Another interesting week in experiencing emerging technologies!
This week I worked with Tia and Pete to create our module on Moodle, a course management software, using MovieMaker, later changed to iMovie. We knew from the beginning that we weren't supposed to spend too much time on it so our mantra was "get in, get it done, get out."
In hindsight it was a prototypical comedy of errors. What could have gone wrong, did go wrong. We thought we were on top of something but a roadblock would arise. For me it wasn't fun at all. It was slog, slog, slog. Try one thing, fail. Try another thing, fail. Give that thing up. Find another tool. Deadline passes. Contact Dr. Bert. Stress.
We chose to do a divide and conquer method from the beginning which was, one of us selects and researches the tool, one of us writes up the Wiki info, all of us script and contribute to screenshots, and one of us puts together in video because of the strengths we have. Maybe that was our mistake going into the project. I don't know.
We started off trying to create original Moodle sites that required downloading software. Two of us had PCs and one had a MAC and we didn't realize that there were different versions of Moodle available. We all tried to switch to PC to be consistent. Downloading the software got extremely technical and time-consuming so we eventually decided to use the Moodle demo site.
Then two of us switched to MAC because the person who was going to put the video together was a MAC person. Then we had problems using Screencast with double extensions not being able to be opened via Dropbox.
So what did we end up doing eventually? One team member who had the Mac only chatted with the member who had both a PC and a MAC. The member who had a PC and MAC had the chat box open on the PC while the team member walked through how to do what needed doing on the MAC. They then stayed online with each other to confirm that the Dropbox items were coming through realtime in a format that could be used with iMovie.
What we tried initially was asynchronous use of technology using the skills and knowledge sets we each had individually. This meant that time passed between subsequent contact with team members to determine whether the elements of the module were successful or not. A synchronous chat session was finally necessary to ensure that elements were available.
I also think this assignment was difficult for our team because two of us, one of them being me, has very little online video skills.
I know this should not have been hard at all to do. I think the other thing was that we were trying really hard not to use any software that we already know how to use but to try some new things.
Anyway, it was a frustrating week. Thanks for "listening". Kim
Saturday, February 26, 2011
Saturday, February 19, 2011
Reflecting on Group Dynamics
02-19-2011
This was a week to reflect on group dynamics. Something happened at work that showed me the power of group dynamics and we also discussed it during class.
A colleague of mine is critically ill. We have worked together closely and have laughed and argued and sometimes been very angry with one another over decisions that have been made in the past. We talk almost daily because of work. This last week many people at work, some of whom do not normally interact with one another, but have linkages through our colleague, swiftly met to discuss how best to help by taking over assignments and redistributing workload. The synergistic power of groups when they are functioning well is truly amazing.
However, effective group formation is not easy. Tuckman's four
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuckman%27s_stages_of_group_development
stages of group development, Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing, immediately came to mind during our after class question and answer period. Personally, I work very collegially and helping groups work effectively is a very important value that I hold so I put an enormous amount of energy in it.
Last week our assignment group put a great deal of effort into totally re-vamping our assignment based on the feedback we received from you, our classmates. I always say to my children regarding education, you get out of it what you put into it. I think we learned a great deal by continuing to work on our assignment, not just about crafting an excellent assignment but about working effectively as a group.
However, the amount of time we put into re-crafting our assignment got me thinking about how much time and effort we put into effective group formation. We talked in class about the process of exploring the emerging technology as more important than the actual product we produce. This post is about the need to acknowledge in our class that group work in an online course requires so much more that should be measured and counted toward completing our class requirements.
Here's why. Offline, I am analyzing, synthesizing and trying to integrate the thoughts and comments of my group members. I ask myself questions such as, how can we include the life experiences of all members of the group so that the creation of the assignment is meaningful? How do we move forward when there is a log-jam? How long do we wait until everyone responds?
After thinking about all of this, I also have many other questions. Am I thinking about the importance of including every member's opinion because I am female? Because I am a Baby Boomer? Because of my Myers-Brigg's type? Because I've been a manager for half my professional career? Because this is my first synchronous online course?
Why am I struggling so much in this course? I am completely fine with "going with the flow", and not knowing what will happen tomorrow because this is basically life and what I am trained to do. I take things as they come and deal with them.
What are all of you experiencing? Oh, I do have one last thing to share with you. About 14 years ago Dr. Curtis Ho taught a class and he came in the very first day and said, "I'm going to try something new that I heard about. I'm going to let you, the students design the curriculum." We were all second year ETEC masters students and were completely floored. We had no clue where to start. Dr. Ho shared that the underlying idea for this teaching strategy was that instead of assuming that none of us had any skills or life experiences on which to draw, we should determine what skills and life experiences we did have together and then go from there. It was pretty radical at the time.
