Monthly Archives: September 2012

Reflection 9/24/12 – 9/28/12

Leave a reply

Accomplishments:

  • Prof Dev
    • Still working on the Gamification MOOC through Coursera
      •  I received the eval on my 2nd written assignment and received a high mark with appropriate feedback from my peers. I feel like the time to complete and submit with timely feedback has been excellent in this course
      • Listened to Lessons 9 & 10 on 9/24
      • Worked on the last written assignment starting on 9/24 and completed for submission on 9/27
    • Registered for a new MOOC called Introduction to Computer Languages.
      • Issues getting python on my mac
      • Went to DF and Google to remedy
    • Here is a reflection on the Diversity brown bag that I attended on Mon 9/24: https://sites.psu.edu/rep129blog/2012/09/19/educational-gaming-brown-bag-turning-an-astronomy-course-into-a-mission-to-mars/
    • I attended the IST Statewide meeting on Friday 9/28
      • Always to good to see everyone f2f
      • interesting discussion on introduction to java (140) in place of Comp Sci 101
  • Fall ’12 Courses
    • IST 110
      • Grade discussion with Marcela on 9/24
    • IST 220
      • Met with Abbi and Amy on Monday to discuss
      • Attended course committee kick off meeting that allowed for me to recruit Marc Friedenberg and Jason Long to take a look
    • IST 250 
      • More edits to make
  • Fall ’12 revisions/developments
    • IST 230 (Newcomer)
      • Working with Greg, Will, & Toni on interactive pieces
        • Larry is going to supply some problems to work this week
          • sent a note on 9/27 as a reminder
    • IST 420 (Ocker)
        • Awaiting Rosalie’s decision on which direction to move text or articles
    • IST 402 (Saab)
        • David is working on adding content
        • Meeting on 9/21 to talk about gamification was great
          • Plan to meet on 10/2 to begin going through the course from the beginning
          • Plan to meet on 10/5 about gamificaiton framework
  • Spring ’13 Course Prep – Mapped out on my outlook calendar courses to work on so that I’m done by the first week in December. Going to be difficult since we have to go 1 section at a time. Plan to start the 1st week of October
    • IST 110
      • Sec 001 (Mahar)
        • Contacted on 9/27
        • Will use section 002 to populate
      • Sec 002 (Mike M)
        • Contacted 9/27
        • Will use dev section to populate
      • Sec 003 (Rob’s wife)
        • Told about this by Amy S on 9/27
        • Need to ask if I should populate with dev or Rob’s space
      • Sec 004 (Jim F)
        • Contacted 9/27
        • Will use dev section to populate
    • IST 111S
      • Sec 001
    • IST 210 – Hyunjeong and Mike M are teaching in Spring
      • Sec 001
    • IST 220
      • Sec 001
    • IST 230
      • Sec 001
      • Sec 002
    • IST 240
      • Sec 001 (Fred F)
        • Contacted 9/27
        • Will use dev section to populate
      • Sec 002 (Hal S)
        • Contacted 9/27
        • Will use dev section to populate
    • IST 250
      • Sec 001
    • IST 260W
      • Sec 001
    • IST 295A
      • Sec 001
    • IST 301
      • Sec 001
    • IST 302
      • Sec 001
    • IST 402 TIE-
      • Sec 001
    • IST 421
      • Sec 001
    • IST 440W
      • Sec 001
    • IST 495
      • Sec 001

Ongoing Projects:

    • Updated google spreadsheet for Spring ’13 

Immediate Decisions / Issues:

    • None

Back Burner:

    • Gaming, Simulations, and Virtual World Research Committee

Days off / Conferences:

  • September 3 – Labor Day
  • August 27- October 5 Gamification MOOC
  • September 10 Brown Bag with Brendaly Drayton, Ph.D. (Diversity)
  • September 19 Educational Brown Bag
  • September 19 Bringing Gaming into Online Learning
  • September 20 MS-Office Training for Accessibility
  • Nov 1 AM Sick time for Dental Appt

