Research / Blog #7

First of all I intended to present three articles focusing on youtube and collaboration potential using Google+ technologies recently introduced within an instructional setting.  After seeing commercials for March Madness and a group of journalists using “hang out” to comment on material real-time sparked my interest.  Applications for this technology within instructional methods are something I perceive as a very strong asset for teachers to wield.

Not finding an abundance of written articles adequately addressing the use of Google+ hang out technology I have chosen three articles from the Podcasting/User-Created Content category in an effort to research the concepts that go behind the strength of real-time sharing of video material and participant content creation within the instructional experience.

Article One:

My first article is “Digital spaces and young people's online authoring: Challenges for teachers.” found in the Australian Journal of Language & Literacy in 2009.  It’s an interesting article with relevance to technology in the classroom touching on today’s learners being Digital Natives compared to learners that adapted to new technologies, Digital Immigrants, and the difference in points of view.  The author actively cites Prensky (Prensky, M. 2004). Prensky writes of how the generation currently learning is part of a digital generation fluid in the language of technology of the period.  The authors do point out a flaw in that thought with socioeconomic conditions creating barriers of entry, individual students having different interests and motivations, and the non-sequential growth of digital populations globally.

At the articles core is the challenge for teachers instructing students within this digital native group.  “Classrooms that privilege alphabetic, print-based, hard copy texts over electronic, multimedia and online texts are failing to capitalize on their students’ expertise and creating dissonance, as well as perpetuating disadvantage for those teens, who are not engaging with new texts outside of school.” (Hansford, Anlington p.59)  The suggestion is that there is a distinct disconnect with the language of bourgeois teaching methods and the native digital population.  Connecting with students in a language best suited toward them is a challenge educators must meet head on.

Teachers are challenged with new realities surrounding their educational and cultural environment and a new directive designed to teach students.  This directive the authors suggest that humankind is designed to use more than one of the senses and stresses that these senses never operate in isolation. (Hansford, Anlington p.61)  In a multimedia stimuli driven world this has become a large contributing factor whether instruction achieve goals and objectives.  In order to enable all students to actively and powerfully engage with online authoring in the classroom, it is imperative that we identify and articulate what makes these new texts work well.

Designing meaningful tasks is another challenge teachers find difficult while teaching the native digital student.  The article suggests that for effective powerful writing to take place using blogs, the focus should be on ‘genuine affinity spaces’ that will interest and challenge students into writing effective pieces for significant purposes. (Hansford, Anlington p.62)  An essential element to the design of instruction should include technology that embraces the task at hand and not make the experience murky, immaterial, or irrelevant.  A group of students writing to a blog is an example.  While the idea is sound if not properly placed within the learning experience and focus identified the practice may not provide the desired result and produce irrelevant results.  Incorporating effective materials and technologies into a plan is needed.

So how are teachers to address design issues in the early stages of developing a plan?  To initiate student learning, effective digital texts can be co-examined to determine the multimodal components that combine to result in effective texts. (Hansford, Anlington p.65)  The authors believe multimodal forms of teaching are needed in much the same way that was discussed in the previous Gardner article on Multiple Intelligences in our previous week.  The design components, such as, linguistic, spatial, gestural, visual and audio elements should be analyzed both for their separate and synergistic qualities. Exploring these components form a foundation for the learner to build upon and embrace within their learning experience.  Students need to learn to learn within a digital text as well as create content within a digital space and the teacher, presumed to be a digital immigrant, bridges the gap between the traditional ideologies and the new digital minded educational thought. 

Article Two:

My second article I am to review was found on our class site.  Though it was written in 2006 I found the content to be relevant in today’s educational culture. “Distance Education Trends: Integrating new technologies to foster student interaction and collaboration” by Yoanny Beldarrain addresses how new technologies have become transformational in their presence.  Delivery structures and traditional thought on pedagagogical practices have been challenged with fresh ideas on how to best interact, engage, and educate our students.  Educational environments are evolving.

