Today in class we discussed more issues concerned with Instructional Technology:
Language Immersion
We discussed different types of language immersion, including K-12 Early, middle and late; total versus partial immersion; bilingual or two-way immersion. One idea that I found particularly interesting was the idea of imagined immersion, accomplished by creating a story around the student that encourages them to learn the necessary vocabulary. I thought it was interesting that in a study of real vs. imagined experiences, after experiencing something first-hand, a week afterwards, people only had a memory of it as vivid as those who had imagined it in the first place.
The Influence of Music on Learning
The three different emphases on music we covered were Music and Memory, Music and Spatial Task Performance, and Music and Mood. In studying Music and Memory, I remembered a personal experience that has always stayed with me. My grandmother had Alzheimer's disease during the last ten years of her life. As the disease worsened, I remember that even when she could not remember my Mother's name, she could remember all of the words to every hymn in the hymn book, and as she sang she would finger them with her fingers. I knew then that music had a very profound influence on memory. I also enjoyed the story of a classmate's cousins whose home school education was based on music, and they were able to advance very quickly in science and languages because of their fundamental understanding of music. Someone also mentioned that an understanding of rhythm was the best determinant for language-learning skill, which I also found particularly interesting. I have always had a pretty good sense of rhythm, and I've also had a knack for learning languages, so I believe that there might verily be a strong correlation there.
Another topic we addressed was that of music and spacial task performance. In brainstorming why music might improve spatial reasoning, I thought about the theory of stimulation we've discussed in Dr. Gibbon's class. Dr. Gibbons introduced to us the idea that stimulation is what guides our attentions, and as we listen or watch something our senses are constantly driven by stimulation. I think classical music, because of its patterns of chord progressions, dynamic, rhythmic and key changes, may allow a person to be stimulated enough to learn what is being read or spoken at the same time.
The third topic we addressed was the relation between music and mood. This is something I've always been very sensitive to, so much so that when I listen to a song that doesn't fit my mood, I experience inner tension and I have to change the song or leave the environment.
Virtual Learning Environments
We also discussed different ideas concerning key features of virtual learning environments, such as electronic communication support, varying access rights for instructors and students, authoring tools and course calendars. We also discussed how all VLEs can be categorized either as a Learning Management System or a Learning Content Management system.
Virtual Learning Environments
Monday, November 24, 2008
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Web 2.0 in the Workplace
In the presentation today about using Web 2.0 in the workplace, I thought it was very interesting that when researching the use of Web 2.0, one of the first things you encounter is irony because even people who express negative opinions towards Web 2.0 technologies express their views through Web 2.0 technologies on the internet. Whether we like it or not, this enormous access to and use of Web 2.0 technologies is changing the ways we are doing things.
In my past internship experience, Web 2.0 technologies were not openly used. However, many of my co-workers invited me as a friend on facebook and made me feel like I was included. Facebook became a way for people to discuss their honest opinions about things going on at work. Also, it made work more fun.
During the same internship, I remember temporarily taking the place of a graphic designer who kept a very long list of links of places to go to find pictures for creating graphics. As the job switched between temporary employees and others, it would have been very helpful to have had that list of links online. Had I known about de.licio.us at that time, I think it would have been very useful.
The other day, I came across a really neat mind map of online collaboration tools offered through Web 2.0 technologies. My first reaction was excitement that someone attempted to figure out how to categorize and list all of the various methods of online collaboration. My second reaction was that I had never heard of most of the technologies listed.
In my own wanderings through the internet, I encountered a Firefox add-in called Glubble that allows families to create their own social networks, and that also creates a child-friendly version of the internet, allowing children and grandchildren of the same family to exchange favorite web pages, leave notes for one another, and draw pictures for each other. Although this is not an example of Web 2.0 in the workplace, it is an example of how the expanse of technology and the use of the internet is increasing and gaining interest for many different ages and cultures.
In my past internship experience, Web 2.0 technologies were not openly used. However, many of my co-workers invited me as a friend on facebook and made me feel like I was included. Facebook became a way for people to discuss their honest opinions about things going on at work. Also, it made work more fun.
During the same internship, I remember temporarily taking the place of a graphic designer who kept a very long list of links of places to go to find pictures for creating graphics. As the job switched between temporary employees and others, it would have been very helpful to have had that list of links online. Had I known about de.licio.us at that time, I think it would have been very useful.
The other day, I came across a really neat mind map of online collaboration tools offered through Web 2.0 technologies. My first reaction was excitement that someone attempted to figure out how to categorize and list all of the various methods of online collaboration. My second reaction was that I had never heard of most of the technologies listed.