Instead of lecturing us on standard video editing techniques, for example, we learned that one of the students in our class worked at Punahou and had access to a state-of-the-art lab. That became one of the class projects and I was in his group. We created a module and taught the class about emerging technologies for video editing at the time.
In the final analysis, every student in the class said that while it was a tremendous amount of work, the end results of the class were that they learned so much more than if Dr. Ho had just lectured and that they learned who had what around town, and that we bonded as a class. I remember it as one of the best learning experiences I've ever had. But, it started off really rocky because none of us knew what was going on, including Dr. Ho!
This was a hard post. Kim
This was a week to reflect on group dynamics. Something happened at work that showed me the power of group dynamics and we also discussed it during class.
A colleague of mine is critically ill. We have worked together closely and have laughed and argued and sometimes been very angry with one another over decisions that have been made in the past. We talk almost daily because of work. This last week many people at work, some of whom do not normally interact with one another, but have linkages through our colleague, swiftly met to discuss how best to help by taking over assignments and redistributing workload. The synergistic power of groups when they are functioning well is truly amazing.
However, effective group formation is not easy. Tuckman's four
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuckman%27s_stages_of_group_development
stages of group development, Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing, immediately came to mind during our after class question and answer period. Personally, I work very collegially and helping groups work effectively is a very important value that I hold so I put an enormous amount of energy in it.
Last week our assignment group put a great deal of effort into totally re-vamping our assignment based on the feedback we received from you, our classmates. I always say to my children regarding education, you get out of it what you put into it. I think we learned a great deal by continuing to work on our assignment, not just about crafting an excellent assignment but about working effectively as a group.
However, the amount of time we put into re-crafting our assignment got me thinking about how much time and effort we put into effective group formation. We talked in class about the process of exploring the emerging technology as more important than the actual product we produce. This post is about the need to acknowledge in our class that group work in an online course requires so much more that should be measured and counted toward completing our class requirements.
Here's why. Offline, I am analyzing, synthesizing and trying to integrate the thoughts and comments of my group members. I ask myself questions such as, how can we include the life experiences of all members of the group so that the creation of the assignment is meaningful? How do we move forward when there is a log-jam? How long do we wait until everyone responds?
After thinking about all of this, I also have many other questions. Am I thinking about the importance of including every member's opinion because I am female? Because I am a Baby Boomer? Because of my Myers-Brigg's type? Because I've been a manager for half my professional career? Because this is my first synchronous online course?
Why am I struggling so much in this course? I am completely fine with "going with the flow", and not knowing what will happen tomorrow because this is basically life and what I am trained to do. I take things as they come and deal with them.
What are all of you experiencing? Oh, I do have one last thing to share with you. About 14 years ago Dr. Curtis Ho taught a class and he came in the very first day and said, "I'm going to try something new that I heard about. I'm going to let you, the students design the curriculum." We were all second year ETEC masters students and were completely floored. We had no clue where to start. Dr. Ho shared that the underlying idea for this teaching strategy was that instead of assuming that none of us had any skills or life experiences on which to draw, we should determine what skills and life experiences we did have together and then go from there. It was pretty radical at the time.
Instead of lecturing us on standard video editing techniques, for example, we learned that one of the students in our class worked at Punahou and had access to a state-of-the-art lab. That became one of the class projects and I was in his group. We created a module and taught the class about emerging technologies for video editing at the time.
In the final analysis, every student in the class said that while it was a tremendous amount of work, the end results of the class were that they learned so much more than if Dr. Ho had just lectured and that they learned who had what around town, and that we bonded as a class. I remember it as one of the best learning experiences I've ever had. But, it started off really rocky because none of us knew what was going on, including Dr. Ho!
This was a hard post. Kim
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Baby Boomer Brain -- Millennial Brain
Sunday, 02-13-2011
This week I tuned in to one of our optional synchronous teacher office hours. I am so happy that I did because during the session Dr. Bert answered questions, and also helped our group to clarify and move our proposal forward.
When Dr. Bert said the magic words "think of this as creating a draft" then I suddenly understood that the assignment was not about the end product but about exploring and the process.
I cannot help but reflect that many of my generation, the baby boomer generation, were brought up to produce products. After all that was was the post-war industrial revolution was all about: create efficiencies, machines taking the place of manpower, etc. I think the baby boomer brain was essentially wired to be product-oriented the same way I am seeing net-generation millennial brains being process-oriented.
