What a week it has been trying to learn how to become an effective story teller. In addition to readings from Presentation Zen and Digi Tales the course has us working with VoiceThread. Finally, an Internet site where I can begin to put together images, text and audio to tell a story! I experimented with VoiceThread and created a short story about a Wild Turkey I encountered during a morning walk. I uploaded 5 digital pictures that captured the event and added a voice commentary. If you want to hear my story just click here.
I have big ambitions and high hopes for digital story telling. In the software industry I could prepare and present a digital story about a customer request for new functionality. Instead of listing what we need to provide to customers, I could present it in the form of a customer story. At Pharmacy OneSource our customers are mainly pharmacists, so I might tell a digital story about a 'Day in the Life of a Pharmacist' which would add a personal, human element. At the Hoofer's Sailing Club I might create a digital story where I share what happened when I did not check my rigging on a windy day and what ensued.
In my readings from Presentation Zen and Digi Tales it was stressed over and over how important it is to storyboard and design a presentation before creating the final presentation product. Yes, this all made sense and who wouldn't do that? Well, I set about creating my class VoiceThread presentation on the Civil Rights Movement. I immediately parked myself in front of my computer, logged on to VoiceThread, started browsing and grabbing images for my presentation - then recorded the voice-overs for the slides. Mission Accomplished? Hardly!
Although I read the course materials, I had not devoted any time to going analog (offline with a pad of paper) to think through the core idea and supporting elements to craft a great presentation. I had gone computer geek first and focused on the presentation tools and then tried to kludge together a story after the fact. Ouch. I played the presentation back and I even I got a little lost trying to find the riveting moments or continuity that would have made it better. It didn't help that I could hear my own pauses as I tried to figure-out what would have made sense next. I deleted the whole thing and started over.
I have a ways to go to become a better story teller. It took the experience of playing back my own work and hearing how I told a story to realize that I need to plan-out, sketch-out and storyboard first. Story telling is such a powerful way to reach an audience and until I improve, all the free slideware presentations I create and even my Blogs will never convey meaning and respect to my audience.
Originally created for my M.E in Instructional Technology, I enjoy sharing a blog or two about life along the way.
Friday, May 21, 2010
Friday, May 14, 2010
Digital Story Telling - Week One
The latest MEIT course through Cardinal Stritch University is titled, 'Digital Story Telling'. I have to confess that I am full of stories that I want to share - and The Internet would seem to be a good place to share them. The week started with readings from Bernajean Porter's 'DigiTales: The Art of Telling Digital Stories'. Porter introduces to us the importance of storytelling and its significant role in learning. Porter gets into what makes a good story and a lot of it hinges on the story teller having content and making a connection with the audience.
Garr Reynolds' 'Presentation Zen' takes a minimalist approach to presentations. Less is indeed more. But what does this have to do with telling stories? Have you ever read a Tom Clancy novel where he devotes a paragraph to the politics of a
person holding a door open - and then never brings-up that person again in the text? Not to pick-on Clancy, but didn't those details clutter-up the flow of the story? What purpose did they serve? As a reader I find that I start skimming Clancy's work looking for the real story.Reynolds devotes time explaining how PowerPoint and other slideware shifted presentation emphasis from content to format. PowerPoint permits one to use a multitude of colors and create endless text and bullet slides to the detriment of the intended audience. There is a tendency to use way too many colors, graphics and text that wind-up detracting from the very content we want to present.
John Sweller came-up with the Cognitive Load Theory and this applies to current state of slideware presentations. Sweller maintains that humans have a limited amount of 'working memory' (think computer memory). When humans are subject to a presentation where the presenter reads from the text slides in front of the audience - this becomes an adverse learning event. The audience is simultaneously bombarded with verbal and visual forms of the same information causing the working storage space to rapidly deplete. Concurrent use of both forms wastes audience bandwidth and takes resources away from processing the content.
Well, back to storytelling. I am anxious if not champing at the bit to get going creating digital stories! Class assignments had us viewing different videos of presenters and people telling their own stories. Some of the videos were riveting to watch and others plodded along. So how do I become a good digital story teller? I have to start with finding my exemplars and then gaining insights as to how they were able to generate and hold the audience's interest to the very end. I have the technological tools but I want to make sure that I design my stories first so that the focus can be on the message - not the media.
