Many experiences I had while working on my final course project with Jono serve as great examples of the value this course has had.
First while planning this project, Jono and I realized that a jigsaw project involving student photo movies needed a platform for the students to put all their pieces together. Last semester, I would have asked students to put their pieces into a common folder on our school server and then assembled them myself or perhaps asked one or two students to be the final assemblers. A few days ago, Jono and I hunted for and discovered an online video editor where students could upload video clips and combine them into a final movie. This is essentially like a wiki for movies. Now the students can be part of their collaboration until the completion of the final product.
Next, in the short time between when Jono and I published our project sketches on our blogs, we received feedback from a Technology-Based Project expert from the US. Obviously, such feedback was only accessible to us once we made our sketches publicly available. Last semester, we would have had to rely on each other for ideas and a first experience to see what improvements we could make.
Finally, while simplifying the text that we were asking the students to work with, we both began working on the same computer. One of us read the original text, we discussed modifications, and the other typed. We thought we could save time by each modifying half of the text and then putting our two halves together. We set to work on our individual computers. But the breakthrough for us came when we realized we could share a text document through Google Docs and work simultaneously on the document. Now we didn't need to look over each other's shoulder if we had a question; we could both see it on the screen. We jointly finished simplifying the text and can now both access it for final edits. No multiple versions. No emailing files. All convenient and efficient.
In short, today's experience captures some of my learnings from this course. Collaboration is getting easier and easier for students and teachers alike given the developments in technology. Technology also gives us access to remote feedback from others who we don't even have to know.
During this course, I had a few experiences where I realized that some of the collaborative applications could save real time and paper. For example, using a spreadsheet in Google Docs for students to share data made it easy for them to see each other's work and draw conclusions from a larger set of data than just their own.
To me, this course has been as much about exploiting technology for my own professional practice as for collaboration for the students. Hopefully, I can continue these new practices now that the course is finished.
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Horizon Report
Reading the NMC's Horizon Report was the first report of its kind that I had seen. Something that surprised me was that the time frame given for many of the trends were stated to be in the future, although if asked, I would have said these some of these trends were already here: cell phones, cloud computing, geotags, etc.
One thing that was interesting was the prediction that by the year 2020, most people will use their cell phones to connect to the internet. This development would be an interesting twist to the concern that computer technology is accentuating the gap between the haves and have-nots in the world. While it maybe true that access to the internet via personal computers may be limited to the wealthy, internet access via cell phone might not be. It appears that cell phones are much more accessible financially than personal computers, and as with everything, as the price comes down, cell phones that act as personal computers might eventually end up in the hands of less wealthly people who currently do not have access to actual computers. This all means that the internet and all the connectivity that goes along with it might become part of more and more people's lives.
As for the cloud and the idea that computers will no longer be the physical repositories for computing power, storage space, applications, etc, I experienced this at a company in the US where work could be done from home with a remote access client. The client logged into a work station or network of computers in a company building, and allowed me to use the computer network to run the applications that I ran at work. Essentially, all the activity was happening on the workstation at the office, but the graphic interface was being broadcast over the internet onto my screen. What I could do was a function of the power of the computer I was logged into. If the internet connection was fast, I could see everything at home as it came up on the workstation I was logged into. It's essentially what Remote Assistance is on the Windows platform. Perhaps the difference between now and the future is that this style of computing will pervade all applications and tasks.
While I will be interested now to follow the development of these technologies and the future horizon reports, I'm more interested in seeing the Horizon Report for K-12 education, whenever it is finally released.
One thing that was interesting was the prediction that by the year 2020, most people will use their cell phones to connect to the internet. This development would be an interesting twist to the concern that computer technology is accentuating the gap between the haves and have-nots in the world. While it maybe true that access to the internet via personal computers may be limited to the wealthy, internet access via cell phone might not be. It appears that cell phones are much more accessible financially than personal computers, and as with everything, as the price comes down, cell phones that act as personal computers might eventually end up in the hands of less wealthly people who currently do not have access to actual computers. This all means that the internet and all the connectivity that goes along with it might become part of more and more people's lives.
As for the cloud and the idea that computers will no longer be the physical repositories for computing power, storage space, applications, etc, I experienced this at a company in the US where work could be done from home with a remote access client. The client logged into a work station or network of computers in a company building, and allowed me to use the computer network to run the applications that I ran at work. Essentially, all the activity was happening on the workstation at the office, but the graphic interface was being broadcast over the internet onto my screen. What I could do was a function of the power of the computer I was logged into. If the internet connection was fast, I could see everything at home as it came up on the workstation I was logged into. It's essentially what Remote Assistance is on the Windows platform. Perhaps the difference between now and the future is that this style of computing will pervade all applications and tasks.
