One small step for man

From the recently released ECAR report “Learners 2.0? IT and 21st-Century Learners in Higher Education (ID: ERB0807)”

Start with pedagogy, not technology. Creating a new learning climate demands that
chief academic administrators collaborate with chief information technology
administrators to develop incentives and rewards for faculty who reexamine current
teaching practices, for staff who support innovative teaching practices, and for students
who engage in new learning activities. For faculty, changing pedagogy is not necessarily
accomplished by simply introducing new technologies.(emphasis added) Change starts with an
examination of pedagogy and domain content if new learning is the aim. Only then can
useful technologies and teaching strategies be matched to best achieve desired learning
outcomes. Across all ranks and disciplines, faculty should participate in the necessary
shift toward active engagement of contemporary learners.

This perspective is nice to see coming from a high profile source. They have a table “New Competencies for New Learning” on page 5 that lists long-standing tenets of how higher education functions, and contrasts it with new (Learner 2.0) functions. I find this table useful, but Stephen Downes’ ideas in Learning 2.0 (original table mid-way down here) more far reaching than the ECAR view. We have been exploring some of the implications of these learning/learner 2.0 in a case study we are doing for Microsoft of ePortfolio uses. I need to fold this ECAR piece into that work.

Innovative Minds Don’t Think Alike - New York Times

By JANET RAE-DUPREE
Published: December 30, 2007

IT’S a pickle of a paradox: As our knowledge and expertise increase, our creativity and ability to innovate tend to taper off. Why? Because the walls of the proverbial box in which we think are thickening along with our experience.

Points at an interesting idea, I’ve yet to get the Made to Stick book and look more deeply, but the role of the ‘transient “zero-gravity thinker”’ (an outsider) in causing experts to slow down, explain and in the process examine their knowledge and assumptions, is interesting. We have been talking about communities and how the novice moves from the edge to the center of a community as expertise is gained. That view is hierarchical, the goal is expert status and novices are not viewed as a resource to expertise. This review gives a different perspective, novices play a role that is helpful to experts, breaking them out of the myopia of their expertise. This makes the expert-novice relation within a community dialogic and mutually dependent.

It connects to ideas of ecosystem, where monocultures are less stable and productive than diverse native systems.

I’m struggling with the problem of my resume (or now my portfolio) again. Looking back, I like the analysis I did a year ago thinking about a 21st Century Resume. It talks about forward-looking and backward-looking documents that serve as reflections about problems and their solutions. We see those same kinds of documents created by Hotz as he hacked the iPhone.

This kind of reflection captures Gregory Bateson’s notion about information “a difference that makes a difference”. That is, reflections about changes in the world that I made or plan to make — not just random speculation. So in addition to capturing reflections (be they grant proposals, articles (such at the one requested by Innovate), or blog posts, its incumbent on me to show that my reflecting was “reflection-in-action” (from Donald Schön). That is, I’m reflecting with the intent to make a difference.

This thinking helps me move further along the path in the previous post, where I was reorganizing elements on my paper CV. Beyond organizing the content, I need to make presentations of myself that are narrative, that show how these reflections and milestones connect to make patterns.

But collecting the necessary evidence is not easy. For an example of the problem, I joined CTLT in the fall of 2000. They were well into the process of creating an online learning environment called “The Bridge.” One of the key, and incompletely developed, elements of the program was a personal workspace. Unlike previous thinking about OLEs, this one provided a resource for the learner, the learner’s own, private domain, that transcended the temporal constraints of a course. One of the key limitations of The Bridge’s personal space was that it was totally private, the mechanisms to authorize others to parts of your workspace were never realized.

I played a role in the retirement of The Bridge. It was a loss, a defeat, because it successor on our campus was WebCT, which had a teacher-centric, term-limited perspective. Personal space for the learner was lost. At the time I did not place much emphasis on the lost feature.

Enter SharePoint. The university was adopting it for administrative productivity reasons, but it also had a MySite feature that captured The Bridge’s personal space and added all the functionality that was never implemented in The Bridge.

I spearheaded an effort to understand SharePoint enough to get CTLT and ITS to implement it as a resource for the university. The personal portfolio and collaboration space of the MySite is catching fire in multiple places in the university.

