Bryan Alexander Webinar; Learners and their Learning Process
AAEEBL is very lucky to have Bryan Alexander for our first webinar of 2016. He is a consultant to the world on how to understand technology and its effects on learning and education. One of the creators of the MOOC idea — the interactive, social form of MOOC — he is a strong contributor to innovations in education and also a wonderfully engaging speaker.
His topic is “Learners and Their Learning Process.” He will talk for 20 minutes and then will open the webinar to discussion (audience uses chat; Bryan responds in voice) for the last 30 minutes of the Webinar. Trent Batson will serve as moderator.
The webinar is free but you must register to attend.
In this rapid succession of examples, one can experience a showcase how to enhance students’ engagement by modernizing D2L experience through connection with social media. Bring your own examples and participate in a discussion, which aims finding the right tools for your class and field of study.
Audience: beginners to advanced
Prerequisite:
come with your own social media accounts: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Vine
Outcomes:
By the end of this session, the participants will have an idea about peculiarity of each of the social media tools: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Vine
By the end of the session, the participants will be familiar with the integration of each of the social media tool into D2L
By the end of the session, the participants will be able to asses to what extent each particular tool fits their field of study
By the end of the session, the participants will be able to compare the pedagogical advantages and disadvantages of the social media tools compared to D2L
D2L and Twitter
microblogging of 140 characters is often viewed as limiting. However, it can be the ultimate test how well students understand the learning material: making someone sum up in 140 characters what they learned this particular week in their class can take a lot of rewriting.
D2L allows a widget on its main page, where students can view and tweet. Students also can view and tweet from their mobile devices.
Tweeting during class is becoming mainstream in K12, also called “backchanneling.” Harnessing peers help to understand a concept discussed in class can save both time and efforts on the instructors’ side
Twitter is “making your twitter.com timeline more immersive by uncropping photos, so you can experience and present them as they were meant to be viewed.” https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims/2015/12/13/improvements-in-social-media-tools/
D2L and Vine
Vine is a social media services, which provides the ability to share 7 sec videos. Vine is becoming more popular then Instagram (15 sec videos), with the simplicity to create short videos. Students can take sequence of short videos, which amount to 7 sec to reflect the main points of a project. E.g.: chemical reaction, biology dissection, progress of engineering planning, solving a math formula.
URL to the vine can be posted in the D2L discussion area for further collaborative effort or for peers’ and instructions evaluation
Vines are a click away from a FB group page or, with the right handle and hashtag, to a Twitter discussion
The bottom-line to evaluate if fitting your field of study is: can the content be narrated or is it much better if visualized. If the latter, Vine can be your salvation. How to Create Social Videos With Your Smartphonehttps://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims/2015/01/10/social-videos-with-your-smartphone/
Per SCSU IT disclaimer: MediaSpace (Kaltura) is a free, cloud-based video repository solution for campus that allows faculty and staff to upload and distribute video and audio content for academic or administrative purposes. Facilitators will discuss potential uses of MediaSpace for campus, demonst rate how to create Webcam and screen recordings, upload audio/video, and embed or link to MediaSpace content from D2L or a web site. YouTube is owned by Google and the integration, including statistics and analytics by Google are way beyond MediaSpace. The only selling point of MediaSpace is the FERPA requirement by MnSCU to host privacy data on a MnSCU owned server
I can cover this in 5-15 minutes, just let me know what you prefer
Integrating Facebook Groups
I will show a couple of groups that I have used
I can also come up with an “exercise” that participants can do, just let me know: (1) if you want me to and (2) if participants are suppose to have a Facebook account that they can log into during the session
Title
Engage your students: gaming and gamification in the learning process.
