I am glad that I did attend to this talk. The first reason I was pleased is because I saw people who are interested in online learning from different places firsthand through video conferencing. Second, I realized that there could always be fun in a presentation. This time, Dr. Bonk used “Pick a Story” as a mean to gave attendees pleasure. He fulfilled the learner-centered to this talk. It was a wonderful experience. I had known that entitle is a big challenge for both a research and a presentation in my undergraduate. But I think it might be easier to entitle if there is a story behind the title.
I don’t want to postpone the progress of my critical friend, Chris, so I just write a few points that impressed me most.
1. 2001: You were in, but you were never there.
The story of this was that someone was curious about why can Dr. Bonk was in the European AERA in Finland, but he was never there. Bonks’ tip was that respond first or second and respond to controversial ones. Guess about the outcome of transcript for blended learning among Korean, Americans, and Finland, who are the most social, theoretical, and pragmatic? Don’t peep at the next paragraph.
The answer is that Koreans are the most social, Americans are the most pragmatic, and the Finlanders are the most theoretical. Um…interesting.
2. Definitely, UStream, Mixxer and languagee exchange, and LiveMoca were good recourses I should share with my friends. We just talked about how to improving English yesterday late night. We all found that even though passing TOFEL or GRE test, it does not mean that we are competitive enough to speak up in a seminar or an interactive class. We don’t want someday when we back into Taiwan, our English skill (especially speaking skill) still need to be improved. As a result, we considered IEP or academic classes and exchanged information about this two kind of courses very much. I think these language exchange websites can help in some way.
3. I was thinking why Modeling is the hardest part on the online learning… If you know the answers please tell me. I will post the revised version when I got the answer to this question.
2007年12月2日 星期日
Partnership for 21st Century Skill slides reflection:
A presentation of key findings from a national survey of 800 registered voters conducted September 10-12, 2007.
➢ 42% feel that other developed countries are doing a better job than the U.S. preparing their children for the jobs of the 21st Century;
➢ 39% feel that the U.S. is doing a better job than other developed countries preparing our children for the jobs of the 21st Century; or,
➢ 13% feel that the U.S. is performing about as well as other developed countries.
“Many American people express concern other developed countries are doing a better job than the U.S. at preparing children for 21st Century jobs.”
This impresses me because U.S. citizens really care about their children’s competition of future and try their best to envision blueprint for 21st Century skills for children toward future. I really hope that every country has this kind of foresight to prepare a well-designed and organized structure for our kids. It will be happy to see our future with hope. From history, we should always keep remembering that countries that cannot align to changes of the trend would be eliminated.
In this article, they also examine what schools are not doing well including: (1) students are not “workforce ready.” (2) They do not have the breadth of skills to succeed in today’s world. (3) They are not well-rounded enough. This article investigates Americans’ eyesight from a macro view then go into survey what schools should do better in a micro point of view comparatively. The conclusion about this is“99%Of respondents feel it is important to our country’s future economic success that our children learn these 21st Century skills, such as computer and technology skills, critical thinking, self-direction, and communication skills. 81%say very important”
In my observation, Americans from the highest hierarchy to common people take this issue seriously. A week before, one visiting scholar’s wife from Taiwan told me that she now understand why Americans are strong and what makes them doing a good job on leading the world. She takes her forth grade child to go to elementary school in Bloomington and finds that teachers in America always teach their students in a creative way. Teachers seem to cultivate students to think on their own, have their opinions, and find the possible solution to solve those problems. For example, problem-based learning, game-based learning, and situation learning etc. is prevailing in U.S.A. now. As I know, it’s a bit different from past education in United State as well. The educative way is advanced in the world, but Americans still think there should be a re-examination for the purpose of their educational system. They think they have to progress. Let’s look back to Taiwan.Taiwan’s education needs to catch up because we are far behind, in my personal point of view. Most teachers in Taiwan complaint about the time is not enough to arrange this kind of activity in class because there are so many information and knowledge need to be taught in class so their students can get more chances to enter a good and higher school. The problem is here, we should not think that students are only receptors; they have their personal interest from their childhood. More important, they have to bring up the skill of always thinking on their own. (I am glad to say technology can help, plz see the next paragraph. I need to have a complement to the limitation of vision toward learners’ role in Taiwan. From my understanding this is really due to traditional Chinese thought, but I do not plan to explain it here. If you have interest, you can ask me or email me.) Americans always think before head with insight, with so many people paying attention to this issue at a time, and they do not fear to try or change.
In Dr. Bonk’s article, “Sharing the journey to UAE HCT…” He witnessed part of the mass burial firsthand when conducting his master’s degree research in a number of schools in Wisconsin during the summer of 1987. (Wow, I was three! How advanced the education in Wisconsin was!) Bonk said, “We had students using dozens of convergent thinking software packages intended to enhance logical thinking, problem solving, hypothesis testing, classification skills, deductive reasoning, and inferencing as well as a similar set of divergent ones for fostering originality, brainstorming, spatial reasoning, recognizing patterns and relationships, and designing original works in poetry, art, drawings, animations, and music.” How gorgeous those software packages are. I would like to know students and parents’ feeling and thought toward such technology tools. Besides, I agree with Bonk’s result, “technology was a cognitive tool to enhance human thinking and reasoning.”
Using educational technology to enhance learning seems to provide powerful means to augment possibility of achieving these objectives and goals. Otherwise, I think it’s vital to have people dedicating to design the learning system for future needs, so I approve of this quote, “The inventor of the system deserves to be ranked among the best contributors to learning and science, if not the greatest benefactors of mankind.”--- Josiah F. Bumstead
➢ 42% feel that other developed countries are doing a better job than the U.S. preparing their children for the jobs of the 21st Century;
➢ 39% feel that the U.S. is doing a better job than other developed countries preparing our children for the jobs of the 21st Century; or,
➢ 13% feel that the U.S. is performing about as well as other developed countries.
“Many American people express concern other developed countries are doing a better job than the U.S. at preparing children for 21st Century jobs.”
This impresses me because U.S. citizens really care about their children’s competition of future and try their best to envision blueprint for 21st Century skills for children toward future. I really hope that every country has this kind of foresight to prepare a well-designed and organized structure for our kids. It will be happy to see our future with hope. From history, we should always keep remembering that countries that cannot align to changes of the trend would be eliminated.
In this article, they also examine what schools are not doing well including: (1) students are not “workforce ready.” (2) They do not have the breadth of skills to succeed in today’s world. (3) They are not well-rounded enough. This article investigates Americans’ eyesight from a macro view then go into survey what schools should do better in a micro point of view comparatively. The conclusion about this is“99%Of respondents feel it is important to our country’s future economic success that our children learn these 21st Century skills, such as computer and technology skills, critical thinking, self-direction, and communication skills. 81%say very important”
In my observation, Americans from the highest hierarchy to common people take this issue seriously. A week before, one visiting scholar’s wife from Taiwan told me that she now understand why Americans are strong and what makes them doing a good job on leading the world. She takes her forth grade child to go to elementary school in Bloomington and finds that teachers in America always teach their students in a creative way. Teachers seem to cultivate students to think on their own, have their opinions, and find the possible solution to solve those problems. For example, problem-based learning, game-based learning, and situation learning etc. is prevailing in U.S.A. now. As I know, it’s a bit different from past education in United State as well. The educative way is advanced in the world, but Americans still think there should be a re-examination for the purpose of their educational system. They think they have to progress. Let’s look back to Taiwan.Taiwan’s education needs to catch up because we are far behind, in my personal point of view. Most teachers in Taiwan complaint about the time is not enough to arrange this kind of activity in class because there are so many information and knowledge need to be taught in class so their students can get more chances to enter a good and higher school. The problem is here, we should not think that students are only receptors; they have their personal interest from their childhood. More important, they have to bring up the skill of always thinking on their own. (I am glad to say technology can help, plz see the next paragraph. I need to have a complement to the limitation of vision toward learners’ role in Taiwan. From my understanding this is really due to traditional Chinese thought, but I do not plan to explain it here. If you have interest, you can ask me or email me.) Americans always think before head with insight, with so many people paying attention to this issue at a time, and they do not fear to try or change.
In Dr. Bonk’s article, “Sharing the journey to UAE HCT…” He witnessed part of the mass burial firsthand when conducting his master’s degree research in a number of schools in Wisconsin during the summer of 1987. (Wow, I was three! How advanced the education in Wisconsin was!) Bonk said, “We had students using dozens of convergent thinking software packages intended to enhance logical thinking, problem solving, hypothesis testing, classification skills, deductive reasoning, and inferencing as well as a similar set of divergent ones for fostering originality, brainstorming, spatial reasoning, recognizing patterns and relationships, and designing original works in poetry, art, drawings, animations, and music.” How gorgeous those software packages are. I would like to know students and parents’ feeling and thought toward such technology tools. Besides, I agree with Bonk’s result, “technology was a cognitive tool to enhance human thinking and reasoning.”
Using educational technology to enhance learning seems to provide powerful means to augment possibility of achieving these objectives and goals. Otherwise, I think it’s vital to have people dedicating to design the learning system for future needs, so I approve of this quote, “The inventor of the system deserves to be ranked among the best contributors to learning and science, if not the greatest benefactors of mankind.”--- Josiah F. Bumstead
Week 14. Reflection Two-Alternative Reality Learning: Massive Gaming, Virtual Reality, and Simulations
I was surprised to know that people can really earn money from the second life. Consumers glance and purchase the merchandise in the shopping store of second life, then the real good will be at your hand in real life! Everything in second life can be real through online technology. Sara also mentioned that there are so many things you can do in second life, but not in first life. For example, she let her students pick up their avatars like pumpkins and made them adventured to the places she assigned such as a bar, a public place with crowded people. She successfully educated her students what “placing oneself in other’s position” is. Those students indeed understood what is obese feel like, and they also learned from community as well. She also utilized second life to enrich variety of possible topics such as presenting yourself as a researcher. Maybe in the future of second life, we can pick up avatars and use masks to present who we want to mimic in the virtual classrooms. In this way, it’s more authentic and easy for users and learners to place themselves in a history context if the interface can provide this service.
Can you think about ways to connect second life to existing and emerging technology? Some people can. Here is an example, on the website of the TV program, Gossip girl (you can also search on “CW” channel online), there was built a second life to let people who are interested in fashion and current development of the episode to talk and play or even dance in that community. If you want, you can have a coffee social with the main actors and actresses there. (http://cwtv.com/thecw/gossipgirl-uppereastside)
I also want to mention one of the articles I read this week, “Game-based learning: Present and future state of the field” wrote by Squire. He pointed out that virtual university and virtual leaders are in the absence of learning theory. It’s our chance to contribute our knowledge and profession into this field. This article provided many cases from corporation and military settings to see current and future vision of the field, game-based learning. For example, the Woodrow Wilson sponsored Serious Games Initiative Company sells experiences that not only train skills but also convince workers to take up the “subjectivity” of the company. The vision to awake employees’ subjectivity truly inspires me. I think we should also think about this in our education field as well. I still remember there was a fight among professors in school of business in my university. They argue about should or should not let freshman taking core courses like Chinese, History, or Art and humanity. Some deem those courses as useless for future need when getting jobs; others think that we should retain those unless we want to lose our origin. Why not give students chances to take up “subjectivity” of the school? Why not let students decide?
It was so exciting when I read the paragraph about emerging framework, it said: “The experience of using the learning map is quite fun. The images evoke nostalgia, and immediately tie the brand and lesson not just to an abstract pedagogy but to personally meaningful experiences.” It reminded my original intention to pursue a master degree in IST, which is that learning how to build an educational environment that can arise enthusiasm of learners to learn based on their personal and meaningful experiences. It was also valuable to know instructional designers in the near future should be people who think holistically, imagine user scenarios, and understand the culture of organizations.
Among the research questions, I am particularly interested in identity issue and Interface issue (Human Computer Interaction). I am so excited to see the possibility to build a new system for lifelong learning in second life. Just like Chris said, I am sure as well this posting will not be the last one in my blog.
Reference:
Squire, Kurt (2005, February). Game-based learning: Present and future state of the field. The Masie Center. Retrieved July 4, 2007, from http://www.masieweb.com/research-and-articles/research/game-based-learning.html or http://www.masieweb.com/dmdocuments/Game-Based_Learning.pdf
Can you think about ways to connect second life to existing and emerging technology? Some people can. Here is an example, on the website of the TV program, Gossip girl (you can also search on “CW” channel online), there was built a second life to let people who are interested in fashion and current development of the episode to talk and play or even dance in that community. If you want, you can have a coffee social with the main actors and actresses there. (http://cwtv.com/thecw/gossipgirl-uppereastside)
I also want to mention one of the articles I read this week, “Game-based learning: Present and future state of the field” wrote by Squire. He pointed out that virtual university and virtual leaders are in the absence of learning theory. It’s our chance to contribute our knowledge and profession into this field. This article provided many cases from corporation and military settings to see current and future vision of the field, game-based learning. For example, the Woodrow Wilson sponsored Serious Games Initiative Company sells experiences that not only train skills but also convince workers to take up the “subjectivity” of the company. The vision to awake employees’ subjectivity truly inspires me. I think we should also think about this in our education field as well. I still remember there was a fight among professors in school of business in my university. They argue about should or should not let freshman taking core courses like Chinese, History, or Art and humanity. Some deem those courses as useless for future need when getting jobs; others think that we should retain those unless we want to lose our origin. Why not give students chances to take up “subjectivity” of the school? Why not let students decide?