Friday, April 23, 2010
Week 5: Similarities & Differences, Generating & Testing Hypotheses and Homework & Practice
I can think of a time when I asked intermediate-level sailing students to identify the similarities and differences between the single sail (cat-rigged) and boats with 
a main and a jib sail (sloop-rigged). The students had already achieved proficiency with boats but were now embarking into more advanced sailing theory where they would take turns acting as skipper and crew of a sloop. I asked the students to identify what was similar on the sloop or different from the smaller cat-rigged boats. The students compared and contrasted the boats, identified new components and hypothesized about their relationship to the boat. I followed-up with 5 minutes of sailing theory and then we set sail. Similarities and differences, in this 
case, was an effective strategy to help students restructure knowledge, make new connections and experience new insights for upcoming on-water instruction.
Out on Lake Mendota I decided to employ a different strategy: generating and testing hypotheses. I asked the students to think about how they might optimize the trim of both sails to maximize boat speed. The students were asked to speculate as a group, tell we what they were going to try and why, and then see what happened when they made adjustments to the rigging. Running the same course to eliminate as many variables as possible, I acted as the timekeeper and recorded how long it took to cover 200 yards. I presented the times for each run and the students discussed and thought of new things to try to increase the boat speed. By asking students to generate and test hypotheses I engaged students in complex mental processes where they applied and incorporated new facts and knowledge to further their understanding of the content (advanced sailing theory).
Stepping away from the fun of teaching sailing and back into the workplace, I can think of a time that I assigned homework and practice and not a single student did it! How I had failed so miserably to motivate my students? The whole point of assigning homework and practice was to give the students a chance to review and apply course material. Sure some of it was drill and practice, but I wanted
employees to immerse themselves in the work and gain greater proficiency with the content. Well, the problem was two-fold: I had given 3 hours of homework with only one day in between for them to complete the assignments and their supervisors had 'other plans' for the employees' time.
I met with the team supervisors and we discussed what might be a good compromise that would work for everyone. I agreed to break the homework into two 90 minute chunks with 3 days between assignment due dates. The supervisors, in turn, vowed to block-out two 2 hour segments on the employees' calendars for work on assignments.
In hindsight, this new approach was a major improvement as it made the homework more effective by being broken into halves and thereby giving employees a chance to reflect and deepen their understanding of the content. Also, collaborating with the team supervisors gave me the opportunity to express how homework and practice was a critical strategy to help their subordinates gain proficiency with company products.
a main and a jib sail (sloop-rigged). The students had already achieved proficiency with boats but were now embarking into more advanced sailing theory where they would take turns acting as skipper and crew of a sloop. I asked the students to identify what was similar on the sloop or different from the smaller cat-rigged boats. The students compared and contrasted the boats, identified new components and hypothesized about their relationship to the boat. I followed-up with 5 minutes of sailing theory and then we set sail. Similarities and differences, in this 
case, was an effective strategy to help students restructure knowledge, make new connections and experience new insights for upcoming on-water instruction.Out on Lake Mendota I decided to employ a different strategy: generating and testing hypotheses. I asked the students to think about how they might optimize the trim of both sails to maximize boat speed. The students were asked to speculate as a group, tell we what they were going to try and why, and then see what happened when they made adjustments to the rigging. Running the same course to eliminate as many variables as possible, I acted as the timekeeper and recorded how long it took to cover 200 yards. I presented the times for each run and the students discussed and thought of new things to try to increase the boat speed. By asking students to generate and test hypotheses I engaged students in complex mental processes where they applied and incorporated new facts and knowledge to further their understanding of the content (advanced sailing theory).
Stepping away from the fun of teaching sailing and back into the workplace, I can think of a time that I assigned homework and practice and not a single student did it! How I had failed so miserably to motivate my students? The whole point of assigning homework and practice was to give the students a chance to review and apply course material. Sure some of it was drill and practice, but I wanted
employees to immerse themselves in the work and gain greater proficiency with the content. Well, the problem was two-fold: I had given 3 hours of homework with only one day in between for them to complete the assignments and their supervisors had 'other plans' for the employees' time.I met with the team supervisors and we discussed what might be a good compromise that would work for everyone. I agreed to break the homework into two 90 minute chunks with 3 days between assignment due dates. The supervisors, in turn, vowed to block-out two 2 hour segments on the employees' calendars for work on assignments.
