Asking Why Instead of How (#Change11)

How to balance soft and hard technology?

Soft technologies are flexible, supporting creativity and change, because the gaps inside them have to be filled with processes constructed by people. They are needy and incomplete until people fill the holes, while hard technologies contain within them the processes and methods to achieve the ends for which they were designed [emphasis added], bring efficiency, scalability, replicability, freedom from error and speed.  Conclusion: "Most learning technology research concentrates on technology (including methods and pedagogies) not the talent and skill with which it is applied that is frequently more significant" (Dron, 2011).

I would approach the use of technology a bit differently, asking why instead of how.

I find it combersome drawing a distinction between soft and hard technologies.  Defining hard technologies as particular processes and methods that inherently achieve certain ends confines the user to act or think in a certain way.  This leads to linking technologies to individuals based on socio-cultural-historical assumptions.  If one concludes that it's not the technology but how one uses it, does it matter which contained processes and methods lead to arbitrary (decontextualized) ends?

When reflecting on the different (hard) technologies that I use, I have yet to find one that does everything.  I am constantly adding and pruning technologies as my teaching and learning context changes.  The hard technologies that I use (in aggregate) are as fluid, flexible, and incomplete as some soft technologies.  Individual web tools serve as nodes that make up part of my PLN; a change in one can influence a change in others, similar to how people interact.

Jumping on the ANT bandwagon, I find it helpful to view technology as designing an assemblage (i.e., PLN) which views the social as a "very peculiar movement of re-association and reassembling" (Latour, 2005).  I see a PLN as a movement that re-associates and reassembles reifying conceptualizations, people, and material. 

Reifying conceptualizations is the process of making some abstract idea, notion, or problem more concrete through open and ongoing interaction.  From a socio-technical perspective, people use artifacts to interact with each other around related conceptualizations.  Interactions that connect conceptualizations, people, and material are contextually rich and provide the basis for one's teaching and learning rationale.

Consequently, my approach to technology would be to ask why someone chooses to interact within a PLN in ways that foster open and ongoing professional learning.  Asking why, also requires asking what, how, when, and with whom (plus any other applicable question words), while embracing a perspectival sensitivity between subject (i.e., participants of the study) and object (i.e., researcher). In other words, it's about understanding how the individual's interpretation of becoming emerges from the recollection of the associations, assemblages, and dynamics of a PLN. It just so happens that my interest in such a topic has led me to a doctoral proposal.

 

 

Technologies I'm Thankful For

I know it's a bit late, but still wanted to get my list in for this year.  In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I'd like to submit my list of technologies that I'm thankful for.  I'm thankful because all five technologies - that I use virtually every day - are compatible with Linux, and most are open source; that is, people self-organize and develope software so that others can freely modify and use it as they wish.

The first technology on my list has to be the Ubuntu Linux OS (Macbuntu 11.04 to be exact).  I did away with Windows the first part of this year and have never looked back.  Macbuntu (Linux) is more stable, faster, doesn't get viruses for the most part, and there's no need to defrag the harddrive.  Ubuntu works right out of the box and is ideal for a non-tech person such as myself.

WordPress is next on my list.  This entire website is built on Wordpress, in fact.  With a load of plugins available, WordPress is ideal for adapting a website to one's needs.

Although Mendeley is not open source, it works great on Linux.  Since I am involved with doing research, Mendeley allows me to not only keep track of references, but I can sync all my references to my work and home computers as well as sync to my mobile device (Galaxy Tab) instantly.  I can also create groups and interact with others who are doing similar research.  There's a premium account available but the free account allows for a lot of free space to include both the reference information and any attached PDF files as well.  This is a must for researchers!

Since I do a lot of screencasting, Tibesti is another absolute must.  Even though you must install the software from the terminal, it's an easy process, just cut and paste.  The great thing about Tibesti is that you can record your voice through the mic and also record audio coming through your sound card simultaneously.  For example, I can record an online live session in Google+ Hangout and capture my voice and the participants' voices with no problems.  If you are a tech. person, you can do the same from the terminal but you need to know what you are doing.  I don't know what I'm doing, so two thumbs up for Tibesti!

Last but not least, I'm thankful for Ubuntu One!  Cloud computing seems to be the thing these days, but Ubuntu One is great because it's "baked" into Macbuntu, so getting started is as easy as signing in with a username and password.  They provide up to 5MB of free space (premium accounts are available) and it allows me to automatically sync my files with my work and home computers as well as my mobile device, all in an instance.

Well, there you have it, the software I depend on daily to get the job done.  What software are you thankful for?

Learning Preferences Emerge

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Do we need to adapt our teaching to suit the learning style of learners?

Instead, I would say that learning preferences emerge throughout the teaching and learning process, a process that is both iterative and reciprocal.

