Educational Blogging - ITEC830: Week 5

Some thoughts that struck me during the reading of Educational Blogging by Stephen Downes

"...the events of September 11 brought home to me the immediacy of blogging. We ran ongoing coverage, submitted via SMS to my e-mail, as one of our own made her way from the dust..."

Thought: We need to address the importance in mobile communication and the advances that have been made in this field. By using text messaging, data transmission, etc. from cell phones, blog are able to move towards a news reporting style that helps to make the content socially relevant.

[on blog formatting] "...visitors can catch up by simply reading down the page until they reach a link they saw on their last visit."

Thought: This reminds me of one of the points expressed by Nick Floro in his Web 2.0 presentation at MacWorld 2008. The idea that what makes designs and technology work is that it is easy to use and intuitive. Users can easily get to what they want without having to sift through tons of additional information.

"...Will Richardson also expressed his doubts: "By its very nature, assigned blogging in schools cannot be blogging. It's contrived."

Thought: Well this may be true. But, the value resides in the ability to get students familiar with the technology (assuming they currently are not) and providing first hand experience with building online communities through student to student communication. To use an old metaphor, it's similar to 'bringing a horse to water, but you can't make it drink'. The value can reside in the fact that at least now they know water exists.

MacWorld 2008 Presentation - ITEC830: Week 5

Thoughts on Nick Floro's MacWorld 2008 presentation on Web2.0 technology

Communications Software

Some of the new applications I learned about during this presentation included:

• ODEO - Self publication and distribution of podcasts.
  
• Pachyderm  - A free open source web based multimedia authoring tool.
  
• eLLG - An open source social networking platform (blog, podcast, community creation, aggregation).
  
• Moodle - Free open source content management system for online learning communities.
  
• viddler - Upload, modify and share video. Tag along the timeline for quick searching.

An interesting note is that most of these applications are open source.

How to Design Better Courses

Because technology has become smaller, pervasive and easier to use, the content consumers have now become content creators. Kids growing up in this technologically advanced and rapidly changing environment are used to multitasking and quick access to information. They tend to think holistically not linearly and use social settings and relationships as a means of learning and gaining knowledge.

When designing courses for this generation of learners it's important to remember how they access information. These kids are used to being able to quickly search online and find answers to questions. Any course should take into consideration how to make the content easily accessible in a non-linear manner (search, tags, multiple topic jump off points in one location or portal page, etc). Another thing to remember is the idea that "every click should meet user's expectations and lead them to a goal."

Nick Floro works for www.sealworks.net producing educational materials.

"Bloggers are inspired, for the most part, by things that happen to them, or something they read or observe." - ITEC830: Week 5

Bloggers: Portrait of America's New Storytellers by Amanda Lenhart and Susannah Fox (2006, July 19).

Interesting to read some official statistics of what I already suspected. Although I'm not sure how comfortable I am with falling into the 'older' demographic (anyone above 30 years of age), I find it interesting the difference between how the 'younger' and the 'older' look at and use blogs. Within my group of friends and acquaintances are living examples of the validity of these findings.

For the most part, the under 30 tend to broadcast their life doings, creative endeavors, and social/political thoughts through LiveJournal, MySpace, Flickr, cell phones, email distribution lists, etc. Us 'older' folks tend to stick with the email...it's a bit slower, you know, which is fitting to our pace of life ;) *kinda kidding*. I feel like many of my friends above 30 (myself included) gave up on "keeping up with the joneses" of technology after surviving the soul sucking situation of the .bom. Don't get me wrong, we're still into the gadgets and their ability to help us google maps our way through daily life, but the excitement energy barrier is much higher. We've run like lemmings from one techie thing to the next, caught up in the 'irrational exuberance' and have learned to be patient and let trends shake out before throwing our hearts into them. It's this reason that I think the older crowd is a bit reluctant to hop on the blog bandwagon. We see it's value in the form of LinkedIn (letting us hook up with the right fit company), but it's not as valued as a form of self expression and entertainment.

I wonder what the future that the 'younger' bloggers are shaping will look like? Obviously, the old ways of information distribution and even creation are changing. It is time for a new way of teaching. I know this is nothing new to the education community, but it is something I'm only coming to fully understand as this course continues and I reflect on my beliefs of how education should change based on my own experience as a child. Even the reality that modern children are unique to this era of communication explosion was something I'd not fully realized.

I'm feeling like this old dog is learning some new tricks.

Reflections on EDU 2.0

Last night Graham Glass presented his website edu2.0 to our ITEC830 class, and I have to say I'm pretty impressed.

He's taken his career experience and used that to build something he's passionate about and is intended to help kids learn. I am interested in possibly building out my creative work project - 5th grade science module (TBD) based on California curriculum - and posting it on his site. Some of what I see of value is the fact that he's just done it. He had an idea and executed it. Now he's seeing where it's going to go. Some of what he's doing may not be new to the world of education, but to those not inducted, this is awesome and can be a great stepping stone to getting the everyday person onboard with this manner of education.

I will post more when I've poked at his site more. What do you all think of it?

Wiki - ITEC830: Week 3

Check out my wiki site. It's a companion to my blog...

http://gigi-designs.wetpaint.com

Thank you Wetpaint for providing that service.

Learning in the Digital Age by John Seely Brown - ITEC830: Week 3

Personal connections I've made about Learning in the Digital Age.

Mr. Brown expresses a truth that I'd not realized until well out of my undergraduate education, "learning is a remarkably social process." It was only after thinking about this quote that I saw the truth in it. I *actually do* learn the most when I'm in conversation or debate with my friends over politics, sustainable living, privacy issues and a myriad of other topics. This small realization made me reconsider my attitude towards blogs, wikis, etc. etc., maybe there really is value to things... it isn't simply a form of exhibitionism.  If so, then these tools can be great mediums through which to inform, educate and unite people.

Unlike my undergraduate days where learning was a passive experience only made active through constructed laboratories - of which many times I didn't even know what I was supposed to be learning (I was simply going through the steps), learning in the digital age has become active. This idea that learning is an active experience is underscored by his assertion that, "we must move far beyond the traditional view of teaching as a delivery of information" and "knowledge is inextricably situated in the physical and social context of its acquisition and use." I agree with this assertion that learning is most effective when it is made relevant by placing it in a physical and social context that draws upon individuals prior experiences, but I do wonder if this is more appropriate to older learners (10-12, undergraduate, graduate, and life-long learning students) due to their already established critical thinking skills. Later on in the article he uses examples, all of which are based in the university setting.

This active approach to learning is also expressed through the concept of Legitimate Peripheral Participation defined by Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger. By a learner participating in communities, deep and relevant learning can occur. It is due to the application of information through communication that debate and vicarious learning can occur. The example is given that people don't become physicists by memorizing the explicits such as formulas, it's the implicits of the practice which reveal questions, sensibilities and aesthetics of the community that create a physicist. Knowledge is in the doing and indoctrination into the community. Some of the mechanisms by which this sort of learning can be fostered include:

• Studio and lab experiences

Another jewel uncovered by the article is the idea that Howard Gardner's multiple intelligences theory can be met through technology. "The Internet and other technologies  honor multiple forms of intelligence - be they abstract, textual, visual, musical, social, or kinesthetic - and therein present tremendous opportunities to design new learning environments that enhance the natural ways that humans learn." Finally, I've found a document that expresses a long held belief of mine. Some of the mechanisms by which this sort of learning can be fostered include:

• Persistent Online Worlds (such as Second Life and There)
  
• Virtual Universities (remote learning)