Summer Workshop Reflections Day 3

Another busy day with a number of new concepts and tools to ponder. Our initial discussion compared the motivation for the implementation of technology. Could versus should; just because the technology is cool and neat and we could use it to do ______, should we? We need to ask ourself if the implementation is bringing significant value to the learning experience. Steve mentioned having spent hours creating a cool new module that really brought very little benefit to the course. He caught himself wanting to use the tool exclusively or excessively. I know I have been guilty of the same. Remember, "Could vs. Should" when considering using a technology tool.

We discussed a couple of digital libraries and contrasted them with digital repositories. Sandie suggested that for our purposes, they are pretty much the same. Some examples mentioned were: Galileo, the Gutenberg Project, NSDL, Instructional Architect, Pioneer Library, Family Search and Ancestry.com.

We talked about RSS; how an aggregater will act as you web news article browser. Sandie explained that she no longer uses RSS. I have to agree with that. It takes me at least 20-40 minutes to go through and parse out desired information when I do it. I found myself un-subscribing to many feeds. Perhaps a leaner more focused approach would be better.

We the talked about copyright issues. We determined early in the discussion that it was not only illegal in a lot of cases, but also immoral in many cases to use material from the web. We talked about "Fair Use" and we found that most educators have their own definition of what percent is allowable in Fair Use. The range was from 10% to 50%. I shared how I include on my Wiki opening page a statement about Fair Use and the link to the section of code at the U.S. Copyright Office. This led into a discussion of Creative Commons.

I had heard of Creative Commons somewhere previously. The concept is to allow differing levels of use or reproduction and assigning an appropriate symbol. From their web site:

• Creative Commons provides free tools that let authors, scientists, artists, and educators easily mark their creative work with the freedoms they want it to carry. You can use CC to change your copyright terms from "All Rights Reserved" to "Some Rights Reserved."
  
  We're a nonprofit organization. Everything we do — including the software we create — is free.

Sandie pointed out that as an employee, your created material may be the the copyright property of the employer and that the non-disclosure agreement of the employer would clarify the issue.

An interesting sidebar was the idea of personal pride or ego as opposed to the common good. My take is, "Life is too short and you can't take it with you." But of course I have never created anything of much value so that's easy for me to say.

Sandie instructed us to use original work on our project for the most part and to site sources and use links to web resources rather than copy the material.

Sandie asked us to reference the proposal template for the 6460 course and to gear our final paper as a transition to that end. The literature review should function as background information and justification for our design. I had a thought relative to optimal time spent on an activity.

In our recent class, I can't remember which, a discussion thread emerged about the optimum time that should be spent on any one learning activity. The feed back that surprised me was that this particular teacher felt like 15 minutes was about right for high school seniors. I have always gone by the old adage the mind can only absorb that which the butt can endure, or about 45 minutes. This got me thinking and doing some informal research including some verbal surveys of my students; I must say that I am leaning more toward an optimal time of 30 minutes. This will be one of the areas of research, literature review I plan to conduct. I've already done some comparison of LMS systems. I need to do more there. Perhaps identify the common components of various LMS products and determine which would fit my situation.

What ever final project I decide upon, I want to use it in my class which is not a DE situation. Much of what we do is web based and I have used a wiki extensively with success. There are several components that I know I want to implement and some that are out of my control, mandated by the school or district such as grade reporting and attendance recording.

Sandie shared something that I found intellectually intriguing. Her doctoral work deals with a topic new to me: Notational Systems. She recognized early in her involvement with Instructional technology that there were terms that ambiguous within the discipline or across associated fields. Don't I know how that is. Information technology is awash with duonyms, (my own word). She pointed out that historically, any study or discipline has accelerated rapidly once a method of notation was defined and implemented. The case she used to illustrate the point was the study of music and how it took off once a system of notation was invoked. Music contrasted with dance also made the point that once the notational system was in place, the "science" (or art) took off.

We had some fun with Skype. This could prove very useful in an on-line course. We could even do video with the phone; not very useful for a F2F class.

After Skype, we set up a MySpace account and reviewed Sandie's space. I think parents would not approve of this in the classroom in addition to the fact that some districts block the site.

Sandie asked all to research Open Course Ware, ARCS, and CSBs. She also assigned us to research Captivate by Adobe.

Summer Workshop Reflections

Day 2

The team building activity to start the day was a follow-up from yesterday's Celebrity Interview where we wrote a headline summarizing significant aspects of the interview. It was a good activity to get to know the others better and have some fun at the same time.