Brown Bag with Jessica Heckert

Leave a reply

Attended this session by Jessica Heckert, Graduate Student, Dual-degree program in Human Development and Family Studies and Demography on:

“Youth Transitions and Youth Migration: The Haitian Experience”

Glad to have the opportunity to talk to Jessica before her presentation. I always think that it is nice when a speaker is comfortable enough to talk in advance of the presentation. It shows me that they have a personal side and that they are not so wrapped in their content that they won’t make accommodations for their audience.

Jessica did a great job of accommodating for her audience. She made sure that she was clear that she wanted to make sure that her presentation fit the needs of her audience. She didn’t want to use a too technical approach and lose the interest and understanding of the audience.

A little more background about Jessica. She went to Haiti from 2003 to 2005. Then she went right across the boarder to the Dominican Republic for another two years as a part of the peace corps. I can identify with this type of volunteerism since my Mom and a couple of my aunts have done volunteer work for Brethren Volunteer Service (BVS). Personally, I wanted to do the same but was discouraged since it might have bitten into my student aid. Not sure how true that was, but I decided to pass on it.  Ultimately, I have engaged in volunteer activities through out my life. It’s nice to see someone who is taking the experience and now entering the realm of education to help understand trends.

In this study, Jessica is studying migration from the rural areas of Haiti to the more urban areas (Port-au-Prince, Jacmel) of Haiti by youth. As I listened to Jessica and asked questions, I couldn’t help but learn a little more about Haiti. There were a few towns that Jessica referred to (can’t remember the names). They looked so close on the map but were difficult to reach from one another because of the mountainous terrain. I also learned that parents had to pay to send their children to school (20% public schools/ 80% private). But most of the public schools say that they will pay their teachers but don’t. So teachers quit or only come in a few days a week. I was interested to know if they had a 1-1 laptop initiative idea there, but it appeared that the most technology used was the cell phone (<$6). The were charged by solar power and only needed to incur calls for outward placed calls. Much of what is learned in schools is based on influences from the French (dress and appearance) and theoretical v. technical training. If anyone wants technical training, they have to do it on their own at their own expense.

Migration has become important since families feel that this experience will allow for their kids to have a chance at success. The reality is that instead of money coming from the kids who have migrated to the urban setting that most of the money is going the other way (80% from rural to urban).

The methods that Jessica used to get data were interesting. She spoke with kids who had finished 6th grade in two waves, right around completing 6th grade and about a year out. Since many of the students would migrate between those dates, she made sure that she would get approval to talk to relatives that may point them to the kids. Most of what Jessica did to get the data relied on rapport that her assistance could garner with the kids and parents.

This presentation is just another reminder of how much we should appreciate the educational and fiscal opportunities that we have in the US.

Reflection 09/17/12-09/21/12

Leave a reply

Accomplishments:

