Emerging Learning Design 2011: A Selective Recap

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I attended the Emerging Learning Design 2011 Conference yesterday at Montclair State University. Here's a recap of key themes and ideas.

Pedagogy First

Intellagirl kicked off the conference by reminding us that pedagogy comes first, technology second, and gave us a framework for assessing technologies for use in education. She urged us to tinker with new tools and understand what the creators of those tools had in mind from a design perspective and then see how those goals map to our own educational objectives.Smith-Robbins Dissertation Defense Slides

See slide 27 here, to learn more.

Thinking of Teaching Online? Another Take.
I wanted to hear how other folks are talking to new faculty about teaching online, so I attended Suzanne McCotter's Beginning Pedagogy for Teaching Online. McCotter is the Associate Professor, Counseling and Educational Leadership at Montclair State University. She said that students are ready to learn online teaching, and know how to interact. I think a more accurate statement might be that some students are ready to learn online, but in general, I'm skeptical that generation is really an issue. Mark Bullen sums this up well here: Still, the idea that online teachers need to foster a sense of safety and community resonated. I liked how she puts students in her asynchronous class in small discussion groups and then appoints a leader and someone to summarize the discussion for the larger class. I am thinking I may give this approach a try for the research process and methodology course I'm teaching this summer.

Mobile Transforms Teaching?
I was somewhat fearful of attending Apple's sponsored presentation on Mobile Pedagogy in today's classroom by Jon Landis, but it turned out to be one of the day's most interesting sessions. He notes that mobile devices with high speed connections will soon outnumber desktop devices and that approximately 63 percent of college students have smart phones. He chafes at the notion that smart phones aren't allowed in K-12 environments and are merely tolerated in higher education. He then goes onto argue that technology is changing, or should change how we teach. He contends current educational models, whether in k-12 or higher ed, are predicated on information scarcity. Information is not scarce, it's abundant and therefore the educators role changes from being an information expert to a concept shepherd. (This idea echoed Intellagirl's idea that as educators we model the practices of master learners.) His pitch goes something like this:

Content should be consumed by students outside of class. Classes should be experiential. When more materials are available to students and classes focus on doing and discussing instead of content dissemination that attendance goes up.

He closed by making an ethical case for introducing innovations in education. Landis slipped a disc 20 years ago. A surgeon repaired it but it required a 3 inch incision and a 3 day stay in the hospital. Some 10 years later (facts are placeholders to retell the anecdote), same surgery, 1 day in the hospital and a 1 inch incision. A friend had the same surgery (coincidentally, so did I) just this year. 1/2 inch incision and it did not require an overnight stay. The same doctor performed all three surgeries. If that doctor used the same tools or techniques, he would be sued for malpractice. Why are educators allowed to use the same methods? He argued that it's unethical to stick with the same methods. He urged participants to pick a single thing in their teaching that's not working and see if there's a way it could be improved.

Let's Augment Reality

NYU's Craig Kapp presented on augmented reality. He demonstrated how symbols could be embedded in textbooks to augment and update them. If that sounds abstract, imagine a children's book where holding the pages up could produce a 3d image on screen that kids could then interact with through the computer's web cam. Zooburst is an augmented reality authoring environment that lets people create their and share their own books. He also demonstrated how to use QR codes to conduct real time simple surveys in class. When you see a QR code, you see a link to the virtual world.
In sum, we're carrying around tremendous computing power that gives us new ways of seeing, connecting and learning. More about Craig's work on his blog.

This year's presenters were invited. The call for presentations is scheduled for September of 2011. I'd like us to be there to talk about online learning.

Really: Test to learn?

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Friday's Times reports on a study from Science, their headline, "To Really Learn, Quit Studying and Take a Test." http://tinyurl.com/4fq9xo2 The study, originally published in Science, http://tinyurl.com/4hmno3j, compares testing to concept mapping and other study methods. Researchers found that students who took a test, did better at retrieving information than students who created visual maps of what they learned. How did the study measure what students remembered? By having students complete short answer tests and later, create concept maps from memory. Undoubtedly, tests can help us remember material. A more important question is, will tests help apply knowledge in context and to real-world experiences? I fear that these results will be grist for those that are vested in using test scores as proof of student achievement. I appreciate the challenge of measuring student progress. Somehow, you need to assess student performance. To me, the test is often just a measure of how students did on that test and not a demonstration of mastery or how that knowledge could be applied.