One aspect I found interesting about this article is that it was published over six years ago.  In today’s technological culture that is ancient.  However the concepts remain the same and many of the methods are very relevant in today’s distance learning and internet savvy classrooms.  Applications such as podcasts, wikis, blogs and vlogs are introduced while other forms such as Google+ Hang Outs, Facebook and YouTube interface upgrades, and cloud computing advancements had yet to hit the market.   More and more synchronous focused software and web solutions are popping up and this article touches on how emerging technologies are transforming the environmental environment.  These emerging technologies are expanding the learning community in ways that even distance learning has been redefined these past few years.

One important observation by the author is that emerging technology tools fostering interaction must be properly integrated into the design process to ensure appropriate application. (Beldarrain p.143)  If the design is off the mark students will not achieve the desired outcome.  Design structures need to maintain flexibility and be able to adapt during any point in the process. 

The closing paragraph serves as an example of how this article maintains its relevance within today’s learning culture. “The demand for distance education will only continue to grow. The ever-evolving nature of technology will continue to push distance educators to use new tools to create learning environments that will indeed prepare students to be life-long learners, who can problem solve through collaboration with global partners.” (Beldarrain p.150) This statement stands strong today.

 

Article Three:

I found this article, “Teen Content Creators and Consumers” by Amanda Lenhart & Mary Madden,  on our class website much like I did article two and was drawn to the article originally because of the year it was published as much as the content the article contained.  Unlike my former two articles, this article is a study published in 2005 from a sample of 1100 teens ages 12-17 during the period of October 26 to November 28, 2004. (Lenhart, Madden p.18)  I would have to project that the numbers are significantly higher in the majority of the categories as the evolution of digital content creation; barriers to entry have become easier to penetrate.  Within our digital culture it’s my belief that some of the definitions within this article have been transformed by the presence of popular wifi tablets, new price points on smart phone data plans, and the latest sources of entry into the world of content creation.  

This article promotes the idea that American teenagers can engage media material and create their own content in ways the generation before them could not.  This is similar to the Digital native observed in my first article review and the absence of naturally being immersed in technology, the internet, and the current forms of collaboration available to today’s students, businesses, and households.  This article presents the teenaged student often is the one leading adoption of new technologies within the household and that this reality translates into the youth being the aggressive agent bringing the need for adapting educational practices to fit needed methods engaging students with this knowledge in learning. 

One striking observation made reading this article was the portion on dial-up.  In discussing students within the generation of online instruction many users would not know what dial-up is. In the age of digital media, the possibilities for the manipulation of text, images, video, and audio files have increased dramatically. (Lenhart, Madden p.2)  This is made possible because of very wide broadband access and the growing wireless internet availability.  Consumers can listen to, view, search, download, upload, and manipulate content like never before and the growth within this category is not going to slow down any time soon. 

Reading the numbers is refreshing as I compare them to similar statistics collected or projected about current content creation numbers.  Youtube, Google+, Facebook, Blogger, and similar web applications serve as growth points for teens to branch out and engage more with life-long learning.  As educators it is good to know how technology is transformative and a comparison of the findings of a study closing its books for publishing November of 2004 and the teens found creating content and the activities of consumers today is very beneficial.

Sources:

Hansford, Diane; Adlington, Rachael. “Digital spaces and young people's online authoring: Challenges for teachers.” Australian Journal of Language & Literacy, v. 32 issue 1, 2009, p. 55-68.

Beldarrain, Y. (2006, August). Distance Education Trends: Integrating new technologies to foster student interaction and collaboration. Distance Education, 27(2), 139-153. Retrieved March 3, 2008, from Academic Search Complete database.

Lenhart, A., & Madden, M. (2005). Teen Content Creators and Consumers. Pew Internet & American Life Project Report. Retrieved December 14, 2007, from pewinternet.org.
"The emerging online life of the digital native: What they do differently because of technology, and how they do it" [Electronic Version], from http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/prensky-the_emerging_online_life_of_the_digital_native-03.pdf). 