For example, last semester I read a research study in which a firm that makes military satellites was asked to change the way it does business. The old guard who prided themselves on over-designing and making things last for 1o0 years even if the specifications called for the satellite to only last 30 years were resisting attempts by the the government who wanted quicker turnaround and less expensive satellites that really did only last 15 years. They wanted to speed up the process of getting things designed and up into space. But the old guard engineers said that doing anything less was demeaning to them and not "the American way."
That is why I am so thankful to be in the PhD program. I am trying very hard to re-wire my brain so that I keep the good parts of my baby boomer brain but also re-wire part of my brain to be a net-generation brain.
How does this fit into the "Emerging Technologies for Learning" theme of our class? Well, although many of us will be retiring in the next 10-15 years, it is still 10-15 years. How do we as educators find relevance in all that is emerging and harness it for learning? How do we teach the kids in our classrooms and libraries that it is okay to explore and try new things and to fail and also march to standards and outcomes for accreditors? This is the same question I asked at the very beginning of class. I think there is not a very neat answer. Rather we struggle to define what we mean by emerging technologies and how to best use them by dialoging, communicating, and yes, perhaps, even arguing.
Wish me luck! Kim
This week I tuned in to one of our optional synchronous teacher office hours. I am so happy that I did because during the session Dr. Bert answered questions, and also helped our group to clarify and move our proposal forward.
When Dr. Bert said the magic words "think of this as creating a draft" then I suddenly understood that the assignment was not about the end product but about exploring and the process.
I cannot help but reflect that many of my generation, the baby boomer generation, were brought up to produce products. After all that was was the post-war industrial revolution was all about: create efficiencies, machines taking the place of manpower, etc. I think the baby boomer brain was essentially wired to be product-oriented the same way I am seeing net-generation millennial brains being process-oriented.
For example, last semester I read a research study in which a firm that makes military satellites was asked to change the way it does business. The old guard who prided themselves on over-designing and making things last for 1o0 years even if the specifications called for the satellite to only last 30 years were resisting attempts by the the government who wanted quicker turnaround and less expensive satellites that really did only last 15 years. They wanted to speed up the process of getting things designed and up into space. But the old guard engineers said that doing anything less was demeaning to them and not "the American way."
That is why I am so thankful to be in the PhD program. I am trying very hard to re-wire my brain so that I keep the good parts of my baby boomer brain but also re-wire part of my brain to be a net-generation brain.
How does this fit into the "Emerging Technologies for Learning" theme of our class? Well, although many of us will be retiring in the next 10-15 years, it is still 10-15 years. How do we as educators find relevance in all that is emerging and harness it for learning? How do we teach the kids in our classrooms and libraries that it is okay to explore and try new things and to fail and also march to standards and outcomes for accreditors? This is the same question I asked at the very beginning of class. I think there is not a very neat answer. Rather we struggle to define what we mean by emerging technologies and how to best use them by dialoging, communicating, and yes, perhaps, even arguing.
Wish me luck! Kim
Thursday, February 10, 2011
The Continuum of Emerging Technologies
02-10-2011
What an interesting experience I'm having today....
I just left comments for our discussion question 1 and am reflecting on the wide variety of experiences we have among our classmates which makes for a very rich learning environment. This makes me thankful for my own daily learning environments at home and work and reflective of the diversity of experiences and opinions there as well.
I also just finished re-reading the comments and rating of our group's proposal. The take-away that I had from that experience is that feedback is critical to instructional design. What I heard loud and clear from the feedback given to my group is the focus of the assignment was more about non-profits and less about emerging technology.
Which leads me to my thoughtful question of the day. What constitutes an emerging technology? I think from our discussion question responses we may all agree that "emerging" is a long continuum that is measured in years and perhaps even decades. I think along with "emerging", words such as "refreshed", "recycled", and "reborn" technologies are going to be used more and more often. These would be used to refer to technologies that were not ready for prime-time perhaps and did not quite attract a large enough following. Or "new use" technologies for those that were used in one way but are now being used in other ways.
I also think back often to what Dr. Bert told us on day one about failure. We learn just as much, if not more from failure. So perhaps we should be studying "failed technologies". That would be an interesting title for a course "Failed Technologies for Learning". Maybe I'll write a paper on that. Hmmmmm I wonder if I would find source material. People tend not to publish their failures.
Aloha. I am enjoying our class very much. Kim
What an interesting experience I'm having today....
I just left comments for our discussion question 1 and am reflecting on the wide variety of experiences we have among our classmates which makes for a very rich learning environment. This makes me thankful for my own daily learning environments at home and work and reflective of the diversity of experiences and opinions there as well.
