Tag Archives: professional development

DevLearn 2013 Day #1

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They say that what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas. This doesn’t apply for an experience like this one. I’m so excited to have the chance to attend DevLearn 2013. Here are my thoughts on the first day.

Opening General Session: Things started off with David Kelly recalling his DevLearn 2012 which he spent battling Hurricane Sandy. After explaining some of the specifics about how the conference would operate, David turned the mic over to Jeremy Butsche who energized the group talking about how to Exploit Chaos. Here are a few items mentioned by Jeremy that resonated with me:

  • questions don’t change, just the answers
  • we are in a time where we are no longer selling product, but experience
  • it’s important to know your customers
  • culture beats strategy – fulfill, adapt, motivate
  • there is no point in innovating if you think you already know the answer – be open to possibilities
  • 3 ways to exploit chaos – viral creation, viral mediums, well-packaged story
  • portray your product as average and that’s all it will ever be
  • challenge: describe what you do in 7 words or less
  • to make message stick -simple, direct, supercharged

Expo – impressed by the crew that I interacted with.

Gamification on the Go: This session was about a topic that has been on my mind for awhile. But there is something that bothers me about the idea. While I can see that there is a chance to accomplish more by using gaming techniques, it seems almost subversive in its approach. One item that reinforced what I have been learning is that status in the community is more important than getting rewards for learners.

Redesigning Learning Design to Meet Today’s Challenges: This was an interesting session. I liked the layout. It was clear what was going to be covered. I took this session as a challenge to rethink learning design to think beyond ADDIE. Here were some of the suggestions to research:

  • HPT (Human Performance Technology)
  • BPR (Business Process Re-engineering
  • Six Sigma
  • Lean
  • Agile
  • CMA (Critical Mistake Analysis)
  • SAM (Successive Approximation Model)

There was alot of conjecture about what has happened over the past 40 years in e-learning. While most of it resonated with me, I’m not completely confident that society is going in the right direction and that we don’t play a part in the problem.

One thing that has bothered me lately is the speed with which we are trying to put together courses. In order to do this, there needs to be some give and take. From my end, I have come to terms with the fact that the initial product will be unfinished and unpolished. But the problem is that it cannot stay that way. It is important to continue to address issues as the course progresses to fit learner needs.

Back to the challenge that Lance Dublin issued, he would like us to think about how we can take the different models and create a new model or a combo model that helps to better address design than our old friend ADDIE. I have thought this for years. When I went through school at Philadelphia University, we as a cohort were almost anti-ADDIE. I remember doing an assignment in Dr. Russ Pritchard’s course where I amassed my own ID model to glowing reviews from him. It inspired me to consider my philosophy. This session helped to further reopen my investigation. I’m so glad that I have been reflecting on the Clark blog. Now I need to keep going down this road by looking at an overall framework that we can use to better address course design, development, and growth.

The Real Power of Games for Learning – This was my favorite session of the day and sparked conversation afterwards with my good friend and colleague, Kent Matsueda. Ian Bogost helped to lay out the differences between Game Design and Gamification. He did a tremendous job, & I will be forever grateful for his efforts on this.

He started by making a statement about games as an underdog. This was of note to me because I don’t see it that way from my perspective. At least I didn’t until I heard Ian explain his position. To me, games and sport are ubiquitous and drive our society. By Ian is not talking about sport, necessarily. He is talking about games which often are associated with youth, violence, and sloth. It gave me a new perspective which I needed.

He went on to describe the 7 differences between Game Design and Gamification while adding examples and infusing important game design principles into the talk. Here are those ideas:

Game Design Gamification Underlying Game Design Principle
Complexity Simplicity Modeling
Context Isolation World Building
Conditions Authority Emergence
Transformation Engagement Role Play
Relationship Reward Kinship
Discourse Quantification Deliberation
Understanding Compliance Process

I liked how Ian clearly laid out his points in a way that he wasn’t attacking gamification. He has a strong opinion, but he wasn’t trying to shove it down our throats. He explained his view in a coherent and transparent way that opens up a discussion that he need to have.

I get the feeling that many would rather move forward with gamification and not worry about the impact of the movement. To me this is not wise. We are going to impact our craft and our learners, so we bettter know if this is something that is good for them and society in general before fully committing to this strategy. To me, this is the time. We finally have a dialouge started. Thanks again to Ian for starting this dialouge. I look forward to participating for the betterment of the appropriate use of games in teaching in learning.