In hindsight, this new approach was a major improvement as it made the homework more effective by being broken into halves and thereby giving employees a chance to reflect and deepen their understanding of the content. Also, collaborating with the team supervisors gave me the opportunity to express how homework and practice was a critical strategy to help their subordinates gain proficiency with company products.
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
CEDO 525 - Week 4: Clay Shirky & Be Kind Rewind
The blog post title may make you wonder, 'What does the movie Be Kind Rewind have to do with Clay Shirky?' I watched two Internet videos where Clay Shirky discussed collaboration and impact of social media. In the first video Shirky describes how institutions are created to achieve a purpose. Institutions incur costs for hiring, bringing together workers into a building, phone lines, and give rise to a professional class within their walls. The institutions create and provide content but they do so under their guidelines and with high costs which may or may not be passed along to the consumers.
As Shirky points-out, institutions tend to be exclusive and they control the content passed from their professionals out to the consumers (amateurs). In today's world where thousands of amateur videos, pictures and blogs are posted every hour to The Internet the institutions have now lost exclusive control of their domains. Newsprint journalists compete with and often read posts from well-known bloggers and professional photographers share their world with amateurs uploading pictures via FaceBook and Flickr. During last year's protests in Iran, CNN relied on FaceBook and other social media sites to get first-hand reporting from, you guessed it, amateurs.
Hollywood, home of the $100M cookie-cutter movies and control of movie distribution, is seeing amateur movie-makers post product to The Internet that customers want to watch. In the movie 'Be Kind Rewind', a video rental store accidentally has all of
its video tapes erased. Characters played by Mos Def and Jack Black, using a VHS camera, re-create the movies and rent them out to the local neighborhood. The local patrons ask for a movie and our protagonists make it in a matter of a few hours. As they become more successful, the patrons are recruited and then volunteer to star or act as extras in each movie. Since the movies are made locally and have the neighborhood residents they take on even greater significance. The people and the places in the movie are authentic - and, yes, made by amateurs!
Spoiler Alert! Hollywood catches wind that their movies are being infringed upon and shut down the video rental store and destroy all of their amateur re-makes. Initially disheartened, the neighborhood and patrons pull together to make their own movie which will be by them and for them. Sounds democratic - by the people for the people. Ultimately, these amateurs created a low-cost product in a cooperative effort with the community that they all enjoyed and were proud of. End Spoiler Alert!
Getting back to Clay Shirky, he stresses that The Internet and its associated applications is another revolutionary wave much like the printing press or telephony. It is rocking the world of the institutions and their control over domains and we are entering a period of chaos. Shirky reassures his audience that although it will be chaotic and unpredictable, we can accept it and do the best we can today to understand where things might be tomorrow. I have focused on the media and motion picture industries but this has implications for other specialized groups. Just think about all of the online education offerings for college and advanced degrees - and there are more and more every day. How will learning institutions such as the University of Wisconsin adapt to meet competition from schools with lower barriers to entry?
In Shirky's last video he cites Internet censorship by China and the great lengths they go to filter and insulate outside news from their people. Moments after a recent earthquake in China, its citizens were posting images and firsthand accounts within the Chinese 'intranet' and later openly posted dissatisfaction with their government's handling of the crisis. China had locked-out news from the outside world but they had not figured on its own citizenry and the power of social networking within their 'intranet'.
In keeping with their institutionalized tradition, China shutdown access to social networking sites that could not be readily filtered and censored.
How will education respond to the new wave? Many University of Wisconsin professors record classroom lectures - or fellow students record and pass along to their classmates. Will the Universities and colleges continue to demand that most learning needs to be done face-to-face or will they begin to offer a blended approach? In today's economy where many workers will hold 10-15 jobs in a lifetime, rapid re-tooling via online learning is a great way to meet the changing needs of the workplace. The demand is present and educational institutions need to embrace and help shape quality learning experiences to come in the 21st Century. Educational institutions can draw on strategies from the past and see how they might apply to the brave new world of online education.
As Shirky points-out, institutions tend to be exclusive and they control the content passed from their professionals out to the consumers (amateurs). In today's world where thousands of amateur videos, pictures and blogs are posted every hour to The Internet the institutions have now lost exclusive control of their domains. Newsprint journalists compete with and often read posts from well-known bloggers and professional photographers share their world with amateurs uploading pictures via FaceBook and Flickr. During last year's protests in Iran, CNN relied on FaceBook and other social media sites to get first-hand reporting from, you guessed it, amateurs.