In my own wanderings through the internet, I encountered a Firefox add-in called Glubble that allows families to create their own social networks, and that also creates a child-friendly version of the internet, allowing children and grandchildren of the same family to exchange favorite web pages, leave notes for one another, and draw pictures for each other. Although this is not an example of Web 2.0 in the workplace, it is an example of how the expanse of technology and the use of the internet is increasing and gaining interest for many different ages and cultures.
Monday, November 17, 2008
Collaboration vs. Cooperation & Games in Education
In class today, we discussed the differences between collaboration and cooperation. Through our actitivies today, I thought it was interesting to observe the differences between working in groups online and working in groups in person. It was obvious that working in groups in-person was more efficient than working in groups online, because decisions could be made in a shorter amount of time, instead of having to wait for everyones' responses. However, working together in person had its own challenges. Some people dominated the conversations, leaving others with little opportunity to assist in the activity. Recently I read something that said that the level of effort someone puts in to a group activity depends on how significant he or she perceives his or her part is to the group as a whole. I believe this is true, and in order to allow everyone the opportunity to work together, as in collaboration, and not just give ideas to others, as in communication, individuals must have a better perception of the importance and significance of thier role in the group. Thus roles are a good way to help motivate group members to participate.
As a method used in many situations, collaboration permeates many different fields. In the recent AEA Conference, Dr. Liliana Rodriguez-Campos discussed principles of collaborative evaluation. In her six-part model, she illustrates the complexities of working in groups and suggests ways to facilitate collaboration. These ways include ideas for conflict resolution, establishing early a desirable reward for everyone to work towards, and working to ensure careful listening. One example she gave is that in her efforts to eliminate back-biting, she had every person write on a piece of paper the thing they didn't like that other people were doing and the correction of that flaw in positive terms, such as "Stick to the point," or "Be punctual," and she placed these somewhere prominently in the room so that everyone would know what was important to the other members of the group and thereby have more unity in the collaboration process.
Another issue we discussed today was games. As a presenter, I had a lot of fun. I felt like everyone else was having fun too. However, as I watched people playing games, I remembered how much I disliked playing games in class, because I always had such a difficult time understanding the rules and I never felt like I was good at any of the games we played. I was interested by the comment that these emotions of losing can be very distracting to the learning process. If just one student does not understand the rules, or becomes lost, the game will not be able to help that person understand the desired points of that game.
As a method used in many situations, collaboration permeates many different fields. In the recent AEA Conference, Dr. Liliana Rodriguez-Campos discussed principles of collaborative evaluation. In her six-part model, she illustrates the complexities of working in groups and suggests ways to facilitate collaboration. These ways include ideas for conflict resolution, establishing early a desirable reward for everyone to work towards, and working to ensure careful listening. One example she gave is that in her efforts to eliminate back-biting, she had every person write on a piece of paper the thing they didn't like that other people were doing and the correction of that flaw in positive terms, such as "Stick to the point," or "Be punctual," and she placed these somewhere prominently in the room so that everyone would know what was important to the other members of the group and thereby have more unity in the collaboration process.
Another issue we discussed today was games. As a presenter, I had a lot of fun. I felt like everyone else was having fun too. However, as I watched people playing games, I remembered how much I disliked playing games in class, because I always had such a difficult time understanding the rules and I never felt like I was good at any of the games we played. I was interested by the comment that these emotions of losing can be very distracting to the learning process. If just one student does not understand the rules, or becomes lost, the game will not be able to help that person understand the desired points of that game.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
More Journal Presentations
TechTrends- Carry
New Directions for Evaluation- Bryan
Open Learning: The Journal of Open Distance Learning- Aaron
American Journal of Evaluation- Sarah
Computer Assisted Language Learning- Robert
Educause Review- Daryl
- Lots of short articles
- Each issue has a theme
- Gaming-TechTrends Sept./Oct.
New Directions for Evaluation- Bryan
- Free for AEA members
- Nonprofits and evaluation
- Scriven, Patton are frequent contributors
- Article that refers to research and development of technology; do not combine research of evaluation and technology as entirely different or entirely the same.
Open Learning: The Journal of Open Distance Learning- Aaron
- Going since 1986
- 3 issues per year
- 8 articles per issue
- about 90 pages per issue
- initial editor screening
- $104 for personal use
- Access, Success, and Retention (June 2006)- dealing with different access to different internet
American Journal of Evaluation- Sarah
- Reflects diversity of field of evaluation
- Teaching evaluation to future evaluators
- Evaluation Practice
- Evaluation Ethics
- Book Reviews
- Issues: Pedagogy of graduate courses in evaluation, program implementation
- “Using Problem-Based Learning to Train New Evaluators”
Computer Assisted Language Learning- Robert
- Published in England
- Very broad scope: Language Courseware Development, Research Methodologies, etc.