While I will be interested now to follow the development of these technologies and the future horizon reports, I'm more interested in seeing the Horizon Report for K-12 education, whenever it is finally released.
Friday, February 27, 2009
Project Sketch
In 6th grade Science, the students study cells through various activities, one of which is a 4 page reading from their resource book. In EAP Math/Science, Jono and I preview and review content with an emphasis on our ELL's language development.
We are thinking about doing a jigsaw-collaborative-technology project to tackle the 4 page reading, which will likely be extremely challenging for the students. Instead of having them each read the assignment, we would like to involve them in making a photo movie as a vehicle for the reading.
More specifically, we can divide the reading among 12 students and 2 teachers, and each work on our part. For their parts, students slowly read their parts and use whatever resources they need to make sense of them (internet, dictionary, classmates, teachers). Perhaps we will rewrite the text to make it a little simpler for them, or provide them with a text with explanatory annotations.
Anyway, their first task will be to use flickr or Google Images to find images that help explain the various sentences in their part of the text. They will then use Windows Movie Maker or PhotoStory to record the text, assemble the images, and maybe write out the text on each photo.
After they have created a multi-image movie for their part of the reading, the students will use JayCut (an online video editing tool) to collaboratively assemble a class video of the entire reading. They will be able to insert their section and save it for classmates to edit, i.e. insert their parts.
After the video is published, the students will watch it as a class. Ideally, the graphic images as well as seeing and hearing the text will help the students understand the content as well as appreciate their group effort using technology. We could even post the movie to YouTube with a tag which identifies as the reading from the particular resource book for other students around the world to view.
A question I still have is if there is a way to make the first part of the assignment something that students could do as partners so that there is student-student interaction rather than just individual student-text-web interaction.
I believe this project meets the NET standard below:
2. Communication and Collaboration
Students use digital media and environments to communicate and work collaboratively, including at a distance, to support individual learning and contribute to the learning of others.
We are thinking about doing a jigsaw-collaborative-technology project to tackle the 4 page reading, which will likely be extremely challenging for the students. Instead of having them each read the assignment, we would like to involve them in making a photo movie as a vehicle for the reading.
More specifically, we can divide the reading among 12 students and 2 teachers, and each work on our part. For their parts, students slowly read their parts and use whatever resources they need to make sense of them (internet, dictionary, classmates, teachers). Perhaps we will rewrite the text to make it a little simpler for them, or provide them with a text with explanatory annotations.
Anyway, their first task will be to use flickr or Google Images to find images that help explain the various sentences in their part of the text. They will then use Windows Movie Maker or PhotoStory to record the text, assemble the images, and maybe write out the text on each photo.
After they have created a multi-image movie for their part of the reading, the students will use JayCut (an online video editing tool) to collaboratively assemble a class video of the entire reading. They will be able to insert their section and save it for classmates to edit, i.e. insert their parts.
After the video is published, the students will watch it as a class. Ideally, the graphic images as well as seeing and hearing the text will help the students understand the content as well as appreciate their group effort using technology. We could even post the movie to YouTube with a tag which identifies as the reading from the particular resource book for other students around the world to view.
A question I still have is if there is a way to make the first part of the assignment something that students could do as partners so that there is student-student interaction rather than just individual student-text-web interaction.
I believe this project meets the NET standard below:
2. Communication and Collaboration
Students use digital media and environments to communicate and work collaboratively, including at a distance, to support individual learning and contribute to the learning of others.
Students:
a. interact, collaborate, and publish with peers, experts, or others employing a variety of digital environments and media.
b. communicate information and ideas effectively to multiple audiences using a variety of media and formats.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
New things in new ways?
While reading Prensky's Adopt and Adapt article, I understood and followed his model of technology adoption. It made sense that dabbling was followed by doing old things in old ways, which was followed by doing old things in new ways. How many times have I thought that using computers for tasks that could been done by hand, such as illustrating or designing, often made something prettier but required more time--a perfect example of an old thing in a new way. Anyway, I read on.
In the final stage of adoption, I found these two sentences of doing new things in new ways:
"For the digital age, we need new curricula, new organization, new architecture, new teaching, new student assessments, new parental connections, new administration procedures, and many other elements."
Motivational, yes, but not very informational. Just what specifically is Prensky advocating for? I read on and found this:
"If we really offered our children some great future-oriented content (such as, for example, that they could learn about nanotechnology, bioethics, genetic medicine, and neuroscience in neat interactive ways from real experts), and they could develop their skills in programming, knowledge filtering, using their connectivity, and maximizing their hardware, and that they could do so with cutting-edge, powerful, miniaturized, customizable, and one-to-one technology, I bet they would complete the "standard" curriculum in half the time it now takes, with high test scores all around."