It was so exciting when I read the paragraph about emerging framework, it said: “The experience of using the learning map is quite fun. The images evoke nostalgia, and immediately tie the brand and lesson not just to an abstract pedagogy but to personally meaningful experiences.” It reminded my original intention to pursue a master degree in IST, which is that learning how to build an educational environment that can arise enthusiasm of learners to learn based on their personal and meaningful experiences. It was also valuable to know instructional designers in the near future should be people who think holistically, imagine user scenarios, and understand the culture of organizations.
Among the research questions, I am particularly interested in identity issue and Interface issue (Human Computer Interaction). I am so excited to see the possibility to build a new system for lifelong learning in second life. Just like Chris said, I am sure as well this posting will not be the last one in my blog.
Reference:
Squire, Kurt (2005, February). Game-based learning: Present and future state of the field. The Masie Center. Retrieved July 4, 2007, from http://www.masieweb.com/research-and-articles/research/game-based-learning.html or http://www.masieweb.com/dmdocuments/Game-Based_Learning.pdf
Week 14. Reflection One-Alternative Reality Learning: Massive Gaming, Virtual Reality, and Simulations
Dr. Bonk invited Intellagirl, Sara to have a talk about second life this week. It’s really cool to listen to Sara, who really has the experience teaching in second life. In the front of her slide, “Understanding New Pedahohies in Virtual Environment” she gave her definition to Web 2.0 that is very clear: Prosumer (Producer and consumer), Remote Application, Social, and Application Program Interface. Then she led us to rethink destination and how we teaching in education of virtual environment.
What I respond to the question that cool observation I get from second life, I said maybe I can meet up with friends and family. We can fly together, see how crazy people are, how creative thing we can do in second life. But what really came up with me is that why not in the first/ real life? For me, as an international student who is far away from home, I cannot meet whom I miss easily, and I am earn for having experiences or doing things together with someone. In this case, it has some factors appealing to me. But if I am in Taiwan, I may not understand why people choose to live in second life. (There are already so many people have spending much time on online games. Who knows what is the next trend? Will people dedicate to live or have their business in second life?) I know some people find their lovers through the interaction of the flap-tops like online game or second life. They are all tech-savvy people and find the same or similar interest in those kind of flap-tops.
There is another interesting issue brought out today also. What will you pick up, everything in second life or first life? For me, living in second life is not that user friendly now. I cannot even find an Asking Desk or a Tourist-visiting Center in the second life. I lost every time! If I only have one choice between first and second life, I will choose first life because I believe what I see and what I feel in real life, and I also identify myself through real life experiences. How about you? It does not mean that there is no need for second life, vice versa; I deem it as an experience that people won’t miss since human beings has the gene to adventure. In addition, people can hardly shun stepping on this trend if they still retain a childish heart.
What I respond to the question that cool observation I get from second life, I said maybe I can meet up with friends and family. We can fly together, see how crazy people are, how creative thing we can do in second life. But what really came up with me is that why not in the first/ real life? For me, as an international student who is far away from home, I cannot meet whom I miss easily, and I am earn for having experiences or doing things together with someone. In this case, it has some factors appealing to me. But if I am in Taiwan, I may not understand why people choose to live in second life. (There are already so many people have spending much time on online games. Who knows what is the next trend? Will people dedicate to live or have their business in second life?) I know some people find their lovers through the interaction of the flap-tops like online game or second life. They are all tech-savvy people and find the same or similar interest in those kind of flap-tops.
There is another interesting issue brought out today also. What will you pick up, everything in second life or first life? For me, living in second life is not that user friendly now. I cannot even find an Asking Desk or a Tourist-visiting Center in the second life. I lost every time! If I only have one choice between first and second life, I will choose first life because I believe what I see and what I feel in real life, and I also identify myself through real life experiences. How about you? It does not mean that there is no need for second life, vice versa; I deem it as an experience that people won’t miss since human beings has the gene to adventure. In addition, people can hardly shun stepping on this trend if they still retain a childish heart.
2007年11月25日 星期日
Week 13: Wikis, Wikipedia, Wikibooks, and collaborative writing
This week, we enjoyed a lot from Wikis a la carte Panel (it can also be found at iTunes; see http://itunes.iu.edu). I learned so many research concepts from this panel such as finding topic you devote to it, looking for data that is a lot and available, and everybody relate to it (which is common that grand mom knows). Dr. Bonk also reminded us to think about the right place and the right time to conduct a research besides excitement of research itself and its easily recognition by people. I am of interested in the second presentation, “Analysis of Wiki and Communities of Practice (CoP)” introduced by Noriko Hara. She tried to answer the questions such as what the norms of behaviors of Wikipedia users are and what similarities and differences among Talk pages, Wikipedia Talk pages, and User Talk pages are. One new technical term I learned is “Trolls Behaviors”, which means “repetitive harmful action, intentionality to cause harm, ignoring Wikipedia policies, community involvement, hidden virtual identity, and work in isolation.” I did not realize hidden virtual identity was one of Trolls Behaviors until I learner from this panel. The conclusion of her study is that community wellbeing (such as handling of vandalism and blocking/unblocking access) impacts sustainability of CoPs Handling of vandalism.
Among this week readings, what interests me most is the study written by Bryant at al. It’s a research about how Wiki participants shift from novice to Wikipedians. The study uses Legitimate Peripheral Participation to explain how apprentices become members of CoP physically and socially and what barriers they might need to face with. Vygotsky’s Activity Theory is a great theory used in a systematically socio-technical system as a set of six interdependent elements. However, it’s a pity that seeing few concrete relationship between this theory and the research objectives (maybe I should say research findings). It’s clear to understand transformation of each interdependent element in Activity Theory, but it is not clear enough for us to see those mutual interdependencies in the triangle diagram. To me, the most powerful of this theory should be the explanation of what happens to a small part might affect the whole and how it affect. But in this article, we need to “imagine triangle twisting and bending as transformations in one dimension and then another stretch and pull the rest of the triangle.” Although I know it’s not the emphasis the authors concern, it would be perfect for me if they provides the great structure- Activity Theory with integrated explanation of relationship among those findings. I am especially surprised by one of the findings which is about Transformation of Subject, says in the move from newcomers to Wikipedians, “goals broaden to include growing the community itself and improving the overall quality and character of the site.” It seems like Wikipedians view Wiki as a community or a business they really care and devote to. Another interesting point is that Wikipedians view their participation on the site as membership in a community
Another reading I have read for this week is Viegas, Wattenberg and Dave’s study on “The challenges and successes of Wikibookian experts and Wikibook novices…” which is similar to the first topic in today’s panel. Finding of Wikibookians concern most their contribution and sharing to Wikibooks is analogous to the finding related to Wikipedians in the previous paragraph. The other paper I pay attention to is “Studying cooperation and conflict between authors with history flow visualizations” conducted by Viégas at al. I learn most knowledge about Wiki such as history flow, user interface, implementation notes and related work etc. from this article. Their design of history flow’s visualization mechanism is in particular impressive to me. It shows how many people work on editing, how long these editing versions takes, and what kind of patterns happened during editing. I can see many potential future studies in this part. It’s so fun! Let’s wait and see.
Reference:
Bryant, S. L., Forte, A., & Bruckman, A. (2005). Becoming Wikipedian: Transformation of participation in a collaborative online encyclopedia. In M. Pendergast, K. Schmidt, G. Mark, and M. Acherman (Eds.); Proceedings of the 2005 International ACM SIGGROUP Conference on Supporting Group Work, GROUP 2005, Sanibel Island, FL, November 6-9, pp. 1-10. Retrieved February 7, 2007, from http://www-static.cc.gatech.edu/~aforte/BryantForteBruckBecomingWikipedian.pdf
Sajjapanroj, S., Bonk, C. J., Lee, M., & Lin, M.-F. G. (2007, April). The challenges and successes of Wikibookian experts and Wikibook novices: Classroom and community perspectives. Paper presented at the American Educational Research Association, Chicago, IL. See http://wiki-riki.wikispaces.com/Research+Papers+and+Reports
Viégas, F. B., Wattenberg, M., & Dave, K. (2004). Studying cooperation and conflict between authors with history flow visualizations. In E. Dykstra-Erickson & M. Tscheligi (Eds.), Proceedings from ACM CHI 2004 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 575-582). Vienna, Austria. Retrieved February 3, 2007, from http://web.media.mit.edu/~fviegas/papers/history_flow.pdf
Among this week readings, what interests me most is the study written by Bryant at al. It’s a research about how Wiki participants shift from novice to Wikipedians. The study uses Legitimate Peripheral Participation to explain how apprentices become members of CoP physically and socially and what barriers they might need to face with. Vygotsky’s Activity Theory is a great theory used in a systematically socio-technical system as a set of six interdependent elements. However, it’s a pity that seeing few concrete relationship between this theory and the research objectives (maybe I should say research findings). It’s clear to understand transformation of each interdependent element in Activity Theory, but it is not clear enough for us to see those mutual interdependencies in the triangle diagram. To me, the most powerful of this theory should be the explanation of what happens to a small part might affect the whole and how it affect. But in this article, we need to “imagine triangle twisting and bending as transformations in one dimension and then another stretch and pull the rest of the triangle.” Although I know it’s not the emphasis the authors concern, it would be perfect for me if they provides the great structure- Activity Theory with integrated explanation of relationship among those findings. I am especially surprised by one of the findings which is about Transformation of Subject, says in the move from newcomers to Wikipedians, “goals broaden to include growing the community itself and improving the overall quality and character of the site.” It seems like Wikipedians view Wiki as a community or a business they really care and devote to. Another interesting point is that Wikipedians view their participation on the site as membership in a community
Another reading I have read for this week is Viegas, Wattenberg and Dave’s study on “The challenges and successes of Wikibookian experts and Wikibook novices…” which is similar to the first topic in today’s panel. Finding of Wikibookians concern most their contribution and sharing to Wikibooks is analogous to the finding related to Wikipedians in the previous paragraph. The other paper I pay attention to is “Studying cooperation and conflict between authors with history flow visualizations” conducted by Viégas at al. I learn most knowledge about Wiki such as history flow, user interface, implementation notes and related work etc. from this article. Their design of history flow’s visualization mechanism is in particular impressive to me. It shows how many people work on editing, how long these editing versions takes, and what kind of patterns happened during editing. I can see many potential future studies in this part. It’s so fun! Let’s wait and see.
Reference:
Bryant, S. L., Forte, A., & Bruckman, A. (2005). Becoming Wikipedian: Transformation of participation in a collaborative online encyclopedia. In M. Pendergast, K. Schmidt, G. Mark, and M. Acherman (Eds.); Proceedings of the 2005 International ACM SIGGROUP Conference on Supporting Group Work, GROUP 2005, Sanibel Island, FL, November 6-9, pp. 1-10. Retrieved February 7, 2007, from http://www-static.cc.gatech.edu/~aforte/BryantForteBruckBecomingWikipedian.pdf
Sajjapanroj, S., Bonk, C. J., Lee, M., & Lin, M.-F. G. (2007, April). The challenges and successes of Wikibookian experts and Wikibook novices: Classroom and community perspectives. Paper presented at the American Educational Research Association, Chicago, IL. See http://wiki-riki.wikispaces.com/Research+Papers+and+Reports
Viégas, F. B., Wattenberg, M., & Dave, K. (2004). Studying cooperation and conflict between authors with history flow visualizations. In E. Dykstra-Erickson & M. Tscheligi (Eds.), Proceedings from ACM CHI 2004 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 575-582). Vienna, Austria. Retrieved February 3, 2007, from http://web.media.mit.edu/~fviegas/papers/history_flow.pdf
Week 12: Podcasting, Coursecasting, and Online Language Learning
It was not my first time participating in a video conferencing, but it’s the best experience with high video and audio quality I never had before. Dr. Bonk used live video conferencing to meet with us because at that time he was at Maryland. BTW, I think Dr. Bonk has a pair of good eyes so he can easily call our names correctly. I believe there must have so many sensors in our classroom that Dr. Bonk could listen to us clearly when we talked without microphone. Few of slides in his presentation, “Podcast, Wikis, and Blogs, Oh My” are screenshots of our blogs as a prove that eLearning is in Bloomington.
It’s getting clear for me to understand the differences between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 through weeks of readings. It is particularly clearly understood through Steven’s study, “Applying multiliteracies in collaborative learning environments…”. He gave a comparison between Web 2.0 and Web 1.0. He also points out the concept of Distributed learning networks can enhance his professional development through following the blog and podcaste of Stephen Downes (http://www.downes.ca/) Not only teachers or professors can benefit from this concept, students can also freely adventure and search online on their own because knowledge is distributed. It’s quite true that “formal learning is the source if only 10% to 20% of what we learn at work”. The majority of discovering know-how of our jobs is through informal learning. I was wondering as an educator, what can we do to better utilize online technology to formal and informal learning, how to manipulate technology, and how to enhance the multiliteracy of those communications channels? This paper likes an alarm bell for teachers. He conveys this concern about the trend to peer-to-peer distributed network and asks teachers to try and see the training at their fingertips. Start to meet peers online, join community online, you will surprisingly find out how progressive and innovative our students are.
The article I taught this week was written by Brittain at al. they combined the instructional design and formative evaluation (collected in four ways: self-reporting, observation, tests, and records) to prove that Formative evaluation strategies helped identify a solution to a learning dilemma. I made up a diagram to simplify research questions, methods and results of Formative Evaluation-Pilot studies as following:
1.Best Media format- from video, audio synced with PPT, and audio only / Pilot study 1 / By students survey, focus groups,
and server logs- audio-only
format.