  • Prof Dev
  • Fall ’12 Courses
    • IST 110
      • Grade discussion with Marcela on 9/18
    • IST 220
      • Still seeing emails from students and instructors about vhol. Confirms my thinking that it would be best to think about textbook labs
    • IST 240
      • Updated assignment 2 and contacted Hal about it
    • IST 250 
      • More edits to make
      • Answered a question by Don on Elluminate and how many participants can be handled by providing my insights and ccing Gary
    • IST 402
      • drupal implementation is working well but now information is not collected by voicethread since it is embedded. Checked drupal and can see that students are using it and made Rosalie an admin so she can check too
      • she created the latest overview in ppt with audio
  • Fall ’12 revisions/developments
    • IST 230 (Newcomer)
      • Working with Greg, Will, & Toni on interactive pieces
        • Larry is going to supply some problems to work on
    • IST 420 (Ocker)
        • Spent time on 9/17 finding and adding videos to the dev space
        • Still awaiting Rosalie’s decision on which direction to move text or articles
    • gamify.JPGIST 402 (Saab)
        • David is working on adding content
        • Meeting on 9/21 to talk about gamification was great
          • David went through items in his mind map
          • Chris mentioned his ideas about leveling up
          • Brett had a great idea of allowing students to plot their plan through the course
          • Plan to meet in two weeks
  • Spring ’13 Course Prep – Mapped out on my outlook calendar courses to work on so that I’m done by the first week in December. Going to be difficult since we have to go 1 section at a time. Plan to start the 1st week of October
    • IST 110
      • Sec 001
    • IST 111S
      • Sec 001
    • IST 210 – Hyunjeong and Mike M are teaching in Spring
      • Sec 001
    • IST 220
      • Sec 001
    • IST 230
      • Sec 001
      • Sec 002
    • IST 240
      • Sec 001
    • IST 250
      • Sec 001
    • IST 260W
      • Sec 001
    • IST 295A
      • Sec 001
    • IST 301
      • Sec 001
    • IST 302
      • Sec 001
    • IST 402 TIE-
      • Sec 001
    • IST 421
      • Sec 001
    • IST 440W
      • Sec 001
    • IST 495
      • Sec 001

Ongoing Projects:

    • Updated google spreadsheet for Spring ’13 

Immediate Decisions / Issues:

    • None

Back Burner:

    • Gaming, Simulations, and Virtual World Research Committee

Days off / Conferences:

  • September 3 – Labor Day
  • August 27- October 5 Gamification MOOC
  • September 10 Brown Bag with Brendaly Drayton, Ph.D. (Diversity)
  • September 19 Educational Brown Bag
  • September 19 Bringing Gaming into Online Learning
  • September 20 MS-Office Training for Accessibility
  • Nov 1 AM Sick time for Dental Appt

MS-Office Training for Accessibility

1 Reply

Major take aways

  • There is no one way to make everything perfectly accessible
  • The main idea about accessibility is to meet the standards and make sure that you don’t do things like hard code to take control out of the user’s hands

Accidentally went to Willard instead of Wagner. Got to the training about 20 minutes late. Everyone was working on a document that the instructor had on the screen. Not once did she stop to ask me if I needed help with anything. She just went on pontificating about her philosophies on accessibility. She also went quickly about how to do what she was trying to teach without checking with those in the training whether they could actually do what she was showing us to do.

Sorry for the rant, but this drives me crazy! I just want a hands-on training that is actually hands on! This is a lecture/demo, and I’m not getting what I need which is a chance to try all of this with feedback from an expert.

At about 10:30 (more than 1 hour after I had been in the workshop), we had a break. At that time, another person in the training gave me the file that they had been working on. I finally got with the training. But everything that we did was a demo. There was no chance or context in which to apply anything that we were being shown. I feel like I wasted my time in this training.

I need to find another way (possibly lynda or just a google search) to get the training that I need to accomplish my goal of creating accessible content.

To improve the session, I would have…

  • spent 15 minutes presenting the major, high-level take aways
  • before the session started, I would have asked each participant to email 3 examples from their work (1 Word doc, 1 ppt, and 1 pdf)
  • the presenter could have chose several that would be good examples to try to make more accessible
  • break the large group into 3-5 individuals per group
  • each group would have 3 files to make more accessible within a certain time limit
  • the expert would provide feedback for each presentation and reinforce the major high-level ideas

This format would provide a better result for all involved.

Bringing Gaming into Online Learning

1 Reply

Gerol Petruzella presented on this topic.

Started by providing def of a game.

