Excuses Excuses

A nice post on psyblog about dangerous excuses.

Self-Handicapping: Why Making Excuses Hurts You

My next question is how to gently point this out to those making the excuses?

Grokit Answers

A promising tool for conversing about a YouTube video. Performance was a little sluggish for me, but maybe that's the old satellite acting up again?

Here is a nice how to: http://quickshout.blogspot.com/2011/10/create-online-social-interaction-around.html

Here is the official site: https://grockit.com/answers

Blooms Apps

A practical organization of apps for teachers and students. Hope to see more of these.

http://sites.google.com/site/bloomsapps/

Texting for Your Class

This looks to be a fantastic service.

http://remind101.com/


Remind101 from remind101 on Vimeo.

DTL - Confused Students

Ok, last DTL Conference post.  There are fundamental and meaningful differences between high and low achievers in our classes. According to this presenter, high achievers are able to prepare their study environment and better organize materials. If this is the case, instructors can provide suggestions or explicit instructions for the rest of us on how to organize and prepare ourselves for learning.

There were several take-aways from this session.

• Over-confidence is a barrier I had not previously considered.
• Moving ALL course communication to public discussions makes entirely too much sense.
• Due dates as part of the assignment name (eg "8_14 Descriptive Essay") - clever but a little ugly.
• Have students explain what they will do to prepare for some major task - give feedback on their plan.

Here are my visual notes:

DTL - Empower Learning with Mobile

So, here is a high school instructor making mobile happen for his students. The claim was made, and I have no reason to question it, that he is teaching a high school calculus class entirely via mobile devices. He didn't go into details about it, other than to say it's possible. It's remarkable when how normal and commonplace such an idea can be communicated. I mean, no one in the room shouted and slapped their heads with the palms of their hands. I looked around to see if eyebrows were raised, but the reaction was more like, okay whatever, moving on.

His description of the different contexts of mobile was intriguing. The message is "You have to start somewhere." So, jump in where you can and do something. If you need to use free apps to deliver information -- while it may not capitalize on the mobileness of these devices, it's still something.

The real power and empowering of mobile devices he claims is when students can be guided to apply the informal learning and social functions in the interest of learning (practice).

Here are my visual notes:

DTL - eLearning Today

This keynote was very witty, but the tone of the talk was incredibly depressing. But depressing in a good way, like pressure on a sore muscle. The message is that while we've been engaged with eLearning for a good 20 years now, we still struggle with a definition - we can't even define it for ourselves. There is so much digital crap called eLearning - the profession is suffering from a serious image problem.

I can't say I remember what her solutions were. Something about DO-ing. Perhaps it's in her book: First Things Fast. I'll probably buy it (once soft cover comes out).

Here are my visual notes:

DTL - Screencasting for Feedback

Learned about Transactional Distance Theory in this session. Something to Google later I think. Ultimately, this instructor found the use of screencasting for feedback a bit too time-consuming to be practical. And yet, she referenced studies that claimed audio only feedback was hands-down better than text only.

Here are my visual notes (they aren't very visual this time):

Badges? Do We Need Your Stinking Badges?

Maybe be we do...? I'm still processing this one...

https://wiki.mozilla.org/Badges
http://mindshift.kqed.org/2011/08/mozillas-open-badges-project-a-new-way-to-recognize-learning/

One rather quick reaction though - how might this be different than grades that appear to show competency, but often just show survival skills? I guess I'll need to get some badges to find out.

DTL - Retention in Online Learning

Where is my statistician translator? Must admit that much of this session was over my head, but I still found their main finding interesting --- students who entered their college without transfer credit were way more likely to stop taking classes. They have incredible data... and they are gathering more.

Makes me really want to survey our students to find out why they drop. But then again, do we really mind so much if they drop? Maybe we would if we knew why.

For what they are worth, here are my visual notes:

DTL - The Online Teaching Survival Guide

An author round-table discussion featuring Judith Boettcher and Rita-Marie Conrad. They wrote the Survival Guide. The discussion naturally moved to talking about discussions in online courses and I heard some ideas I hadn't heard before. That always seems to happen when discussing discussion - there are so many variations. Great ideas!