2. Best method to acquire1 / Pilot study 2 / Method- Ipod--> Computer.
(By self-reporting and records)
3.Best way to disseminate1 / Pilot study 3 / Use of MP3 & AAC(advanced
Audio Codec) files equally
4. Which courses benefit / Pilot study 1 2 3 / Difficult materials and courses
presentor that spoke fast
5. Support costs of staff time and workflow / Pilot study 1 2 3 / 1.Automated process
2.The course management
system- CTools
3.Notification system-e-mail
6. Warrant the cost of the project / Pilot study 1 2 3 /Low cost solutions
The lesson learned from this pilot study is the importance of involving clients into activities and using proven instructional design and formative evaluation techniques. By doing so, we might always find the unticipated results of our projects.
About podcasting, it’s important for me to know the ideal time of podcasting is 6 to 10 minutes by others’ presentations. In Lane’s article, she points out the most common refrain within students’ comments for future podcasting was that it should be available in more courses especially for those classes with over 100 students. I need to say as an international student, having a podcasting for reviewing courses not only provides me sense of safety but also gives me chance to review when I found some information unsure or ambiguous. As for podcasting applying to kinds of language learning courses, I see the value and potential need in it. Because people nowadays tend to have more needs to learn from other countries, and people can learn on their own through online learning community or programs. When learning and practicing different language, it’s so so great to have podcasting with me since I can listen to it by repetition in everywhere I like, I can ask anyone about the content I was confused with a podcasting without constrains of time and place.
Reference:
Stevens, V. (2006, October). Applying multiliteracies in collaborative learning environments: Impact on teacher professional development. TESL-EJ, 10(2), Retrieved October 5, 2006, from http://www-writing.berkeley.edu/TESL-EJ/ej38/int.html
Brittain, Sarah, Glowacki, Pietrek Van Ittersum, Jared, & Johnson, Lynn (2006). Podcasting lectures: Formative evaluation strategies helped identify a solution to a learning dilemma, 29(3). Retrieved July 10, 2007, from http://www.educause.edu/apps/eq/eqm06/eqm0634.asp
Lane, Cara (2006). UW podcasting: Evalution of Year One. Retrieved July 10, 2007, from http://catalyst.washington.edu/research_development/papers/2006/podcasting_year1.pdf
BBC News Online (2005, May 20). Podcasting could be a revolution. Retrieved July 10, 2007, from http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4566059.stm
It’s getting clear for me to understand the differences between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 through weeks of readings. It is particularly clearly understood through Steven’s study, “Applying multiliteracies in collaborative learning environments…”. He gave a comparison between Web 2.0 and Web 1.0. He also points out the concept of Distributed learning networks can enhance his professional development through following the blog and podcaste of Stephen Downes (http://www.downes.ca/) Not only teachers or professors can benefit from this concept, students can also freely adventure and search online on their own because knowledge is distributed. It’s quite true that “formal learning is the source if only 10% to 20% of what we learn at work”. The majority of discovering know-how of our jobs is through informal learning. I was wondering as an educator, what can we do to better utilize online technology to formal and informal learning, how to manipulate technology, and how to enhance the multiliteracy of those communications channels? This paper likes an alarm bell for teachers. He conveys this concern about the trend to peer-to-peer distributed network and asks teachers to try and see the training at their fingertips. Start to meet peers online, join community online, you will surprisingly find out how progressive and innovative our students are.
The article I taught this week was written by Brittain at al. they combined the instructional design and formative evaluation (collected in four ways: self-reporting, observation, tests, and records) to prove that Formative evaluation strategies helped identify a solution to a learning dilemma. I made up a diagram to simplify research questions, methods and results of Formative Evaluation-Pilot studies as following:
1.Best Media format- from video, audio synced with PPT, and audio only / Pilot study 1 / By students survey, focus groups,
and server logs- audio-only
format.
2. Best method to acquire1 / Pilot study 2 / Method- Ipod--> Computer.
(By self-reporting and records)
3.Best way to disseminate1 / Pilot study 3 / Use of MP3 & AAC(advanced
Audio Codec) files equally
4. Which courses benefit / Pilot study 1 2 3 / Difficult materials and courses
presentor that spoke fast
5. Support costs of staff time and workflow / Pilot study 1 2 3 / 1.Automated process
2.The course management
system- CTools
3.Notification system-e-mail
6. Warrant the cost of the project / Pilot study 1 2 3 /Low cost solutions
The lesson learned from this pilot study is the importance of involving clients into activities and using proven instructional design and formative evaluation techniques. By doing so, we might always find the unticipated results of our projects.
About podcasting, it’s important for me to know the ideal time of podcasting is 6 to 10 minutes by others’ presentations. In Lane’s article, she points out the most common refrain within students’ comments for future podcasting was that it should be available in more courses especially for those classes with over 100 students. I need to say as an international student, having a podcasting for reviewing courses not only provides me sense of safety but also gives me chance to review when I found some information unsure or ambiguous. As for podcasting applying to kinds of language learning courses, I see the value and potential need in it. Because people nowadays tend to have more needs to learn from other countries, and people can learn on their own through online learning community or programs. When learning and practicing different language, it’s so so great to have podcasting with me since I can listen to it by repetition in everywhere I like, I can ask anyone about the content I was confused with a podcasting without constrains of time and place.
Reference:
Stevens, V. (2006, October). Applying multiliteracies in collaborative learning environments: Impact on teacher professional development. TESL-EJ, 10(2), Retrieved October 5, 2006, from http://www-writing.berkeley.edu/TESL-EJ/ej38/int.html
Brittain, Sarah, Glowacki, Pietrek Van Ittersum, Jared, & Johnson, Lynn (2006). Podcasting lectures: Formative evaluation strategies helped identify a solution to a learning dilemma, 29(3). Retrieved July 10, 2007, from http://www.educause.edu/apps/eq/eqm06/eqm0634.asp
Lane, Cara (2006). UW podcasting: Evalution of Year One. Retrieved July 10, 2007, from http://catalyst.washington.edu/research_development/papers/2006/podcasting_year1.pdf
BBC News Online (2005, May 20). Podcasting could be a revolution. Retrieved July 10, 2007, from http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4566059.stm
Week 11: Electronic Motivation, Collaboration, and Communities of Learning/Inquiry
We had a special guest speaker Dr. Valerie O'Loughlin who is an Associate Professor of Anatomy and Cell Biology this week. She used to teach Human Embryology and found that students hard to understand this thoroughly through pictures on the textbook so she design and build her Human Embryology Animations online. I am impressed by her intention to improve the effectiveness and usability of the tool when I first get into her website. There are several evaluation testing sites before and after you read or learn from the main topics. Just like what she mentioned during her presentation, it’s not easy to realize there are posttest with the sites, learners can go back to check whenever they want. In my personal opinion, I agree with her concern of sites without audio because a complicated topic is hard not only for an international student but also for Americans. There are so many professional words and technical terms, and learners need to pay attention only to the text itself to absorb fully. However, the choice should be basically depend on what kind of learning habits do her students (around the world because it is online) have and prefer. The preference her students like such as an Animation with audio format or an Animation without audio might affect her final decision. I think if possible, it would be better to have a simple survey at the end of this website to gather learners’ preferences about that issue rather than only depend upon suggestions from other professional books.
For this week reading, first one is “Building Sense of Community at a Distance”. This article disproves believe of limitation of community to the traditional classroom and suggest that the virtual classroom has the potential to build and sustain sense of community at levels that are comparable to the traditional classroom. Alfred Rovai (2002, April) points out some reasons that dropout rates tend to be higher in distance education programs than in traditional face-to-face programs. I realize from the article that adult sometimes only register for a course in order to obtain knowledge, not credits, and may therefore drop the course once they obtain the knowledge they desire.
Given a strong feeling of community can bring some benefits like retaining and increasing persistence in courses, increasing the flow of information among all learners, availability of support, commitment to group goals, cooperation among members, and satisfaction with group efforts. I agree with the author’s opinion because I believe deeply that technology should always come from humanity. There will be very much anxiety in distance programs, so building a community for learners to feel and satisfy their needs becomes crucial. Satisfy humanity first and then instructor can expect learners’ consistent dedicating to the distance programs.
The author also states that “sense of community” is mutual interdependence among members, sense of belonging, connectedness, spirit, trust, interactivity, common expectations, shared values and goals, and overlapping histories among members. To build and promote sense of community in distance programs, the author suggest instructors to consider factors such as transactional distance, social presence, social equality, small group activities, group facilitation, teaching style and learning stage, and community size.
In the second article I read, “Effective Virtual Teams through Communities of Practice”, Chris Kimble at al presents a framework for categorizing virtual teams and highlights some of the barriers to effective virtual team working and stress the importance of trust and social bonding improving the functioning of such teams. The authors first tell us different views at knowledge management (view knowledge management as opposites or a continuum), then define “virtual teams” as a micro-level form of matrix organization works toward a common goal usually, but not exclusively, using telecommunications and information systems. Later, in their first case study, they use ten different cases base upon different background countries to explore the concept and functioning of virtual teams. UK case is about a Computer Aided Software Engineering tool supplier and their main customer. “By providing a software tool to support remote tele-interactions between an expert and the client, the previous physical co-presence of these people is replaced by tele-mediated co-presence. In doing so, the geographical flexibility of the experts and the responsiveness of services have been improved significantly. This is especially so in urgent problem situations such as a system breakdown.”
I think those cases are valuable not only because evidence they gathered but also because their indicating of some common main technical and non-technical barriers to virtual teams.
In technical part-
1. The underdevelopment of a telecommunications infrastructure
2. The high cost using such services
3. Many existing ICTs have been developed for using in conventional
office environment
Non-technical part-
1. The constraints of time zones
2. Lack of non-verbal cues
3. Cultural differences between team members and problems of trust and
identity
Based on these barriers, design re-orientation of ICTs equivalent and systems, and develop new ways of sharing knowledge and understanding in the electronic space are suggested to do.
In the second case study, they find the importance of the physical space that sustains relationship through subsequent electronic communication. So they believe that Community of Practice enabled the physical and electronic space to be successfully integrated because trust and identity were built up through face-to-face communication in the physical environment, and carried over into the electronic space.
(PS. Community of Practice (CoP)- a set of relations among persons, activity and the world, over time and in relation with other tangential and overlapping communities of practice.)
The third article wrote by Ruth Brown (2001) also points out indispensability of existing of Community. Community meant, "support from people who share common joys and trials." Community-building referred to creating a sense of belonging, of continuity, of being connected to others and to ideas and value. Community of learners meant a group of people with "a shared purpose, good communication, and a climate with justice, discipline, caring, and occasions for celebration". It is especially unique that classify three levels of community, which are on-line acquaintances, community conferment, and camaraderie. There are some common rules whenever you are in a real community or effective virtual teams through Communities of Practice. It’s not a brand new idea, but there is just no one put this idea in advance into CoP.
From these articles, I realized that humanity should always be considered into design and application of learning and emerging technology because it is the substance of humans, and it is human nature. People need to communicate with others and live in a community like usual even if they are in a blended learning environment. So when designing these distant courses, it will be better to take electronic motivation, collaboration, and communities into consideration to deal with the shortage of distance learning and satisfy humanity. For example, ideas of collaboration platforms used as supporting environments addressed by one of the tidbits, Virtual Edge for Teams, might direct us one way of applications. “Where every team room follows the same consistent design principles and good practices, making it easy to go from room to room."
I am also glad that people are aware of these kinds of issues since if these continue to be valued, then there is no doubt that more people will want to learn from distance or online learning.
Reference:
Alfred Rovai (2002, April). Building Sense of Community at a Distance. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, Retrieved August 21, 2007, from http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/viewFile/79/153
Ruth Brown (2001). Process of Community-Building in Distance Learning Classes. Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, Volume 5, Issue 2. http://www.aln.org/publications/jaln/v5n2/v5n2_brown.asp
Chris Kimble, Feng Li, & Alexis Barlow (2000). Effective Virtual Teams through Communities of Practice. Management Science: Theory, Method, and Practice. http://econwpa.wustl.edu/eps/io/papers/0504/0504006.pdf and http://ideas.repec.org/p/wpa/wuwpio/0504006.html (abstract)
Virtual Edge for Teams: http://www.virtualteams.com/
Open Text Unveils Livelink virtualteams
http://www.opentext.com/news/pr.html?id=1224
For this week reading, first one is “Building Sense of Community at a Distance”. This article disproves believe of limitation of community to the traditional classroom and suggest that the virtual classroom has the potential to build and sustain sense of community at levels that are comparable to the traditional classroom. Alfred Rovai (2002, April) points out some reasons that dropout rates tend to be higher in distance education programs than in traditional face-to-face programs. I realize from the article that adult sometimes only register for a course in order to obtain knowledge, not credits, and may therefore drop the course once they obtain the knowledge they desire.
Given a strong feeling of community can bring some benefits like retaining and increasing persistence in courses, increasing the flow of information among all learners, availability of support, commitment to group goals, cooperation among members, and satisfaction with group efforts. I agree with the author’s opinion because I believe deeply that technology should always come from humanity. There will be very much anxiety in distance programs, so building a community for learners to feel and satisfy their needs becomes crucial. Satisfy humanity first and then instructor can expect learners’ consistent dedicating to the distance programs.