Outline
As part of the broader discussion, a short discussion segment to form and agree on definitions and terms regarding games and gamification. Another short segment to seek consensus if this SCSU campus is ready to departure on the path of gamifying education. After several examples, of how games are used in education and gamification techniques, a discussion on how gaming and gamification can be streamlined amidst shrinking budget and increasing workload. More details and information about gaming and gamification at: http://scsu.mn/1F008Re
Audience: beginners to advanced
Outcomes:
By the end of this session, the participants will have a working definitions on play, games, serious games, game-based learning, digital game-based learning, gaming, gamification and badges. (more at http://scsu.mn/1F008Re)
By the end of the session, the participants will be familiar with the possibilities for integration of games in the educational process and for gamification of the educational process.
By the end of the session, the participants will be able to asses to what extent games and gamification fit their field of study
Plan:
Introduce each other and share the reason and interest to attend this discussion; what are the expectations from this discussion
Your Brain on Video Game http://www.zaption.com/present/566b26d4cbda6b1c1c482aa6
(use presenter, ask for mobile devices)
Work on the definitions: play, games, serious games, game-based learning, gaming, gamification and badges
Title
Present and be presented: engage your students with modern ways to share information
Outline
Two trends plague education: the swamp of PowerPoint presentations and the lack of visual literacy. In this rapid succession of examples, one can experience a showcase of various cloud-based tools, which brings visual presentations way beyond PowerPoint and align with the Millennials demand for current social interaction. A discussion on how relevant these tools are to various disciplines and details on improving the interaction among instructors and students during the presentation. Ongoing discussion about design as part of visual literacy and the difference between blended learning and technology integration.
Audience: beginners to advanced
Outcomes:
By the end of this session, the participants will have understand the movement “Death by PowerPoint” and will understand the advantage of cloud-based presentation tools to MS PowerPoint
By the end of the session, the participants will be familiar with several tools, which successfully replace PowerPoint and well beyond.
By the end of the session, the participants will be able to asses to what extent games and gamification fit their field of study
By the end of the session, the participants will be able to discriminate between technology integration and blended learning.
Plan:
Introduce each other and share the reason and interest to attend this discussion; what are the expectations from this discussion
EdPuzzle https://edpuzzle.com/ https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims/2015/02/19/edpuzzle-flipped-lessons/
crops the video so one can watch only a segment. Does not make much sense, since YouTube gives an URL to the reference point, but it allows instructor’s audio feedback. It is still too much “instructor’s proprietary” and not so much students-engaging as Zaption Presenter and Kahoot.
Designed by Chaim Gingold, a Ph.D. student at UC Santa Cruz, indie developer and designer of Spore’s creature creator, “Earth Primer” is a reinvention of the textbook. Unlike the all-too-familiar “interactive textbooks” that are little more than pictures and animations tacked on to traditional text, “Earth Primer” starts from the ground up. It’s elegantly presented and paced.
Money and time are the two most common barriers to using games in the classroom. “Extrasolar” solves both while also striking pedagogical gold: authentic, self-motivated learning. It’s a free alternate reality game (ARG) that mimics the day-to-day life of a rover driver exploring an alien planet for a mysterious space agency. Rather than placing players in some fantastical world, they interact with what looks like a typical desktop interface, giving their rover commands, and waiting to receive photographs and data from the alien world as well as messages from their employer. Each bit of play requires only a few minutes of activity. The wait builds tension, and when matched with the relatively mundane interface and tasks, it doesn’t feel like a game — which is kind of the point. Best of all: It’s all based in real science and, like with any good ARG, has a healthy dose of mystery to give players a reason to return.
Twine is an open-source tool for telling interactive, nonlinear stories.
You don’t need to write any code to create a simple story with Twine, but you can extend your stories with variables, conditional logic, images, CSS, and JavaScript when you’re ready.
Twine publishes directly to HTML, so you can post your work nearly anywhere. Anything you create with it is completely free to use any way you like, including for commercial purposes.