The other great idea that was hit upon was that an instructors presence in a course changes over time as the course progresses... or rather as the students progress in their understanding. That's an eye-opening idea for me... and likely this happens naturally for many... but others continue to think of their feedback and interaction with students as constants.

The one part of their book organization that bothers me a bit is the naming of the four phases: Beginning, Early Middle, Late Middle and Closing. This just seems so boring and nondescript. I must admit to not having read the book, but I'd guess the reason is to keep things generic so as not to exclude some discipline. But even then, couldn't "beginning" be "Settling in" or "Set the Stage"? And then let's rename "Early Middle" something like "Group Growth" or "Explore". I guess I want something more meaningful than first, second, third.... It's my favorite suggestion for new online instructors that they title contents meaningfully. So instead of naming the chapter 1 folder chapter 1, how about telling me what Chapter 1 contains?!

Here are my visual notes:

DTL - Video Sharing

Video share sessions ask presenters to create and show a 5 minute video and then hang out for questions while the next person sets up to show their video. It's a little awkward. Could probably be improved simply by asking everyone to load to YouTube so the transition could be more seamless.

1. Educational Authoring - what if we could publish academically in video format?
2. Graphic Syllabus - I love the idea of a visually explained syllabus, but I was less impressed by the flow-chart configuration. That wasn't even really the syllabus so much as the course content. I also loved the playing card analogy (expert vs novice).
3. High Quality Design Model - Largely based on QM.
4. Creating Instructor Presence - Flip videos to introduce concepts and tools.

Here are my visual notes:

DTL - Demo Sessions

A couple of quick, 15 minute, demo sessions.

1. Self-paced LMS Instructor Training Course -- I guess we have this going on as well at Kirkwood. I guess I figured everyone had this going on already. I'm curious about the effectiveness of these types of training. It should be fine, except that so many, including ours doesn't have any eval for completion. Or more precisely, while we do have check quizzes, no one seems to do them. So, do faculty who only receive this training course ask more questions or have more problems in the long-term?

2. MASLO - Mobile Access to Supplemental Learning Objects. An impressive idea to put development tools for mobile devices into the hands of instructors. It's in the early stages yet.

Here are my visual notes:

DTL - Meaningful Learning

Clark Quinn provided the luncheon key-note this afternoon. Nice talk. I naturally enjoyed his drip irrigation analogy - we need to soak in experience and knowledge over time. He echoed elements of Crockett's presentation - good reinforcement - in that he wants us to move away from rote memorization skills training and move toward natural curiosity and meta-cognition building.

Clark's blog: http://learnlets.com

Here are my visual notes:

DTL Mobile Pilot

There is plenty buzz about mLearning. It's soooo in its infancy we are still working on a definition. Typical definitions tend to include size and speed of device as well as ability to access a network.

Their pilot included functions like syllabus, audio podcasts (repurposed), and flashcards (native app). You have to start somewhere, they said. But then why didn't they start with Bb Mobile Learn? It kind of sounded like they were moving away from Angel, so maybe that's why.

In any case, they are doing something. And they are seeing use. Not huge but significant.

http://wc.psu.edu/madison/

My visual notes:




(mPost!)

DTL - Lee Crockett

An impassioned call to arms or call to swim in the school of sardines - willing to change directions and follow (for a time) a new path. Lee inspired and worried many in the crowd. What a great way to kick off the conversation. And I am usually a bit critical of futurist type presentations - not that I disagree, I usually just don't see much purpose in the prognostications. Sure it's fun and alarming, but what now? Well, Lee challenged us to answer that for ourselves. What will/can you do now to swim another way? Let's see who follows.

http://www.fluency21.com

Here are my visual notes.



(mPost!)

DTL Conference - Lightning Strikes

Some items gleaned from 10 minute lightning sessions. I like the concision these sessions enforce. I also like the mystery they seem to share. After each quick share, my mind was buzzing for more. That's a treat when attending a conference - at least some presenters have a tendency to be long-winded.

ATTITUDE CHANGE - The CDC wants their audience (doctors, nurses, the public) to change attitudes. To do this they suggest (among other things) your message is clear, and relevant and realistic. Wow, sounds like our department goal for the year! They also suggested trying to work in ah-ha moments to catch the audience by surprise and tap into some raw emotions.

