E-Learning and Digital Cultures Artifact

My Artifact for E-Learning and Digital Cultures

I found it fascinating when a colleague analyzed this. She came up with meanings that I did not intend consciously, but were accurate representations of my thinking.  She also came up with interpretations that pulled me deeper into my own thinking.  Visuals are enormously generative, thus enormously educational? 

A respected reference on visuals in education is Visible Thinking, http://www.old-pz.gse.harvard.edu/vt/VisibleThinking_html_files/01_VisibleThinkingInAction/01a_VTInAction.html

I wondered whether the text takes away from the images (like stepping on a baby toy during a romantic interlude), or added to the clarity of interpretation.

Here is an abbreviated version of the MOOC's guidelines on how to interpret an image (https://class.coursera.org/edc-001/wiki/view?page=Howtointerpretimages):

• Is there a reason why a particular visual medium has been chosen?
• Who or what is depicted?  What is the significance of that depicted?
• Who or what is in focus and what is in the periphery? Why are certain elements emphasised over others? What is not in the image?
• What is symbolised by the objects, places, technologies or people in the image?
• What aspects of digital culture, education, technology or science fiction might be represented here? What concepts might the image be drawing upon?
• From what perspective are we viewing what is happening in the image? Who is the audience for the image?
• What do you think is the intended message conveyed by the image? 

 
 

MOOCing

 Through the window of a MOOC I am reliving the anxieties of academia, for no good reason. This idea of being among, yet wholly invisible, or worse, marginally visible, is unsettling. Of course, especially in a MOOC, it seems to all be in my head. After all, being visible is a matter of stabbing chaos and being invisible is one of the gifts of technology. Invisible meaning being present but not identifiable. in a class of 42,874, what are the chances of interaction with a teacher? And is that important in education? Hamish MacLeod made a comment on the E-learning and Digital Cultures MOOC Google Hangout today, that there was a conscious decision to run the class without recorded lectures or "talking heads" and that he felt that this was because they "didn't want to privilege the position of the teacher." ... I wrote that one down.



This comment caused an explosion of inquiry for me:
-What does that mean to the idea of the role of teacher?
-What does that mean to me as a face-to-face teacher, elementary teacher?
-What does that mean for face-to-face professors, often in large university classes?
-What does that mean to me as a student in a MOOC?
-What does that mean to the idea of the role of a student?

The Role of the Teacher 
Watching the vision of education in Corning's "A Day Made of Glass" commercial, the role of the teacher strikes me as lacking innovation. Is that just because it looks like the typical role that teachers currently play and I am assuming that such a role should be improved upon? The video contains technology, lovely technology and visions of impressive learning, but those only in scenes outside of the classroom. Where is "the teacher" while the students experience a virtual dinosaur as the explore the redwoods face-to-tree? I wondered how Corning could have envisioned the role of the teacher with a greater sense of innovation. How would I? Is the teacher only a designer of opportunities, does the teacher need to be in relationship with the student, or is the relationship with the learning materials and experiences everything the learner needs?

Face-to-Face in Fifth Grade 
If I stand in front of my class and students are in a culture to respond to such positioning, does our physical proximity still make this a privileged position? Certainly I do feel privileged to stand there! Does a face-to-face environment offer a flexibility of learning stances that is not available online? As a face-to-face teacher of young students, in a fairly small class setting, I can facilitate the learning as direct instruction, group exploration, as well as independent reflection and practice. We can focus in multiple dimensions with multi-sensory experiences. Even so, does my role as a teacher who will consistently have moments of talking head, mean that I have usurped a privileged position over the others in the room, the students? Does my ability to know personalities and create relationships validate my role?

The Professor 
If an instructor is in an auditorium with hundreds of students, is there any other option but to be a talking head? Somehow Michael Wesch has created some sense of community out of an auditorium, but did he create relationships? Does it matter?
From my leaky memory: Garrison Keillor once commented with some resentment on a writing professor. It seemed that the professor did not interact with him positively when he was a student, which Keillor seemed to take as a comment upon his perceived worth as a student. When Keillor become successful he had an interchange with this professor who simply stated something to the effect that he was there to be Keillor's professor not his buddy. Keillor seems to acknowledge this with a forced acceptance. Yes, Garrison Keillor became a successful writer anyway. Did that professor meet his responsibilities as a teacher? Are adults "cheated" as learners? Does an expectation of mature agency make relationship unnecessary or unimportant to learning?

MOOC-ing 
In a virtual group of enormous proportions, would messages from a "talking head" take away or add to my experience as a learner? Is a Google Hangout with a backchat more valuable? What is the ideal the role of the teacher in a MOOC? I enjoyed watching the interactions between our MOOC professors, the candid inflections of the conversation, and the influence, if a necessarily minute reflection of the "class". If I had to choose, I would take the Google Hangout. I would also enjoy some talking head opportunities, as to some degree, I felt that some depth of thought may have been compromised through the dynamic nature of conversation versus what could be considered story telling. Learning from my classmates is clearly a desired goal, but I can't get away from a sense that I want a relationship of teacher and student. I found myself wishing that I had been more active in the course conversations just to win the lottery of being mentioned by a professor in the Google Hangout. I ashamedly asked myself why I felt this way. Among admitted interest in intellectual validation, was the larger desire to have a sense of relationship, a palpable context for learning.