Components of a game

  • Goal
  • Rules
  • Feedback System
  • Voluntary Participation

Games, Work, and Emotion – Hard fun (sounds like Papert)

  • High-Stakes Work
  • Busywork
  • Mental Work
  • Physical Work
  • Discovery Work
  • Teamwork
  • Creative Work

Intro to Philosophy to Dungeons and Discourse
Process

  • Game World – The Realm of Sophos
  • Game-Course Analogues
    • Goals – Syllabus
    • Levels/Worlds – Units/Modules
    • Quests – Quizzes
    • Boss Battles – Assignments & Collaborations
    • NPCs – Discussion: Del (Oracle)
    • Stats – Pages: player profiles
    • XP! – Sikills (Outcomes)
    • Scrolls – Files: ebooks/pdfs
    • Objects – Object Pages

Interrupted

Back during discussion of Quests and how Gerol handled his class.

Interesting way to apply gamification to philosophy, but the audience is different than my application and the course size (less than 20) is much different.

Educational Gaming Brown Bag: Turning an Astronomy Course into a Mission to Mars

1 Reply

Glad to have the opportunity to see a demo of ASTRO 101 for the future. The idea of the course is to move the course into a 3-D environment. The course started as a text-based course made through WCLD to a narrative course. The course has been so popular and profitable that resources were available to create the current version. It still includes narrative, but it allows students to learn concepts by participating in 3-D games/sims. Some of the activities have been created in house while others are available and open through other universities and government agencies like NASA. The idea was to have half made in house and half outside.

Jane Charlton started out by saying that it would have been impossible to accomplish what they had unless the programmers and artists had been astro majors. To her, she would rather find someone with content knowledge that may have outside interests and skills (i.e. coding skills and artistic skills) to create the objects and activities in the course.

Reflection: From a personal stance, this makes sense to me. I’m a mathematician/scientist/educator at heart. The technology and accompanying skills are tools that I use to complete my job. But there are a large group within the community of learning design who feel that we are interchangeable.

Jane mentioned an interesting fact that undergrad gen eds at Penn State are supposed to be Middle School level. For this reason, she plans to share out what has been created to MS around the area.

Jane also shared that she felt like programs should have a plan to make courses narrative based take revenues and ramp up to ideas like the one that will be implemented in Astronomy.

Enjoyable session! Thanks again to Elizabeth and the crew for providing another example of gaming as it applies to education.

Gamification MOOC Announcement

Leave a reply

Untitled Document

Here is an announcement from the Gamification MOOC that I am involved in from yesterday:

Written Assignment 2 Stats

Approximately 10,700 students successfully submitted Written Assignment 2. This compares to 12,800 submitting Written Assignment 1. Over 43,000 students have watched the lecture videos online, out of 77,000 registered students.

Those participation percentages are higher than for many other massively open online courses, all of which have a drop-off over time. And as noted in prior announcements, although the assessments were designed to enhance the learning experience, we recognize that a large number of students are participating in the course primarily or entirely by viewing the video lectures.

We are aware that some students experienced difficulties submitting Written Assignment 2. If you are in this situation, we urge you to post on the discussion forums and explain your problem in detail. Given the large number of students, Professor Werbach cannot commit to answering questions by email. We encourage you to read the course announcements and assignment pages carefully, and to submit assignments early if at all possible. We and Coursera staff will continue to do our best to address any problems we identify.

Mon 17 Sep 2012 11:51:00 AM PDT

What I See – Participation

Stats

  • 43,000 out of 77,000 = appox 56% participation (based on total enrollment)
  • 12,800 out of 77,000 = approx 17% participation (based on total enrollment)
  • 10,700 out of 77,000 = approx 14% participation (based on total enrollment)
  • 12,800 out of 43,000 = approx 30% participation (based on those engaged if watching the videos equals engagement)
  • 10,700 out of 43,000 = approx 25% participation (based on those engaged if watching the videos equals engagement)

My Analysis of the Participation

I’m taking this course partly because I’m interested in gamification in courses and partly because of being interested in MOOC’s. I haven’t read the literature, but I’m assuming that the people from Coursera are more in touch with them, so I’ll assume that they are correct that these participation stats exceed a normal MOOC’s values.