After a quick review of yesterday's activities, we launched into a discussion of Learning communities. The assignment was to join a formal learning community which I missed somehow. Some of the thoughts shared were how most of us already are a part of a learning community. I suggested that NAF would qualify. Sandie challenged Jennifer and I to join a more formal community.

We determined that a learning community would have something in-common, a purpose or objective. We contrasted a community of practice which would be more like the open source community. In the end, they are pretty much the same thing except on rare occasions.

I expressed my sense of anxiety having one more thing to check off the to-do list. I can see the benefit of a blog and discussion groups. This is my third endeavor into blogging. I commit that I will be diligent all week at this design journal.

We did an activity dealing with a math trick that illustrated the importance of collaboration in distance learning. In teams of one, we were given one of four steps to complete the math trick. Steve had step one which meant he did not have enough information to anything more than fill out a few cells in the answer sheet. Jennifer was given the second step and she was able to complete all of one column and some of the final answer column while I had step three and readily completed the answer column and most of the problem column. Marilyn had all steps and finished all work.

We then collaborated to fill in the missing steps. Interestingly enough, I did not pay close enough attention to step two so when I tried to demonstrate the trick to my daughter and son-in-law, I got some bad answers. Only then did I get the significance of step two.

We also discussed the importance of formative evaluation in the design process. All of us related experiences with Yanghee's class and how enlightening the process was. We determined that as SME's we too often make assumptions that others have an understanding where they do not. Also, we realized there was a point where the steps become too simple and that learners sometimes expect some result to be manifest where none should.

We then did an interesting exercise using MSN Instant Messenger. We discussed Simulations using chat. The main points were that a simulation is not real, entirely. The consequences of mistakes in a simulation are controlled so they are save and inexpensive. The benefit of repetition as a learning tool was mentioned and that it may be a simulated scenario such as a mock business or process. I liked the idea of simulation as a scaffolding tool. The simulation may include the real thing in a controlled environment.

I expressed my frustration, Sandie called it off-balance, with not having a firm grip on how I could use simulation other than those already used in the CBT programs I use in class. Jennifer pointed out the scenario type of simulation where the classroom is operated like a business. I like the concept but will have to work this out in my mind for my particular situation.

We then wrapped up the day talking about the Final paper due July 9th. Up to 6 pages that will describe what we want to accomplish with out final project to be completed over the fall and spring semesters. Sandie suggested looking at the Proposal template for the 6460 course. We need to review the latest literature and check available resources, methodologies, an use project management tools.

Summer Workshop Reflections

Day 1

I felt like a real dummy today. At 8:25 I made my way to the Education building for my class. I knew the date. I remembered the teacher. I was pretty sure it was face to face on USU campus The staff in the Instructional Technology office finally found a minute to give me attention between important social interchanges; I felt stupid because I thought they should know that Sandie was teaching this week. Big surprise! After trying to call Sandie, they point me to room 230.

It was locked and dark so I found an open computer lab to check the web CT site one last time. The response was the same, "Class not activated." No new email, humph. I check banner to see if anything is listed there. Oh yeh, the class number is InsT 5520, section SLW. How stupid could I be? SLW must mean it is in Salt Lake.

90 minutes later, the receptionist at the Murray extension is the first smile I've seen all day. He checks for 5520, no, nothing here. "Let me call someone," he politely offers. "Thank you," I reply. "The person is away right now, I'll try again in a few minutes," he suggests. Finally he determines that the class is in Logan and that they can link the EdNet classroom with an open room in Murray. We spend the next hour together, virtually, via the miracle of technology. We determine that I could travel back to Logan over lunch to see a former student's final project.

90 minutes later, the presentation is underway and I find an open seat I had seen earlier from 80 miles away. Tom Davidson, a high school science teacher at Box Elder HS, presented his final project. It was well done. It appeared very professional, clean, detailed, and well organized. Tom admitted he had spent as much as 200 hours, confessing it was a little "over the top." The objective however was to expose us to a good final project. It does look like a lot of work but it is in fact "doable." Tom's email is tomrdavidson@gmail.com

We move then to the computer lab, room 230!!! where we create a gmail account and a blogger account. We will use Blogger as a "Design Log" to document the design process of our final project. We will use the documents feature of Google to create a Wiki. This was a surprise to me, I had heard of Google documents but did not realize they are a Wiki, duh. They are not the full featured version like some hosted Wikis but it works for a quick shared document, awesome.

When I get back to my accommodations, I log into the Web CT one more time to see if anything has changed with the InsT 5520 class. I get the same error message. Then I read the fine print, If you get this error message your instructor may have chosen to deliver the class by some other method. I feel stupid all over again.

The Journey of 1000 miles begins with the first step.

So it begins, the Distance Learning and Teaching sojourn.