Hollywood, home of the $100M cookie-cutter movies and control of movie distribution, is seeing amateur movie-makers post product to The Internet that customers want to watch. In the movie 'Be Kind Rewind', a video rental store accidentally has all of
its video tapes erased. Characters played by Mos Def and Jack Black, using a VHS camera, re-create the movies and rent them out to the local neighborhood. The local patrons ask for a movie and our protagonists make it in a matter of a few hours. As they become more successful, the patrons are recruited and then volunteer to star or act as extras in each movie. Since the movies are made locally and have the neighborhood residents they take on even greater significance. The people and the places in the movie are authentic - and, yes, made by amateurs!Spoiler Alert! Hollywood catches wind that their movies are being infringed upon and shut down the video rental store and destroy all of their amateur re-makes. Initially disheartened, the neighborhood and patrons pull together to make their own movie which will be by them and for them. Sounds democratic - by the people for the people. Ultimately, these amateurs created a low-cost product in a cooperative effort with the community that they all enjoyed and were proud of. End Spoiler Alert!
Getting back to Clay Shirky, he stresses that The Internet and its associated applications is another revolutionary wave much like the printing press or telephony. It is rocking the world of the institutions and their control over domains and we are entering a period of chaos. Shirky reassures his audience that although it will be chaotic and unpredictable, we can accept it and do the best we can today to understand where things might be tomorrow. I have focused on the media and motion picture industries but this has implications for other specialized groups. Just think about all of the online education offerings for college and advanced degrees - and there are more and more every day. How will learning institutions such as the University of Wisconsin adapt to meet competition from schools with lower barriers to entry?
In Shirky's last video he cites Internet censorship by China and the great lengths they go to filter and insulate outside news from their people. Moments after a recent earthquake in China, its citizens were posting images and firsthand accounts within the Chinese 'intranet' and later openly posted dissatisfaction with their government's handling of the crisis. China had locked-out news from the outside world but they had not figured on its own citizenry and the power of social networking within their 'intranet'.
In keeping with their institutionalized tradition, China shutdown access to social networking sites that could not be readily filtered and censored.How will education respond to the new wave? Many University of Wisconsin professors record classroom lectures - or fellow students record and pass along to their classmates. Will the Universities and colleges continue to demand that most learning needs to be done face-to-face or will they begin to offer a blended approach? In today's economy where many workers will hold 10-15 jobs in a lifetime, rapid re-tooling via online learning is a great way to meet the changing needs of the workplace. The demand is present and educational institutions need to embrace and help shape quality learning experiences to come in the 21st Century. Educational institutions can draw on strategies from the past and see how they might apply to the brave new world of online education.
Saturday, March 20, 2010
CEDO 525 - Week 3 Tools Review
I am reviewing 3 online tools for my MEIT Course. The three tools help one create and visually organize information. The tools reviewed are:
1)Bubbl
2)MindMeister
3)Webspiration
I chose to put together a map for a new employment opportunity. What are the things one should do when an opportunity presents itself? Using Bubbl, MindMeister and Webspiration I used the same information to see what I could produce.
Bubbl
Bubbl is free and easy to use. It took a minute or two to get the hang of clicking on the bubbles, adding text and spawning connected bubbles. Text formatting was not present, but one can use the icons to change the bubble colors. It would have been nice if the child and sibling bubbles defaulted to the color of the parent bubble. Each bubble can be dragged and dropped around the screen but one has to pay attention to the connecting line.
Bubbl lets you collaborate with other Bubbl users allowing edit access. One can also export the Bubbl map to XML and HTML code, send a link or embed the code on a Web-site. I chose to embed the code here on my blog. Note the controls available in the widget for zooming-in and navigating around the map. I would recommend Bubbl for anyone wanting to get an easy and quick start developing a map and extending it to fellow collaborators.
MindMeister
MindMeister is initially free with all features but after one month you revert to just the free subscription functionality. MindMeister is definitely more robust than Bubbl in that one can format text, add pre-supplied graphics and draw connections between items. I had a lot of fun with this tool as I am more visual than most and I tend to relate tasks/concepts to images. (This should be no surprise to anyone who has seen my prior blogs or presentations!). Visually, MindMeister does lets you create maps with more impact as the child tasks/connections are in a smaller font. At a glance one can tell what are the core topics and subtopics and their relation to one another.