Designing an engaging and effective learning experience requires establishing desired results, various forms of assessment, and instruction, whether the educative experience is formal or informal. These three interrelated aspects of the learning experience evolve around a learner's interaction with conceptualizations, material, and people (i.e., PLN). In my view, the notion of a PLN is based less on one's socio-cultural background yet still depends highly on the choices an individual makes at any particular moment; it avoids isolating the individual from the material and concepts, isolating the material from the individual and concepts, and so on. The PLN is a context-rich ontological frame that connects the desired results of the individual, feedback loops (i.e., assessment and instruction via human interaction), conceptualizations, and material through open and ongoing negotiation.

Students experience a dynamic shift in learning preferences depending on the PLN and more specifically the learning experience at hand. Working with learning preferences by giving learners some level of choice leads to adapting the teaching and learning process at any given moment and not simply presuming that learners are visual, kinesthetic, etc. a priori (e.g., via curriculum, standard teaching methods, lesson plan, etc.).

I'm back...

Well, after about a week, I finally made it back...sort of.  This past week I had an unfortunate incident with my website host provider (WHP).  I found out the hard way that I was not getting a service I was paying for.  I realized that it was time to change WHPs and I decided to move to GoDaddy.

About two weeks ago, I began to make several structural changes to my website in preparation for a doctoral study that will begin in the coming months.  The past year I've been using WordPress, Moodle, and Dokuwiki for most of my online work.  Although my old WHP includes other applications as well, it wasn't until last week's incident that made me realize I could do most of what I need in WordPress alone.  Although GoDaddy is a little more than my past WHP, I realized that you do get what you pay for.  I decided it was worth scaling back the applications for better service and deliverability.

So, as I waited for my last domain to transfer to GoDaddy (which usually takes 5-7 days), I began to get impatience and decided that it was also time to get a new domain. Since info domains are much cheaper, I also decided to transfer my entire website from the old domain to the new.  Within a day or so, I had most of my website up and running.

Some of the changes to this new site will be the inclusion of open courseware.  Since I am no longer using Moodle for the most part, I've decided to put most of what I do in my face-to-face classes here. Even though most content will be open, some information will remain private, depending on the class I'm teaching.  I've also decided to automatically assign new subscribers to this site as collaborators which will allow everyone to upload posts and to edit and add wikis as they choose.  My goal is to make this site as open and transparent as possible.  For now, Google+ hangouts will be used to conduct periodic online meetings as well. 

If you are new or moving over from my old site, welcome!  Expect many upcoming changes to this site and feel free to comment and contribute as you wish!

Improve Learning: The Socio-Material Dynamic versus Structure

My response to The Virtuous Middle Way...

The efficiency of the learning process speaks nothing of the effectiveness of it. Might we say, "the machinery of education is to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the learning process"? I doubt that many educators would argue against this as an espoused theory, but as a theory in use, perhaps it is a different story (as Jeremy eludes to). Comparing MOOCs to educational institutions (if I must), I find that some MOOCs are actually more structured than some institutional courses I've been involved with - at least in terms of laying out a content timeline and delivery. Regardless, to understand the effectiveness and efficiency of any learning process, one needs to analyze how the socio-material dynamic (i.e., how over time people interact with each other together with the necessary artifacts that allow such interaction to take place) emerges within a given structure.

Offering guidance in any structure could be seen as being helpful or a hindrance. What constitutes guidance? A newsletter? Syllabus? Freedom of choosing an ICT? Personal explanation/feedback? Graded exam? Lecture? These all could be seen in both a positive and negative light depending on the circumstances. But it's precisely the circumstances that we need to understand in order to have a better idea about the effectiveness and efficiency of the learning process at hand.

Busy...

Ok, so it's been awhile since my last post. I've been (and continue to be) extremely busy developing a concept paper for my dissertation, teaching, and doing separate research regarding peer/self reflection among English language learning writers.  This week I plan to hang out, so if you are into Google+ and you are interested in knowing more about my research, let's connect!  My Google+ profile link can be found by clicking the About tab above.

Teaching and Learning with ICTs

 Well, Monday starts a new semester.  As I reflect on how I might create opportunities for my students to be more engaged in the learning experience, both in and outside of class, my current inclination is to use ICTs but in a slightly different way.

This semester I'll be teaching Microteaching I (third semester), Academic Writing (seventh semester), and Applied Linguistics (seventh semester) to pre-service English language teachers (i.e., eight-semester bachelor's degree program in English language teaching).  The primary ICTs that I'll use for these blended classes will be wikis and Moodle.