OK, so here is the problem — what goes into my resume or portfolio from this story? I didn’t put the personal space into The Bridge, I recognized (but didn’t document) its importance. I recognized that MySites had the same feature. I argued, probably nowhere in print, that the university should implement MySites. I was a cheerleader for the explorations by CTLT staff and their colleagues into SharePoint portfolios, but did not do much of the important technical or intellectual work. I co-authored a white paper about some of these ideas, but it does not capture the difference that I made at WSU, though the white paper might yet be seen to make a difference itself. Closer to the mark is this summary of the history of SharePoint at WSU. It documents that a change was made, but doesn’t show either the seminal role of The Bridge or my agency.

So how do I capture the evidence of my past work, my learning? If I were writing project proposals I would have forward-looking reflections. If I were writing publications of my work I would have backward-looking reflections. We have tried to institutionalize these documents in CTLT, but we tend to rush along with the work and not create them.

OK, so Jim Morrison at Innovate tossed my challenge back, asking me to consider writing a piece, based on my post.

I went to look at the journal, asking, why bother? Why not just write a rejoinder in my blog? Its part of my portfolio, I retain control of my IP, I can collaborate with others via comments and trackback. Is a larger broadcast forum worth anything?

I found that despite the free account that is required to read an article, Google manages to index the articles. (That’s as good as my blog.) There is also RSS of the current Journal contents, and there are discussion features for posting comments on articles.

At random I picked Thomas Chandler and Heejung An’s piece, “Using Digital Mapping Programs to Augment Student Learning in Social Studies” as my tool to explore the Journal. (This will test if the Journal handles trackback.)

I’d chosen some text midway down the article to feed to Google and then went back to read the paragraph more closely, because of the links to Google Maps:

Because they help students visualize pressing civil issues in the context of the places that are most meaningful to them, digital mapping programs can bridge this gap. By using transparent overlays, these programs can enable students to examine a far wider range of community relationships than could be accomplished by any other means. Illustrative of this point are the many ways in which students can use digital maps via free applications, such as Google Maps, to create their own representations of their communities as they see them. This can be accomplished through the insertion of digital photos, hyperlinks, or video linked to specific placemarks on a city map. Taking this concept a step further, Google’s Sketch-Up (Exhibit 1) and Street View (Exhibit 2) utilities now make it possible for users to construct three-dimensional buildings and to navigate virtually through many of America’s city streets from the perspective of a person on the sidewalk. These interactive elements not only provide meaningful information that was not available in the past but also offer opportunities for learners to identify, engage in, and even help solve community-based problems.

The amount of online data available for digital mapping projects has also increased substantially (Exhibit 3). For example, it is possible for such programs to connect to government-sponsored Web sites, such as the U.S. Census Bureau , where vast amounts of data pertaining to any given community in the United States, as well as many parts of the world, can be downloaded and examined for free.

Now, this is a solid rejoinder along the lines Gary, Theron and I previously argued to virtual worlds. Why use a virtual world when these mapping tools in the real world allow students to work on real problems in contexts that are meaningful to them using real data. Who needs make believe?

OK, now I understand my objection to what people are thinking about Second Life and education. Look at this call for articles (below) for a special issue of Innovate. Its the same beef I have with Michael Wesch when he asks “What are we DOING to change how we are teaching” in light of digital tools and web 2.0?

How many times does the call say “content,” “delivery,” or “teaching” vs. the times it focuses on “learners” and “learning?” When it does wonder about how learning is assessed, do you get the sense it even considered a learning-centric means like a portfolio? Why does it refer to “student work” and “protection” rather than “student intellectual property” and its licensing?

The other day Gary pointed me to Barr and Tagg’s piece on the prevailing “Instruction” paradigm vs. the “Learning” paradigm.

Gary, Theron and I wrote an op-ed for the local paper when they got all excited about virtual worlds. And for EDUCAUSE 2007 Microsoft commissioned a piece (Out of the Classroom and Into the Boardroom) from a team that included Gary and me. We looked at the future moving beyond the current teaching-centric LMS — punchline: Dump Blackboard in favor of worldware and web-based collaborative tools (Google Docs, SharePoint, Blogger).

I think maybe its time for me take the challenge to write a piece proposing a learning-focused use of Second Life — or more likely, setting out the features that are necessary and sufficient in a virtual world for learning-centric activities to happen.

I think there would be two sections:

• What are the necessary and sufficient conditions for (sustained, if not lifelong) learning centric activities to proceed
• What are the virtues that virtual worlds offer to learners and learning that are not met in the “regular” virtual world of Web 2.0?