Soon, Watson, an IBM Supercomputer, http://tinyurl.com/6dpgpz9 will face off against the best human Jeopardy contestants. You can bet that these contestants practice by playing the game, by testing their knowledge over and over as does Watson. They will undoubtedly have mastered a range of content to be successful in their quest. There's speculation about who will win. I hate making predictions, but my hunch is that Watson will give the humans a run for the money, and like the Chess super-computer, Deep Blue, http://tinyurl.com/9jo4r eventually win. To me, a victory like this is not a triumph of machine over man–but a celebration of our humanity. Those engineers at IBM programmed Watson to learn and compete. That kind of accomplishment is a real demonstration of mastery. The tests, like Jeopardy, are games. They can be interesting, and do show some mastery of a subject, but the real measure of success is what can be done with what we learn. So I say, let's have students writing computer programs, or explanations of experiments as alternatives to tests.

Wisdom of crowds? Or mindless mobs?

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You decide. Egads, even mattresses aren't safe.

Sources: Housing Fades as a Means to Build Wealth, In Striking Shift, Small Investors Flee Stock Market, What Spreads Faster Than Bedbugs? Stigma.

Remembering Nanny

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Anna Bongiovanni

1910 – 2010

I am still coming to grips with losing my grandmother. In celebration of her life, I offer three stories.

1) The scene: a grand house on Second Avenue in Spring Lake New Jersey, around 10 am. We are getting ready to go to 11 o'clock mass at Saint Catherine's. My sister, Teresa and I are hungry. The rule is, no food before Sunday Mass. The kitchen is not quiet though. The pot of red sauce has been simmering since before I got up. "There he is! Good morning, little Ted," she says, "meatball?" She spoons out a couple meatballs, some sauce, along with a generous piece of white italian bread." I am a happy, no longer hungry kid.

2) The scene: a new house, now on South Boulevard, still in Spring Lake. I had returned home from my Peace Corps service and was living with Nanny while I commuted to a job in New York City. Nanny, now in her eighties, wakes up before me every morning to give me a ride to the station. It's a Friday evening, and I'm on the way out to meet some friends. She's sitting in her chair, working a crossword. I tell her I'll be home later. "Be good," she says, and with a wink, "and if you can't be good, be careful." I give her a kiss on the cheek, and head out.

3) The scene: The Geraldine L. Thompson nursing home, Allenwood, NJ. May 2010. I did not know this would be my last visit. Nanny is in the so called, "day room," seated at a table, picking over her lunch. "The food's not so good here," she said. And then she gave me the scoop on everyone in the room. "See him? He works here. 55. Not married. Friendly, but talks too much. That woman over there? I don't know why, but she hates me. You should see how she looks at me. This poor woman," she gestures at the woman seated next to me, "her daughter comes in and leaves in three minutes. That's not right." The doctor comes by and checks her blood's oxygen level. "He's ok," she says to me as though he's not there.

"How you feeling Annie?" he asks.

"Allright, alright but I'd rather be home," she said.

And I am hoping that she is–reunited with her husband, and all the friends and family she survived. Nanny, rest in peace. We love you. We miss you. We will never forget you.

The Long, Slow Road to Work

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May is bike month in New York City. Though I commute every fair weather day with my trusty Brompton SL-2 with a serious assist from New Jersey Transit, I have been wanting to ride all the way from home to work since moving out here just over four years ago. With the help of John Feinberg’s excellent cue sheet, my GPS-enabled smartphone and some tired legs, I made it from Glen Ridge to Cooper Square in about two hours and forty five minutes. (This sounds more like a marathon personal record dream time to me, than a bike ride, but I digress.)

The route primarily traverses residential, industrial areas and the occasional patch of nature. Highlights include the now-defunct New York and Greenwood Lake Short Rail, and the New Jersey Naval Museum, which is home to the USS Ling, a World War II Submarine. I was surprised to see a loon diving for food in Leonia, and to learn that the south side of the GWB is closed to pedestrian traffic. The north side is open, but involves what seemed like an interminable number of stairs after the 2 mile climb through Fort Lee. I don’t think I was ever so happy to see the Hudson. I thought of hopping on the subway at 181 Street, but savored the decline all the way down the West Side, which was all dressed up for Fleet Week.

For those contemplating the trip from Glen Ridge, here’s a link to the modified cue sheet.

And the Google Map.

Happy riding!

A Week with Apple’s iPad

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We've had our iPad since the harried UPS Delivery person brought it on last Saturday. Here are my impressions after spending a week with the device.

It is a joy to read on, from how crisp and beautiful the type looks on screen to the brightness of the display. I've been reading eBooks from Amazon, and Apple, and articles from the New York Times, NPR and USA Today. These applications bring back the joy of flipping through pages and stumbling upon articles that I might have passed over but are worth my attention. Reading feels familiar and effortless. Yet, the iPad is much more than an eBook reader.