The author also states that “sense of community” is mutual interdependence among members, sense of belonging, connectedness, spirit, trust, interactivity, common expectations, shared values and goals, and overlapping histories among members. To build and promote sense of community in distance programs, the author suggest instructors to consider factors such as transactional distance, social presence, social equality, small group activities, group facilitation, teaching style and learning stage, and community size.
In the second article I read, “Effective Virtual Teams through Communities of Practice”, Chris Kimble at al presents a framework for categorizing virtual teams and highlights some of the barriers to effective virtual team working and stress the importance of trust and social bonding improving the functioning of such teams. The authors first tell us different views at knowledge management (view knowledge management as opposites or a continuum), then define “virtual teams” as a micro-level form of matrix organization works toward a common goal usually, but not exclusively, using telecommunications and information systems. Later, in their first case study, they use ten different cases base upon different background countries to explore the concept and functioning of virtual teams. UK case is about a Computer Aided Software Engineering tool supplier and their main customer. “By providing a software tool to support remote tele-interactions between an expert and the client, the previous physical co-presence of these people is replaced by tele-mediated co-presence. In doing so, the geographical flexibility of the experts and the responsiveness of services have been improved significantly. This is especially so in urgent problem situations such as a system breakdown.”
I think those cases are valuable not only because evidence they gathered but also because their indicating of some common main technical and non-technical barriers to virtual teams.
In technical part-
1. The underdevelopment of a telecommunications infrastructure
2. The high cost using such services
3. Many existing ICTs have been developed for using in conventional
office environment
Non-technical part-
1. The constraints of time zones
2. Lack of non-verbal cues
3. Cultural differences between team members and problems of trust and
identity
Based on these barriers, design re-orientation of ICTs equivalent and systems, and develop new ways of sharing knowledge and understanding in the electronic space are suggested to do.
In the second case study, they find the importance of the physical space that sustains relationship through subsequent electronic communication. So they believe that Community of Practice enabled the physical and electronic space to be successfully integrated because trust and identity were built up through face-to-face communication in the physical environment, and carried over into the electronic space.
(PS. Community of Practice (CoP)- a set of relations among persons, activity and the world, over time and in relation with other tangential and overlapping communities of practice.)
The third article wrote by Ruth Brown (2001) also points out indispensability of existing of Community. Community meant, "support from people who share common joys and trials." Community-building referred to creating a sense of belonging, of continuity, of being connected to others and to ideas and value. Community of learners meant a group of people with "a shared purpose, good communication, and a climate with justice, discipline, caring, and occasions for celebration". It is especially unique that classify three levels of community, which are on-line acquaintances, community conferment, and camaraderie. There are some common rules whenever you are in a real community or effective virtual teams through Communities of Practice. It’s not a brand new idea, but there is just no one put this idea in advance into CoP.
From these articles, I realized that humanity should always be considered into design and application of learning and emerging technology because it is the substance of humans, and it is human nature. People need to communicate with others and live in a community like usual even if they are in a blended learning environment. So when designing these distant courses, it will be better to take electronic motivation, collaboration, and communities into consideration to deal with the shortage of distance learning and satisfy humanity. For example, ideas of collaboration platforms used as supporting environments addressed by one of the tidbits, Virtual Edge for Teams, might direct us one way of applications. “Where every team room follows the same consistent design principles and good practices, making it easy to go from room to room."
I am also glad that people are aware of these kinds of issues since if these continue to be valued, then there is no doubt that more people will want to learn from distance or online learning.
Reference:
Alfred Rovai (2002, April). Building Sense of Community at a Distance. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, Retrieved August 21, 2007, from http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/viewFile/79/153
Ruth Brown (2001). Process of Community-Building in Distance Learning Classes. Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, Volume 5, Issue 2. http://www.aln.org/publications/jaln/v5n2/v5n2_brown.asp
Chris Kimble, Feng Li, & Alexis Barlow (2000). Effective Virtual Teams through Communities of Practice. Management Science: Theory, Method, and Practice. http://econwpa.wustl.edu/eps/io/papers/0504/0504006.pdf and http://ideas.repec.org/p/wpa/wuwpio/0504006.html (abstract)
Virtual Edge for Teams: http://www.virtualteams.com/
Open Text Unveils Livelink virtualteams
http://www.opentext.com/news/pr.html?id=1224
Week 10: Oct. 29th Online Interactivity, Engagement, and Social presence
For this week readings, Ms Swan’s paper, “Learning effectiveness online…” is particularly a good one that should not miss. She proves that there are differences between online learning and F2F learning. In her article, she spent a lot of space to talk about interaction with content, interaction with instructor, interaction with peers, and interface interaction by using various examples of online institutions or programs. She gathered models to study cognitive presence, social presence, and teaching presence. In the social presence, it’s very intriguing to see the finding, “when fewer affective communication channels are available to transmit immediacy via conventional vocal and non-verbal cues, participants in mediated communications will increase their verbal immediacy behaviors to the extent needed to preserve a sense of presence.” They argue that to maintain or restore equilibrium, learners will adjust each percentage of affective communication channel and verbal immediacy themselves. The other idea I remembered especially is vicarious interaction that plays a role as important as direct interaction in online learning. I never thought about its importance before and finally realized that developing something ignored by people or something we are unconscious about is worth and meaningful.
One of MBA study is about RTC's real-time. A real-time case interactivity allowed students to share their best thinking with the company leadership during the company’s decision-making process. It just likes a real world case study shifting to online. I understood a lot how it worked and what online learners think and feel through this paper. The reasons stated in this paper also gave me an overlook for why change from traditional case study. The Internet presents an opportunity to revamp the case method. It’s no doubt that the Internet provides students easy access to business news and information. It is also possible to provide the detail and background necessary for a well-informed decision analysis through Internet. Most important of all, students' expectations are changing. More students have work experience and expect a practical, realistic curriculum. Maybe this is why people nowadays tend to enroll in MBA online courses and it might be the answer to the question why everyone wants to have online MBA case study from 2005.
Dr. Bonk showed us a “Network Movie” made by Peter Finch. The actor shouted and aroused people who are listening to the channel to say with him, “I am mad as hell and I cannot stand it anymore” times after times. We shouted the sentence in the atrium as well. Cool~ I like that! People fear the new technology, television at that time (which is normally accepted nowadays) will occupy our live, and we will lost… I can understand the kind of feeling fearing changes and feeling uncertainty to every application of emerging technology. Applying my reflection to the movie, I should always keep in mind that remember to think about online interactivity, engagement, and social presence, thereby decrease distrust and uncertainty of online learners moving towards the future.
Reference:
Swan, K. (2003). Learning effectiveness online: What the research tell us. In J. Bourne, & J. C. Moore (Eds.). Elements of quality online education, Practice and direction. Sloan Center for Online Education, 13-45. http://www.kent.edu/rcet/Publications/upload/learning%20effectiveness4.pdf
Theroux, James, Carpenter, Cari, & Kilbane, Claire. (2004). Experimental online case study for a breakthrough in student engagement: Focus group results. Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, 8(3), retrieved July 1, 2007, from http://www.sloan-c.org/publications/jaln/v8n3/v8n3_theroux.asp
One of MBA study is about RTC's real-time. A real-time case interactivity allowed students to share their best thinking with the company leadership during the company’s decision-making process. It just likes a real world case study shifting to online. I understood a lot how it worked and what online learners think and feel through this paper. The reasons stated in this paper also gave me an overlook for why change from traditional case study. The Internet presents an opportunity to revamp the case method. It’s no doubt that the Internet provides students easy access to business news and information. It is also possible to provide the detail and background necessary for a well-informed decision analysis through Internet. Most important of all, students' expectations are changing. More students have work experience and expect a practical, realistic curriculum. Maybe this is why people nowadays tend to enroll in MBA online courses and it might be the answer to the question why everyone wants to have online MBA case study from 2005.
Dr. Bonk showed us a “Network Movie” made by Peter Finch. The actor shouted and aroused people who are listening to the channel to say with him, “I am mad as hell and I cannot stand it anymore” times after times. We shouted the sentence in the atrium as well. Cool~ I like that! People fear the new technology, television at that time (which is normally accepted nowadays) will occupy our live, and we will lost… I can understand the kind of feeling fearing changes and feeling uncertainty to every application of emerging technology. Applying my reflection to the movie, I should always keep in mind that remember to think about online interactivity, engagement, and social presence, thereby decrease distrust and uncertainty of online learners moving towards the future.
Reference:
Swan, K. (2003). Learning effectiveness online: What the research tell us. In J. Bourne, & J. C. Moore (Eds.). Elements of quality online education, Practice and direction. Sloan Center for Online Education, 13-45. http://www.kent.edu/rcet/Publications/upload/learning%20effectiveness4.pdf
Theroux, James, Carpenter, Cari, & Kilbane, Claire. (2004). Experimental online case study for a breakthrough in student engagement: Focus group results. Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, 8(3), retrieved July 1, 2007, from http://www.sloan-c.org/publications/jaln/v8n3/v8n3_theroux.asp
2007年11月14日 星期三
Week 8: Oct. 15th Open Educational Resources (OER)
This week, we talked a lot about what can be shared in Education? Our answers to this question including materials, reports, confidence and skills, tools and codes, ideas for future dreams, resources, expertise advisement. We also show sites we are interested in with our classmates to share open educational resources. In this process, we need to combine what we learned from the reading this week with experiences in researching open educational resources to think about why it is important to education. Geser, Guntram’s paper on Open educational Practices and Resources: OLCOS Roadmap 2012 provides an excited, comprehensive, and powerful message of the state of this field.
“The point of view of the publishers concentrates on the fact that the current educational framework (policy, curricula, classroom settings, assessment and certification schemes, etc.) leaves little rooms for the educational institutions, teachers and learners themselves to create and share teaching and learning content. For example, the European eLearning Industry Group (eLIG) writes: ‘Educators have long been presented by some as substitutes for publishers…’ ”I think it is a creative thinking and meaningful examination of current educational framework. However, I always heard teachers from K-12 in Taiwan complaining that they don’t have time to create materials or there is no the best way to gather open educational resources for their students. They thought that maybe there are so many open educational resources that they don’t know where to start. They hoped there comes a platform that combine and elaborate those OER very well. I know it is not the right time to consider this because OER is still blooming. But I still expect an organization could jump up and take care of this.
There is another interesting point about OCOL’s expectations. “OCOL expect that by 2012 a stronger shift towards e-learning will take place that will build on tools and services for collaboratively creating and sharing content while also drawing on many larger and smaller publicly funded educational and other e-content repositories, including offerings of private-public partnerships. It also expects the Creative Commons Licenses to become the leading standard for licensing creative works other than software. This will help greatly in taming the proliferation of open content licenses since the second half of the 1990s. From the many existing open Publication License, and so forth – only a few maybe used further by smaller groups of authors.” (http://support.creativecommons.org/videos)
Except for a traditional idea of copyright- all rights reserved, the Creative Comments Organization provides us a new idea- some rights reserved. With this new idea, we can facilitate our sharing, reusing, and remixing our publication and creation with a layer of reasonable copyright. When your intention shifts to equalizing the evaluation of innovation and protection, you may achieve your worthwhile goals in much more sharing but without too much regulation by adopting creative control- some rights reserved. I think it is a valuable concept but I doubt that how many people can take this, and how does “some rights reserved” work after all. There must come some legal issue following the idea of “some rights reserved” because the boundary becomes very vague. Only when people have an agreement on this new idea may they become comfortable and have trust in each other.
Following paragraphs are some collection from Roadmap 2012 www.olcos.org.
I hope it will help someone who is interested in OER.
Open e-Learning Content Observatory Services (OLCOS)
“OER is understood to comprise content for teaching and learning, software-based tools and services, and licenses that allow for open development and re-use of content, tools and services. Besides, OER is an important element of policies that leverage education and lifelong learning for the knowledge economy and society.”
“OLCOS emphasizes that it is crucial to promote innovation and change in educational practices.” In addition, it also warns that “delivering OER to the still dominant model of teacher centered knowledge transfer will have little effect on equipping teachers, students and workers with the competences, knowledge and skills to participate successfully in the knowledge economy and society.”
OLCOS stresses “the need to foster open practices of teaching and learning that are informed by a competency-based educational framework, shift towards such practices will only happen in the longer term in a step-by-step process, which will require targeted and sustained efforts by educational leaders at all levels.”
From the OLCOS’s points of views, there are some critical inhibitors to OER. First, “business models in OER will remain tricky. The right mix of income streams must be found, and there will be growing competition for scarce funding resources.” Second, “in order to see researchers and educators excel in OER, academic and educational institutions will need to implement appropriate mechanisms of recognition and reward.” Third, “regarding educational repositories at present there exists little experience in how to effectively support communities of practice, which is of critical importance if OER initiatives want to grow based on user contributions.”
But there are still some potential enablers to OER. “The urgency of the lifelong learning agenda in Europe and particularly welcome.” Besides, “whereas current OER initiatives focus mainly on providing access to static course material, a new generation of easy-to-use Web-based tools and services provides opportunities to offer beyond makes OER initiatives targeted at driving participation potentially more effective OER.” Last but not least, “for authors and institutions who wish to provide OER while retaining some copyrights, the set of Creative Commons licenses allows for doing so in an internationally standardized way.”
They concludes that“at the heart of the movement toward Open Educational Resources is the simple and powerful idea that the world’s knowledge is a public good and that technology in general and the Worldwide Web in particular provide an extraordinary opportunity for everyone to share, use, and re-use knowledge. OER are the parts of that knowledge that comprise the fundamental components of education –
content and tools for teaching, learning and research.”