I also just finished re-reading the comments and rating of our group's proposal. The take-away that I had from that experience is that feedback is critical to instructional design. What I heard loud and clear from the feedback given to my group is the focus of the assignment was more about non-profits and less about emerging technology.
Which leads me to my thoughtful question of the day. What constitutes an emerging technology? I think from our discussion question responses we may all agree that "emerging" is a long continuum that is measured in years and perhaps even decades. I think along with "emerging", words such as "refreshed", "recycled", and "reborn" technologies are going to be used more and more often. These would be used to refer to technologies that were not ready for prime-time perhaps and did not quite attract a large enough following. Or "new use" technologies for those that were used in one way but are now being used in other ways.
I also think back often to what Dr. Bert told us on day one about failure. We learn just as much, if not more from failure. So perhaps we should be studying "failed technologies". That would be an interesting title for a course "Failed Technologies for Learning". Maybe I'll write a paper on that. Hmmmmm I wonder if I would find source material. People tend not to publish their failures.
Aloha. I am enjoying our class very much. Kim
Sunday, February 6, 2011
Changing Jobs
02/06/11
Hi everyone, how has your week gone? It has been very hectic for me. I just changed jobs from being the head of buying books and e-books for UHM libraries to being a library administrator and am now in charge of, among other things, the IT departments. The systems department runs the library system for all the UH libraries on all the islands. It's an integrated system of buying materials, invoicing, receiving, and cataloging books and journals. We also do all the interlibrary loans online. We're trying to figure out the right balance of books and e-books, journals and e-journals. We're following the e-textbook conversation.
The Office of Scholarly Communications is moving heavily into doing digital resource management of both university records and faculty scholarly works. The Networking Department is trying to decide whether we should move from desktop computers for staff to client-based computing (sort of back to the old, old days of dumb terminals and mainframes).
On the public side of the house, we're trying to figure out how to remodel Hamilton Library's first floor so it can become a social networking hub on campus and has a media lab where students can create their own videos, audio materials, etc. We're trying to figure out how to move our libraries from our traditional image on campus of static collections to a place that learners equate with all of Bloom's Digital Taxonomy levels.
Part of my new job is also how to find the money in the budget to do all these things. And also to go out and get more money from donors to be able to get emerging technologies into students' hands.
Wasn't that a great class with Mary-Sensei's students? I shared the stories of how students use technology in Japan and China with several students in the library, co-workers, and also friends at a Super Bowl party this weekend.
One point that especially caught my attention was that it was considered rude to use cell phones on the train or bus in Japan. This underscored my belief that there are many cultural rules and norms that affect technology use. And also got me wondering again about the intersections between cultural norms and the Digital Divide.
By the way, this is an awesome resource for what's happening in America with technology:
http://www.pewinternet.org/
Have a great week: Kim
Hi everyone, how has your week gone? It has been very hectic for me. I just changed jobs from being the head of buying books and e-books for UHM libraries to being a library administrator and am now in charge of, among other things, the IT departments. The systems department runs the library system for all the UH libraries on all the islands. It's an integrated system of buying materials, invoicing, receiving, and cataloging books and journals. We also do all the interlibrary loans online. We're trying to figure out the right balance of books and e-books, journals and e-journals. We're following the e-textbook conversation.
The Office of Scholarly Communications is moving heavily into doing digital resource management of both university records and faculty scholarly works. The Networking Department is trying to decide whether we should move from desktop computers for staff to client-based computing (sort of back to the old, old days of dumb terminals and mainframes).
On the public side of the house, we're trying to figure out how to remodel Hamilton Library's first floor so it can become a social networking hub on campus and has a media lab where students can create their own videos, audio materials, etc. We're trying to figure out how to move our libraries from our traditional image on campus of static collections to a place that learners equate with all of Bloom's Digital Taxonomy levels.
Part of my new job is also how to find the money in the budget to do all these things. And also to go out and get more money from donors to be able to get emerging technologies into students' hands.
Wasn't that a great class with Mary-Sensei's students? I shared the stories of how students use technology in Japan and China with several students in the library, co-workers, and also friends at a Super Bowl party this weekend.
One point that especially caught my attention was that it was considered rude to use cell phones on the train or bus in Japan. This underscored my belief that there are many cultural rules and norms that affect technology use. And also got me wondering again about the intersections between cultural norms and the Digital Divide.
By the way, this is an awesome resource for what's happening in America with technology:
http://www.pewinternet.org/
Have a great week: Kim
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