ENGAGEMENT THEORY

               I like how a number of the theories we are researching apply in classroom applications but the one that interests me the most is Engagement Theory.  This theory in particular interests me because of the learning environment constructed in many distance learning class applications.  It promotes the idea that students need to be engaged through activities and participation for a meaningful educational experience.  It’s much more than being presented with the materials or tests on what one knows.  Being immersed within the materials and experiencing the process of gathering knowledge is the valued result.  It's also project driven which I find interesting.

                Students partake in the learning experience by working together in groups or teams.  Much like our group exercise our class just completed, participants work together to form an end product and learn along the way.  This way students collaborate within the learning process creating a relevant learning experience.  The basic principles of this theory have three components: Relate, Create & Donate (Kearsley & Shneiderman, 1998).   The first component, relate, has the students working collaboratively in teams or groups.  As was the case with our group projects, students engage one another through the use of technology such as a Wiki or the use of Skype communicating ideas and forming thoughts.   In a classroom setting this may include clustering around a desk or a group meeting outside of class.  Both of these examples follow the first principle of collaboration emphasizing a team effort that involves communication, planning, management and social skills (Kearsley & Shneiderman, 1998).  The group collaborates on a subject to discuss fresh perspectives on the material.  Individuals exchange ideas and essentially brainstorm new forms of knowledge. 

                The second component, create, involves the collaborating group engaging in the learning process to create a project.  Teams have one common goal: the project.  Whether this is in the form of a presentation such as this class presented, some sort of knowledge scrapbook put together by a team of students, or a collaborative paper, the group executes their planning and communication in the form of a project.  The group has an end goal in mind when exchanging ideas and follows through on the intended plan.

                The third component, donate, stresses the value of making a useful contribution while learning (Kearsley & Shneiderman, 1998).  This principle boils down to relevancy.  The project needs to carry meaning in which others outside the group can learn from or be relevant in its being.  Central in this theory is a center around an “outside” customer.  This ideology is central to my personal belief in instructional methodology because I believe in teaching real-world applications in which students learn through breaking down actual realistic situations or occurrences and develop their own plan, description, and workarounds based on their own group knowledge as well as that written in the material.

                The engagement theory and the three basic principals are relevant in internet based classes: online and traditional brick and mortar classes utilizing internet tools.  Communication is easily done within class or outside of class with texting, email, wikis, and other forms of digital communication.  Collaborative cohesion is an issue face-to-face or completely via internet communication methods but the intent is to engage all students into doing their part, learning through the process, and following through with completion of the project.  The reality that engagement theory focuses on non-academic measures and is built to maintain contact with the learner and their learning environment is also a key component that draws me to this theory. 

A few statements within the text resonate with me.
First:  "Engagement theory places a great deal of emphasis on providing an authentic (i.e., meaningful) setting for learning, something not present in previous models."
Lessons are very relevent, meaningful, and beneficial to the learner and help establish a pattern of troubleshooting and working within the system that will only help build their academic arsenal for lessons to come.

Second, I love the authors closing statement:

“We believe that engagement theory represents a new paradigm for learning and teaching in the information age which emphasizes the positive role that technology can play in human interaction and evolution. We challenge others to examine this theory and test it in their own teaching efforts.”

These two statements are why I too feel strongly for this style of instruction. 

Blog Post #5: My Diigo Group

Social networking sites provide the opportunity for people young and old to communicate, collaborate, and keep up on what is going on.  Sites like MySpace, Facebook, and LinkedIn provide networking opportunities for people to actively participate in communities built for this purpose.  They have become an extension of one’s persona.  It’s appealing to have such open lines of communications with friends, interests, and connections.  For youth it’s an expansion of who they are, the friends they have, and a way of life in today’s modern culture.  For adults it’s becoming an essential component in a cutthroat working environment as well as a means of keeping in contact with chosen connections in a fast paced world.  For young and old it’s yet another extension of keeping in touch with the world they live in.