“The point of view of the publishers concentrates on the fact that the current educational framework (policy, curricula, classroom settings, assessment and certification schemes, etc.) leaves little rooms for the educational institutions, teachers and learners themselves to create and share teaching and learning content. For example, the European eLearning Industry Group (eLIG) writes: ‘Educators have long been presented by some as substitutes for publishers…’ ”I think it is a creative thinking and meaningful examination of current educational framework. However, I always heard teachers from K-12 in Taiwan complaining that they don’t have time to create materials or there is no the best way to gather open educational resources for their students. They thought that maybe there are so many open educational resources that they don’t know where to start. They hoped there comes a platform that combine and elaborate those OER very well. I know it is not the right time to consider this because OER is still blooming. But I still expect an organization could jump up and take care of this.
There is another interesting point about OCOL’s expectations. “OCOL expect that by 2012 a stronger shift towards e-learning will take place that will build on tools and services for collaboratively creating and sharing content while also drawing on many larger and smaller publicly funded educational and other e-content repositories, including offerings of private-public partnerships. It also expects the Creative Commons Licenses to become the leading standard for licensing creative works other than software. This will help greatly in taming the proliferation of open content licenses since the second half of the 1990s. From the many existing open Publication License, and so forth – only a few maybe used further by smaller groups of authors.” (http://support.creativecommons.org/videos)
Except for a traditional idea of copyright- all rights reserved, the Creative Comments Organization provides us a new idea- some rights reserved. With this new idea, we can facilitate our sharing, reusing, and remixing our publication and creation with a layer of reasonable copyright. When your intention shifts to equalizing the evaluation of innovation and protection, you may achieve your worthwhile goals in much more sharing but without too much regulation by adopting creative control- some rights reserved. I think it is a valuable concept but I doubt that how many people can take this, and how does “some rights reserved” work after all. There must come some legal issue following the idea of “some rights reserved” because the boundary becomes very vague. Only when people have an agreement on this new idea may they become comfortable and have trust in each other.
Following paragraphs are some collection from Roadmap 2012 www.olcos.org.
I hope it will help someone who is interested in OER.
Open e-Learning Content Observatory Services (OLCOS)
“OER is understood to comprise content for teaching and learning, software-based tools and services, and licenses that allow for open development and re-use of content, tools and services. Besides, OER is an important element of policies that leverage education and lifelong learning for the knowledge economy and society.”
“OLCOS emphasizes that it is crucial to promote innovation and change in educational practices.” In addition, it also warns that “delivering OER to the still dominant model of teacher centered knowledge transfer will have little effect on equipping teachers, students and workers with the competences, knowledge and skills to participate successfully in the knowledge economy and society.”
OLCOS stresses “the need to foster open practices of teaching and learning that are informed by a competency-based educational framework, shift towards such practices will only happen in the longer term in a step-by-step process, which will require targeted and sustained efforts by educational leaders at all levels.”
From the OLCOS’s points of views, there are some critical inhibitors to OER. First, “business models in OER will remain tricky. The right mix of income streams must be found, and there will be growing competition for scarce funding resources.” Second, “in order to see researchers and educators excel in OER, academic and educational institutions will need to implement appropriate mechanisms of recognition and reward.” Third, “regarding educational repositories at present there exists little experience in how to effectively support communities of practice, which is of critical importance if OER initiatives want to grow based on user contributions.”
But there are still some potential enablers to OER. “The urgency of the lifelong learning agenda in Europe and particularly welcome.” Besides, “whereas current OER initiatives focus mainly on providing access to static course material, a new generation of easy-to-use Web-based tools and services provides opportunities to offer beyond makes OER initiatives targeted at driving participation potentially more effective OER.” Last but not least, “for authors and institutions who wish to provide OER while retaining some copyrights, the set of Creative Commons licenses allows for doing so in an internationally standardized way.”
They concludes that“at the heart of the movement toward Open Educational Resources is the simple and powerful idea that the world’s knowledge is a public good and that technology in general and the Worldwide Web in particular provide an extraordinary opportunity for everyone to share, use, and re-use knowledge. OER are the parts of that knowledge that comprise the fundamental components of education –
content and tools for teaching, learning and research.”
2007年11月5日 星期一
Week 9: Oct. 22rd Course Management 1.0 in a Web 2.0 and participatory e-Learning World
Web 1.0 brings people the capability to read, text, click and browse on Internet. It is characterized by instructor-centered and no interactive. Someone called it shuffle ware since it only change the way of layout, and people read information as they read from the book. There is no significant change happened upon the way of interaction. However, Web 2.0 is different. Providing characteristics of collaborative, learner-centered, shareable, creative, participatory, manipulated, adaptable, and and so forth so on. We also discussed the features of “individualization” in web 2.0. Compared to students in University of Pittsburg, we tend to focus on principle of individualized learning environment rather than practical tools. Quite interesting, one of these articles also described web 1.0 as a behavioral approach and web 2.0 as a cognitive approach.
It has been talking for a long time about the participatory e-learning world. People tend to feel excited especially when we see the future development of technology using in our learning environment. Not only do we expect a learning environment with multimedia to enrich our learning experiences, we also look for a learning environment filled with passion and enthusiasm.
Nowadays, we see the possibility of this dream coming true, but there are also some other problems and side-affect we should concern. First, technology helps people learn quickly, but it brings about distraction as well. Second, young generation may not know how to deal with people in the real world when spending such a long time in e-learning world. People feel comfortable when acting in a virtual world. It’s cool when role play in another person to the virtual world (simulation environment, the second life, etc.), but here gives an example, Chris might be my classmate for about a year, but I cannot even recognize him when I see him. But, I also have to agree that it’s a way to keep our busy live in an ordinary way. Last, but not least, technology makes it possible to complete things that cannot be done before, like join a virtual conversation in a simulated class, create and share experience online, edit and modify document in the same document everywhere and every time, and so forth so on. However, it also brings side effect like communication obstacles, because technology may distract our concentration. Communication obstacles happen when people think that they can do multiple things simultaneously with a protective screen of high technology.
This week we brought Youtube videos or web 2.0 tools to show in class. I picked up VoiceThread as my item and make a creation on it (see: my hometown Taiwan http://voicethread.com/#u14901.b13621.i85560). The first thing come up with me is that I can put my voice, my picture, and my story on it without complicated procedures like designing a professional script or scenario, finding actors and actresses, rehearsing for a show, and editing and rearranging the film. It’s a much easier way showing what you want to share with your friends, family, classmates, relatives, and teachers. It is a valid developed tools using in the education field for its convenience and elasticity of creating and collecting multiple resources.
I am also interested in Sharon’s third show in second life. Ohio University and Boise State University developed an immersive learning environment though it’s a recreated and reinvented creation. It’s cool to build a virtual classroom in second life. People can live, fly, think, learn, and develop useful and meaningful materials there with other classmates not tide to any places. I think the valuable point is that in second life, we can take good use our imagination. However, I am not so sure about the usability of the interface in second life classrooms. I can also see that the second life is some kind of controversial issue when viewing the comments on websites. In addition, series of common craft presents are intriguing to me as well. They show us the power of web 2.0 in a simple way. One of the youtube videos, “my kind of high school” is viewed as a revolution in education to me. In this process, students can experience problem-based learning by working with others. There is a problem-based school in California State; I heard that Indiana State would have one in the near future, too. However, I am thinking about is it appropriate to ignore skills and practicing of memorization because training our memory is also an important element constructing our learning ability.
Reference:
Carmean, C., & Haefner, J. (2003). Next-generation course management systems. EDUCAUSE Quarterly, 26(1)), pp. 10–13. Retrieved August 12, 2006, from http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/EQM0311.pdf
Alexander, Bryan (2006, March/April). Web 2.0: A new wave of innovation for teaching and learning? Educause Review, 41(2), 32-44. Retrieved July 9, 2007, from http://www.educause.edu/apps/er/erm06/erm0621.asp
Thompson, John (2007, April/May). Is education 1.0 ready for Web 2.0 students? Innovate Journal of Online Education, 3(4), Retrieved July 4, 2007, from http://www.innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=393
My Kind of High School (Project-based learning; Project Foundry): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZX1bv30rYIk
RSS in plain English: http://youtube.com/watch?v=0klgLsSxGsU
Wikis in plain English: http://youtube.com/watch?v=-dnL00TdmLY
Second life from Ohio University: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFuNFRie8wA
The Connected Future (Japan): NTT DoCoMo
partI-3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqFkQswOoTE&feature=PlayList&p=26850E72639F1547&index=0
Second life announcement from San Jose State:
http://chronicle.com/wiredcampus/index.php?id=2064 and
YouTube video.
Second Life from Case Western University
http://chronicle.com/weekly/v53/i37/37a02901.htm
Some Sample Web 2.0 tools and companies:
VoiceThread: http://voicethread.com/ (add audio to pictures)
SnapGenie: http://www.snapgenie.com/ (tell stories behind pictures)
Chinswing: http://www.chinswing.com/? (Constructive communication is the goal of this tool; converse with other people about different topics)
Scrapblog: http://scrapblog.com/(create a scrapbook of pictures.)
Dotsub: http://www.dotsub.com/ (to create subtitling text in online videos and films).
YackPack: http://www.yackpack.com/ (email an audio file)
It has been talking for a long time about the participatory e-learning world. People tend to feel excited especially when we see the future development of technology using in our learning environment. Not only do we expect a learning environment with multimedia to enrich our learning experiences, we also look for a learning environment filled with passion and enthusiasm.
Nowadays, we see the possibility of this dream coming true, but there are also some other problems and side-affect we should concern. First, technology helps people learn quickly, but it brings about distraction as well. Second, young generation may not know how to deal with people in the real world when spending such a long time in e-learning world. People feel comfortable when acting in a virtual world. It’s cool when role play in another person to the virtual world (simulation environment, the second life, etc.), but here gives an example, Chris might be my classmate for about a year, but I cannot even recognize him when I see him. But, I also have to agree that it’s a way to keep our busy live in an ordinary way. Last, but not least, technology makes it possible to complete things that cannot be done before, like join a virtual conversation in a simulated class, create and share experience online, edit and modify document in the same document everywhere and every time, and so forth so on. However, it also brings side effect like communication obstacles, because technology may distract our concentration. Communication obstacles happen when people think that they can do multiple things simultaneously with a protective screen of high technology.
This week we brought Youtube videos or web 2.0 tools to show in class. I picked up VoiceThread as my item and make a creation on it (see: my hometown Taiwan http://voicethread.com/#u14901.b13621.i85560). The first thing come up with me is that I can put my voice, my picture, and my story on it without complicated procedures like designing a professional script or scenario, finding actors and actresses, rehearsing for a show, and editing and rearranging the film. It’s a much easier way showing what you want to share with your friends, family, classmates, relatives, and teachers. It is a valid developed tools using in the education field for its convenience and elasticity of creating and collecting multiple resources.
I am also interested in Sharon’s third show in second life. Ohio University and Boise State University developed an immersive learning environment though it’s a recreated and reinvented creation. It’s cool to build a virtual classroom in second life. People can live, fly, think, learn, and develop useful and meaningful materials there with other classmates not tide to any places. I think the valuable point is that in second life, we can take good use our imagination. However, I am not so sure about the usability of the interface in second life classrooms. I can also see that the second life is some kind of controversial issue when viewing the comments on websites. In addition, series of common craft presents are intriguing to me as well. They show us the power of web 2.0 in a simple way. One of the youtube videos, “my kind of high school” is viewed as a revolution in education to me. In this process, students can experience problem-based learning by working with others. There is a problem-based school in California State; I heard that Indiana State would have one in the near future, too. However, I am thinking about is it appropriate to ignore skills and practicing of memorization because training our memory is also an important element constructing our learning ability.
Reference:
Carmean, C., & Haefner, J. (2003). Next-generation course management systems. EDUCAUSE Quarterly, 26(1)), pp. 10–13. Retrieved August 12, 2006, from http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/EQM0311.pdf
Alexander, Bryan (2006, March/April). Web 2.0: A new wave of innovation for teaching and learning? Educause Review, 41(2), 32-44. Retrieved July 9, 2007, from http://www.educause.edu/apps/er/erm06/erm0621.asp
Thompson, John (2007, April/May). Is education 1.0 ready for Web 2.0 students? Innovate Journal of Online Education, 3(4), Retrieved July 4, 2007, from http://www.innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=393
My Kind of High School (Project-based learning; Project Foundry): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZX1bv30rYIk
RSS in plain English: http://youtube.com/watch?v=0klgLsSxGsU
Wikis in plain English: http://youtube.com/watch?v=-dnL00TdmLY
Second life from Ohio University: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFuNFRie8wA
The Connected Future (Japan): NTT DoCoMo
partI-3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqFkQswOoTE&feature=PlayList&p=26850E72639F1547&index=0
Second life announcement from San Jose State:
http://chronicle.com/wiredcampus/index.php?id=2064 and
YouTube video.
Second Life from Case Western University
http://chronicle.com/weekly/v53/i37/37a02901.htm
Some Sample Web 2.0 tools and companies:
VoiceThread: http://voicethread.com/ (add audio to pictures)
SnapGenie: http://www.snapgenie.com/ (tell stories behind pictures)
Chinswing: http://www.chinswing.com/? (Constructive communication is the goal of this tool; converse with other people about different topics)
Scrapblog: http://scrapblog.com/(create a scrapbook of pictures.)
Dotsub: http://www.dotsub.com/ (to create subtitling text in online videos and films).