At first glance, I would say that these values are low. I haven’t done an analysis on what happens in for-credit, paid courses online in general, but my guess is that they far exceed anything that we are seeing here. Is that a fair comparison or even one that should be made? Personally, I don’t see how we can or should compare the two since there is much more invested by students in a for-credit, paid online course than an open and free course like this.

Value of the MOOC

Does that mean that I don’t see value in MOOC’s or a place for them in education? Absolutely not!

As a participant in the course, I’m finding great value in the material and appreciate the mechanics of the course in promoting understanding of the topic. It’s nice to have an environment where you can choose your participation level. What I’m finding personally is that I’m engaging in the course because I’m finding the materials and activities beneficial. I have a chance to learn and engage in the content which is much better for me than just reading literature. I’m also getting quick and useful feedback on my understanding by completing the assignments. There is also an opportunity to engage with other learners in the discussion areas.

As such, I see the MOOC as a gateway to more formal educational experiences. It allows the learner to engage and learn according to their schedule and interest. I don’t think that we can think that this is answer to all online education, but it definitely will and should play a role in how we handle education for the future.

 

 

 

Reflection 09/10/12-09/14/12

Leave a reply

Accomplishments:

  • Prof Dev
    • Here is a reflection that I did on the Brown Bag with Brendaly Drayton, Ph.D. that I attended: https://sites.psu.edu/rep129blog/2012/09/14/brown-bag-with-brendaly-drayton-ph-d/
    • Continued work on Gamification Course through coursera. Feel like I’m beginning to lose steam
      • I evaluated 5 others on their first writing assignment
      • I self evaluated the assignment that I submitted
      • Completed watching videos
        • Found this week to be more difficult
      • Completed Quiz 3 but later found it deleted
      • Finished writing assignment 3
      • I’m finding that many that I know are falling off in their involvement although they are learning from the experience anyway
      • I’m beginning to question the importance of gamification. I think that it’s more important to think about ways to tap into a student’s intrinsic motivation rather than gamify which hones into extrinsic factors
    • Met with Keith B and Jen B about preconvotation session on Nov 13
      • Talking about how courses are not cookie cutter at WC
      • Next meeting is October 3 from 2-4
  • Fall ’12
  • Courses
    • IST 110
      • Saw note about 110 that referred to items being hidden from users
    • IST 220
      • Seeing issues with students trying to connect to VHOL
      • Discussed with both Rob and Abbi for about an hour
      • Meeti planned for 9/12 from 2-3 to discuss where to go to make things better
        • May consider using textbook labs as an alternative to VHOL
        • Needs to be looked at by the course committee
      • Found out a student died in a Lybian bombing. Puts things into perspective
    • IST 240
      • Held debrief from summer ’12
      • Sounds like there may be two more courses (140 & 150) to address concerns
      • IST 250 
        • Tons of emails of grammatical errors to correct
      • IST 402
        • Still tons of problems with voicethread
        • It’s tough b/c the tools does what we are looking for, but their are way too many bugs and snaffoos
        • My solution was to embed in drupal, but there is an issue with embeds in drupal showing in chrome. So I placed the link along with the embed in the page
    • Fall ’12 revisions/developments
      • IST 420 (Ocker)
          • Need to look over excel that has info on it
          • Rosalie told me to hold off since she may use a textbook instead of articles
      • IST 402 (Saab)
          • David is working on adding content
    • Spring ’13 Course Prep – Need to map out on my outlook calendar courses to work on so that I’m done by the first week in December
      • IST 110
        • Sec 001
      • IST 111S
        • Sec 001
      • IST 210 – Hyunjeong and Mike M are teaching in Spring
        • Sec 001
      • IST 220
        • Sec 001
      • IST 230
        • Sec 001
      • IST 240
        • Sec 001
      • IST 250
        • Sec 001
      • IST 260W
        • Sec 001
      • IST 295A
        • Sec 001
      • IST 301
        • Sec 001
      • IST 302
        • Sec 001
      • IST 402 TIE-
        • Sec 001
      • IST 421
        • Sec 001
      • IST 440W
        • Sec 001
      • IST 495
        • Sec 001

