connectivism and cyclic learning.

Connectivism is most definitely an important theory (or is it a theory at all??) to consider in this web 2.0 class. According to Siemens himself, “Connectivism is a learning theory for the Digital Age” With connectivism, learning is a cycle in which the individual feeds info into the system...which feeds info back to the individual....who in turn feed in back into the system/network/cyberspace. It's all connected see !!! For connectivists, learning is a process that has a variety of shifting....sometimes rapidly shifting elements. Because of this fluidity and shifting nature of knowledge, it is of paramount importance that the learner be able to filter and evaluate content to determine validity, and to re-evauate prior decisions/beliefs based on updates to that knowledge base.

For me, a teacher, this is the most important learning theory (or is it?) that I've come across. The implications are pedagogy changing.......

The ability to learn/evaluate/incorporate new info is more important for students that memorizing what's currently known. The foundations of knowledge can change and it's important to be able to adapt one's personal knowledge base to accomodate this new info.

The ability to "connect" with information is more important than the information that is available

Students are able to learn by connecting to the information that is available and then build upon the information to form new knowledge which can then be shared back onto the network for other students to access......cyclical learning.

Information is in a constant flux. Learning can be enhanced thought the connection of a network and this “amplification of learning, knowledge and understanding through the extension of a personal network is the epitome of connectivism" (Siemens, 2004).

presentations part deux

I really enjoyed this class too. It's just so amazing to see the diversity of projects that people come up with when given a basic prompt...."build something based in Web 2.0 tech"


As I've said before, I love Arl's project...it's what I want to do when I grow up. My goal is to build something similar for my school. My tech director is already excited and on board already. I just need to develop some skills.

Alex...cool as always. Only you would think to use prezi to jazz up your presentation. Do you ever sleep or do you just wander around the internet day and night finding interesting things.

Tai's idea is truly awesome...a fantastic idea to use Web 2.0 tech to develop a communal communication structure

Lance/Brian...Great concept...nicely done presentation. CMS in Joomla was interesting. I've checked out both Joomla and Drupal for my final project design. thanks for engaging in the debate.

tracy... I know you think we all know aboun ning but in reality it was great to see your presentation b/c it made me think about what I could do with it.

Diedre: loved your presentation on SEPAL. I am department chair in science at my school and I get a lot of mail from SEPAL. Your presentation will make me reconsider their offerings.

Andy. very quick and to the point. Nice idea tho. deserved more time b/c it's a deep concept.

Hai/Mindy. I can't believe the fight you are having to make this happen at your school. I wish you were at my school. Your ideas would be embraced.

Jeff....of jeff's balls fame...I think you should open a restaurant called Jeff's Balls...filling but not greasy. Fascinating idea to attempt an elearning project on language aquisition. I think you're right to focus on blended interaction b/c of the need to talk in front of others. Clear well put together presentation.

Marc: Oh wait...that's me. nevermind.

and so this blog ends....

First round of presentations

What a great class to finally see my fellow classmates present their stuff. I really enjoyed the round of discussion on privacy. It's a very big topic and the ramifications are only starting to be considered. Obviously it's more acute with minors, but adults using Web 2.0 tools indiscriminately are starting to feel the heat. Lot's of stories of mistakes being made, people getting fired for posting to facebook, students finding themselves under scrutiny for what they say online. Cyberbulling has led to suicide, students get their acct's hacked by other students, adolescent angst gets permanently codified. Alex's comment about netiquette was well made. I chatted with my students about it the next day and they said the rules change daily.

Web 2.0 is an evolving organism. New game, new rules, new paradigm. It's fun to be a part of it, or at least to sit on the side an deconstruct it as it's happening. Glad we didn't have cell phones or the internet when I was in high school.

Design Critigue of edu 2.0

I checked this site out after Arl mentioned it one night and found it somewhat useful but not too exciting to look at. I haven't really had the opportunity to do much with it except sign up and check out the available resources. I still haven't created anything and submitted it to the site.

On Information: This site is designed for teachers and administrators to create simple learning management platforms. The reading level is appropriate for a college educated user. The graphics are minimal and limited to functional (as opposed to decorational) uses. It's not an overly detailed page...actually it's rather minimalist overall. There is a consistent cascading visual and textual style with each page...and with each page you add.

On Interactivity: Excellent orientation. Very easy and intuitive navigation with a simple tab interface a just a few icons for major functions. Information was easy to retrieve by search box or basic navigation. Great default help function that can be turned off when not needed.

On Screen Design: This is a very unnatractive design with awful color combinations of light blue and white with faded yellow tabs. Font is kind of greyish. As mentioned before, the layout is very simple and intuitive (albeit unnexciting) The resolution is good but the font is on the small side for older vision.

