Monthly Archives: July 2009

Learning Design Summer Camp 2009

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Disruptive tech – I think eye contact is still important in f2f – perhaps the lecture model is what is becoming antiquated? f2f one on one or in small groups as a way of teaching interpersonal interaction along with smart use of disruptive tech? Here’s the key and Cole answered it: faculty no longer have sole control over the classroom, the learning environment is now a two way street. Also I find by my own participation via social media in this conference I actually stay more engaged. Hard to stay focused on just ppl talking but when I force myself to react and create content I remain engaged.

NCLB has generated students who are good passive, rote learners but have the inability to generate content and be active participants in their learning – important we address this. Very important to spell out the processes and expectations in the classroom to make this transition easier. World Campus does well in current economic environment because it pushes out this easily replicated rote content that does not involve much input from the instructor. This needs to change! Students are paying big bucks and tuition is going up!
Assessment  is an issue!
Cole: administrators are not the problem. A lot of the best new tech adopters are the administrators so they are not the usually the ones standing in the way. Is it status quo?

Vacation dispatch

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I am currently on my last day of vacation. It’s been largely a “staycation” with a couple of quickie trips out of town thrown in for good measure. I’ve been using the time to get caught up on spring cleaning (I know it’s late) and generally organizing my personal life and improving my mental health status.

I’m reading A Whole New Mind by Daniel H. Pink, and it’s got me thinking about a lot of things. A lot of today’s hot business/work life books encourage us to step outside of our comfort zones (Tim Ferriss’ 4-Hour Work Week comes to mind). A Whole New Mind takes a unique approach in making the case that right-brained aptitudes and abilities are going to be among the attributes that will help workers achieve success in the workplace of the future. I have always thought of myself as foremost a left-brained thinker but I have also become aware that I am a much happier person when I pay attention to right-brained thinking. I also believe it makes me a better contributer to work and personal relationships. Right-brained thinking, as Pink defines it, is all about patterns, style, empathy, synthesis and holistic thinking, as opposed to logic, detail and language which are attributed to the left brain.
Yesterday I mowed my lawn. Not a terribly exciting chore normally, but I had a bit of a revelation this time round. Perhaps I had Pink’s book for inspiration, but for some reason I decided to mow a different pattern than the one I had always used. I simply mowed diagonally rather than the usual straight up and down:
lawn.JPG
What’s so exciting about this? Well not much on the surface. I don’t think it saved me much time or effort. But it did make the activity a little more joyful than usual and it didn’t feel like it took as much effort. And I enjoyed the artistic effect; enough that I was inspired to snap this picture with my iPhone.
What I’ve taken from this is that it’s really important to change things up from time to time and approach things from a different angle. The next time I find myself in the doldrums at work without much inspiration, I will challenge myself to do things differently; to break out of my comfort zone. The worst that could happen is I fail, learn from my mistakes, and move on. But there’s also a pretty decent chance I’ll end up inspired and motivated to see things and act on things in a different way. And that’ll take me closer to where I want to be – a more content person with more to contribute to the world and the people around me.

Livescribe Pulse pen

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My department has a small budget with which to purchase and evaluate new technologies, and recently I got the chance to evaluate the Livescribe Pulse pen. The pen uses special paper and a special pen which hides a camera and microphone inside. The camera records the pen’s motions against a special dot pattern on the special paper. The pen has ink of course, but the ink is really only for the user; it is irrelevant to the technology. The microphone is available to record the pen user’s voice, allowing for what Livescribe has dubbed “pencasting” – real time recording of writing or drawing along with an audio description of what is going on.

Some excellent possible uses for the pen include writing out and demonstrating math equations, formulas, and graphs, and also possible pen and ink drawing. Any of these uses would be useful for providing the “chalkboard” type experience to distant learners.
There are some drawbacks, however, of course. The output is a proprietary format that is hosted on the Livescribe site – not good if you’re thinking of doing in-house enhancements to the pencasts (like adding captioning for accessibility purposes). Also, though students can use the pen to demonstrate and submit their work, it does not produce a file that can then be marked up and returned by the professor.
All in all, a nice way of demonstrating problem-solving techniques, but not a great way of providing a true two-way or social experience.