In the classroom social networking can be a benefit and distraction. Benefits include access to your friends, friends-of-your-friends, and openness of people in our culture to grant you access to being one of their friends.  This leads to opportunities unforeseen prior to social networking solutions.  Reaching out through social network branches of the tree brings experts and collaborative efforts into the classroom that would not have been available before.  Due to the social aspects of social networking distraction is of great concern.  Why would you want friends communicating all over the place when they are supposed to be focused on lessons at hand.  And what are they talking about while they should be listening?  Is the information being retrieved correct or hear-say?  Temptations to stray from the path are great and not everyone will flourish in such an environment.

I tend to use LinkedIn and Facebook exclusively.  For my purposes these two sites have the market share and dominate the workflow of me, my friends, and the professionals I deal with.  I do run the issue of friend’s crossing over into other groups on my Facebook account.  I have some very powerful contacts in the film industry, college athletics field, computer animation professionals, and other professional contacts onboard.  I also have a number of classmates from my class reunion that have no business talking to my professional contacts.  Senior pictures (1989) have surfaced when I played in a hair band….  This is not a problem for me in any capacity but the potential for a conflict does exist.  No beer bong pictures or compromising photos as of yet that I would care about. 

LinkedIn is a different story.  It’s purely professional and I keep my friends tight to the vest.  I have a selective grouping of professionals that I network with.  If I decline an invitation please do not take it personally.

So networking keeps me current, connected, engaged, and focused.  It could be distracting, distorted, and a nuisance however.

Side note:  [1]  I chose a Diigo group that focuses on Android Apps.  I was disappointed that I did not find any groups I really wanted to join and don’t freely jump into groups taking my resources (thinking) from other things.

Blog Post #4:  GAMING / Part Two

WARNING:  Games are ADDICTIVE!!! And you may accidentally learn something!

                Games teach students many lessons through simulation and conditioning techniques that they otherwise would not have access or have the ability to perform in reality for many students.   I will suggest a few sites with games that enhance the learning environment.  I am sticking to three games me family uses almost every day.  Games are great vehicles to learning and children gobble them up. 

                My first example is Food Force, a video game for children about the importance, logistics, and lessons to be learned in providing humanitarian aid in times of crisis.  Again I stress:  GAMES ARE ADDICTIVE and adults may, well, start playing a game such as this and not realize they are still playing after David Letterman says good night.  Of course this has never happened to me.  The game is set in a fictitious environment.  This is important to acknowledge since I am against games that encourage cultural bias like my child in Ohio running around Afghanistan shooting insurgents or other non-healthy representations of reality [different day, different topic, different class].    “Sudents often hold strong misconceptions be they historical, mathematical, grammatical, or scientific.  Computer simulations have been investigated as a means to help students confront and correct these misconceptions, which often involve essential learning concepts." (Strangman & Hall, 2009)  This game is a good example of a simulation placing a student in an environment based on real life situations requiring them to create ideas, think scenarios through, and strive to complete goals using learned knowledge they can take with them into the real world.  For my children I felt the simulation content was appropriate for their learning level.

                Another example is STARFALL, a site my children have used over the years playing games and doing exercises to make them better readers.  It drew them into the learning experience letting them make choices and fulfill their curiosity while providing them access to materials that betters their reading.  I am not a parent that likes to put my child in front of a television or hand them a Nintendo DS for entertainment purposes but have no problem engaging my child in constructive educational practices.  Many multimedia experiences for students to enrich their learning environment. 

                A third site my family utilizes frequently is coolmath.com , a game site dedicated to learning.  Students learn lessons, practice application, learn lingo, and can be introduced to rather complex algorithms and concepts through the use of digital gaming.  Game staples like “Lemonade Stand” and flash card type games help engage students with fun activities.  It’s a great resource for sparking kids Interest and connecting students with learning math skills on a level they can understand and ask for more. 