MindMeister provides greater integration into other products with the full version. Calendars can populate with tasks and this does extend MindMeister into a project management/alerting tool. Notes, links, attachments and tasks can be added to the map via the 'Extras' menu. The 'Topic' tool lets one search for topics and inserts them as a link within topic areas of the map. I tried the Wunderlink under the 'Update Resume' topic area and it returned a site with tips on resumes.
MindMeister has plenty of export formats which include MS-Word and PDF.
I decided that I wanted to share the MindMeister Map on my blog. First, I had to publish the map and then I could copy and paste the embed code for the blog. The MindMeister widget is more than adequate but I wish it was bit more like the one seen for Bubbl. I do like MindMeister and will continue to work with it to see if paying for the full version is worth the $5 a month.
Webspiration
Webspiration has a Beta version which is currently free for use. After signing-up and logging-in to Webspiration it seems that the features are more evolved over Bubbl and MindMeister.
What immediately struck me was the vast selection of templates available for diagrams, outlines and templates. I chose the idea map to be consistent with early creations in Bubbl and MindMeister.
The initial object allowed me to easily add text along with underlying notes for the main idea or topic. There are many more options for formatting, inserting hyperlinks and graphics than MindMeister. Due to the additional functionality I found it took a bit longer to find just the features I wanted. I don't consider this a downside to Webspiration as it by far the most robust of the three products. I was very happy to find that I could copy a bubble and it retained the text and size. In my example I used this to clone or copy the 3 reference bubbles.
The export options from Webspiration were limited in that I could not share embed code and place my work in this blog. Please click on the link to see what I created in Webspiration.
http://www.mywebspiration.com/view/381153a38446 The collaborative aspects are rich in that one can create collaboration groups with access to the map/diagram. I feel that I merely scratched the surface with Webspiration and should revisit at a later time. The multitude of templates, ability to substitute boxes with graphics and insert hyperlinks has piqued my interest.
Bubbl is a quick and easy way to knock-out a map, MindMeister builds on that experience but has a greater feature set than Bubbl and Webspiration really shines with advanced features. It will be interesting to see what the production version of Webspiration brings forth upon its release.
1)Bubbl
2)MindMeister
3)Webspiration
I chose to put together a map for a new employment opportunity. What are the things one should do when an opportunity presents itself? Using Bubbl, MindMeister and Webspiration I used the same information to see what I could produce.
Bubbl
Bubbl is free and easy to use. It took a minute or two to get the hang of clicking on the bubbles, adding text and spawning connected bubbles. Text formatting was not present, but one can use the icons to change the bubble colors. It would have been nice if the child and sibling bubbles defaulted to the color of the parent bubble. Each bubble can be dragged and dropped around the screen but one has to pay attention to the connecting line.
Bubbl lets you collaborate with other Bubbl users allowing edit access. One can also export the Bubbl map to XML and HTML code, send a link or embed the code on a Web-site. I chose to embed the code here on my blog. Note the controls available in the widget for zooming-in and navigating around the map. I would recommend Bubbl for anyone wanting to get an easy and quick start developing a map and extending it to fellow collaborators.
MindMeister
MindMeister is initially free with all features but after one month you revert to just the free subscription functionality. MindMeister is definitely more robust than Bubbl in that one can format text, add pre-supplied graphics and draw connections between items. I had a lot of fun with this tool as I am more visual than most and I tend to relate tasks/concepts to images. (This should be no surprise to anyone who has seen my prior blogs or presentations!). Visually, MindMeister does lets you create maps with more impact as the child tasks/connections are in a smaller font. At a glance one can tell what are the core topics and subtopics and their relation to one another.
MindMeister provides greater integration into other products with the full version. Calendars can populate with tasks and this does extend MindMeister into a project management/alerting tool. Notes, links, attachments and tasks can be added to the map via the 'Extras' menu. The 'Topic' tool lets one search for topics and inserts them as a link within topic areas of the map. I tried the Wunderlink under the 'Update Resume' topic area and it returned a site with tips on resumes.
MindMeister has plenty of export formats which include MS-Word and PDF.