Student-teachers (STs) taking Microteaching I meet four hours a week, teaching in 15-minute blocks with their classmates (i.e., "students").  At the time of this post, the wiki was still under development, but will be further developed in the coming days.  The wiki will home STs' reflective wiki pages that will remain open for all to see and will also be integrated (i.e., embeded) to Moodle.  Since this is my first time teaching this class, there will certainly be tweaks and turns as the class unfolds ultimately driving which ICTs to use and how they will be used to best engage students.

I've taught Academic Writing in the past using primarily Wikieducator, but this year I wanted to do something different.  This year I will be using(Doku) wiki along with Moodle as I plan to do with Microteaching I.  The main reason for using Dokuwiki over Wikieducator is that (a) Dokuwiki is more user-friendly and (b) it integrates well to my website hosting service (Fatcow).  The wiki/Moodle integration will look something like the following:

 Wikis are a great tool for academic writing as it makes the writing process more transparent.

 

 

 

The course in Applied Linguistics will also integrate a wiki with Moodle...are you seeing a pattern here? :) Students will apply their understanding of linguistics, psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics, and discourse analysis to their own teaching practice through an action research project.

The objective this semester is to make the learning process of each course as open as possible so that students see the value in transparent learning.  As their facilitator, making course designs open will provide other educators with ideas as well as opportunities to collaborate and cooperate in areas of curriculum, assessment, and instruction.

How will you use ICTs this semester or year?

ICT Challenge (#edumooc)

There was some talk this week during a recent Google+ hangout about how others were using technology to understand all the content related to edumooc 2011. I decided to share some ICTs that I'm currently using and thought I'd invite others to do the same. Perhaps this might help those who are still trying to find their way around the vast amount of information that's out there. Feel free to include the link to your video below.

My First Google+ Hangout! (#edumooc)

Had my first Google+ hangout this week! I used no headset and we had several microphones active at the same time with no echo. Check it out for yourself.

Massive or Meaningful and Relevant? (#edumooc)

 As can be seen, it is often pointed out that [size] is a necessary characteristic, but I've been experimenting with what I call Miniscule Open Online Courses, which is where I think that the principles on which MOOCs are based apply to courses run on a much smaller scale e.g. http://goodbyegutenberg.pbworks.com. - VANCE STEVENS

Adding to this point, I would be content simply calling a MOOC an OOC.

It's difficult enough interpreting the concept of openness given the different opinions on the most appropriate Creative Commons license to use for example, namely whether content should be under a commercial or noncommercial license. For some, openness is all or nothing, for others it's a matter of degree.

The notion of online delivery is another issue for (especially) those new to this type of learning environment. Which technologies should be used? How to engage yet not feel overwhelmed?

The idea of a “course” then leads to issues of start and end dates, identifying explicit or implicit desired results (intentional/unintentional learning), implementing different types and the distribution of assessment, taking the course for credit or no credit, etc.

Notions of openness, delivery, and course attributes are more important than how many participants there are in an OOC - subscribing to the notion that says, “more is better”. One might argue that having large amounts of participants will lead to continued discourse or peer-to-peer learning after the MOOC has completed; that learners will be more engaged if a MOOC has large numbers. But it has more to do with the type of communication that flows between each learner and their neighboring nodes (i.e., those individuals or communities that remain within one degree of separation and any artifacts the learner has direct contact with) than it does simply knowing how many neighboring nodes (NNs) exist in the first place. And who's to say it's better if those NNs are exclusively MOOC participants? And even if all NNs are exclusively MOOC participants, what's the ratio of NNs/MOOC participants, and does that even matter. A more engaging and effective learning experience is possible if we focus on what it means for this type of learning environment to be open, online, and how it's presented as a course.

I believe it's quite possible to have an engaging and effective learning experience when five OOC participants have 30 NNs that include the other four OOC participants and 26 individuals or communities that have nothing to do with the OOC itself. It's also possible that these same five OOC participants can have a fruitful learning experience being part of a 1000 other OOC participants but still choose to interact with the same NNs; that is, to remain on the peripheral of the (“M”)OOC.  If we must stick to the acronym, I'd leave it as a Meaningful (and relevant), Open, Online, Course.  Then have a discussion around what is meaningful and relevant around particular educational contexts.

What any OOC needs is sustainability - at least between the start and end dates, otherwise there is no course. Creating a discourse around openness, delivery, and the course in terms of curriculum, assessment, and instruction (in terms of meaningful and relevant learning given particular educational contexts) will go much further in bringing about OOC sustainability than talking how many numbers lead to “massiveness”.

My Favorite Things (#edumooc)

Here are a few of My Favorite Things:

• I use my Galaxy Tab to manage tweets, email, facebook, Google+, and other web-surfing tasks.  And my favorite Galaxy app right now is live365!


