Month: October 2005

You never know what you are going to get (with apologies to Forrest’s mom). Beyond Boundaries Day 2

Today I listened to one of the more interestinging conference presentations I have heard in a while. George Siemens (Red River College, Winnipeg, Manitoba) offered comments on content and connectionism (see his blog for related comments). There was a great deal of information in his comments and folks probably took away different messages from it.

Part of the presentation suggested connectionism be considered as the new learning theory. I enjoy contrasts among models of human learning and memory (as an educational psychologist), but issues of connectionism as distinct from cognitive or constructivist models to me seem matters of differences in the language interested parties use to discuss theoretical issues. My academic training focused on the cognitive perspective and I tend to continue to integrate ideas (metacognition, connections within LTM, categories of memory contents) within such models to explain new developments to myself.

What peaked my interest was his use of the concept of connections – connections among ideas, connections with people, and possibly connection to place. A course as an experience with content may no longer be enough. The message of the content may be transitory. Access to the content may not require the course. The value is likely to be in the processing of the content. The value is likely to be in the connections with people AND content. If courses and institutions are to flourish, perhaps the time duration of connections needs to be extended. Perhaps enrollment in a course/institution should include some long-term opportunities (even if such continuation involves a subscription) so that content, process, and people can continue to offer opportunities for connections.

Beyond Boundaries is the University of North Dakota’s technology in higher education conference. It is a nice regional conference with the ability to bring in some “name” presenters.

A presentation I attended this morning was provided by John Dennett, Blackboard Solutions Engineer (previously of MITs OpenCourseWare initiative). The presentation contasted open source and commercial course management systems.

Some of the arguments favoring commercial products I have heard before (e.g., total cost of ownership). A couple new suggested limitations of open source solutions also surfaced:
1) robustness – the presenter claimed that open source educational software is typically developed using something like PHP (e.g., moodle). This works well in encouraging contributions of distributed authors, but PHP was claimed not to have the robustness necessary to stand up to enterprise level applications. While WebCT and Blackboard began with Perl, the applications have moved away from scripting languages. Scripting languages also seem to come and go.
2) 508 compliance – the presenter claimed that Moodle was not 508 compliant and this will be a serious limitation for higher ed institutions willing to accept federal support. I asked for a specific example of a failure to meet 508 standards and John directed me to a Blackboard white paper. I asked whether Blackboard would fix a noncompliant web page uploaded by a faculty member and he acknowledged that no CMS can guarantee that the content provided will be 508 compliant.

I have noticed something. Other bloggers use cool names for their blogs. I did not know this when I started blogging years ago. I thought EdTech was descriptive. I like Andy Carvin’s Waste of Bandwidth – a little self-deprecation is a good thing. Mathemagenic is cool too. A little mystery draws attention. I have not encountered that word since I read Rothkopf back in the 60s and 70s. Final example – One Trick Pony (remember what I said about self-deprecation).

After a couple of minutes of careful thought (a minute more than I devoted to the original name for this blog), I have come up with Learning Aloud. In my strange way of viewing the world, this is a derivation of Think Aloud (see Kucan & Beck if this phrase is foreign). Learning aloud is what I think some bloggers do. They use a blog as an externalization of what they are learning. They externalize as a way to think through ideas and evaluate their own understanding. If others happen to find such musing of value, so much the better.

The colon?? I read somewhere that a study of research journals determined that a high proportion of the titles of published research articles contain a colon. I am a man of science and I want to do the right thing. 😉

Kucan, L. & Beck, I. (1997). Thinking aloud and reading comprehension: Inquiry, Instruction, and Social Interaction. Review of Educational Research, 67(3), 271-299

Andy Carvin’s blog (Waste of Bandwidth) provides a series of blog entries, podcasts, and video segments from the We Media conference. We Media is a new phrase for me and it blends in with Web 2.0, the read/write web. and other phrases/concepts that appear to be advocating for the more participatory opportunities of the web. Andy provides access to some very interesting content. Try Al Gore’s presentation as a starting point and then explore other blog entries associated with this conference.

Within this collection, I would also recommend Andy’s presentation (podcast and PP available) on the digital divide.

Several past posts have contained concepts advanced in Thomas Friedman’s book – The World Is Flat. Friedman’s analysis positioned the Internet among the key factors that have brought both positive change and challenges to our world. Free access to the Internet allows oppressed people to gain a broader perspective. The Internet allows the work of U.S. workers to be outsourced to those willing to do this work more cheaply. Open access serves as a challenge to the productivity of the U.S. education system. In head to head competition, if one cannot do the same job for less, one better be capable of solving more significant problems or providing more creative solutions. etc.

The flaw in Friedman’s analysis may be the greed of U.S. based multinationals. Friedman’s idea that you cannot hide behind walls assumes a lack of collaboration from those on the other side of the wall. It appears Google, Yahoo, and other technology companies are willing to help countries that compete with the U.S. economically and subject the unfortunate to mistreatment keep the walls up by censoring the information that gets over the walls. (Human Rights Watch) I thought this issue had been resolved a couple of years ago. Now, it seems the big tech players have gone soft again perhaps in fear that a competitor will take advantage of any show of resolve.

National Geographic has a great webcam feature titled Pete’s Pond. Great live imagery from a watering hole in Botswana.

Webcams need not be located in such exotic locations to be interesting. Cornell University runs a feeder watch program for the purpose of collecting data and involving the public in a little field biology. Search for “webcam bird feeder” online and you will find several others.