Pink is the new black

So....I asked Dr Foreman if I could do something a little different with this project. I was absent the day we picked teams and I felt I wanted to focus on my area of interest...classroom teaching. I was pretty moved and inspired by Pink's book. I must have chattered with everybody I know about his ideas. Even my students were inspired...one of them is now reading the book and he loves it.

What I found most powerful is that he defined some of the undefinable qualities of a great teacher with his six R-directed aptitudes. Very spot on in many ways.

I won't babble on here b/c I'm embarrassed to say that my podcast came in at about 15 minutes. I realize this is far longer than I was assigned but I'm sorry....it' didn't look like 15 minutes on paper. I don't expect to show it in class with the others.

If you have the time...feel free to check it out. I apologize in advance the ticking metronome in the background/foreground. I have done everything possible to turn it off but it is a malfunction of the software (garageband) It should not be audible in the playback...but it is nonetheless.

my podcast is here.......hopefully.

Yuri's night

I won't be in class today b/c I'm going to an event at the academy of sciences in GG Park to celebrate the anniversary of Yuri Gagarin's historic flight into space. If you are American, you may not know that Comrade Gagarin was in fact the first man in space and the first to orbit the earth, almost a year before John Glenn.

Yuri's night link

Sorry to miss class but this is a big deal and a worldwide celebration....besides, its a great way to see the academy at night.

see ya'll next week.

Things I learned at the Web 2.0 conference

I couldn't take time off work to go to the presentations but I spent my thursday night classtime perusing the wares at the "booth crawl" Altho the way they were pouring beer it might be called the "booth stagger" for some folks. I myself grabbed an embossed pint mug from the ebay booth (still can't figure out what they were promoting) and I plan to post it for sale on ebay later today. Can't decide whether to post it as half full or half empty. Half full might get more buyers, half empty might get more positive feedback responses (for my honesty as a seller) Tough choice. Here's what I learned.......

Hella schwagg...so bring a bag.

Big booth = big beer...Lotsa free beer but no free puppies as far as I could tell.
crackberry's still outnumber iphonaddicts among geekazoids. Tight polo shirt with tech logo = blackberry. Tight suit with no tie = iphone. High heels = blackberry. Clogs = iphone.

Posing the question; "but how can this be used for educational purposes?" will often stump the booth jockey.

Social networking is the new black. I did some "research" and at this time there are approximately 27, 468 social networking sites. ( I can't divulge my research methodology b/c the algorithm is a trade secret between me and google) I myself am starting a new social network site called YoUrSpace. (this word is trademarked so don't even think of stealing it) It's your space..just for you..no one else can link to it, RSS feed from it, comment on it, or find it in any web searches. It's a place to put YoUrStuff (also trademarked so back off) your pics, your embarrassing video's, your offshore bank accounts, your extensive porn collection. It's private....it's YoUrSpace. I'm gonna be rich!!!!

No seriously, everyone is jumping on the social network bandwagon and your current social network stored stuff is referred to as assets. New sites are appearing that centralize the experience. In class I presented the browser Flock b/c it's a great way to centralize access to all your other accts (facebook, digg, de.li.cious, etc) but these new interfaces are the actual environment themselves. You never actually have to log into any other location. At nomee.com you create a user identity that you upload directly to and it feeds to any other site you want to update. Load pics to nomee, they are stored in your flicker acct. Create an album in nomee, your facebook acct gets a similar album. write an update to your blog in nomee, it loads onto your blogspot....you get the picture. This is definitely the next step. The buzzword seems to be social operating system, but I think that overstates the capabilities a little. Nonetheless, an interesting next step. Collaboration, integration with existing apps and assets, unlimited storage, no branding, no ads, and all open source seemed to be the overiding theme to the event. Sadly, education was not well represented. Like education games, education web 2.0 seems to be an area that's avoided by developers. Then again, that leaves room for those of us in itec to fill a niche.

My fave booths...besides the ones serving beer...were

Adobe. Adobe has an amazing 3-D thing they can do in flash. Actually it's more of a hologram effect but I was impressed by it. I couldn't help thinking how engaging this could be for a science application. Here's a demo on GE's website. You need acces to your printer to make it work.
Hologram
Maybe it's not new to you, but it was for me.

Another fave was any booth using microsoft surface technology. It's a pricey piece of hardware (10k for developers, 15K for you and me ) but you can see that it's the interactive surface that our grandkids will use. I remember it was 10K for a 50 inch plasma screen in 2004, yesterday I saw a guy in san jose selling his 55 inch screen LCD for $500. We went from chalkboard to whiteboard to smartboard and the next step should be this type of interactive board.

Here's some video's of the table. vids