Who's on Second? Is it the Student?
The role of the student becomes more complex when one is actually a student. As a student I long for both the active and the passive simultaneously. As a motorist I often feel frustrated by pedestrians, as a pedestrian I am indignant of motorists. Perhaps it is my Gemini nature to have split personalities, but I think that perspective is a powerful and slippery reality. I can know intellectually that all students have a desire to learn and are capable of agency, but there are times when my devilish teacher brain counteracts that paradigm with concrete the evidence of a student not performing. If this is the case in face-to-face learning environments, what does it mean for online education? In this E-Learning and Digital Cultures MOOC, there are Massive numbers of faders and lurkers. On one hand, as a teacher, what it is the responsibility of the teacher to bring these groups into participation? On the other hand, I have found the acceptability of lurking and even fading comforting. Is the role of the student primarily the responsiblity of the student? Where education is concerned, is the role of the student lacking "privilege" and if so what would privilege look like, or of more interest what would the results be? Of course (or perhaps not "of course"), that varies with the age, subject, and goal of the learning. What do our K-12 practices say about the role of the student? Was Dewey on to something?  Hee, hee, ya think?!  And here I place the intellectual ellipses, as it is all downhill from here...

For, if I had more time, I would make this shorter -but then perhaps I would wait another two years to blog. If I participate in this MOOC in no other way, I hope that I will participate by being willing to have these discussions with myself or any others who care to join me!

Rig- or... NOT!

After reading Jeff Delp's recent Molehills Out of Mountains blog entry, Five Skills for 21st Century Learners, I found myself sharing it on Facebook with the following comment about the word "rigor".

"I was so pleased to not see the word "rigor" in this post. After hearing Alfie Kohn tell a story about a parent's desire for rigor, I too looked up the word. Semantics can be temporarily forgiven but not perpetuated with a clear conscience!"

In the classroom, I use a great tool, Visual Thesaurus, that webs words in a fascinating way. Each day I receive emails from them that highlight a word and we take a look at some of the words in our class morning meeting. One day the word was "rigor" and I felt that I had to look out for the misguided adults who might use it around the students. To protect those adults, I explained to students that what I think that teachers, parents, and school leaders usually mean when they say "rigor" is learning that is inspirational, challenging, and stimulating. And yet, I suspect that students continue to have a sense that when we say "rigor" we really mean "RIGOR". Considering many components of school, I am sympathetic to their perception.

Also consider this connection that popped up as I input "rigor" in www.visualthesaurus.com...

Yikes!

Images are screen shots captured 3/20/11 of www.visualthesaurus.com, which I like so much I have subscribed to it for the year.

Heroes

I am at the stage in my online networking of reading blogs more regularly and commenting on them here and there, as I did with Steve Hargadon's recent blog post "Ugh. Classic Politics Now Extends to Social Networking in Education." This post addressed the Dept of Ed's sponsorship of program called Connected Online Communities of Practice. And so, I began to consider the accessibility of thinkers like Steve Hargadon.

I used to have only a handful of education heroes who usually took their place through books; for instance, David Perkins, author of Smart Schools,and co-author of many amazing texts including The Thinking Classroom, and one of my other favorites is Ron Ritchhart, author of Intellectual Character, and then there is Heidi Hayes Jacobs, author of Curriculum 21. These folks are at the top of my Hero "shelf" and I have been blessed to hear from them all in person.

In addition to these are my new educational heroes who do not hang out on the shelf, they walk in my mind's door regularly and authentically through blogs, podcasts, mini-blog posts, connections to other inspirational educators. These are educational thinkers such as Bob Sprankle, Richard Byrne, Rodd Lucier, Maria Knee, Alice Barr, Cheryl Oakes, Dave Cormier, Jeff Lebow, Jennifer Maddrell, John Schinker, David Warlick, Lorna Costantini, Ben Hazzard, Peggy George, Kim Cofino, Lucy Gray, Wesley Fryer, and many others. I am so grateful that these folks share their thinking actively, candidly, and in real time!

In the classroom, we have started an idea I grabbed from... somewhere... A Technology Slapdown (sharing, geek of the week, etc.) Not only is this an opportunity to redefine a phrase in a positive light, it is a great way for students to share their tech discoveries. Here are few of my own from today's online browsing:

•A resource for discussing events in Japan
http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/11/teaching-ideas-the-earthquake-and-tsunami-in-japan/?ref=education

•Supporting Students after school: http://www.onceuponaschool.org/

•Origin of Building Learning Communities: http://nlconnect.novemberlearning.com/

So Many Opportunities, So Little Time...