I decided that I wanted to share the MindMeister Map on my blog. First, I had to publish the map and then I could copy and paste the embed code for the blog. The MindMeister widget is more than adequate but I wish it was bit more like the one seen for Bubbl. I do like MindMeister and will continue to work with it to see if paying for the full version is worth the $5 a month.Webspiration
Webspiration has a Beta version which is currently free for use. After signing-up and logging-in to Webspiration it seems that the features are more evolved over Bubbl and MindMeister.
What immediately struck me was the vast selection of templates available for diagrams, outlines and templates. I chose the idea map to be consistent with early creations in Bubbl and MindMeister.The initial object allowed me to easily add text along with underlying notes for the main idea or topic. There are many more options for formatting, inserting hyperlinks and graphics than MindMeister. Due to the additional functionality I found it took a bit longer to find just the features I wanted. I don't consider this a downside to Webspiration as it by far the most robust of the three products. I was very happy to find that I could copy a bubble and it retained the text and size. In my example I used this to clone or copy the 3 reference bubbles.
The export options from Webspiration were limited in that I could not share embed code and place my work in this blog. Please click on the link to see what I created in Webspiration.
http://www.mywebspiration.com/view/381153a38446 The collaborative aspects are rich in that one can create collaboration groups with access to the map/diagram. I feel that I merely scratched the surface with Webspiration and should revisit at a later time. The multitude of templates, ability to substitute boxes with graphics and insert hyperlinks has piqued my interest.
Bubbl is a quick and easy way to knock-out a map, MindMeister builds on that experience but has a greater feature set than Bubbl and Webspiration really shines with advanced features. It will be interesting to see what the production version of Webspiration brings forth upon its release.
Friday, March 12, 2010
Cedo 525 - Week Two - Review + 3 Strategies
Feedback That Fits
As a teacher, I often wonder if I am providing good feedback to my students.
Am I being too rosy and cheerful to the point of seeming insincere? Are my comments and coaching constructive and well-received by students? I read an article titled 'Feedback That Fits' by Susan M. Brookhart. The article is on the ASCD Web-site and offers insight into ways to provide effective feedback to students.Brookhart states that good formative feedback leads to the student perceptions of understanding and control over their learning. But what does this really mean? Well, the student has to be able to hear or comprehend the feedback offered and apply it to the process. If a student hears feedback that can be applied to the current process and will garner greater reward it will become an effective and useful motivator.
There is a balancing act between the form of feedback and the content. If the format is not timely or correct for the learning experience it can become detrimental to the student outcomes. Brookhart differentiates that feedback should be more immediate than delayed with certain activities.
As a sailing instructor, it is best that I provide feedback during the sailing drills than delay until a later time. Immediate, constructive feedback allows the student to understand how they are doing in the process and apply that feedback to help them become better at sailing. If I delay the feedback to when the process is over then the student does not have the opportunity to apply or try a different method and this can lead to frustration.Brookhart discusses the mode of feedback. Should feedback be written or oral? Is it productive to deliver feedback in a group or in one-on-one settings? It all depends on what you are teaching and what the students should be learning. One-on-one interactions can make the student feel like an individual who matters – but the feedback, no matter what the mode, should be non-judgmental. The feedback should relate to the goals of the class or process and help the student work towards that end.
Group feedback is useful in that it challenges the students to collaborate and apply it towards the class. At work I often ask employees to discuss material covered and
how it relates to issues our customers face in the health care industry. The feedback I offer during this process is often in the form of posing questions during the group discussion. The overall purpose is to shape and promote the individual and group outcomes during the process and employees wind-up providing feedback to each other without there being a judgmental, authoritarian figure.Not being judgmental ties back in with what the students hear during feedback. Brookhart concludes the article with examples of feedback that does not work and what can work better. Feedback does need to address the process, acknowledge what the student has done well and focus on ways for the student to build upon what they have done already. I found a lot of value in Brookhart's article and it has provided a fulcrum to help me balance the timing and content of feedback for all my students.
Objectives, Feedback and Recognition
The second week of CEDO 525 finds us examining 3 strategies: setting objectives, providing feedback, and providing recognition. Reading are from chapters 1-3 of “Using Technology with Classroom Instruction that Works”. Although I have already touched upon feedback, the three strategies intertwine and technologies are present which support them.