Like its iPhone cousin, the device is a shape shifter–perhaps you remember the wonder twins, Zan and Jayna, These DC Comic Superheros took on other forms when they touched their hands together–and assumed different shapes and properties. The iPad, like it's predecessor, the iPhone, when connected to the iTunes store, takes on different forms. It's a book; no it's a video from Netflix, no; it's my music collection; wait; it's a collection of scholarly papers; hold it, now it's my kid's coloring book. Perhaps this is the real genius of the device and the business model. Not only has Steve Jobs sold me this device capable of assuming so many shapes, but he's sold me a store of stores that I can access at anytime, from almost anywhere. And that's what I have been doing, shopping. After the iPad arrived, I found myself filling it up–with free books from Apple's new book store, syncing the Kindle eBooks that I had already purchased from Amazon, the National Geographic world atlas, the star gazing map that superimposes star charts in the night sky. It feels a little bit like surfing the internet for the first time. I'm giddy at the knowledge buffet that has been put before me and that is so easy to transport. So it's great for shopping and and consuming content, but how would the iPad fare as a primary computing device?

Last week provided me with a test scenario: WiFi enabled jury duty waiting rooms. I left the laptop at home and took my iPad. I was able to respond to email, use the web-browser to check on course Web sites–the kind of tasks that I generally have to do on a laptop or desktop because of page loading times and the amount of screen real estate required. I find typing on the touch screen a bit awkward. The two thumbs method doesn't work; the iPad is just too big in portrait mode. I had better luck when I laid it on my lap and reverted to two handed typing, but I make many mistakes. Many applications have been redesigned to take advantage of the extra screen real estate. Those that present content, such as NYTimes Editor's Picks, and the ABC Video application really shine, though designers are still making sense of how to navigate–it's not always clear when a swipe or a tap will do. NYTimes Editor's Pick application is something of a rebuke for the "Most Emailed" feature. I miss those stories on my iPad, but I guess I'm back to reading the version that everyone's reading–at least for now.

In spite of the wealth of new things that I have, I'm wishing for a way to cleanly annotate PDF documents. I've found an application called "Papers," that excels at organizing scholarly articles (I'm reading more these days as part of graduate studies in NYU Steinhardt's Education, Communication and Technology program) but it doesn't allow me to highlight or make notes in-line–at least not yet. Still, I am able to make page level notes and add bookmarks. I have access to many articles as opposed to a few, but my interaction has changed. I miss my notes in the margins.

I have found that the iPad can be helpful in meetings because it's easy to look something up and pass along. I found myself using it in an information architecture meeting to refer to how existing pages are designed. A laptop would have been intrusive, but the iPad felt like just the right way to be able to take a look at a page and then share it with the person sitting next to me. I expect that we'll be seeing more of these in meetings for agendas, and supporting materials. Again, I want to be able to annotate–not just read.

When we ordered the iPad I joked that it was my daughter's first computer. It's interesting to think that she may grow up without having to use a keyboard, where machine interaction is based on touch and gesture. The real challenge will be in making sure that we do more than distract and amuse ourselves. The iPad opens up new avenues for imagination, creation and sharing. It's up to us to avail ourselves of those opportunities.

First Reflections on Educon 2.2

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Educon 2.2 is something of an un-conference. Instead of presentations, facilitators lead conversations. The conference is hosted at the Science Leadership Academy,
a public charter school in Philadelphia, led by Chris Lehmann. Over
500 educators from primary and secondary schools, a handful of school
administrators and higher education professionals attended. Largely,
this group self-selects. Many pay their own way, all give up a weekend
to be there. It's one of the best educational gatherings that I've had
a chance to participate in.

My head is still spinning, but
I'm going to highlight three areas: 1) the overall participatory
environment at SLA and the conference 2) Jeff Han on Multi-touch
interaction experiments and finally, 3) a conversation that I
facilitated about online teaching and learning.

1) Students
managed all of the logistics from tech support, to checking bags to
helping people find sessions. They also joined sessions and shared
their experiences. That students were central to the conference
permeated all of the sessions and made the experience authentic in a
way that few conferences are. Chris Lehmann spoke about how he and his
colleagues create this community on a session he facilitated about
leadership. I'm a bit in awe of Chris–it's great to hear about it AND
see it in action at SLA.

2) Jeff Han presented Pixel Perfect, a spin off of his "multi-touch interaction research."

More on Jeff and his work here: http://cs.nyu.edu/~jhan/ftirtouch/index.html
Jeff was eager to hear from us about how we could imagine the data
visualization tool used in education. It's worth looking at the videos
of Jeff showing how the touch screen works–but it feels like something
out of a movie, where instead of interacting through a keyboard we
manipulate data with our hands. At a glance, one might think, oh, it's
an interactive whiteboard–but it's much, much more than that. Many
people can be on the board at the same time, it's as sensitive as an
iPad's touch screen and it's wicked fast. Jeff argues that we have
plenty of processing power, but that we're not making enough advances
from the interface side. He also envisions a day when the technology
is as cheap and ubiquitous as wall paper. From an educational use
perspective, we imagined ideas for collaborative writing projects,
virtual dissections and geographic analysis, but somehow I wished that
we picked a few specific curricular contexts and started with
educational goals. Nevertheless, it was an amazing conversation.

