accreditation linked to standards.
Link between learning objectives, assessment methods and grading of attainment - need to understand relationship to understand and monitor standards.
Academic standards depend upon individual academic expert judgement. Based upon experience of students, their education, etc.
Nulty D D (2011) - paper on consensus moderation
Consensus moderation - about quality assessment and outcomes 'look like'
Consistency in time, place & marker
Process like peer review but consensus is the aim - like herding cats
Other ways of reaching consensus - experience of students, across multiple institutions, annotated exemplars, etc. Most academics do some form of this -having assignments vetted by colleagues, consistency with international textbooks, etc
Framework for consensus moderation
1. Course level assessment planning - ensure appropriate assessment items and patterns
2. Marking student work - ensure appropriate and consistent standards are applied to marking individual pieces
3. grading student work
4. standard across courses
5. standards over time
Griffith Uni has a website now on assessment - Assessment Matters!
TESQA - show us what you do and the difference it has made, on assessment, consensus moderation, etc.
Getting experts together to justify assessment as useful exercise not only for them but also new lecturers, tutors, etc...
Double marking from different institutions as a tool for consensus
Worth being able to look at mark distributions for multiple years - to see consistency of marking
Having assignments and spread of assessments (high, middle, low)
Map down to assessment from overall course goals
Friday, November 25, 2011
reflecting on teaching practice
- Thinking
- Seeing
- Saying
- Feeling
- Hearing
Should be able to reflect on teaching practice in each of these areas. Original found here
'Touching' people online - conflict (used properly), stories (authentic, appropriate).
Not only is the empathy map useful for reflection by teachers, but also good for student reflection on a course.
Human spectrogram as line of site mechanism. See here for explanation.
ConVerge11 Day 2: Beyond LMS. Ian Knox
Great start to a workshop - free USB stick with presentation!!!!
Social Networking in primary schools in US is good, high schools not so good, higher ed.... oh well!
LMSs - avoid awful templates. They crush teacher creativity!!!! Also issues when people don't have access after course finishes - highlights need to keep previous versions with dates.
Much of his comments highlights misuse of LMS, not necessarily limitations of LMS per se.
Social learning is what people do together, not what you make them do - gold quote
Alternatives?
Google+
Foliospaces
In the end - an LMS has its limits but I think if you design it well, it is far more flexible that this workshop presented. Would love Julian Ridden to have responded.
Social Networking in primary schools in US is good, high schools not so good, higher ed.... oh well!
LMSs - avoid awful templates. They crush teacher creativity!!!! Also issues when people don't have access after course finishes - highlights need to keep previous versions with dates.
Much of his comments highlights misuse of LMS, not necessarily limitations of LMS per se.
Social learning is what people do together, not what you make them do - gold quote
Alternatives?
Google+
Foliospaces
In the end - an LMS has its limits but I think if you design it well, it is far more flexible that this workshop presented. Would love Julian Ridden to have responded.
ConVerge11 Day 2: Strategic Blended Learning Plans. Ian Goding & Carmel Hyland
Process
1. Vision statement
2. Environmental analysis - what technology do you have, physical space, etc, etc
3. SWOT analysis - strengths, weaknesses, opportunities & threats
4. Strategic overview
5. Vision projects - next 3 years
6. Goals for this year
7. Professional development
Presenters handed out a worksheet that follows above process. The actual process looks very useful but because we were put into groups we ended talking generalities about what we do rather than having the time to look specifically for ourselves at our individual organisations - i.e. we were supposed to imagine we were part of one teaching centre, and as an approach I didn't find it worked for me.
The 2 and a half minutes was also limiting (but necessary) for the workshop. Having said all that it was refreshing do to a workshop in a workshop. It was also interesting to see the challenges that other institutions face with very different target markets.
After the 'workshopping', Carmel gave an example where the process was applied. Stressed importance of environmental analysis (you need to know what you are working with!)
PADDIE model - plan (environmental analysis), Analyse (gap analysis), Design (storyboard), Develop (up online), Implement (roll out), Evaluate (feedback)
1. Vision statement
2. Environmental analysis - what technology do you have, physical space, etc, etc
3. SWOT analysis - strengths, weaknesses, opportunities & threats
4. Strategic overview
5. Vision projects - next 3 years
6. Goals for this year
7. Professional development
Presenters handed out a worksheet that follows above process. The actual process looks very useful but because we were put into groups we ended talking generalities about what we do rather than having the time to look specifically for ourselves at our individual organisations - i.e. we were supposed to imagine we were part of one teaching centre, and as an approach I didn't find it worked for me.
The 2 and a half minutes was also limiting (but necessary) for the workshop. Having said all that it was refreshing do to a workshop in a workshop. It was also interesting to see the challenges that other institutions face with very different target markets.