Objectives
The purpose of asking students to discuss the class objectives helps clarify and set the learning direction. Objectives narrow the focus and establish a framework for the learning experience. Objectives should be flexible yet specific enough that
they are measurable. Educators can use KWHL charts where they ask students at the beginning of the unit to define what they know, what they want to know, how they will learn and at the end, what they learned. Another tool is the online survey which can help the teacher understand what the students already know and what areas the teacher should emphasize in the course.Word Processing software and Web-sites can be used by students to generate and update KWHL charts and teachers with class rubrics. Rubrics can be shared with students via e-mail, class WIKIs or collaborative Web spaces. The rubric is a guideline which helps students stay grounded in terms of tasks, activities and measurable outcomes. At work I provide employees with a course syllabus and the assessment criteria in advance and discuss during the first class meeting.
It is incredibly important that students and teachers are in accord about what the objectives and assessment criteria are for the course. Objectives create a common understanding and agreement which establish the ‘contract’ between students and the teacher. Objectives need to be clearly communicated and provide a basis for evaluation which establishes a contract or agreement between the teacher and students.
Feedback
Feedback, as previously discussed, is another strategy which promotes student learning. Feedback should be non-judgmental and technologies, in general, can permit students to focus on the content. It should not be overlooked that students should have the ability to provide feedback to teachers and peers. Word processing applications such as MS-Words or Adobe Buzzwords allow tracking of version changes and comments. Documents can be shared amongst groups and individuals for generating individual and peer feedback.
Data collection tools permit immediate feedback from students. In an online virtual classroom a teacher may share Q&A sets and note individual as well as group
responses to gauge student learning. Some data collection programs can chart the results which the teacher may share with the class. Automated grading software is beginning to become more viable as a quicker way to provide grade results to students. The lag time for teachers grading assignments and getting them back to students can create gaps of uncertainty for the student as they forward within the unit/course.Web resources which host games are increasingly seen with value for learning and feedback. The image of games as being recreational or just a plain waste of time is getting an extreme makeover in teaching. Games challenge students, provide immediate feedback. When used by groups of students, games can be a source of competition and encourage greater learning.
Communications software consisting of Blogs, Wikis, e-mail, Instant Messaging and Video Conferencing can all be utilized by students for peer-to-peer review or with the instructor. Blogs and Wikis are asynchronous, generally seeded with topics by the instructor and require student reflection for posts. Instant Messaging and Video Conferencing afford synchronous, real-time interaction for feedback. All of these technologies promote prompt, feedback and the opportunity to suggest actions for students to improve their practice.
Providing Recognition
Providing Recognition is a way to positively acknowledge students’ accomplishments towards attainment of a goal. Recognition can be in the form of praise or tangible rewards but the overall strategy is to help the students feel positive and motivated towards greater accomplishment. It is important that the recognition is related to
specific criterion for it to be sincere and authentic.Technologies can be used for recognition beyond the ‘Great Job!’ or a plus symbol across the top of a quiz or essay. Recognition can be extended through peer group accolades via data collection technology as well. Picture students using rubrics reviewing other students work and the results shared with the class. And, the student being evaluated by peers may remain anonymous until the results are posted with the class.
Multimedia is an easy and practical way to provide recognition in the form of certificates of achievement. Most word processors and many online sites permit one to create individualized certificates for students. Web showcases can extend the paper version of a certificate by sharing it on the school Web-site or via electronic copies sent home to parents. One does save on the printing of the certificates but the recognition can reach a larger audience within the student community and home.
Communications software such as e-mail and Video Conferencing allow for a more personalized and social recognition experience. Audio files can be recorded by teachers or students, attached to e-mails and played over and over by the recipient and even shared with family members. Video conferencing connects two or more endpoints together promoting real-time sharing and recognition amongst students and teachers. Face to face meetings with video promote personalized, genuine recognition from peers or teachers in a real-time social setting.
All three of these strategies make sense whether or not one has access to some of the technologies mentioned above. One can employ them in a traditional, face-to-face classroom or extend with various technologies. Just by being aware that these technology tools exist and can support accepted strategies, adds to the bag of tricks teachers can draw upon with students.
Thursday, March 4, 2010
CEDO 525 - Week One - Learning/Teaching Principles
CEDO 525 Enhancing Learning Materials through Technology, has us examining strategies for effective learning. Although the MEIT program has a technology focus, one needs to have a basic understanding of the various strategies for learning outcomes. The course will have weekly readings and discussion from "Using Technology with Classroom Instruction that Works". The nine strategies our course will examine in the coming weeks are:
An assignment for this week is to read the Principles of Teaching & Learning presented by the Carnegie Mellon Eberly Center for Teaching Excellence. The Eberly center emphasizes a learner-centered approach to teaching presented in the Learning Principles
and Teaching Principles on the Web-site. To say that the main take away from this site is 'Know your audience' may sound like an oversimplification, but it really is the essence!
