It is the day before Thanksgiving break and I teach Intro Psych at noon. I have been using my Blackberry to record and then post my lectures. I decide to take advantage of the situation and capture this picture of my class (presently enrolled estimated at 180).
What about extra credit, Dr. Grabe? No, but I will put your picture on my blog.
I am guessing the online audio for this lecture will get more than the customary number of hits.
While Learning Aloud is focused on education and technology, I frequently digress. Sometimes the topics are unrelated personal issues. Sometimes the topics focus on important issues I feel a need to identify.
Tom Friedman has received a lot of attention on this blog. For me, he raises issues of tremendous importance and he offers what seem like reasonable solutions. Energy, mutual interdependence despite political boundaries, technology, and education end being woven together in ways that make sense no matter which happens to be the topic of personal interest.
Friedman makes his living as a book and editorial author. However, you do not have to always purchase his books or the NY Times to read or listen to his comments.
Here, Friedman explains the core concepts in his most recent book – Hot, Flat & Crowded.
BTW – the technology used in this presentation is pretty cool. You do need Silverlight to view and listen.
Contrary to what you might surmise from reading what my wife describes as rather pessimistic posts, I am as taken by the potential of social networking and collective intelligence as the next guy (or gal or whatever). Sometimes all I have to evaluate the proposals of others are my own experiences (often based in the hard data I collect).
A fellow blogger’s post mentioned the RipMixLearners project and I followed the link to investigate. You might understand the position of this project by reading the following quotation:
Since we can’t expect the lecturers to take on much of the work themselves, we need to provide support services, both for developing digital course materials, and navigating copyright restrictions that might apply.
I wonder what makes a difference in the situation described here vs. my own. A main research interest has long been the use of technology to extend and enhance the lecture experience in large introductory classes (see some research citations).
I have not found that students make much use of online recordings of lectures in comparison to notes (the type of notes that might be able to get from a more able classmate, but also the type of notes that might easily be offered online). I have also found that while students in my studies have been quite willing to access “expert notes” provided by others, they have not been that interested in contributing to collective notes (a wiki).
Perhaps the assumption that all or many are interested is the flaw. What sometimes concerns me about the impressive examples provided by others is that the presence of such cases does not necessarily imply that such behaviors are likely to be typical of most learners. At first, I thought that was fine, because the expressiveness/interest of some could serve as a resource for others. However, what I have observed is a little different. There appears to be a resentment that sets in when those who give it a go are not followed by others. There is a sense of being used.
What may be described here are contributions made by some who are outside and therefore different from the target group. If this is a reality, this is different that I the way I would prefer it would work, but I guess I don’t make the rules.
There are complexities here yet to be illuminated.
My previous post invited you to view a very creative project intro developed by a couple of Grand Forks teachers. Their mini-movie was created using a new online resource called xtranormal.
xtranormal allows users to script avatar-based movies. The narrative is generated by typing a script. You can select camera angles and the set. The process takes a little time, but it is easy to save a work in progress.
You can embed a movie you generate with xtranormal from Youtube, but that seems overkill for a simple demo. If you are interested, view my demo from the xtranormal site. The movie demonstrates a few of the basic techniques you can apply after only a few minutes of exploration.
Check this interesting blog project starter created by a couple of Grand Forks teachers. I will offer more information on the unique technology used in a future post.
Google offers a new customized/personalized search tool you can set up to search self-designated content.
Why might such a tool be useful? I suppose because you want to focus the search activities of users. Hence, I might want to offer a service allowing you to search this blog (and to do so in a more sophisticated way than would be allowed by the built-in search tool). Perhaps an educator might want to create a search tool focused on a specified body of content.
BTW – the Google ads on the search page do not generate revenue for the individual creating the customized search. I guess it is the charge for using the service. Fair enough.
The MacArthur Foundation has released the comprehensive results of multiple ethnographic studies describing and evaluating adolescent use of technology. In total, the report is quite positive and indicates that adolescents make productive use of the Internet and technology devices for personal learning and in what the report describes as “friendship-driven” social activities.
While the focus of the report ignores within-school, curriculum based learning, the generally positive take on what individuals of this age range do with technology should offer a challenge to administrators concerned that they must filter within the school.
Some may see this as offering a message to those in traditional schools. Perhaps. However, it seems fair to ask if the expectations of a comprehensive curriculum can be based on what may have always been true about the commitment we all make to our hobbies and personal interests? With the exception of the commitment of a far larger proportion of a group to similar activities but not necessarily similar goals, I am not certain I see that a demonstration of personal, self-regulated learning as a novel revelation. What about understanding this research as a message to parents?
I see Marshall Kirkpatrick, writing on the ReadWriteWeb, offers some similar observations.
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