VIRTUAL LAB - School in Alaska is making this happen through Second Life (with help from grant money). Still, that's cool. They met the challenges head on - found out the connectivity was less of an issue than expected. And the learning curve was overcome with hands-on training of some kind. Both tech and lab instructor are in-world during the lab.

ACADEMIC HONESTY - Want to outsource your integrity training? Here is a 4 module and survey tool that will walk students through what academic integrity means: http://www-apps.umuc.edu/vailtutor/. Then they can send you a PDF file certificate showing their mastery of the material. Or at least showing you they know how to fake a PDF and make it look like they scored 100%. I'm not so sure this will help honesty, but it would give the instructor some evidence that the student at least claimed to have read and understood the rules.

CULTURAL DIVERSITY - "It's our reality." This is true. The presenter encouraged us as teachers and designers to take into consideration the diverse population and cultural background of students. Otherwise, explanations and examples and discussions might go misunderstood or never understood. She makes a good point, but if the example works for 80% of the class it's still a good example, right? I suppose the alienated 20% won't be thrilled, but maybe 65% of the time they won't even notice. Her emphasis and main point though (I think) is that we listen to and welcome different perspectives. That's nice.

The New School

Student Perceptions Paper

I find perceptions and expectations rather fascinating. I heard an NPR report/interview a few days ago about annoyances. One common annoyance, according to this report, is listening in on half of a cell-phone conversation. And they clarified -- it's not just the fact that the person is loud and inconsiderate, nor is it that we aren't hearing the full story, but rather that we (our brains) have trouble anticipating what the person we are hearing is about to say. As our expectations are disrupted, we are bothered. Fascinating.

And then at lunch yesterday we were discussing a colleague's recent trip to Vegas and subsequent losses at the roulette wheel. Gambling strikes me as a situation where expectations are rather confused and muddy. We don't expect to win and yet we do... at least we are pleasantly surprised when we do win. It almost seems as if we convince ourselves that we had some hand in the outcome and our expectation of winning flipped somehow.

The same colleague also expressed his joy and perhaps equal amounts of frustration experienced during a Penn & Teller magic show. Once again a situation in which expectations are a bit topsy-turvy. Or is it that we expect to be entertained and surprised and so normal annoyances, like defying the laws of physics and reality, seem great?

All this is going somewhere. Not sure where, but I've had these snippets from a paper on Students' Perceptions of online instruction sitting on my desktop for a while and I wanted to share/write about them.

As an instructor I do not typically expect students to give me concrete strategies to enhance my instruction. I often feel like I know where I screwed up or lacked something and have an idea how to fix it. I know that story could have used more visuals. I know the assignment could have used an example. And I suspect students are not usually encouraged/expected to share such strategies. What would a question like this elicit in way of response: "What strategies could your teacher have used to help you better understand concept ____?"

Response time, and more generally, instructor presence are huge in online instruction. And while they certainly are of high importance in face-to-face courses too, instructors rarely have the same difficulties with being present... or at least appearing to be present... and communicating... or at least appearing to communicate. It's all perception see? If I as the instructor give a passionate lecture for 50 minutes full of humor balanced with content, students will likely perceive good instruction happened. If I ask students to work in groups and collaborate on a problem, students will likely perceive little instruction happened. Or do students perceive instruction when guided while in groups?

And for the strong finish, it would seem to that if I can show students what progress was made, what learning happened, what thoughts were produced, how far they pedaled the bicycles of their minds, then they will perceive my instruction good. I'm almost certain it's more complex than this. Not only must the perception be that they learned/achieved, but also that they learned something valuable or something complicated or something that will impress their families and friends.

A Few Timeline Tools

I was looking for some timeline tools the other day. Here are some that appear decent.

XTimeline: http://www.xtimeline.com/
Capzles: http://www.capzles.com/
Dipity: http://www.dipity.com/
Timeglider: http://timeglider.com/
Timetoast: http://www.timetoast.com/

Potentially Cool Links 02/25/2011

• Project Vote Smart’s VoteEasy ™

  tags: vote government issues tool education

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.