As a student, I often struggled with courses and assignments that were rigid and left me wondering, 'Am I doing what I should be doing?’ I always found areas within the course that piqued my interest and were relevant to me. Alas, sometimes I found that there was a divergence from what was expected of me and what I learned. In hindsight, I should have asked for greater clarification from my teachers.
The Eberly site brings all of this together by stating the relevant principles of teaching and learning. Teachers want to teach, but they can't make a student learn. It is up to the student to reflect and apply what they are learning. The teacher can take on many roles as a facilitator, moderator, etc. But all of this is meaningless unless the teacher understands the knowledge, experience and motivation for their students. If the teacher does come to understand these and other student learning factors, they still need to do something. Course activities and tasks need be custom tailored to mesh with the student.
Teachers need to be less rigid in course design and accommodate students with different motivation, abilities and ways that they learn. The Eberly site proposes that teachers should clearly state what will be required of the students and what they will learn. The clear stating of objectives helps demystify and establish a contract between students and teachers by which all can judge how they are doing. The assessment of the students needs to include an assessment or evaluation of the teacher and course design.
As a teacher I informally ask students about their backgrounds and motivation. Granted, I wear two hats; one as a corporate trainer and the other as a sailing instructor. Corporate training tends to be, well, just that, training. Employees are well-motivated to learn as it directly impacts their immediate career. Sailing students at the University Wisconsin come from all walks of life and have different expectations about how they will use their new sailing skills and knowledge. I need to start getting feedback from both of my teaching areas to help assess and tailor learning objectives that meet the needs of my students - not just what I think they need to know. In the end, my teaching will be more effective if I can first better understand my audience and then apply that knowledge to course.
- Identifying similarities and differences
- Summarizing and note taking
- Reinforcing effort and providing recognition
- Homework and
practice - Nonlinguistic representation
- Cooperative learning
- Setting objectives and providing feedback
- Generating and testing hypotheses
- Cues, questions, and advance organizers
An assignment for this week is to read the Principles of Teaching & Learning presented by the Carnegie Mellon Eberly Center for Teaching Excellence. The Eberly center emphasizes a learner-centered approach to teaching presented in the Learning Principles
and Teaching Principles on the Web-site. To say that the main take away from this site is 'Know your audience' may sound like an oversimplification, but it really is the essence!
As a student, I often struggled with courses and assignments that were rigid and left me wondering, 'Am I doing what I should be doing?’ I always found areas within the course that piqued my interest and were relevant to me. Alas, sometimes I found that there was a divergence from what was expected of me and what I learned. In hindsight, I should have asked for greater clarification from my teachers.
The Eberly site brings all of this together by stating the relevant principles of teaching and learning. Teachers want to teach, but they can't make a student learn. It is up to the student to reflect and apply what they are learning. The teacher can take on many roles as a facilitator, moderator, etc. But all of this is meaningless unless the teacher understands the knowledge, experience and motivation for their students. If the teacher does come to understand these and other student learning factors, they still need to do something. Course activities and tasks need be custom tailored to mesh with the student.
Teachers need to be less rigid in course design and accommodate students with different motivation, abilities and ways that they learn. The Eberly site proposes that teachers should clearly state what will be required of the students and what they will learn. The clear stating of objectives helps demystify and establish a contract between students and teachers by which all can judge how they are doing. The assessment of the students needs to include an assessment or evaluation of the teacher and course design.
As a teacher I informally ask students about their backgrounds and motivation. Granted, I wear two hats; one as a corporate trainer and the other as a sailing instructor. Corporate training tends to be, well, just that, training. Employees are well-motivated to learn as it directly impacts their immediate career. Sailing students at the University Wisconsin come from all walks of life and have different expectations about how they will use their new sailing skills and knowledge. I need to start getting feedback from both of my teaching areas to help assess and tailor learning objectives that meet the needs of my students - not just what I think they need to know. In the end, my teaching will be more effective if I can first better understand my audience and then apply that knowledge to course.
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