The Innovate call for papers:

Innovate, published as a public service by the Fischler School of Education
and Human Services and sponsored, in part, by Microsoft is soliciting
manuscripts for a special issue on academics in virtual environments. This
issue focuses on the use of Multi-User Virtual Environments (MUVEs) as an
enhancement to K-21 education. A MUVE combines graphics and audio with the
ability to communicate with multiple users in real time within the context
of a 3-D virtual environment. MUVEs are not necessarily considered games,
as programs like Second Life and There have no end goal or objective.

Harvard\’s CyberOne: Law in the Court of Public Opinion course opened the
doors for other academics to use virtual environments to enhance teaching
and learning. In the past two years, over 300 colleges and universities
have claimed virtual land in an attempt to enhance content delivery. This
virtual land and its future development occurs only a computer network.
While critics and skeptics exist, many educators are looking to take the
plunge and discover the potential of virtual-based teaching.

Submissions for this special issue may address, but are not limited to,
these key issues:

1. Does teaching in virtual environments enhance course content? If so,
how? If not, why not?

2. How is learning assessed within virtual environments? Are these
assessments comparable to existing forms of assessment?

3. What are the ethical considerations of creating virtual content? What
are the practical concerns? If a university funds virtual projects, who
owns the content? Who should own the content? How are students protected?
How is student work protected?

4. Are there best practices for teaching or research in virtual worlds?
What are some strategies for beginners?

5. What are the challenges of teaching in virtual space? How are these
challenges addressed?

6. How are virtual projects funded? What avenues for support exist?

7. What pedagogical approaches are central to the delivery of materials
within virtual worlds?

Reprinted from an op-ed piece published in the Moscow-Pullman Daily News:

By Gary Brown, Nils Peterson and Theron Desrosier

Monday, September 17, 2007 - Page Updated at 12:00:00 AM

It is great news that Craig Staszkow can say with confidence that there are now “traditional online offerings.” (Daily News, Aug. 27).

In less progressive quarters much concern persists about the quality of this new “tradition.” Still, we’re not so sure about his characterizations of those online courses when he describes them as “stuffed into one dimension and driven by chat rooms, threaded conversation and question-and answer sessions with an unseen teacher assistant.”

Even as we come to understand there is a new tradition, it is still fair to say that the range of designs in those “traditional online courses” varies dramatically. In fact, many thoughtfully organized and well-facilitated courses are very rich and multidimensional. Examples of this success exist in Washington State University’s Center for Distance and Professional Education courses in operations management, where students have solved real business problems saving people’s real jobs as well as saving companies millions of real dollars. And there are great examples, for instance, from WSU’s Human Development Department where, in one course, students conceptualized and wrote new state laws to empower very real citizens.

We’re also excited as are Staszkow and Dave Cillay, the director of instructional development for WSU’s Center for Distance and Professional Education, about the potential of virtual worlds. The reality of the virtual is amazing. Research continues to confirm the viability of virtual reality, culminating in a recent study published in the journal Science. The findings challenge the “axiom that everything you are is anchored in your body,” says Vilayanur Ramachandran, the director of the Center for Brain and Cognition at the University of California, San Diego. He adds, “What you regard as you is really a transient construct created by the brain from multiple sensory sources.”

Information processing research has been pointing to this phenomenon for some time, finding again and again that our perceptions of simulations conjure up the same physiological responses - heart rate, skin conductivity, brain waves - as do “real experiences.”

So the question gains urgency, why use new technologies to create pseudonymous avatars and virtual worlds when the real world is rich with challenges?

There are good answers, of course, and Staszkow mentions virtual travel to Minnesota to inspect the bridge and build new virtual bridges as one example. Great, but why stop there? How do we decide when to use virtual technologies to create new virtual worlds versus using virtual technologies to augment the world where we sit and ponder this question? Rather than make believe, why not use technologies that allow us to inspect the pictures and microscopic details of the collapsed bridge site and engage the reports and even the engineers who really have inspected the site? For examples of this use of the Internet to engage professionals, check out Brett Atwood’s WSU School of Communication’s students’ blogs and you will “see” where real professionals engaged WSU students and enriched their discussions about a real and complex copyright case.