Based on the documents attached above, and the discussion and work already surrounding these documents, please consider the following flowchart:
study >>> systems theory >>> cybermetrics >>>
SWOT >>> strategic planning >>> task force >>> architect >>>
CM >>> public adviser >>> public polling >>> referendum
During the exercises surrounding the documents above, you have been introduced to various speakers / practitioners, who presented real-life cases regarding:
– the first goal of this technology instruction is to figure out the current state of technology in K12 settings.
assignment:
* split in groups * using each group member’s information and experience about technology in general and technology in school settings, use the flow chart above and identify any known technology, which can improve the process of each step in the flow chart.
* reconvene and compare results among groups. Find similarities and discrepancies and agree on a pool of applicable technology tools and concepts, which can improve the process reflected in the flow chart.
Example how to meet the requirements for the first goal: 1. based on your technological proficiency, how can you aid your study using system thinking/systems approach? the work ahead of you is collaborative. What collaborative tools do you know, which can help the team work across time and space? Skype, Google Hangouts for audio/video/desktopsharing. Google Drive/Docs for working on policies and similar text-based documents.
Work on the following assignment:
Trends in technology cannot be taken separately from other issues and are closely intertwined with other “big” trends :
keeping in mind this interdependence / balance, please work in groups on the following questions. Using the available links above and the literature they lead to, as well as your own findings, please provide your best opinion to these questions:
when planning for a new building and determining learning spaces, what is the percentage of importance, which we place on technology, in relation to furniture, for example?
how much do teachers have a say in the planning of the building, considering that they had worked and prefer “their type” of learning space?
who decides what technology and how? how one rationalizes the equation technology = learning spaces = available finances?
how much outsourcing (consulting) on any of the components of the equation above one can afford / consider? How much weight the strategic planning puts on the consulting (outsourcing) versus the internal opinion (staff and administrators)?
how “far in the future” your strategic plan is willing / able to look at, in terms of technology – learning spaces?
How to stay current with the technology developments:
the fundamental problem is that learning management systems are ultimately about serving the needs of institutions, not individual students.
Inhis manifesto on Connectivism, George Siemens writes that in Connectivist learning environments, the “pipes” of a course are more important than what flows through those pipes. The networks that students build are durable structures of lifelong learning, and they are more important
by having students own their learning spaces and democratize the means of production. Rather than forcing students to log in to an institutional LMS, I asked them to create their own websites, blogs, Twitter accounts and spaces on the open Web. In these spaces, students could curate links and connections and share their evolving ideas. Whatever they create is owned and maintained by them, not by me or by Harvard. They can keep their content for three months, three years, or the rest of their lives, so long as they continue to curate and move their published content as platforms change.
so, it is back what i claimed at the turn of the century: LMS were claimed to be invented to make the instructor’s life “easier”: instead of learning HTML, use LMS. My argument was that by the time one learns the interface of WebCT, one can learn HTML and HTML will be remain for the rest of their professional life, whereas WebCT got replaced by D2L and D2L will be replaced by another interface. I was labeled as “D2L hater” for such an opinion.
Now to the argument that LMS was a waste of instructors’ time, is added the new argument that it is also a waste of students’ time.
The way that Connected Courses deal with this challenge is byaggregation, sometimes also called syndication. All of the content produced on student blogs, websites, Twitter accounts and other social media accounts is syndicated to a single website. On theFlowpage, every piece of content created by students, myself and teaching staff was aggregated into one place. We also hadBlogandTwitter Hubsthat displayed only long-form writing from blogs or microposts from Twitter. A Spotlight page highlighted some of the best writings from students.
This online learning environment had three important advantages. First, students owned their means of production. They weren’t writing in discussion forums in order to get 2 points for posting to the weekly prompt. They wrote to communicate with audiences within the class and beyond. Second, everyone’s thinking could be found in the same place, by looking at hashtags and our syndication engines ont509massive.org. Finally, this design allows our learning to be permeable to the outside world. Students could write for audiences they cared about: fellow librarians or English teachers or education technologists working in developing countries. And as our networks grew, colleagues form outside our classroom could share with us, by posting links or thoughts to the #t509massive hashtag.