ELI Meeting Day 3

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It’s the day after, and I have returned home safe and sound to State College, PA. I had a great time in Denver at the conference listening, learning, and thinking about MOOCs and badges. One thing that always happens to me and maybe most is that my twitter participation increases by at least 1000%. When I spend time in this environment, I find myself participating by reading others tweets and sharing with the larger whole. I would really like to stay more plugged into this great resource, but time will tell.

Here are my notes and thoughts on the final day.

Session: Roadmap 2 launching a MOOC by Cassandra Horii & Leslie Maxfield

Cassandra & Leslie did a nice presentation about what they were doing in terms of MOOCs. Cal tech is teaching both in & out of Coursera. Because the window for course development and deployment is so short, they have had to reconsider traditional learning design models like ADDIE or Understanding by Design. Here are the parameters that they found were important in creating MOOCs:

  • Goals
  • Participants
  • Student Work
  • Interaction
  • Personality & style of prof
  • Technology
  • Teaching staff
  • Training

Looking at different cases, they highlighted areas that were parameters of priority for success in the design and development of MOOCs.

Here are several of the MOOCs highlighted in their talk. Below are  few but not all:

An important point at the session was that instructors need to lead the process to be successful. But this is a team approach, so it’s important to consider other unanticipated staff needs, outside experts, and general council.

Something that I think is important is that we break down the barriers of learning which include class and past experience in education. MOOCs can go a long way in giving many who have given up on education a fresh look at why it is important for all us. Students from MOOC felt like they were at Cal Tech. It makes me feel good that this may be a result of the MOOC movement, regardless of my reservations at times.

Final Session: Are all mobile devices equal when it comes to teaching & learning by Robbie Kendall-Melton a self-proclaimed Appologist :).

Tremendous way to end the conference. Robbie entertained and educated. We saw may mobile devices, and she gave her general impressions. Then she walked us through several apps. Here is a link to a website by her group with 88 of the Best iOS Apps: http://emergingtech.tbr.edu/88-best-ios-apps-mobile-learning.

ELI Meeting Day 2

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General Session – Learning Sciences & Learning Analytics: Time for a Marriage by Roy Pea. 

There were several items that I agree with Roy and several that I question. First, I agree that our approach to teaching and learning needs to be student-centered. Encouraging and life-long and life-centered learning makes sense to me. It’s time to make an LMS that uses data collected on students to create environments that help to inspire, learn, and remediate where necessary.

Roy went on to talk about 5 suggestions to improve learning:

  1. Develop connected learning maps. While I think this is a good way for students to reflect on and organize their learning. I think that the work done on the common core is off base. These standards were made by authority figures. If we are going to use student-centered education. Students must be involved in creating the core.
  2. Design for Engaged Social Learning – I like this b/c it fits in with what we know about constructivism. For engaged social learning to happen, we need to let students try & often fail without stopping them.
  3. Develop multiple competences – cognitive interpersonal intrapersonal. Roy discussed encouraging deep learning, but all of the work on standards and curriculum coverage tends to make this something that students have to do on their own.
  4. Use richer pedagogical models.
  5. Understand learner goals. I think that we often think that what we are teaching is the most important thing. But allowing students to have more influence on their learning creates motivation and better results. Motivation is important to learning success.
  6. Forge interdisciplinary team. I agree that it takes a village. Need to set up environments that encourage this type of collaboration to flourish.

Session: Engaging Students through Digital Badges – Danielle Mirliss & Michael Soupios

Started using badges to incentivize, engage, & promote lifelong learning. Badges are a way to pull together several different incentive areas. At Seton Hall, badges are one part of how gamification is being employed.

Life of a badge:

  • Planning
  • Creation & graphic design
  • Advertising
  • Awards & tiers
  • End user display

Here is more information on the badging system used at Seton Hall: https://tltc.shu.edu/badges/index.php. Still in the pilot phase. Looking forward to hearing the results.

Session: Digital Badges by Carli Casilli (from Mozilla) Kyle Bowen (from Purdue)

Carli talked about Open Badges. Open badges allow for a standard so that the badges are more mobile & flexible. Earners are at the center of the badge process. Evidence URL gives the badge more credibility. Here’s where you can get started with open badges: http://openbadges.org/en-US/.