Recently in the news, George Hotz hacked the Apple iPhone, unlocking it from the restriction that it only be used on the AT&T cellular service. While not condoning hacking, we note his blog provides a view into his collaborative learning process. Hotz understood the power of the real-world Internet, and elected to work the problem in public where he solicited and got feedback critical to his success. He collaborated with people from around the globe as each worked on different aspects of the problem.

John Gardner, the new WSU vice president for extension and economic development, also is blogging. He is exploring this global competency and establishing a vehicle to support his professional learning, inviting feedback on his ideas and directions for WSU. His blog is beginning to gather comments from a global community, a vast, multidimensional resource available to him now. Even as we wait for similar sorts of communities to gather in Second Life, they are flourishing in ways that augment the “traditional” Internet that is shaping and reshaping where we live, work, and learn.

New technologies don’t supplant old ones - note the pad and pencil by your phone. The trick is bringing them together in proper measure.

Gary Brown is director of WSU’s Center for Teaching, Learning and Technology. Nils Peterson is the center’s assistant director, and Theron Desrosier is a design consultant for the center.

Previously I posted on David Wiley’s Open Ed online course. I decided to drop in on the course and see what was happening. I found Alessandro’s post of his frustrations with the course, with David Wiley’s reply:

Alessandro blogged tonight about the same frustration many of us (myself included) are feeling with regard to the Intro to Open Ed course. Alessandro’s frustrated that I haven’t been providing as much feedback as might be desired. I have to agree. With about 60 students following the course, I could easily spend all day every day responding to what you are all writing and still not keep up.

I think its important to surface an assumption going on here and look into some alternatives, especially in light of what this course is about (or maybe what I read “Open Education” to be about). David talks about reading and responding to each student, as if that is his role. Students talk about the “dry” readings and their posts as summaries of those readings.

What if instead, David had framed the course differently — A few general readings to start things off, and a request for each student to propose an open-ed project that interested them and that they would research. However, rather than working alone, students would be asked to form teams among the class members, selecting among the proposed projects the one that they found most interesting. My friend and former colleague Stephen Spaeth designed a distance course (Decs 340) using that concept. The students were all older, working, and had authentic on the job applications for the ideas of the course. Theron DesRosier places this design idea into a broader context when he talks about bringing the outside world into the class.

In addition to working on projects, students would weekly post about readings related to open education they were finding that aided their projects. Some would delve into learning objects, others into copyright and licenses. The topics of the course would get “covered” but driven by the authentic work of the students. The learning of any individual might not be as wide as the course survey, but it would be deeper and more lasting.

Wiley’s student Karen Fasimpaur has proposed a project that I think fits the notions above when she writes (outside of class!?) about her project idea to create a kids dictionary. This looks like an open education activity, when she asks “How could this be hosted to best facilitate mass collaboration?” [Frankly, I’d like to get involved in such a project, and I’d start by suggesting that kids working with parents and teachers could be the authors. Other dictionaries would be a resource to them. I’d also endorse Karen’s inclination to use a wiki for the reasons outlined here.]

I see notes in the course that it has been redesigned in the latter weeks of the semester to give students more reflection time. Perhaps it could still be modified to give students more peer-critique responsibilities as well. A rubric such at the one in WSU Critical Thinking Project might be adapted to provide the framework for the peer feedback, and (for next offering of the course) even the framework for the instructor assessment.

Digital Ethnography wiki asks:

What are we DOING to change how we are teaching? If you have any great examples of how you have changed up your classroom (or “classroom”) in ways that are more in tune with the information environment in which we all now exist, please comment. I am looking for examples that span all the possibilities

This is the group lead by Micheal Wesch that has created a series of provocative videos including:

• Information R/evolution,
• The machine is us/ing us, and
• A vision of students today.

So Wesch and company asks us “what we are DOING to change how we are teaching” and I want to rephrase the question to talk about learning — because the “Vision of students today” video really suggests that the learners and the learning are contextualized differently.

By way of answer, I’d point to these pieces of CTLT work (in no particular order):

• ePortfolio contest (last year and this year)
• Beyond LMS (white paper and collaborative space)
• Decision to move content from the CTLT website to the WSU wiki where the community could contribute and material could be variously tagged
• Thoughts about wikis for learning
• Or these ideas about re-thinking the role of the land-grant university

What do you think? Am I on the right track to shift Wesch’s focus from Teaching to Learning? Am I missing examples, or are these unclear?