YackPack: http://www.yackpack.com/ (email an audio file)
Week 7: Oct. 8th Open source selections
This week, we held a mini-conference on Open Source Software. There was one person I would like to mention especially, this person was Chris. Yes, I was amazed by his presenting different roles (three researchers and one moderator). He really did a great job!
I, as a researcher from China, Guohua Pan, Dr. Bonk (presenting himself), and Nunthika (presenting Curt Bonk) were the speakers in Conference Session #3, The Movement of Open Source from North America to China. Chris was the Moderator of this session. This experience is really like opening a Pandora’s box to me. Presenting a researcher is totally new; responding to questions and communicating with each other are new as well.
To tell the truth, because it was my second month in America, I could hardly imagine that I would be able to perform well in this kind of topic seminar (a simulated seminar). What I could do was to do my best. When I found that I couldn’t use 4 to 5 minutes to summarize my article, I felt nervous since that meant the only chance to let others understand was through answering questions. In this experience, I understood following things. First, as a researcher, I should always be responsible to the definition of the theme of my article. Although Pan’s paper was not a technical one, I believed that he knows how to define Open Source Software very well. Second, it’s a little bit hard for me to differentiate by those similar sounds words. I heard the question is “What do you do find open-source?” But actually, Chris asked me about “What do you define open-source?” It was believed that listening a lot from idioms and slams may help me differentiate those similar sounds. Third, the best way to perform well in seminar would be absorbing articles and conveying them in my words.
To some extent, I believe that planning of development and construction led by government is good especially when strength or resources of the market are not sufficient enough. Besides, constructing a platform by government might help stakeholders gather their human brains to perform well and avoid time wasting on compromising with others especially when the external environment like the standardization and regulations are not structured well. Samsung Inc. is a good example. “South Korean President, Park Chung-Hee’s regime during the 1960s and 1970s helped Samsung Electronics and many other Korean firms…His government banned several exterior companies selling consumer electronics in South Korea.” (wikipedia: Samsung Group) “To make up for a lack of technological expertise in South Korea, the South Korean government effectively required foreign telecommunications equipment manufacturers to hand over advanced semiconductor technology in return for access to the Korean market.” (Samsung Electronics)
The development of Open Source Software is exactly similar as Samsung group’s development in China. China has millions of brilliant human brains working together on improving Open Source Software. But in my observation, due to the regulations of information conveyance and delivering, people in China strived for a platform to freely organize their intelligence. Chinese Government plays an important and controlling role both in the progress of democracy and developing industry. Pan stated “Open Source Software is also viewed as an opportunity for China to utilize millions of talented individuals in its quests to develop it own brand of copyrighted software to combat the monopoly of Microsoft in China’s software market.” “The Chinese government’s enthusiasm for open source software is based on reasons of lower cost since no requiring licenses, and benefits to the local industry and higher education. (Guohua Pan, 2007) (I dismissed the third reason stated in the paper. It was intriguing to see descriptions about some kinds of country ideology in a technological or scientific academic paper. May be because it was published in China and it might be needed to try to obtain Chinese Government’s good feeling.) “The open-source software development did not find its way into China until 1999 when Red Flag Software Corporation released Red Flag Linux 1.0.” “The success of open-source software in China is closely linked to a Linux operating system branded under the Red Flag name developed and distributed at the software Research Institute of Chinese Academy of Sciences.” I was interested in how and why Red Flag Software Corporation would release Red Flag Linux 1.0 in 1999 even though it might be thought as a political issue. I believed that various culture, political situation, and social development affecting different developmental ways in every specific sphere. We may wait and see the potential and enormous demands for online learning in China through open-source software.
It was also worth to mention that the “Free software Song” brought by Evern. I love the song so much and that day was the happiest day I guess. I can nearly see the innovation of Hippies by that song. It also needed to put my praise on Dr. Kim’s presentation on “In Praise of Sharing” because I can see his preparation and determination on it. I understood the difference between copyright and copyleft that is based on the relatively new view, the pure property emphasizing the essentiality of sharing (software). Though it was apparent that there is some problem of pure property in Higher Education setting, James L. Hilton, the author of this paper still suggest to activate file sharing. Here is a good quote, “Colleges and Universities will thrive to the extent that they foster innovation and the free exchange of ideas. If we want to preserve innovation, we have to begin asking how we can share, rather than how we can protect.” Toru Iiyoshu at al also stated a logical extension about sharing makes learning visible. For owning those open-source software nowadays, I really want to appreciate the Founders of Open Source. This week’s themes are a kaleidoscope of gorgeous perspectives that is really interesting to me!
Reference:
Pan, G., & Bonk, C. J. (2007, March). The Emergence of Open-Source Software, Part II: China. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning. 8(1). See http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/331/762; special issue on the “Changing Faces of Open and Distance Learning in Asia” is found at http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/
Pan, G., & Bonk, C. J. (2007, September). The Emergence of Open-Source Software, Part I: North America. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning. 8(3). See http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/issue/view/26
Pan, G., & Bonk, C. J. (2007). A socio-cultural perspective on free and open source software. International Journal of Instructional Technology and Distance Learning. See http://www.itdl.org/Journal/Apr_07/article01.htm
Iiyoshi, T., Richardson, C., & McGrath, O. (2006). Harnessing open technologies to promote open educational knowledge sharing. Innovate 3 (1). Retrieved October 19, 2006, from http://www.innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=339
Hilton, J. L. (2005). In praise of sharing. EDUCAUSE Review, 40(3), 72-73. Also available at: http://www.educause.edu/apps/er/erm05/erm053.asp
Samsung Group, Retrieved Oct.15, 2007 from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsung
I, as a researcher from China, Guohua Pan, Dr. Bonk (presenting himself), and Nunthika (presenting Curt Bonk) were the speakers in Conference Session #3, The Movement of Open Source from North America to China. Chris was the Moderator of this session. This experience is really like opening a Pandora’s box to me. Presenting a researcher is totally new; responding to questions and communicating with each other are new as well.
To tell the truth, because it was my second month in America, I could hardly imagine that I would be able to perform well in this kind of topic seminar (a simulated seminar). What I could do was to do my best. When I found that I couldn’t use 4 to 5 minutes to summarize my article, I felt nervous since that meant the only chance to let others understand was through answering questions. In this experience, I understood following things. First, as a researcher, I should always be responsible to the definition of the theme of my article. Although Pan’s paper was not a technical one, I believed that he knows how to define Open Source Software very well. Second, it’s a little bit hard for me to differentiate by those similar sounds words. I heard the question is “What do you do find open-source?” But actually, Chris asked me about “What do you define open-source?” It was believed that listening a lot from idioms and slams may help me differentiate those similar sounds. Third, the best way to perform well in seminar would be absorbing articles and conveying them in my words.
To some extent, I believe that planning of development and construction led by government is good especially when strength or resources of the market are not sufficient enough. Besides, constructing a platform by government might help stakeholders gather their human brains to perform well and avoid time wasting on compromising with others especially when the external environment like the standardization and regulations are not structured well. Samsung Inc. is a good example. “South Korean President, Park Chung-Hee’s regime during the 1960s and 1970s helped Samsung Electronics and many other Korean firms…His government banned several exterior companies selling consumer electronics in South Korea.” (wikipedia: Samsung Group) “To make up for a lack of technological expertise in South Korea, the South Korean government effectively required foreign telecommunications equipment manufacturers to hand over advanced semiconductor technology in return for access to the Korean market.” (Samsung Electronics)
The development of Open Source Software is exactly similar as Samsung group’s development in China. China has millions of brilliant human brains working together on improving Open Source Software. But in my observation, due to the regulations of information conveyance and delivering, people in China strived for a platform to freely organize their intelligence. Chinese Government plays an important and controlling role both in the progress of democracy and developing industry. Pan stated “Open Source Software is also viewed as an opportunity for China to utilize millions of talented individuals in its quests to develop it own brand of copyrighted software to combat the monopoly of Microsoft in China’s software market.” “The Chinese government’s enthusiasm for open source software is based on reasons of lower cost since no requiring licenses, and benefits to the local industry and higher education. (Guohua Pan, 2007) (I dismissed the third reason stated in the paper. It was intriguing to see descriptions about some kinds of country ideology in a technological or scientific academic paper. May be because it was published in China and it might be needed to try to obtain Chinese Government’s good feeling.) “The open-source software development did not find its way into China until 1999 when Red Flag Software Corporation released Red Flag Linux 1.0.” “The success of open-source software in China is closely linked to a Linux operating system branded under the Red Flag name developed and distributed at the software Research Institute of Chinese Academy of Sciences.” I was interested in how and why Red Flag Software Corporation would release Red Flag Linux 1.0 in 1999 even though it might be thought as a political issue. I believed that various culture, political situation, and social development affecting different developmental ways in every specific sphere. We may wait and see the potential and enormous demands for online learning in China through open-source software.
It was also worth to mention that the “Free software Song” brought by Evern. I love the song so much and that day was the happiest day I guess. I can nearly see the innovation of Hippies by that song. It also needed to put my praise on Dr. Kim’s presentation on “In Praise of Sharing” because I can see his preparation and determination on it. I understood the difference between copyright and copyleft that is based on the relatively new view, the pure property emphasizing the essentiality of sharing (software). Though it was apparent that there is some problem of pure property in Higher Education setting, James L. Hilton, the author of this paper still suggest to activate file sharing. Here is a good quote, “Colleges and Universities will thrive to the extent that they foster innovation and the free exchange of ideas. If we want to preserve innovation, we have to begin asking how we can share, rather than how we can protect.” Toru Iiyoshu at al also stated a logical extension about sharing makes learning visible. For owning those open-source software nowadays, I really want to appreciate the Founders of Open Source. This week’s themes are a kaleidoscope of gorgeous perspectives that is really interesting to me!
Reference:
Pan, G., & Bonk, C. J. (2007, March). The Emergence of Open-Source Software, Part II: China. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning. 8(1). See http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/331/762; special issue on the “Changing Faces of Open and Distance Learning in Asia” is found at http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/
Pan, G., & Bonk, C. J. (2007, September). The Emergence of Open-Source Software, Part I: North America. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning. 8(3). See http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/issue/view/26
Pan, G., & Bonk, C. J. (2007). A socio-cultural perspective on free and open source software. International Journal of Instructional Technology and Distance Learning. See http://www.itdl.org/Journal/Apr_07/article01.htm
Iiyoshi, T., Richardson, C., & McGrath, O. (2006). Harnessing open technologies to promote open educational knowledge sharing. Innovate 3 (1). Retrieved October 19, 2006, from http://www.innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=339
Hilton, J. L. (2005). In praise of sharing. EDUCAUSE Review, 40(3), 72-73. Also available at: http://www.educause.edu/apps/er/erm05/erm053.asp
Samsung Group, Retrieved Oct.15, 2007 from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsung
2007年10月22日 星期一
Week 6: Oct. 1st: Neo Millennial and Web2.0 Learners-CITI Score Debate Panel
This week, we need to recommend one person to represent our group to debate on the CITI Panel. We need to discuss the most Controversial points, the most Interesting points, the Technology fact points, and the most Important points. After discussion and idea exchange through email, our group proudly recommends Sharon to be our debater for the “Planning for neomillennial styles” article. Actually, everyone did a great job.
This panel consisted of different perspectives on Neo Millennial and Web2.0. This include employers’ perspective on basic knowledge and applicable skills for new entrants to the 21st century U.S. workforce, simulations of implications for investments in technology and faculty, opinions from K-12 educators, and a general perspective of literacy in the 21st century. Each aspect has a focus and way of thinking.
One of these aspects was mentioned from Chris Dede. He has a website that includes video clips of his MUVE, River City. The URL for the site is as following:
http://muve.gse.harvard.edu/rivercityproject/view/rc_videos.html.
The Introduction and Tour of River City clips describe River City and what students are expected to do in the simulation world.
I collected some controversial points and listed them below (words in italic type are my thoughts):
• Neomillennial learning styles – Are they really learning styles or are they merely “different strengths for learning”?
• On page 10 of my printout, Dede indicates that some of the shifts (technological and personal/professional development) are “controversial for many faculty because they involve ‘unlearning’ almost unconscious beliefs, assumptions, and values about the nature of teaching, learning, and the academy.”
• Dede states that situated learning is a “powerful pedagogy” that enables students to transfer their knowledge about one situation to another. In today’s No Child Left Behind system, though, is it possible for teachers to incorporate situated learning activities into the curriculum?
• Dede states that situated learning is used much less for instruction than behavioral or cognitive approaches that is because creating tacit, relatively unstructured learning in complex real-world settings is difficult. Though it seems that situated learning can contribute to more “transfer” than conventional instruction, situated learning is still a simulation ultimately, and it is not the real world. So could we successfully replicate contexts in the real world of behaviors in simulated environment? How could we compare these two things?
Important Points
• In immersive environments, students feel invested in the situation and motivated to solve the problem.
• Dede argues that “students were most effective in learning and problem-solving when they collectively sought, sieved, and synthesized experiences rather than individually locating and absorbing information from some single best source” (p. 6).
• Table 1 on page 8 outlines the benefits of learning styles enhanced by mediated immersion in distributed learning communities. Examples include fluency in multimedia and active learning, just to name a few.
• Faculty will increasingly need capabilities in: co-design, co-instruction, guide social constructivist and situated learning pedagogies, and assessment beyond tests and papers.