Carli talked about obstacles involving badges:

  • Badge zealotry – I got the feeling from the twitterverse that many are tired of hearing about badges.
  • Badge overload – Too many badges lessens the value and effect
  • Siloed backpacks 
  • COPPA

A site to learn how to create on the web with badges to mark progress: https://badges.webmaker.org/

Kyle Bowen followed up by talking about Passport: http://www.itap.purdue.edu/studio/passport/.

Session: MOOCs on Campus: Experiences from the Front Lines by Lynne O’Brein (Duke) & Deirdre Woods.

I was surprised about the low turn out for this session. But I was disappointed by things that I was hearing. It was obvious that these two institutions hadn’t been in the online teaching & learning business for very long. I have taken UPenn & Duke MOOCs & enjoyed them, for the record. Nice to have chance to do free course for prof dev & lifelong learning. I’m flad to see institutions who have been elitist open doors, but I’m afraid that these institution with high reputations may be getting in the game to make remove competition. These institutions don’t need online learning to function since they cost so much and serve such a small section of the population. Are they going to price everyone else out so they can be the only ones left? I’m not so sure after listening to them, that I see them being legitimate about teaching the mass, more than an other motives. It struck me when Woods talked about students needing to consume content. I don’t think she get teaching & learning at all. Glad I went definitely gives me a new perspective.

Session: Giving credit where & when it is due: adventures in digital credentials & badges by Finkelstein

I was impressed that we were allowed to text Finkelstein, but he only flashed the number quickly and repeated the number later, quickly.

I liked how Finkelstein was funny and real. For instance, he admitted that there are legitimate questions about legitimacy in regards to badges. He also mentioned that the legitimacy of badges lies with issuer & receiver more than with badges themselves. Badges are not bad in and of themselves, but like most things may be used improperly. Badges may work better in areas where it’s important to acknowledge progress outside of higher ed. He also mentioned that just b/c something has a badge doesn’t mean that assessment or rigor should not b considered. He also mentioned that no one is interested in receiving a badge from a system that is easily gamed. Make sure badges r legit & truly earned.

Session: Debate Club: what are the roles of the MOOC in higher ed

Very disappoint that the panel was made up of ed techs who have been working on MOOCs. We needed a true debate. Can’t say the session was totally pointless. It just wasn’t a debate.

ELI Meeting Day 1

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After a long evening and night the day before (arrival in Denver at midnight and to bed around 2 AM), I was up before 7 AM. 

Attending session on Iterative Process of Curriculum and Games by John Martin and Ryan Martinez: http://www.educause.edu/eli/events/eli-annual-meeting/2013/seminar-01a-iterative-design-process-curriculum-and-games-separate-registration-required. Great session of allowing participants to create and try games. Worked with a great group that was able to collaboratively build a game. When the rest of the class tried our game, they got into it. The basic idea of the game was to grab as many resources as possible in a certain time span. Saw some other games from other groups involving the environment. 
Reflection:
I wonder if being with a group of individuals that we didn’t know working on a project that didn’t have any stakes made for an easier process. I was amazed at how well we worked together and accepted outside ideas. I don’t see this happening so well on an project for a course. I liked how Ryan and John turned the activity toward allowing students to create the game. I think that if we implemented activities like this in our classes that students would be very engaged. But we would have to provide environments where they would be able to create content without having to overcome too many technical barriers.
Attended the keynote by Vincent Tinto on Learner Success: 
  1. Expectations – Clear, consistent, high
  2. Support – Academic, social, & contextualized
  3. Assessment & Feedback – monitoring, early warning, informal assessment
  4. Engagement – contact with students, faculty, & staff

Reflection: Vincent did a nice job during his presentation despite have a few technical problems. I liked how he answered a question from an ID about how this applies to them. It’s important to know so we can all work together to create an environment that helps students to succeed.

Brown Bag with Jessica Heckert

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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.

MS-Office Training for Accessibility

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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.

Brown Bag with Brendaly Drayton Ph.D.

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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.

Forum Series Speaker: Michael Mann

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Excellent presentation by Michael Man today at the Forum. Here is a link to more information about the talk: http://live.psu.edu/story/57715.

mmann_psu_forum_2-9-12.JPG

On the topic of climate change, I don’t pretend to be an expert. But I do believe that there is something to it. From a scientific perspective, there is no argument that the climate is changing in an upward trend. The problem lies in the how the topic has become political. Dr. Mann called this “scientification of politics.”