We (Ashley Ater-Kranov, Theron DesRosier, Jayme Jacobson and I) just put in a proposal for the Educause Learning Initiative 2008 Annual Meeting: Connecting and Reflecting: Preparing Learners for Life 2.0, January 28–30, 2008 San Antonio, Texas.

Our proposal is “ePortfolio 2.0: expanding our views of portfolio”

Abstract (50 words max)

George Hotz’ blog chronicling his iPhone hack demonstrates students can collaborate world-wide and create portfolios that make learning visible. Our research suggests students and faculty are equally adept at giving criteria-based feedback. Portfolios capturing learning process combined with criteria-based feedback have implications for teachers, course design and LMS platforms.

Research Results

Ater-Kranov, Ashley and T. Desrosier. Raising the Bar: Communicating High Expectations and Getting Results. Poster. Washington State University Academic Showcase March 2007.

Cho, Yoon Jung, A Ater-Kranov, and G Brown. Faculty Attitudes about ePortfoios: A study for the National Coalition for ePortfolio Research. Poster. Washington State University Academic Showcase March 2007.

Hotz, George. Finding JTAG on the iPhone. Blog. http://iphonejtag.blogspot.com/ accessed Sept 10, 2007

WSU ePortfolio Contest. Making Learning Visible. Website. http://ctlt.wsu.edu/eportgallery accessed Sept 10, 2007

Session Focus

Portfolios have been used in several ways beyond being showcase of best work, including documentation of learning growth and for personal reflection. In the Spring of 2007, the Center for Teaching Learning and Technology at Washington State University hosted an ePortfolio contest that asked students to document their learning growth. The result was a rich array of evidence of learning, and a wide range of portfolio documentation.

More simply, a blog can be understood to be a learning journal, and with suitable summary posts, might serve as a portfolio. George Hotz blog of the hack of the iPhone is one example that illustrates one person’s informal but substantial learning journey enhanced by a collaborative community.

Personal Learning Environments (PLE) integrate both formal and informal learning episodes into a single experience and often have a blog at their heart around which the user assembles a range of resources and systems to create a personally-managed space.

To the extent that users open their PLE space for inspection by others it becomes a multi-faceted journal that makes learning processes and outcomes visible. When the user presents that log of learning evidence the PLE becomes an extended portfolio view.

A key facet of the blog or PLE is that the user seeks critical feedback and collaboration on their learning objectives, which typically involves the creation of social networks that cross institutional boundaries and are intended to place the learner at the central node in a learning community. We have evidence that demonstrates that students are at least as adept at faculty at providing criteria-based feedback, which opens the potential that giving of critical feedback can be scaled much larger than what faculty alone can provide.

This presentation will explore the blurring of the lines between portfolio, blog and personal learning environments and a parallel blurring between novice and expert feedback when novice feedback is appropriately scaffoled and guided. We will invite participants to join in the exploration and the implications they have for teachers, course design, assessment of learning, and IT planning around LMS and other supporting tools.

We are going to be working on this (sketchy) proposal for Active Learning Strategies in the session and welcome feedback:

The audience will collaborate in an analysis and deconstruction George Hotz’ blog (ne portfolio) of the hack of the iPhone. Then the audience will participate in a collaborative criteria-based rating. Audience data about itself will be shared and discussed within the threads of the presentation. Following the session, the audience data will be posed for later review by the audience and others.

In today’s 9/15-16 paper Steve McClure has a piece asking for thoughts about online commenting (which has been in place at the DNews for awhile now). This seems to be part of the slow flirtation the DNews is having with becoming a Web 2.0 player (perhaps learning from the New York Times).The DNews now sports a discrete link “RSS” that goes to a page of RSS feeds. They render in Firefox and Safari, but when you try to follow the “more…” link, you need to log in. Which is probably why they don’t work in the Sage plugin to Firefox.

So in reply to Steve’s commentary (you’ll need to log in):

1. Make the local content public, remove those logins.
2. I agree with Mark Solomon, require an identity to comment, one identity/user
3. Allow trackback from blogs as an alternative way to comment.
4. Link to stuff in your online editions, and implement ping/trackback so when you link to other blogs, your pieces appear as comments there.

As you pursue this exploration, keep in contact with your News counterparts at WSU who interested in creating “Global WSU” and are beginning to look into “Global Internet Competencies,” like blogging by top administrators as vehicles to keep administration connected to employees and other constituents.