After the 'workshopping', Carmel gave an example where the process was applied. Stressed importance of environmental analysis (you need to know what you are working with!)
PADDIE model - plan (environmental analysis), Analyse (gap analysis), Design (storyboard), Develop (up online), Implement (roll out), Evaluate (feedback)
Thursday, November 24, 2011
Left and Right, Up and Down: Connecting Groups and Networks. Nancy White
www.fullcirc.com
Do-ology. We learn by doing not just reading, etc.
What is happening to depth - real reflection on what we are looking at. E.g. Occupy movement; moving from talk to do. The value of being in close proximity.
Think intentionally about the quality of our connections. Slow community! Need to slow down. Occupy connectivity! This is a process not a protest!
Example. Drew a picture (out of comfort zone), explained it to someone else, conversation going. Then involved a third person. Sharing of ideas. Simple but effective.
Technology, Roles, Principles & Practices - these three things need to overlap.
Tech + Social: tech has fundamentally changed how we can be together. E.g. tweeting and people outside a conference feeling like they are missing out.
Eric Whitacre's virtual choir (on YouTube) here
Deep conversations - how to encourage these? Naturally occur face to face. For example others watch when on Twitter! Don't perform! Tension between control vs connection, private vs public. Culture trumps strategy all of the time. Choose the right tool; openness doesn't necessarily mean no privacy.
Occupy as an API for change. Occupying space for learning. Need to get beyond silos.
Connecting roles. Discover & appropriate useful tech be in and use communities and networks (people) express their identity (not roles or performance).
Etienne Wenger - social artists as agents of change.
Network weavers - drawing people together, changing interactions and don't let institutions stop this!
Asking right questions!
ds106.us - networking, digital stories, communities. Online radio. Occupying online space. Humanly amplify learning.
Have to move from risk aversion with safe-fail experiments. A language to talk about innovation.
Values and being transparent about why we do things and invite to follow us.
Do-ology. We learn by doing not just reading, etc.
What is happening to depth - real reflection on what we are looking at. E.g. Occupy movement; moving from talk to do. The value of being in close proximity.
Think intentionally about the quality of our connections. Slow community! Need to slow down. Occupy connectivity! This is a process not a protest!
Example. Drew a picture (out of comfort zone), explained it to someone else, conversation going. Then involved a third person. Sharing of ideas. Simple but effective.
Technology, Roles, Principles & Practices - these three things need to overlap.
Tech + Social: tech has fundamentally changed how we can be together. E.g. tweeting and people outside a conference feeling like they are missing out.
Eric Whitacre's virtual choir (on YouTube) here
Deep conversations - how to encourage these? Naturally occur face to face. For example others watch when on Twitter! Don't perform! Tension between control vs connection, private vs public. Culture trumps strategy all of the time. Choose the right tool; openness doesn't necessarily mean no privacy.
Occupy as an API for change. Occupying space for learning. Need to get beyond silos.
Connecting roles. Discover & appropriate useful tech be in and use communities and networks (people) express their identity (not roles or performance).
Etienne Wenger - social artists as agents of change.
Network weavers - drawing people together, changing interactions and don't let institutions stop this!
Asking right questions!
ds106.us - networking, digital stories, communities. Online radio. Occupying online space. Humanly amplify learning.
Have to move from risk aversion with safe-fail experiments. A language to talk about innovation.
Values and being transparent about why we do things and invite to follow us.
Innovation: What happened and where are we going? ConVerge11
www.howardderrey.com
Firewall dramas! Need to balance security with the innovative tools.
Promethian parallel with Apple?
gotafe - E-delivery skills matrix. Content management - version control. Best tool for the job (e.g. used WebCT for what it was best at - assessment but content etc elsewhere.)
Wiinovation! Using Nintendo for learning making most of motion detection. This looks like a lot of work to get going but innovative approach.
Use of Open Sim in tradie education. Second Life looks good for immersive teaching if there is a task you can realistically do inside it.
See Victorian Elearning Innovations Online Expo
LMS - not good social tools, community is more than collaboration.
Engage learners in different ways - right brain, stories. Storycentric learning. Stories transform listeners, are right brained. Include students within the story.
Firewall dramas! Need to balance security with the innovative tools.
Promethian parallel with Apple?
gotafe - E-delivery skills matrix. Content management - version control. Best tool for the job (e.g. used WebCT for what it was best at - assessment but content etc elsewhere.)
Wiinovation! Using Nintendo for learning making most of motion detection. This looks like a lot of work to get going but innovative approach.
Use of Open Sim in tradie education. Second Life looks good for immersive teaching if there is a task you can realistically do inside it.
See Victorian Elearning Innovations Online Expo
LMS - not good social tools, community is more than collaboration.
Engage learners in different ways - right brain, stories. Storycentric learning. Stories transform listeners, are right brained. Include students within the story.
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