• I use my website and Moodle to organize my thoughts and my classes that I teach to pre-service English language teachers.


• I also like VoiceThread, WizIQ as a virtual classroom, Internet Archive, YouTube, BlipTV, Google Docs, Google Reader, and NetVibes as I use all of these both as a teacher and learner.


• Wikieducator is a great website.  Producing OERs and OEPs is something I wish I could dedicate more time to.


• Skype is great for language exchanges and communicating with colleagues.


• Overall, I love Linux Mint 11 as it allows me to work more efficiently and effectively at the computer while feeling good that an OS of this caliber is possible as a result of people working together in an open and caring way (open source).

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xw4Hy6MtBLE&w=425&h=349]

You say "Ground Rules", I say "Netiquette Rules" (#edumooc)

I appreciate Michelle Pacansky-Brock from Mt. San Jacinto College for sharing her Community Ground Rules - direct link - (under a CC-BY license) for a still photography history class she's involved with.  The document will certainly be of some use as is while others may tweak it to their liking.  But upon reading it, I immediately felt compelled to share my thoughts on how the term network is being used within a formal educational context.  A notion that all stakeholders should consider when participating in a MOOC or any blended course.

At the top, left-hand corner of the document is a picture of Alexander Rodchenko who claimed,

One has to take several different shots of a subject, from different points of view and in different situations, as if one examined it in the round rather than looked through the same key-hole again and again.

The first eight points of the community ground rules document are what I would consider basic netiquette terms or simply ways in which individuals should act when interacting with others.  The list is fairly straightforward and I certainly think is applicable regardless to whether we are discussing groups or networks.

However, there are two other sections of the document that made me question whether the objective was to create a group or network.  For example, it reads "...to ensure we maintain a safe, trustworthy discussion environment", students must be enrolled in the course in order to be an eligible community member.  This sounds more like a group than a network to me.  And I would argue that in some educational contexts, learners would benefit from discourse that is less than safe, or more diverse than what they are accustomed to since this is what they will likely face as members of a global society.

In another instance the term network was used in reference to more group-like behavior:  What happens to this network after our class is over?  The question is in relation to content and how all the content is to be deleted once the course has be completed.  This seems to indicate almost a pruning of one's network back to what it was at the beginning of the course, perhaps shifting back the spaces as they once were.

Growing a network among learners within a class requires taking several different shots of a subject, from different points of view and in different situations, as if one examined it in the round.  Forming a group among learners within a class means looking through the same key-hole again and again.  As educators, I think it is to our advantage to take an honest look at how our students are learning collectively (as in a group) and connectively (as in a network) in order to find the right mix based on particular educational contexts.  We can meet course objectives while still forming long-lasting networks that will continue transforming well after the course has been completed.

You say "Ground Rules", I say "Netiquette Rules" (#edumooc)

I appreciate Michelle Pacansky-Brock from Mt. San Jacinto College for sharing her Community Ground Rules - direct link - (under a CC-BY license) for a still photography history class she's involved with.  The document will certainly be of some use as is while others may tweak it to their liking.  But upon reading it, I immediately felt compelled to share my thoughts on how the term network is being used within a formal educational context.  A notion that all stakeholders should consider when participating in a MOOC or any blended course.

At the top, left-hand corner of the document is a picture of Alexander Rodchenko who claimed,

One has to take several different shots of a subject, from different points of view and in different situations, as if one examined it in the round rather than looked through the same key-hole again and again.

The first eight points of the community ground rules document are what I would consider basic netiquette terms or simply ways in which individuals should act when interacting with others.  The list is fairly straightforward and I certainly think is applicable regardless to whether we are discussing groups or networks.

However, there are two other sections of the document that made me question whether the objective was to create a group or network.  For example, it reads "...to ensure we maintain a safe, trustworthy discussion environment", students must be enrolled in the course in order to be an eligible community member.  This sounds more like a group than a network to me.  And I would argue that in some educational contexts, learners would benefit from discourse that is less than safe, or more diverse than what they are accustomed to since this is what they will likely face as members of a global society.

In another instance the term network was used in reference to more group-like behavior:  What happens to this network after our class is over?  The question is in relation to content and how all the content is to be deleted once the course has be completed.  This seems to indicate almost a pruning of one's network back to what it was at the beginning of the course, perhaps shifting back the spaces as they once were.

Growing a network among learners within a class requires taking several different shots of a subject, from different points of view and in different situations, as if one examined it in the round.  Forming a group among learners within a class means looking through the same key-hole again and again.  As educators, I think it is to our advantage to take an honest look at how our students are learning collectively (as in a group) and connectively (as in a network) in order to find the right mix based on particular educational contexts.  We can meet course objectives while still forming long-lasting networks that will continue transforming well after the course has been completed.