Is this what he means by new things in new ways? Make the knowledge more future oriented and make skills more technology based? At first glance, that doesn't strike me as a new thing in a new way. Aren't there places in education already that address these topics? Aren't there courses already that teach programming skills? Does shifting the curriculum to these areas constitute the "invention" of which he speaks? Is this the "experimentation" in lesson plans, classes, etc of which he speaks?
I feel just as in-the-dark about the New-things-in-new-ways stage of technology adoption as it applies to education as I did at the beginning of the article. What should technology integration look like?
In the final stage of adoption, I found these two sentences of doing new things in new ways:
"For the digital age, we need new curricula, new organization, new architecture, new teaching, new student assessments, new parental connections, new administration procedures, and many other elements."
Motivational, yes, but not very informational. Just what specifically is Prensky advocating for? I read on and found this:
"If we really offered our children some great future-oriented content (such as, for example, that they could learn about nanotechnology, bioethics, genetic medicine, and neuroscience in neat interactive ways from real experts), and they could develop their skills in programming, knowledge filtering, using their connectivity, and maximizing their hardware, and that they could do so with cutting-edge, powerful, miniaturized, customizable, and one-to-one technology, I bet they would complete the "standard" curriculum in half the time it now takes, with high test scores all around."
Is this what he means by new things in new ways? Make the knowledge more future oriented and make skills more technology based? At first glance, that doesn't strike me as a new thing in a new way. Aren't there places in education already that address these topics? Aren't there courses already that teach programming skills? Does shifting the curriculum to these areas constitute the "invention" of which he speaks? Is this the "experimentation" in lesson plans, classes, etc of which he speaks?
I feel just as in-the-dark about the New-things-in-new-ways stage of technology adoption as it applies to education as I did at the beginning of the article. What should technology integration look like?
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Peer Based Learning (From Dig.Youth.Proj. Conclusions/Implications)
What teacher wouldn't want to the respect from a student normally given to an experienced peer rather than the "respect" students give to their authority-figure school teachers? I can't imagine that many people would argue against peer-based learning given the benefits that it has. There will probably be more discussion about how it can be used effectively in schools. Here's some quick thoughts on that.
If the report found that the experienced-peer adults who formed part of the interest-driven online groups were themselves avid hobbyists and creators, then teachers might benefit from sharing the work they do within their subject so that students could see this hobby/creative element in their teachers. Students perspective might change if they saw their teachers doing the work that teachers asked students to do. A book I'm currently reading on writing instruction suggests that students benefit by seeing their teachers write. Can this perspective be extended to all subject areas?
Unfortunately, the analogy between the report's peer-based learning groups and school breaks down becaus school mostly lacks the interest-driven element that interest-driven groups have. For the analogy to be complete, we would have to learn to interest students to the point that they see school subjects as something worth devoting their interest to. That seems like an enormous challenge given the prescriptive nature of our school curricula, but it is nonetheless an implication of the findings of peer-based learning in interest-driven groups.
Another option would be to let students study what they are interested in--an individualized curriculum. This is likely to be unmanageable in a school setting where learning is typically measured and reported in an standardized way. It would also be beyond the means of the teachers to be experienced peers in every field the students chose to study. This doesn't have to be a problem as long as schools can find some way to measure student's learning. Perhaps, students could be given the non-content-specific learning goals we have for them and asked to explain how they were met in their investigations.
Or, in an effort to steer learning towards peer-based learning in the absence of student-interest we can allow for students to work together. Of course, there we run the risk of students not actually learning, but letting their partners do the learning for them. This would work best in the case of two motivated students. I don't believe this attempt to promote peer-based learning would be as ideal as either of the first two.
If the report found that the experienced-peer adults who formed part of the interest-driven online groups were themselves avid hobbyists and creators, then teachers might benefit from sharing the work they do within their subject so that students could see this hobby/creative element in their teachers. Students perspective might change if they saw their teachers doing the work that teachers asked students to do. A book I'm currently reading on writing instruction suggests that students benefit by seeing their teachers write. Can this perspective be extended to all subject areas?
Unfortunately, the analogy between the report's peer-based learning groups and school breaks down becaus school mostly lacks the interest-driven element that interest-driven groups have. For the analogy to be complete, we would have to learn to interest students to the point that they see school subjects as something worth devoting their interest to. That seems like an enormous challenge given the prescriptive nature of our school curricula, but it is nonetheless an implication of the findings of peer-based learning in interest-driven groups.