Recently, while complaining that I need more time with my students, a colleague and friend suggested that perhaps I am getting too excited with all my ed tech exposure and need to be less innovative in the classroom. She, of course, meant this as an advocate for my sanity and, I suspect, with a thought for the sanity of my students as well!

And yet, should I not have given students the opportunity to be part of Nanowrimo (National Novel Writing Month) through which many students discovered they were writers, where they were invited to write, write, write, and keep writing?

Should we have not been part of Rock Our World, where we learned how to make songs with others, talk to students around the world; where we built relationships and skills that continue to enable us to make specific and relevant connections at least once a week?

Should we not do The Stock Market Game which takes a real system that allows them to apply math skills and concepts, that is exciting, and also gives them a way to talk to their parents about issues of economy?

Do I not take the time to stumble around with new (new to me and/or to students) ways to learn and reflect, like Google Apps for Education for digital portfolios, collaborative documents, surveys, blogs, and more; or web-based screen captures like Screen-Cast-O-Matic that are a way for students to voice over geographical journeys on Google Earth?

I want to do it all and more! It is greedy I know, but I will never have these very students in Fifth Grade again and I can't stand the thought of not giving them these opportunities!

Yet, there is great deal of set curriculum that is very important to schooling goals and for which I am responsible. I do not want students to feel stressed by unrealistic goals. What to do? What to do?

Thoughts:
-Set priorities for depth
-Be more thoughtful about integration
-I need to remember that I may be their only Fifth Grade teacher,
but I am not their last teacher by many, many years! :-)

Meanwhile, I will keep being inspired and insane!

Second Life - Life Support Needed!

This summer I made an attempt to get into Second Life to enjoy some networking in Ed Tech. I am not savvy in this area of technology and became frustrated just trying to figure how to find a place to go and move my avatar. I gave up...

So last week I decided to give it another go and I spent my allotted time tracking down my account information. Today, I actually got in, fixed my face a bit and managed to transport to ISTE and another Ed Tech location that I did not recognized. But I can't figure out how to sit or really be active...

I looked up "how do I sit?" in the help area but couldn't find it.

I am afraid I may not be up to this technology adventure!

Assessment is Ruining Education

 

"Assessment is Ruining Education."

There I said it!  As this thought sprints mischievously through my mind… often, I challenge it.  How could assessment be anything bad?  Isn’t it critical to know what students know? To have feedback about whom we are reaching and what is actually having an impact?  Each time I am surprised by a student’s assessment results, I scold myself for my lack of passion about assessment, thinking, “Ah, you could have missed that without this assessment.”  And yet, how much do assessments lead me astray, if I were to be totally loyal to them?

Here, I must admit that it is too simple to make a judgment about “assessment” as valuable, pointless, or down right destructive. I can talk to students about “test taking skills,” (following formal staff meeting concerns around “test taking skills,”) while I work to control my eye rolling and suggest that they see it as a game that could have an impact on their future choices.  On the other hand, I work with students on opening up and being clear about sharing their understanding of skills and concepts on assessments, setting anxiety and ego aside for the goal of clarity and informing their support systems. They understand this perspective, but do not trust the idea that as assessment is simply feedback.  It is a judgment, a decision about their raw intelligence.  Even when the evidence is against this summation, it is the natural assumption. All of our creation and reflection is assessment and yet I feel like I am cheating and lazy when I make that claim formally!

Really, I am thinking more about the assessment that exists instead of thoughtful learning opportunities and is primarily an attempt to validate students' use of time and show a third party what has been accomplished.  I often think of all we could accomplish if we were not trying to show that we were doing so!  This brings me to a recent podcast episode of Edtech Weekly in which John, Jen, and Dave discussed money and education, which led to thoughts related to Dave's open course on Knowledge and Learning Analytics,  http://www.learninganalytics.net.   They were well joined by Rick Schwier and Zac Chase.  In the conversation a question was posed about how possible is it to know what students have truly learned... to really prove it.  When research is funded they ask for outcomes, the funding can drive the the direction of research and development and also structure the format of outcomes.  Those outcomes are then often poorly interpreted into generalized, inappropriate, and simplistic actions and decisions around teaching and learning.

It seems to me that the type of assessment that truly informs educational practice, within the goal of simultaneously educating, is an art form more than a science and while is can be a science it then becomes so time consuming that it actually begins to take away from learning opportunities. 

I remember having a boss once who required everyone to do a reflection exercise of writing down what we were actually doing every 15 minutes, to get a sense of our use of time.  Keep in mind I was in a classroom with pre-school aged children.  I think back on this and wonder how one ever could have thought that this was a useful study, unless, of course, we could mess with the space-time continuum in order to insert five minutes for writing in between every 15 minutes of regular activity. This is somehow reminiscent of the sleep torture my mother (quite fairly) inflicted on me when, at age 8, I insisted on making a double batch of chocolate chip cookies and she woke me every twelve minutes to switch the baking trays.  At times assessment for accountability often feels like this... but without any chocolate chip cookies at the end!