• On page 3, Dede states that situated learning is important in part because of the crucial issue of “transfer”. Learning in well-designed digital contexts can lead to the real world replication of behaviors successful in simulated environments.
By reviewing the questions raised in class, such as “Is this generation ready to work?”, “What do educators can do?”, and “The most important and controversial points are?”, I could conclude that teachers should provide enough commission to help students learn how to adapt in the real world. Besides, encouraging students to work with others and talk about things on their own is also important. It is worth to provide social tools and educational games, and design situated learning for students, though it is time consuming and may cost a lot. No child left behind is still the backbone of the age of Neo Millennial and Web2.0, so all of us as educators should try hard to incorporate technology in our classrooms because today’s children are accustomed to a high-tech world (i.e. Ipods and playstation). Last, Dr. Bonk’s lectures on next Generation, Millennial, and New Millennial students, learning style-R2D2 (Read, Reflect, Display and Do), etc. help us quickly review these issues. Among these issues, I particularly agree with the finding of next generation has characteristics that own rapid-fire information consumption capability, can’t concentrate on things, and that view their job environment as a place to grow. Interesting, I also found these characteristics on me.
This panel consisted of different perspectives on Neo Millennial and Web2.0. This include employers’ perspective on basic knowledge and applicable skills for new entrants to the 21st century U.S. workforce, simulations of implications for investments in technology and faculty, opinions from K-12 educators, and a general perspective of literacy in the 21st century. Each aspect has a focus and way of thinking.
One of these aspects was mentioned from Chris Dede. He has a website that includes video clips of his MUVE, River City. The URL for the site is as following:
http://muve.gse.harvard.edu/rivercityproject/view/rc_videos.html.
The Introduction and Tour of River City clips describe River City and what students are expected to do in the simulation world.
I collected some controversial points and listed them below (words in italic type are my thoughts):
• Neomillennial learning styles – Are they really learning styles or are they merely “different strengths for learning”?
• On page 10 of my printout, Dede indicates that some of the shifts (technological and personal/professional development) are “controversial for many faculty because they involve ‘unlearning’ almost unconscious beliefs, assumptions, and values about the nature of teaching, learning, and the academy.”
• Dede states that situated learning is a “powerful pedagogy” that enables students to transfer their knowledge about one situation to another. In today’s No Child Left Behind system, though, is it possible for teachers to incorporate situated learning activities into the curriculum?
• Dede states that situated learning is used much less for instruction than behavioral or cognitive approaches that is because creating tacit, relatively unstructured learning in complex real-world settings is difficult. Though it seems that situated learning can contribute to more “transfer” than conventional instruction, situated learning is still a simulation ultimately, and it is not the real world. So could we successfully replicate contexts in the real world of behaviors in simulated environment? How could we compare these two things?
Important Points
• In immersive environments, students feel invested in the situation and motivated to solve the problem.
• Dede argues that “students were most effective in learning and problem-solving when they collectively sought, sieved, and synthesized experiences rather than individually locating and absorbing information from some single best source” (p. 6).
• Table 1 on page 8 outlines the benefits of learning styles enhanced by mediated immersion in distributed learning communities. Examples include fluency in multimedia and active learning, just to name a few.
• Faculty will increasingly need capabilities in: co-design, co-instruction, guide social constructivist and situated learning pedagogies, and assessment beyond tests and papers.
• On page 3, Dede states that situated learning is important in part because of the crucial issue of “transfer”. Learning in well-designed digital contexts can lead to the real world replication of behaviors successful in simulated environments.
By reviewing the questions raised in class, such as “Is this generation ready to work?”, “What do educators can do?”, and “The most important and controversial points are?”, I could conclude that teachers should provide enough commission to help students learn how to adapt in the real world. Besides, encouraging students to work with others and talk about things on their own is also important. It is worth to provide social tools and educational games, and design situated learning for students, though it is time consuming and may cost a lot. No child left behind is still the backbone of the age of Neo Millennial and Web2.0, so all of us as educators should try hard to incorporate technology in our classrooms because today’s children are accustomed to a high-tech world (i.e. Ipods and playstation). Last, Dr. Bonk’s lectures on next Generation, Millennial, and New Millennial students, learning style-R2D2 (Read, Reflect, Display and Do), etc. help us quickly review these issues. Among these issues, I particularly agree with the finding of next generation has characteristics that own rapid-fire information consumption capability, can’t concentrate on things, and that view their job environment as a place to grow. Interesting, I also found these characteristics on me.
2007年10月11日 星期四
Week 5: Sep. 24th New Learner Roles: Expectations, Issues, Dilemmas, and Resolutions
Today, we continue Bonk’s Bingo game. Dr. Bonk has lots of ideas and tactics to arouse learners’ interests. After five weeks o the fifth week in his class, I realized how various pedagogical tactics could be used in college classrooms. By playing the bingo game, we know a lot of online instructors and have gained some clues for future research. Among all of the instructors, I am interested in following areas from a few people:
After Bonk Bingo, we went to Computer Lab to explore students’ readiness checklists about how it would change with the Web2.0, and look for some resources or screening mechanisms. Someone’s checklist really impressed me because of his or her innovation in creating well-organized and logical synthesis. This brainstorm of ideas to New Web2.0 readiness checklist is also prepared for the next week topic- Neo Millennial and Web2.0 Learners.
Again, I did not notice of the 8th note on the Week 5 Agenda sheet. After I had the experiences of missing some indications on the sheet twice over, I knew I should pay more attention on those words now. I put my thinking about the digital learning skills of 21st century.
1. Sharing
2. Creativity
3. Risk taking
4. Curiosity
5. Exploring and grasping resources effectively
6. Decision making and accountability
7. Adaptability
8. Interactive communication
9. Interpersonal skill
10. Plan and management skill
11. Self-direction
Some of the above ideas were founded in the below source:
http://www.ncrel.org/engauge/skills/skills.htm
This URL is rich in information. After visiting this website, I realize that 21st digital learning skill- information literacy is indeed an issue we should care about and it has been cared about for a long time.
Also, I have some thoughts about information literacy based on the Tidbit Dr. Bonk provides us this week. I think that the trying to measure students’ "information literacy" by New ETS exam is valuable. Basically, next generation of students in digital learning age are tech-savvy, but they usually don’t know how to identify those information useful or useless. Nowadays, the focus on information literacy is "not so much that I have to learn everything there is to learn, but now I need to learn how to find what I need to know." However, just like what has been stated on the website, “while everyone agrees it's important to have, it also is difficult to measure.”
I’m interested in how did they measure in particular. As a foreigner who experienced the reform of TOEFL held by ETS, I know there must some excellent findings about the shortage of original Computer Based Test. Those who work for ETS try to design a new version of Internet Based Test with sort of changes in content such as the “speaking part” that try to solve the problem of international students’ inability to speak up. It also condenses the “grammar part” into listening, speaking, reading and writing parts. It does not only react the trends to take online technology into consideration but also mean that literacy does matter.
Before looking at the findings in information literacy, let’s see what seven core skills in that test are. They are defining, accessing, managing, integrating, evaluating, creating and communicating information. The result presents like what I think, students don’t know how to evaluate tons of resources and make their choices.
Sometimes they absorb information without thinking before. As a result, teaching students how to evaluate tend to be more important than before.
Reference:
http://www.boston.com/news/education/k_12/articles/2006/02/02/new_ets_exam_tries_to_measure_students_information_literacy/
After Bonk Bingo, we went to Computer Lab to explore students’ readiness checklists about how it would change with the Web2.0, and look for some resources or screening mechanisms. Someone’s checklist really impressed me because of his or her innovation in creating well-organized and logical synthesis. This brainstorm of ideas to New Web2.0 readiness checklist is also prepared for the next week topic- Neo Millennial and Web2.0 Learners.
Again, I did not notice of the 8th note on the Week 5 Agenda sheet. After I had the experiences of missing some indications on the sheet twice over, I knew I should pay more attention on those words now. I put my thinking about the digital learning skills of 21st century.
1. Sharing
2. Creativity
3. Risk taking
4. Curiosity
5. Exploring and grasping resources effectively
6. Decision making and accountability
7. Adaptability
8. Interactive communication
9. Interpersonal skill
10. Plan and management skill
11. Self-direction
Some of the above ideas were founded in the below source:
http://www.ncrel.org/engauge/skills/skills.htm
This URL is rich in information. After visiting this website, I realize that 21st digital learning skill- information literacy is indeed an issue we should care about and it has been cared about for a long time.
Also, I have some thoughts about information literacy based on the Tidbit Dr. Bonk provides us this week. I think that the trying to measure students’ "information literacy" by New ETS exam is valuable. Basically, next generation of students in digital learning age are tech-savvy, but they usually don’t know how to identify those information useful or useless. Nowadays, the focus on information literacy is "not so much that I have to learn everything there is to learn, but now I need to learn how to find what I need to know." However, just like what has been stated on the website, “while everyone agrees it's important to have, it also is difficult to measure.”
I’m interested in how did they measure in particular. As a foreigner who experienced the reform of TOEFL held by ETS, I know there must some excellent findings about the shortage of original Computer Based Test. Those who work for ETS try to design a new version of Internet Based Test with sort of changes in content such as the “speaking part” that try to solve the problem of international students’ inability to speak up. It also condenses the “grammar part” into listening, speaking, reading and writing parts. It does not only react the trends to take online technology into consideration but also mean that literacy does matter.
Before looking at the findings in information literacy, let’s see what seven core skills in that test are. They are defining, accessing, managing, integrating, evaluating, creating and communicating information. The result presents like what I think, students don’t know how to evaluate tons of resources and make their choices.
Sometimes they absorb information without thinking before. As a result, teaching students how to evaluate tend to be more important than before.
Reference:
http://www.boston.com/news/education/k_12/articles/2006/02/02/new_ets_exam_tries_to_measure_students_information_literacy/
Week 4: Sep. 17th I-RISE Class Colloquium
Week 4: Sep. 17th I-RISE Class Colloquium
Since I cannot listen to the teacher and glance at the Week 4 Agenda at the same time, I did not notice the direction -“Anyone who is a trader must become the leader of that group”, so I stupidly said that I want trading. It is tough for me to present for 5 minutes in English especially when I am so nervous. But I appreciate my group partners’ support and their giving me ideas and confidence at that time. Thanks to my classmates for listening to my presentation even though it was without structure as well. Actually, in my mind, I would like to say: “no, give me a break. Please” However, I did not say that because I know it is a challenge that I need to take. If I want to change, I need to change now.
According to the one of the articles I read about-“What Do Online MBA Professors Have to Say About Online Teaching” and “Motivation & Incentives for Distance Faculty”, the content of “Incentives to Teach Online (I)”are organized and listed below:
1. Flexible contents- teachers can get ideas from different perspectives of cultures so that they can create great systems.
2. Flexible schedules- Teachers can provide more options to facilitate online learning. Information can be expanded, updated, and corrected quickly, and distributed immediately.
3. Flexible location- online teaching can happen in hotels, conferences, and different countries.
4. Greater flexibility in “Assessment”- online teaching provides more flexibility in evaluation using different methods like blogging, wikibook, on course discussion and googlegroup.
5. Intellectual challenge- online teaching provides the desire to improve the learning environment and uses different skills for teaching online, helping students learn more and getting to know students better.
6. An extrinsic incentive is monetary stipends- the more enrollments, the more money and control.
7. Possible research publication
8. Sense of empowerment
9. Wider and varied audience- to teach online: usability increases and recognition as a professor increases.
10. Self-motivated and self-satisfaction- online teaching enhances personal growth; online students were highly engaged and self-motivated in the learning process. “Put in another interviewee’s words, ‘their level of motivation helped keep my level of motivation high.”
All in all, I think that the most important factor in incentives is the flexibility of all dimensions. I also believe that the issue of incentives is most important to teach online. Other issues like “online instructor roles”, “training”, and “support” are also important issues in different articles. However, for teachers, the internal and external incentives provided by online teaching are vital, especially for those incentives that we don’t even feel about and find out.
When we find out those incentives in online teaching, we then can build a platform that can accumulate findings. Incentives are something like the stimuli we are talking about in the Behaviorism. It is natural that when we want to learn, we will be willing to learn. Similarly, if we want to teach, we will be willing to teach. After we teach, we will find more things that we don’t know and want to know, and that we should teach and want to teach; then accumulation happens. Incentives produce stimuli that generate accumulation, which affect human progress in online teaching.
What I found interesting is the charter given by Genevieve Bell, a cultural anthropologist at Intel. She stated that, “At Intel, my charter is pretty simple and straightforward: provide insights and inspire innovation.” I think insights and innovation are crucial in educated progress as well. To broaden and deepen the understanding and innovation of online learning – incentive is the key! When we find out more incentives, there will be more inspiration and possibilities in online teaching. So, we should care about how people learn and teach, how people want to learn and teach, about what matters to them; we strive to understand how technologies are used, understood, and imagined in online learning around the world. That is why issues of incentives play an important role in online teaching.
When Bonk’s presentation on online instructor roles began, I could finally take a deep breath and feel calm again. Speaking up is really a big challenge for me. I Hope that my failing spirits revived!
Since I cannot listen to the teacher and glance at the Week 4 Agenda at the same time, I did not notice the direction -“Anyone who is a trader must become the leader of that group”, so I stupidly said that I want trading. It is tough for me to present for 5 minutes in English especially when I am so nervous. But I appreciate my group partners’ support and their giving me ideas and confidence at that time. Thanks to my classmates for listening to my presentation even though it was without structure as well. Actually, in my mind, I would like to say: “no, give me a break. Please” However, I did not say that because I know it is a challenge that I need to take. If I want to change, I need to change now.