Another option would be to let students study what they are interested in--an individualized curriculum. This is likely to be unmanageable in a school setting where learning is typically measured and reported in an standardized way. It would also be beyond the means of the teachers to be experienced peers in every field the students chose to study. This doesn't have to be a problem as long as schools can find some way to measure student's learning. Perhaps, students could be given the non-content-specific learning goals we have for them and asked to explain how they were met in their investigations.
Or, in an effort to steer learning towards peer-based learning in the absence of student-interest we can allow for students to work together. Of course, there we run the risk of students not actually learning, but letting their partners do the learning for them. This would work best in the case of two motivated students. I don't believe this attempt to promote peer-based learning would be as ideal as either of the first two.
Geeking Out. . .Can we learn through hobbies?
The section of the MacArthur report on Geeking Out reminded me of the fact that hobbies have been the source of some of my most personally rewarding learning. When I was young, it was making plastic model airplanes or model rockets. In college, it was salsa dancing and psychology/mythology. Once I got a job, it was finances and economics. Most of the time, I shared my hobbies with only one or two other individuals at a time, but in college I was able to share my passion in salsa dancing with an entire club. I don't think anybody would doubt that we were salsa geeks. We explored, learned, and taught each other. We gave each other feedback. We felt a sense of pride when others copied our "moves" or picked something up we had shown or explained to them. The same applied to salsa music and sharing it with the other dancers. We even shared with each other which peer-to-peer file-sharing networks (which were just taking off about 10 years ago) to use to find music online. In short, I closely identify with the experiences on geeking out which were described in the report, such as video making or rap music in MySpace.
Again, I don't find the experiences to be new to humans, but I expect and appreciate that the authors of the study are attempting to validate the geeking out that occurs online nowadays. Is it hard for me to appreciate that many people need for technology to even be validated because our school embraces technology? Am I lucky to have (been) immigrated to Digi-land at a young enough age to appreciate what natives are doing with technology? Regardless of the reason, I appreciate that technology, online special knowledge networks and online interest-based communities and organizations can provide a fantastic opportunity for learning, just as non-virtual hobbies and interest groups have too.
Again, I don't find the experiences to be new to humans, but I expect and appreciate that the authors of the study are attempting to validate the geeking out that occurs online nowadays. Is it hard for me to appreciate that many people need for technology to even be validated because our school embraces technology? Am I lucky to have (been) immigrated to Digi-land at a young enough age to appreciate what natives are doing with technology? Regardless of the reason, I appreciate that technology, online special knowledge networks and online interest-based communities and organizations can provide a fantastic opportunity for learning, just as non-virtual hobbies and interest groups have too.
Saturday, February 7, 2009
A little rain for the 2.0 parade
Did anyone else read the articles on Connectivism and Messing Around and wonder "What's the big deal?" I don't see much novel about those discussions, just technology-specific applications of pre-existing ideas.
Connectivism is a catchy name which highlights part of the philosophy of Web 2.0, but is not exclusive to the digital world. It seems to be the current incarnation of what used to be the oral tradition, written texts, printed material, etc. These phenomena all entailed wisdom being shared and made collective. Weren't they examples of externalized learning too? Aren't libraries and fellow humans the physical equivalents of digital personal learning networks. Hasn't connectivism been around as long as humans have lived in groups? In that sense, I don't see it at as a replacement of the previous learning theories (behaviorism, cognitivism, connectivism), just a description of a different scale of learning.
The discussion of Messing Around is also not exclusive to the computer realm. Isn't that part of being human, tinkering with things, fiddling, figuring out, making something, whatever. It seems hard to own and use any tool (including a computer or a web application) without messing around with it. Wouldn't people rather mess around with an object than read the instruction manual to figure out how to use it?
Let me know if I'm missing out on the Earth-shattering ideas here, but to me there wasn't much ground breaking about these discussions.
Connectivism is a catchy name which highlights part of the philosophy of Web 2.0, but is not exclusive to the digital world. It seems to be the current incarnation of what used to be the oral tradition, written texts, printed material, etc. These phenomena all entailed wisdom being shared and made collective. Weren't they examples of externalized learning too? Aren't libraries and fellow humans the physical equivalents of digital personal learning networks. Hasn't connectivism been around as long as humans have lived in groups? In that sense, I don't see it at as a replacement of the previous learning theories (behaviorism, cognitivism, connectivism), just a description of a different scale of learning.