This is a subject that I think has become an issue in our current society. Politics has become intertwined with several areas (i.e. science, religion), and it has only served to further polarize. This is highlighted to me because I tend to be in circles with those who have extreme views. Personally, I choose to compartmentalize my life. To me, it is possible to have beliefs about several seemingly different views that complement. For instance, there are many in my religious circle who don’t believe in evolution because they believe in creation. I don’t know why you can’t believe in a creator who chose to make being that can evolve. The problem is that I have to listen to dogmatic people who use their dogma to hide their insecurity. I truly care for the people of whom I’m referring, but I just wish they would keep their opinions to themselves unless they had something other than an opinion or outlandish theory to share.

Back to the forum talk, it was great to see the science, but it was equally important to hear Dr. Mann talk about how he started as an unwilling participant in the Climate Change War. Eventually, he has grown into his roll. Things get so heated that there was a radio ad placed by a company sponsored by the coal and a supposed protest that was to happen: http://climateadaptation.tumblr.com/post/11356283784/michael-mann-climate-scientists-public-whos-got-our-back. There was quite a police presence but no protestors. This just gave more validity to Dr. Mann’s assertions that there is a resistance that has a calculated side to dispute the idea of climate change that is based in propaganda.

I found myself thinking about how much I’m limiting my own environmental footprint. Even though I do things that limit my footprint by riding my bike or walking to work, I do this because of financial reasons. I love the outdoors and try to be environmentally aware, but I’m anything but an evangelist about this. Not sure if this talk changed my view, but it definitely helped me to gain more understanding about the topic.

LD Community Meeting – Jan 2012

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I decided to attend this meeting in person since it’s really not that far and a great way to see and touch base with others in the larger LD community.

Here are a new notes:

9:00-9:05 Welcome by Jeff Swain
9:05-9:20 Suzzanne Shaffer discussion on critical thinking

  • http://www.criticalthinking.org/ – great place to dig deeper into what it really means by critical thinking
  • critical thinking is something that must be taught alone and changes based on the content area

9:20-9:40 John Dolan discussion on the use of wikis in a history course

  • Start with a discussion with faculty
  • Provide a prototype for faculty to see
  • Had ITS support
  • ID sets up the wiki
  • Created groups – only those in the group could access
  • Used PSU wikispaces
  • Had some trouble with permissions and restricted pages (one student)
  • Met with faculty to discuss why students weren’t participating early in the semester
  • Removed restrictions to the wiki later in the semester – had to be done manually
  • Used versioning to salvage work that had been deleted by a teammate
  • Prof will use wikis in the future for other classes

9:40-10:00 Matt Meyer on Yammer Experience

  • Best for more global use, rather than with one course
  • Members are added to Yammer – contained
  • Hard to filter comments

17th Annual Sloan Consortium International Conference on Online Learning

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Online Learning, Teaching, and Research in the New Media Ecology

Having attended this conference, I thought it would be easiest to use this as a way to navigate to the sessions. I also decided to attend in the moment rather than spend my time trying to multitask. Doing this took me into Wednesday of the next week to finish. I’m so excited to not only to have had the opportunity to attend this event, but also to do a presentation. When visiting the session, keynote, and plenary pages, there will be a title with a link to abstract, presenter info, and resources.

11/08/11
Travel Day

11/09/11
BS – Before Sessions…
Session: The Impact of Mobile Access on Motivation: Distance Education Student Perceptions
Session: Managing and Delivering Online Student Team Based Projects
Session: Building Learning Games Using Rapid Interactivity
Keynote Address: The New Education Ecology
Dinner

11/10/11
Plenary Address: The Obviousness of Open Policy
Session: Using the Virtual World of Second Life to Achieve Educational Objectives
Session: Interact! Creating Addictive Learning Environments Through Evidence-Based Research & Technology
Session: Best Practices to Promote Learning Through Web Conferencing Resources, Tools, and Teaching Methods
Session: Hands-On Lab Projects in an Online IT Course: Virtualization or Simulation?
Session: Moving Forward with Backward Design (I co-presented)
Epcot Dessert and Evening Activities

11/11/11
Plenary Address: My Explorations of Social Media and Social Media Literacies in Teaching and Learning
Session: Developing an Accessible Online Course: A Process Overview
Session: Active Learning in Virtual Worlds
Session: The Reality of Virtual Worlds: Theory & Research Become Practical Application
Travel Home