According to the one of the articles I read about-“What Do Online MBA Professors Have to Say About Online Teaching” and “Motivation & Incentives for Distance Faculty”, the content of “Incentives to Teach Online (I)”are organized and listed below:
1. Flexible contents- teachers can get ideas from different perspectives of cultures so that they can create great systems.
2. Flexible schedules- Teachers can provide more options to facilitate online learning. Information can be expanded, updated, and corrected quickly, and distributed immediately.
3. Flexible location- online teaching can happen in hotels, conferences, and different countries.
4. Greater flexibility in “Assessment”- online teaching provides more flexibility in evaluation using different methods like blogging, wikibook, on course discussion and googlegroup.
5. Intellectual challenge- online teaching provides the desire to improve the learning environment and uses different skills for teaching online, helping students learn more and getting to know students better.
6. An extrinsic incentive is monetary stipends- the more enrollments, the more money and control.
7. Possible research publication
8. Sense of empowerment
9. Wider and varied audience- to teach online: usability increases and recognition as a professor increases.
10. Self-motivated and self-satisfaction- online teaching enhances personal growth; online students were highly engaged and self-motivated in the learning process. “Put in another interviewee’s words, ‘their level of motivation helped keep my level of motivation high.”
All in all, I think that the most important factor in incentives is the flexibility of all dimensions. I also believe that the issue of incentives is most important to teach online. Other issues like “online instructor roles”, “training”, and “support” are also important issues in different articles. However, for teachers, the internal and external incentives provided by online teaching are vital, especially for those incentives that we don’t even feel about and find out.
When we find out those incentives in online teaching, we then can build a platform that can accumulate findings. Incentives are something like the stimuli we are talking about in the Behaviorism. It is natural that when we want to learn, we will be willing to learn. Similarly, if we want to teach, we will be willing to teach. After we teach, we will find more things that we don’t know and want to know, and that we should teach and want to teach; then accumulation happens. Incentives produce stimuli that generate accumulation, which affect human progress in online teaching.
What I found interesting is the charter given by Genevieve Bell, a cultural anthropologist at Intel. She stated that, “At Intel, my charter is pretty simple and straightforward: provide insights and inspire innovation.” I think insights and innovation are crucial in educated progress as well. To broaden and deepen the understanding and innovation of online learning – incentive is the key! When we find out more incentives, there will be more inspiration and possibilities in online teaching. So, we should care about how people learn and teach, how people want to learn and teach, about what matters to them; we strive to understand how technologies are used, understood, and imagined in online learning around the world. That is why issues of incentives play an important role in online teaching.
When Bonk’s presentation on online instructor roles began, I could finally take a deep breath and feel calm again. Speaking up is really a big challenge for me. I Hope that my failing spirits revived!
2007年9月24日 星期一
Week 3-Connectivism: Learning Theory or Pastime for the Self-Amued?
What is knowledge in Age of Connectivism, CMC, Blogging, and the Web 2.0?
What is Connectivism?
What I write here is proof that I’m just trying to catch up with you guys.
Every time I look back to the article, I find something new and grasp connections between concepts more. The feedback about this article will have two parts since I found that though it is abstract, philosophical and a little hard to understand at the beginning, its core theme is really interesting for me. Also, it relates to many background theories that make me have a thoroughly general view of educational technology. I think it will help me a lot if I can understand those theories such as behaviorisms, cognitivism, constructivism, blended theories, emerging theories (connectivism) etc. What I feel now is like putting jigsaw puzzles together.
PART 1:
Connectivism: learning Theory or Past Time for the Self-Amused?
In this article, the core issue is ” learning is a network phenomenon, influenced by socialization and technology.” He depicts that web 2.0 was just at the beginning of the hype cycle. The terms “podcasting”, “Youtube”, “Google”, “Google Earth” and “Moodle” were not yet prominent two years before. Nonetheless, People in other countries might have no chance to know some terms like: “podcasting” and “Moodle”. Some of them have heard of “Google Earth” from the television.
We need to understand today’s world via diverse perspectives, current knowledge, opportunities for dialogue, and use of technology. Just like George said, “The theory of connectivesm is no less immune to change than the underlying trends it proposes to address.” He wanted to highlight key distinctions of why we need a different theory of learning. I agree with that, the context is the key since "Context shapes the nature of knowledge and learning". Later, he stated some related factors influenced by learning like how we teach, how we design curriculum, the spaces and structures of learning, etc. Reviewing our process of learning, we use Internet to browse information that we need, and share videos links to each other…we done many things via technology. But do we find out the underlying reasons we do so?
I think pursuing this question is valuable based on my personal experience in Japan. In summer, 2005, I was touched by the integration of educational technology and learning environments in the Mitsubishi pavilion (EXPO 2005 Aichi in Japan). We saw how the Earth was born and saw a relationship between the Earth and the Moon. It showed us how pretty the Earth is now and how terrible it will be if there is no Moon. We all learned the knowledge from our geophysics textbooks before. However, we experienced a different way of learning by new media and technology in Japan. There were eight girls including me, and seven of us burst out into tears because we were deeply touched by that presentation. We learn things differently! We learn things emotionally if we can choose!
In Taiwan, when people asked me what does Educational Technology or Instructional System Technology mean, I always told them, “LEARN HOW TO LEARN.” George wants to put more emphasis on the “process” aspect of learning and focus instead only on how the “product” evolves. According to Downes, “To 'know’ something is to be organized in a certain way, to exhibit patterns of connectivity. To ‘learn’ is to acquire certain patterns.” From the era of religious focus to the industrial era, we focus from moral or intellectual development to career preparation. The SPACE of shifting ideals presents challenges for society as a whole:
a. "The erosion of existing structures of knowing and need for knowing, and
b. The yet to emerge characteristics of the new space are unknown."
There are so many question marks in my head now. After our discussion in class, I realized that this theme is really nothing new. I don’t know why I feel dizzy when I think about “why should we know why we learn”? To me, it is really complicated and occult. But still, to examine the meaning and reasons underlying trends is an intriguing thing since we can’t ensure it is based on Psychological theory or Sociological theory. If both theories should be considered, there will be some other researches talking about this.
Sometimes, I love philosophy because it makes people think a lot and more happy (In Chinese, we have a saying that translate as, "Thinking makes the spirit of people bright.") But at this time, I think I will like it only after I can find out more logistics from this article. Yes, I feel how tiny I am in this broad and huge sphere.
Reference
Siemens, George (2006, November 12). Connectivism: Learning theory of pastime for the self-amused? Retrieved Sept 5, 2007, from http://www.elearnspace.org/Articles/connectivism_self-amused.htm
What is Connectivism?
What I write here is proof that I’m just trying to catch up with you guys.
Every time I look back to the article, I find something new and grasp connections between concepts more. The feedback about this article will have two parts since I found that though it is abstract, philosophical and a little hard to understand at the beginning, its core theme is really interesting for me. Also, it relates to many background theories that make me have a thoroughly general view of educational technology. I think it will help me a lot if I can understand those theories such as behaviorisms, cognitivism, constructivism, blended theories, emerging theories (connectivism) etc. What I feel now is like putting jigsaw puzzles together.
PART 1:
Connectivism: learning Theory or Past Time for the Self-Amused?
In this article, the core issue is ” learning is a network phenomenon, influenced by socialization and technology.” He depicts that web 2.0 was just at the beginning of the hype cycle. The terms “podcasting”, “Youtube”, “Google”, “Google Earth” and “Moodle” were not yet prominent two years before. Nonetheless, People in other countries might have no chance to know some terms like: “podcasting” and “Moodle”. Some of them have heard of “Google Earth” from the television.
We need to understand today’s world via diverse perspectives, current knowledge, opportunities for dialogue, and use of technology. Just like George said, “The theory of connectivesm is no less immune to change than the underlying trends it proposes to address.” He wanted to highlight key distinctions of why we need a different theory of learning. I agree with that, the context is the key since "Context shapes the nature of knowledge and learning". Later, he stated some related factors influenced by learning like how we teach, how we design curriculum, the spaces and structures of learning, etc. Reviewing our process of learning, we use Internet to browse information that we need, and share videos links to each other…we done many things via technology. But do we find out the underlying reasons we do so?
I think pursuing this question is valuable based on my personal experience in Japan. In summer, 2005, I was touched by the integration of educational technology and learning environments in the Mitsubishi pavilion (EXPO 2005 Aichi in Japan). We saw how the Earth was born and saw a relationship between the Earth and the Moon. It showed us how pretty the Earth is now and how terrible it will be if there is no Moon. We all learned the knowledge from our geophysics textbooks before. However, we experienced a different way of learning by new media and technology in Japan. There were eight girls including me, and seven of us burst out into tears because we were deeply touched by that presentation. We learn things differently! We learn things emotionally if we can choose!
In Taiwan, when people asked me what does Educational Technology or Instructional System Technology mean, I always told them, “LEARN HOW TO LEARN.” George wants to put more emphasis on the “process” aspect of learning and focus instead only on how the “product” evolves. According to Downes, “To 'know’ something is to be organized in a certain way, to exhibit patterns of connectivity. To ‘learn’ is to acquire certain patterns.” From the era of religious focus to the industrial era, we focus from moral or intellectual development to career preparation. The SPACE of shifting ideals presents challenges for society as a whole:
a. "The erosion of existing structures of knowing and need for knowing, and
b. The yet to emerge characteristics of the new space are unknown."
There are so many question marks in my head now. After our discussion in class, I realized that this theme is really nothing new. I don’t know why I feel dizzy when I think about “why should we know why we learn”? To me, it is really complicated and occult. But still, to examine the meaning and reasons underlying trends is an intriguing thing since we can’t ensure it is based on Psychological theory or Sociological theory. If both theories should be considered, there will be some other researches talking about this.
Sometimes, I love philosophy because it makes people think a lot and more happy (In Chinese, we have a saying that translate as, "Thinking makes the spirit of people bright.") But at this time, I think I will like it only after I can find out more logistics from this article. Yes, I feel how tiny I am in this broad and huge sphere.
Reference
Siemens, George (2006, November 12). Connectivism: Learning theory of pastime for the self-amused? Retrieved Sept 5, 2007, from http://www.elearnspace.org/Articles/connectivism_self-amused.htm
2007年9月11日 星期二
I think I am in love with color RED
Hoosiers are nicknames of people who live in Indiana.
There is a relationship between this place and me.
In my college, my friends call me "Indiana Princess" since my skin color is darker than other one else.
So when I come here, I feel veeeeeeery close to "Hoosiers".
"There are Ten ways IU is RED HOT."
I read this quote from a brochure in orientation.
We're HOT-WIRED for technological innovation.
We're the HOTSPOT for research.
We're FIRING UP business and job creation.
We're HOT on the trail of deadly diseases.
We're setting off the SPARKS for new high-growth career fields.
We have a BURNING desire to help-at home and around the world.
We're a HOTBED of the best and brightest minds.
Our friends' generosity is STOKING our success.
We're IGNITING imaginations through the arts.
We're LIGHTING the way to a safer, more secure world.
(Cite from REDHOT.IU.EDU)
I could find amity between Hoosiers.
Also, many people love to help foreigners to adapt to this environment.
I never feel depressed when I get lost because people around me are always nice to show me my way home.
More even, they will give us sincere suggestions and advisements to help us adjusting to American culture.
One of Hoosiers' traits is "We have a BURNING desire to help-at home and around the world."
I agree with it and receive those cordial treatments,
so I suddenly realize how much do I like RED that is represented as Hoosiers!
One day when I saw girls wearing RED dresses paired with white tops in a similar pattern at the 4th St. Festival of Arts and Crafts, I thought they are really cute.
And one day I might dress like that~
Most important of all, I will bring this HOT RED PASSION to post my personal article readings and ideas related to our class, "The Web2.0 and participatory e-learning" here.
Nice to meet you, people around the world.
A Hoosier.
There is a relationship between this place and me.
In my college, my friends call me "Indiana Princess" since my skin color is darker than other one else.
So when I come here, I feel veeeeeeery close to "Hoosiers".
"There are Ten ways IU is RED HOT."
I read this quote from a brochure in orientation.
We're HOT-WIRED for technological innovation.
We're the HOTSPOT for research.
We're FIRING UP business and job creation.
We're HOT on the trail of deadly diseases.
We're setting off the SPARKS for new high-growth career fields.
We have a BURNING desire to help-at home and around the world.
We're a HOTBED of the best and brightest minds.
Our friends' generosity is STOKING our success.
We're IGNITING imaginations through the arts.
We're LIGHTING the way to a safer, more secure world.
(Cite from REDHOT.IU.EDU)
I could find amity between Hoosiers.
Also, many people love to help foreigners to adapt to this environment.
I never feel depressed when I get lost because people around me are always nice to show me my way home.
More even, they will give us sincere suggestions and advisements to help us adjusting to American culture.
One of Hoosiers' traits is "We have a BURNING desire to help-at home and around the world."
I agree with it and receive those cordial treatments,
so I suddenly realize how much do I like RED that is represented as Hoosiers!
One day when I saw girls wearing RED dresses paired with white tops in a similar pattern at the 4th St. Festival of Arts and Crafts, I thought they are really cute.
And one day I might dress like that~
Most important of all, I will bring this HOT RED PASSION to post my personal article readings and ideas related to our class, "The Web2.0 and participatory e-learning" here.
Nice to meet you, people around the world.
A Hoosier.
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