The discussion of Messing Around is also not exclusive to the computer realm. Isn't that part of being human, tinkering with things, fiddling, figuring out, making something, whatever. It seems hard to own and use any tool (including a computer or a web application) without messing around with it. Wouldn't people rather mess around with an object than read the instruction manual to figure out how to use it?
Let me know if I'm missing out on the Earth-shattering ideas here, but to me there wasn't much ground breaking about these discussions.
Changing Thoughts - Bloom, Connectivism, Messing Around
The speed with which a large amount of up-to-date information is becoming available makes me wonder if learning anything besides how to access and use this information will even be relevant in the future, whenever that may be. Given that so much learning nowadays is spent internalizing the learning of others before us (in a sense "re-creating the wheel") learning is still mostly internal. The article on connectivism refers to a situation of learning being external. Could it be that eventually, internalized learning of content will be mainly replaced with externalized learning?
For example, presently to extract oil from the earth requires a team of geologists, engineers, accountants, lawyers, etc, each of which is an educated/experienced expert in their field. They have all internally learned some specialized content. With this content, generally speaking, they work on projects throughout their careers. What would happen if this knowledge and information were to become externally learned? Could anyone begin to step in and apply that knowledge and information to a new project? Already in 2001 at the oil company where I worked previous to teaching, databases and how-to guides of best practices were being created to shorten the learning curve of employees beginning new projects and to ensure that knowledge did not disappear with retiring individuals who had internalized it.
If this is in fact a possible trend in learning, individuals may only internalize the learning surrounding how to use externalized learning for a particular need, i.e. project. Maybe this means that part of teaching will become educating students to complete projects/tasks with the knowledge and information of others rather than their own self-constructed knowledge--quite a reversal from the current model of "doing your own work" and not plagiarizing.
Compared to my parents' generation, my generation is known for working for many different companies and even in many different careers. Compare that to the baby-boomer model of one career, one company (or, at least, very few). Will the next generation even identify themselves with a specific career at any point in their lives? Or will they just jump from project to project as consultants who use a common base of externalized learning?
For example, presently to extract oil from the earth requires a team of geologists, engineers, accountants, lawyers, etc, each of which is an educated/experienced expert in their field. They have all internally learned some specialized content. With this content, generally speaking, they work on projects throughout their careers. What would happen if this knowledge and information were to become externally learned? Could anyone begin to step in and apply that knowledge and information to a new project? Already in 2001 at the oil company where I worked previous to teaching, databases and how-to guides of best practices were being created to shorten the learning curve of employees beginning new projects and to ensure that knowledge did not disappear with retiring individuals who had internalized it.
If this is in fact a possible trend in learning, individuals may only internalize the learning surrounding how to use externalized learning for a particular need, i.e. project. Maybe this means that part of teaching will become educating students to complete projects/tasks with the knowledge and information of others rather than their own self-constructed knowledge--quite a reversal from the current model of "doing your own work" and not plagiarizing.
Compared to my parents' generation, my generation is known for working for many different companies and even in many different careers. Compare that to the baby-boomer model of one career, one company (or, at least, very few). Will the next generation even identify themselves with a specific career at any point in their lives? Or will they just jump from project to project as consultants who use a common base of externalized learning?
Friday, February 6, 2009
What I hope to get out of this course
I know I am going to get a lot of information about Web 2.0 tools, and I'm really looking forward to that. But what I'd like just as much to get out of this course is the way to use these tools in a class such that it doesn't become the curriculum, but rather helps learn the curriculum. In my case the "curriculum" is ESL, but in reality it is whatever content I support and choose to teach to help students develop their English.
Regarding specific tools I saw on the Wiki-
I would like to learn the basics about:
Twitter
Voicethread
Google for Educators
Facilitating global collaboration (connecting students to others around the world)
I know something about and would like to learn some more about:
Delicious
SmartBoards
Effective search techniques
Flickr
RSS & iGoogle
Word/Tag Clouds (Wordle)
I know a good deal about and would like to learn to maximize the potential of:
Linking
Moodle (PantherNet)
YouTube
Wikis
As I mentioned above, the emphasis is on using it with students and for the class objectives.
Regarding specific tools I saw on the Wiki-
I would like to learn the basics about:
Voicethread
Google for Educators
Facilitating global collaboration (connecting students to others around the world)
I know something about and would like to learn some more about:
Delicious
SmartBoards
Effective search techniques
Flickr
RSS & iGoogle
Word/Tag Clouds (Wordle)
I know a good deal about and would like to learn to maximize the potential of:
Linking
Moodle (PantherNet)
YouTube
Wikis
As I mentioned above, the emphasis is on using it with students and for the class objectives.
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