                There are many other online resources I use educationally, within family teaching, and for personal use.  I like simulation games personally and have found playing games like fictitious business simulations (Capitalism) and Wall Street style old school stock games (don’t like to spend real money!) fill a void that otherwise would be left to fester.  Games provide the opportunity to expand one’s mind if appropriate games are found. 

Bibliography

Strangman, N., Hall, T. (2009, August 24). Virtual Reality/Simulations. Retrieved February 10, 2012, from National Center on Accessible Instructional Materials: http://aim.cast.org/learn/historyarchive/backgroundpapers/virtual_simulations

Cool Math Website

Starfall Website

Blog Post #4:  GAMING / Part One

                First off I would like to know how many of my peers have witnessed Virtual Reality in instructional applications, Augmented Reality within their environment (not just learning), and use of games in your classroom settings?  I inquire as an educator, designer, and father. 

                My experience with Virtual Reality started many years ago.  I worked at Disney World as a technician while going to school for one of my undergraduate degrees.  Also my roommates in college are heavily into the effects for visual arts industry and introduced me to the technology at early stages of development.  SIGGRAPH 1994 took place in Orlando and I made many great contacts that have lasted throughout the years.  I became a digital multimedia specialist focusing on interactive media content for instructional and educational purposes.  If interested in graphical design and computer applications I would suggest researching SIGGRAPH and its membership.  Contacts I have had are in the instructional design industry, medical education fields, and visual arts of all kinds.  As educators it’s overwhelming to see the greatest technology advancements rolling out onto the floor.

                Virtual Reality started out with the flying of a magic carpet through the world of Aladdin in the back rooms of Imagineering at Disney in 1993.  I have also had experience with doctors practicing mock surgeries, army simulations, attraction style learning experiences, and strange forms of graphic user interfaces orchestrating virtual worlds.  All of these are out of the scope of this class but I am very interested in all forms of instruction and have put myself into positions where resources are not typical.

                Augmented Reality was introduced to me a number of years ago on the University of Toledo Medical Campus while working for the Center for Creative Instruction.  We explored applications in marketing and education attempting to better engage with our students and provide more enriching learning experiences.  It is also very cool.  If you see the fans at the Glass Bowl holding up a Marco’s Pizza card with a black and white Marco’s logo on it and the projection on the jumbotron shows a gaggle of fans wearing Rocky the rocket helmets on their heads because through augmented reality the space is redefined remember you are hearing about it here first (seriously, it’s in the works).  ESPN feed will show the feed directly.  I love technology.

                Gaming:  The applications are endless.  Teaching through application is one of the best forms of instruction and any technologies that can help enhance the learning experience should be explored.  World of Warcraft for example, though it is very graphic and not suitable for most children, is a great way of collaborating with others from cultures outside of the user.  They interact, work together, and individually take actions that are felt in a very real way.  Sim City teaches users about cities and their functions. The example in the video addressing Civilization V and the effect on the learners with geography and history is a strong example.  Complex gaming has been a catalyst in many learning environments teaching the student valuable lessons and influences not available in the classroom.  In a world driven by results gaming is a star with its influence and instructional impact without feeling as if they were in school [or school not feeling like school when used in the classroom].

                These are just a few thoughts that came into mind when reviewing this chapter.  Gaming and simulation are still in their infancy in the classroom.  Things continue to evolve and it will be interesting to observe the changes within our educational environment.  “Flat screens.  No one will go out and buy some massive fourty-seven inch TV set! “ I remember people saying a few years ago.  Now 3-D is permeating the cultural landscape and technologies such as these available to the masses with no interest payment options at your local Best Buy will only make availability relevant.    