Sessoms, D. (2008). DIGITAL STORYTELLING: Training Pre-service Teachers to Use Digital Storytelling Across the Curriculum. In K. McFerrin, R. Weber, R. Carlsen & D. Willis (Eds.), Proceedings of Society for Information Technology & Teacher Education International Conference 2008 (pp. 958-960). Chesapeake, VA: Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE). http://www.editlib.org/p/27300/
Yuksel, P., Robin, B. & McNeil, S. (2011). Educational Uses of Digital Storytelling all around the World. In M. Koehler & P. Mishra (Eds.), Proceedings of Society for Information Technology & Teacher Education International Conference 2011 (pp. 1264-1271). Chesapeake, VA: Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE). http://www.editlib.org/p/36461/
Ohler, J. (2008). Digital storytelling in the classroom : new media pathways to literacy, learning, and creativity /. Corwin Press.
Rudnicki, A., Cozart, A., Ganesh, A., Markello, C., Marsh, S., McNeil, S., Mullins, H., Odle Smith, D. & Robin, B. (2006). The Buzz Continues…The Diffusion of Digital Storytelling across disciplines and colleges at the University of Houston. In C. Crawford, R. Carlsen, K. McFerrin, J. Price, R. Weber & D. Willis (Eds.), Proceedings of Society for Information Technology & Teacher Education International Conference 2006 (pp. 717-723). Chesapeake, VA: Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE). http://www.editlib.org/p/22130/
Churchill, N., Ping, L. C., Oakley, G., & Churchill, D. (2008). DIGITAL STORYTELLING AND DIGITAL LITERACY LEARNING. In Rea dings in Education and Technology: Proceedings of ICICTE 200. http://www.icicte.org/ICICTE2008Proceedings/churchill043.pdf
Digital Storytelling and Philosophy | Sociology | Anthropology | History classes:
IVala, E., Chigona, A., Gachago, D., & Condy, J. (2012). Digital Storytelling and Student Engagement: A Case of Pre-Service Student Teachers and their Lecturers’ at a University of Technology – ProQuest. Presented at the International Conference on e-Learning. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/openview/498ddf3873e0433dd9ef1b0a67c1d9a9/1?pq-origsite=gscholar
Digital Storytelling and Communication Studies | Mass Communication:
Tharp, K., & Hills, L. (2004). Digital Storytelling: Culture, Media and Community. In: Marshall, S., Taylor, W., & Yu, X. H. (Eds). Using Community Informatics to Transform Regions. Idea Group Inc (IGI).
Boa-Ventura, A., & Rodrigues, I. (2010). “Making news with digital stories: digital storytelling as a forma of citizen journalism – case Studies analysis in the U.S., UK and Portugal. Revista PRISMA.COM, 0(7). Retrieved from http://revistas.ua.pt/index.php/prismacom/article/view/674
I use rubrics and see the positive sides as well as appreciate the structure they bring in assessment. But this article makes me see also the danger of rubrics being applied as a harness, another debacle no different from NCLB and testings scores, which plague this nation’s education in the last two decades. The same “standardizing” as in Quality Matter, which can bring some clarity and structure, but also can stifle any creativity, which steers “out of the norm.” A walk on such path opens the door to another educational assembly line, where adjunct and hourly for-hire instructors will teach pre-done content and assess with the rubrics in a fast-food manner.
a consortium of 59 universities and community colleges in nine states is working to develop a rubric-based assessment system that would allow them to measure these crucial skills within ongoing coursework that students produce.
“These rubrics are designed to be cross-disciplinary,” explained Bonnie Orcutt
Parents and teachers are pushing back against blunt assessment instruments like standardized tests, and are looking for a way to hold schools accountable that doesn’t mean taking time away from class work.