    Ongoing Projects:

      • Created google spreadsheet for Spring ’13 

    Immediate Decisions / Issues:

      • None

    Back Burner:

      • Gaming, Simulations, and Virtual World Research Committee

    Days off / Conferences:

    • September 3 – Labor Day
    • August 27- October 5 Gamification MOOC
    • September 10 Brown Bag with Brendaly Drayton, Ph.D. (Diversity)
    • September 19 Educational Brown Bag
    • September 19 Bringing Gaming into Online Learning
    • September 20 MS-Office Training for Accessiblity
    • Nov 1 AM Sick time for Dental Appt

    Brown Bag with Brendaly Drayton Ph.D.

    Leave a reply

    I attended this session, thinking this would be in an auditorium. It was in a small conference room within an office suite. My understanding is that they have slashed budgets for these types of events. The room was very packed.

    It was interesting and sad to think about the experiences these men had as kids growing up that were obstacles to their success and how they viewed themselves. It was heartbreaking to learn that the program that they were attending lost its funding and closed during the collection of data for the research. Only 1 of the 6 is still in a program currently. It was also mentioned that most of these types of programs looks for individuals who will turn over quickly so that they can show how “successful” they were. This success leads to more funding. Because of this, there are many on the waiting list to get into these programs.

    The stories were sad and revealing. It makes me thankful for my background and support. It also makes me wonder how we fail so many in our communities.

    Reflection 09/03/12-09/07/12

    Leave a reply

    Accomplishments:

    • Prof Dev
      • Here is a reflection that I did on the Penn State Forum session that I attended: https://sites.psu.edu/rep129blog/2012/09/06/forum-series-speaker-amy-mccready/
      • Continued work on Gamification Course through coursera. Since I had to help with some family issues, I was unable to do this except for Friday
        • I completed
          • watching the videos for the week (used double time to complete)
          • took quiz
          • writing assignment
    • Fall ’12
    • Courses
      • IST 110 Sec 003
        • Impromptu meeting with Marcela about tool that she would like to use from CMU
      • IST 220
        • Seeing issues with students trying to connect to VHOL
        • Met with Marc & John about VHOL
      • IST 240
        • Received note from instructor about students buy books despite them being mentioned as optional
        • IST 250 
          • Received a note about how to access teams. Sent an email with a screenr
      • Fall ’12 revisions/developments
        • IST 420 (Ocker)
            • Need to look over excel that has info on it
        • IST 402 (Saab)
            • David is working on adding content
      • Spring ’13 Course Prep – Need to map out on my outlook calendar courses to work on so that I’m done by the first week in December
        • IST 110
          • Sec 001
        • IST 111S
          • Sec 001
        • IST 210
          • Sec 001
        • IST 220
          • Sec 001
        • IST 230
          • Sec 001
        • IST 240
          • Sec 001
        • IST 250
          • Sec 001
        • IST 260W
          • Sec 001
        • IST 295A
          • Sec 001
        • IST 301
          • Sec 001
        • IST 302
          • Sec 001
        • IST 402 TIE-
          • Sec 001
        • IST 421
          • Sec 001
        • IST 440W
          • Sec 001
        • IST 495
          • Sec 001

      Ongoing Projects:

        • Created google spreadsheet for Spring ’13 

      Immediate Decisions / Issues:

        • None

      Back Burner:

        • Gaming, Simulations, and Virtual World Research Committee

      Days off / Conferences:

      • September 3 – Labor Day
      • August 27- October 5 Gamification MOOC
      • September 19 Educational Brown Bag
      • September 20 MS-Office Training for Accessiblity
      • Nov 1 AM Sick time for Dental Appt