Blog Post #3  / Open Content & Ethics

            I will start this blog post off by letting everyone know I have been called a “Copyright Nazi” throughout earlier parts of my life.  I’ve always been the one bringing awareness to intellectual property laws and issues of compliance.  As many of us aspiring Instructional Designers work our talents putting together lessons, it becomes much and much less known who really owns the content we are creating and whom owns some of the materials we are placing into our creation.  As designers and educators using these materials we need to know ownership rights and reference those who rightly need to be recognized. 

            Open content is a fantastic opportunity.  Both for the author and the educator using the materials with focus on certain objectives better the educational experience through these lessons is a great idea.  The teacher does not need to start from scratch and has a template to success as they provide content for their students to absorb.  Prior to these readings I had not been in contact with Creative Commons.   It is a great way to access and distribute content without coming into conflict with the laws that protect content creators.  Open content allows the instructor and student to find new works, evaluate them, and make use of the materials themselves. (Johnson, Adams, & Haywood 2011)  For content designers it provides a great framework to work under for distribution of work for use in instructional application.  One would think that providing content such as this for instructional use would be a simple straight forward process but that is not normally the case. Extensive protocols need to be followed to properly provide content to the outside world.

            The section of the readings on electronic texts is extremely relevant in today’s society.    As stated above the model in which publishing and distributing content was pretty restrictive.  Digital Rights Management (DRM) issues also made it difficult to use electronically distributed works in an instructional setting. (Johnson, Adams, & Haywood 2011)  With the change taking place in academic and social cultures these barriers are becoming less a barrier to using materials in forming ideas.  Educational activity is adapting to cultural changes.  “Publishers are beginning to explore richly visual interfaces that include multimedia and collaborative elements.” (Johnson, Smith, Willis, Levine, & Haywood 2011)  More multimedia materials are being used to engage the learner into a more rich learning experience.  This concept is still rather new in today’s learning environment and the use of electronic readers, though a numerous studies have been done, is still in its infancy. 

Ethics become very gray when applied to the classroom.  Teachers use licensed materials for their classes but many stray away from traditional methods in order to better engage with their technology driven younger generation student.  Teaching by blanket rule falls into the fair use category when utilizing media.

So where are the areas of concentration that should concern us as educational consumers and producers of open educational materials?

-          CHANGE  -  Changing and altering of any materials degrades the intended lesson plan.  Whether it’s a few lines or an entire lesson, altering the path also alters the objective intended by the creator of the piece.  The author’s intended message therefore is altered and interferes with the piece of instruction.

-          WHO POLICES IT?  -  We live in a society that openly embraces free and open information.  People misinterpret and redefine barriers all the time.  So who is out there to police the desecration of an author’s method or misguided results of a teacher changing the content to fit their message and not the creator of the copyrighted objective?  I question school awareness in this regard.

-          LICENSING – While many educators go through proper channels and follow procedures many do not.  Failure to follow licensing codes is a large ethical concern. 

Licensing Deeds such as the ones used by Creative Commons alleviates this problem by providing mechanisms for credit to be given to the creator as well as provide protections of users changing the content and preserving the content integrity.(“About the Licenses” )  Also this helps authors of open content to get around copyright barriers and getting their works into the public for use. (“About CC0” )  Ownership of the idea and original work is kept intact while the instructor using the materials is free to expand their classroom environment with new and relevant content. 

Sources:

Johnson, L., Adams, S., and Haywood, K., (2011). The NMC Horizon Report:

2011 K-12 Edition. Austin, Texas: The New Media Consortium.

Johnson, L., Smith, R., Willis, H., Levine, A., and Haywood, K., (2011). The 2011 Horizon Report. Austin, Texas: The New Media Consortium.

About the Licenses . (n.d.). Retrieved from http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ .     

About CC0 – No Rights Reserved. (n.d.). retrieved from http://creativecommons.org/about/cc0 .

In the Clouds:
Cloud Tag of Collegiate Sports Video Association website.