- Corpus linguistics
Educause Review- Daryl
- Current improvements in technology that help in education
- More on Daryl’s blog
- Themes: Web 2.0, virtual worlds, distance learning, e-Books, cyberinfostructure
- Decameron web project www.handsonuniverse.org , telescope project, Carnegie foundation
Monday, November 10, 2008
Presentation Notes
Online Journal of Distance Learning Administration- Jon
- Managing Distance Learning is important
Performance Imporvement, Performance Improvement Quarterly- Neil, Bryce
- Instructional Technologists
- Human Resource Managers
- Performance Technologists
- Practitioners
- Trade magazine, people looking for best practices
- 10 issues per year (May/June & Nov/Dec are special issues)
o Human Performance Technology in the military
o Super performance
- The magazine is free for members of ISPI (annual dues of $145)
- Evaluation, Measurement, Performance Improvement, Performance Analysis
Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning- Nicky
- use collaborative learning strategies
- explores nature, theory, and practice of CSCL
- how people learn in context of collaborative activity
- psychological, social, and technological impact
- only 3 years old
- Themes: using wikis and coWebs, blended learning environments, research methods in CSCL
Australian Journal of Educational Technology- Matt
- Effects technology has on learning
- Implementing 2.0 technologies in learning
- Attitudes of working in groups have to change
- Lego robotic technology
- Available online (free)
Journal of Teacher Education- Aaron
- jurisdictional challenges to teacher preparation
- strengthening quality of teacher education in research
- need for teachers of good disposition and moral character
- good LDS presence
Journal of Technology Education-
- Produced by Digital Library and Archives by Virginia Tech
- Effects of Take-Home Test and Study Questions on Retention Learning in Technology Education- study questions did best
Language in Learning- Anneke
- Print journal of research in language studies
- Accessed online at Wiley Interscience
- Psychology, linguistics
- Teaching a learning method through a learning method, and thus requires a little more attention
- Development of language skills
Journal of the Religious Educator- Danielle
- Effective teaching is the very essence of leadership in the Church
- Based on scripture, doctrine, and Church history
- Directed by dean of Religious Education
- Contributors: Apostles, BYU, BYUI Religion professors, Institute and Seminary Teachers, President Samuelson, Graduate students…anyone
- discounted for CES people
- Goal: to provide carefully prepared, inspirational and informative articles that will benefit a broad …
- Faithful, academically sound, original, well-crafted manuscripts
- Student participation
- Cultivate religious atmosphere
Digital Creativity- Shelley
- “Development of technologies of relevance to those working in a different digital media, with relationship to traditional practices of art and design, and to the relationship of all these to education.”
- Geared toward practitioners
- Topics: Play, interactive narrative, artificial intelligence, technology for disabled
Performance Improvement Quarterly- Greg
- Team Dynamics, Self-efficacy, training, HPT and Performance Analysis
- No graphics in the journal, mostly text-based
- Academic
- HPT measurement
- Ill-structured problem- could Instructional Design Experts better solve problems dealing with structure? Mostly a matter of practical, not book, knowledge
Monday, November 3, 2008
Web 2.0 Upgrade Instructions
If you're still using Web 1.0 and would like to upgrade to Web 2.0, please follow the following instructions:
- Go to www.facebook.com and start a new account. Look up all your friends from high school, junior high, and even elementary school, and add them to your friends list. Upload your recent pictures, tag your friends, join common interest groups, and post a note to the world. (Facebook was started by Harvard students. Last year the owner of facebook was offered a billion dollars to sell the company, but decided not to.)
- Post a video on YouTube or Viddler. Watch lots of other videos as well.
- Download Skype. Call your friends and family for free and let them see you while talking with you by using your webcam.
- Read a few articles on random topics from wikipedia, a place where anyone can add or update content on this online encyclopedia.
- Visit Ning and start your own social network, maybe for your family, or for a class at school, or for a church group. You'll find that it is easy to collaborate with your friends and/or co-workers online, and you can search for your group and find it online at google.com
- Open a delicious or diigo account. Add and organize the links to your favorite websites.
- Open a goodreads account and share your favorite books online with strangers who have similar interests. Hey, while you're at it, add a goodreads gadget to your facebook wall.
- Congratulations, you're upgraded.
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