3) I facilitated a conversation on online teaching and learning best practices.
I was struck by the deep and broad interest in online learning as a
means of both student engagement and continued professional development
for educators. Barbara Treacy, the Director of EdTech Leaders Online,
a capacity building program for K-12 organizations, among other
educators, joined in the conversation, along with other teachers who
are designing educational experiences. Barbara posted their checklist for educators designing their own online courses as well as basic tips for online facilitation. Sean Musselman posted a podcast summarizing the session.

I am still processing the event, but I am glad that I was able to have conversations with educators about our open Educational Technologist opportunity, want to check out the mind map that David Warlick posted http://www.xmind.net/share/_embed/dwarlick/sunday-morning-panel/

I
would like to thank all of my peers at Educon for making it such a
wonderful event, to Chris Lehmann, and the teachers, students and
parents at SLA and of course, Kristen Sosulski and the NYU-SCPS for
giving me something to talk about.

Yes to Universal Health Care

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This morning I took a few minutes out to email my elected representatives to let them know that I support universal health care. Perhaps you'd like to do the same? Here's my note. I used the email wizard, which took all of 5 minutes on Congress.org

Dear Elected Representatives:

As I read news reports of the debate on health care coverage, I
feel the voices of ordinary citizens are being drowned out. I want you
all to know that I support universal health care coverage–including an
option where the US Government provides a plan. The costs of not having
health care to our people and our economy are too great. We deserve a
better system than the one we have and better care. Please work with the President and
get health care reform passed in 2009.

Sincerely,

Ted Bongiovanni

Talk to Your Heroes

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One of the most pleasant surprises about living in Glen Ridge is that it's home to some serious runners–including one Horace Ashenfelter, who won the gold medal at the Helsinki Olympics in 1952. Dan Murphy–another serious runner–took over the organization of the town's Thanksgiving Day "turkey trot" and renamed it in Ashenfelter's honor. Ever since I first did the race in 2006, I wondered about Ashenfelter–where does he live? Does he still run? What was it like to compete in the Olympics? I asked around–and got some answers. Ashenfelter was still running strong and is friendly. After being
encouraged by some fellow Essex Running Club members, I wrote him a note and pitched a story–which appears after the jump. I got the impression that Ashenfelter was accostomed to answering questions from curious runners and was honored that he granted the interview. When he competed in the Olympics he was an FBI agent and defeated Vladimir Kazantsev, from the USSR when the Cold War was going hot. Have you had a chance to meet someone you deeply admire? How did it go? I'm glad I had a list of questions and that I recorded the conversation. I have to say, running a steeplecase sounds like fun. It's great to have folks share their stories.

Horace Ashenfelter: An 8K Classic

On Thanksgiving Day at the Ashenfelters, four children and twelve grandchildren don their sneakers and run an eight-kilometer race before sitting down to dinner. The 1952 gold medal winner, Horace Ashenfelter, for whom the race is named, is still going strong and inspiring runners of all ages.

Fifty-six years ago, Ashenfelter competed in the Helsinki Olympic Games and brought home the gold in the steeplechase. He was the first and only American ever to win this event, defeating Vladimir Kazantsev of the USSR. How did the kid from Phoenixville, Pennsylvania, wind up competing in the Olympics? What keeps him running?

Ashenfelter ran cross-country in high school and en- rolled at Penn State University as an agricultural student or, as he likes to say, an “aggie.” He befriended other runners, who encouraged him to try out for the team. So, he went to the coach, who asked him, “Can you run two miles?” Ashenfelter replied, “I can run two miles.” The young man would go on to make the two-miler his specialty at Penn State.

World War II interrupted his running career and studies. He served three years as a lieutenant in the Air Force. When the war ended, he returned to Penn State to completed his education. After graduation, he married his high school sweetheart, Lillian, and went out in search of a job. With anticommunist fervor near its peak in the late 1940s, the FBI recruited Ashenfelter as a field agent and placed him in Newark, New Jersey. He and Lillian, now expecting their first child, settled in nearby Glen Ridge, on a street not far from Watsessing Park.

Ashenfelter’s job and his responsibilities as a new father didn’t leave him much time for training, but he managed to run for the New York Athletic Club, and he competed as well. He worked out on Watsessing’s cinder, fifth-of-a-mile track and surrounding paths. He says he never trained more than 35 miles a week. “I figured I had about an hour each day that I could run. I would get home at six o’clock and take my trot. I got my schedule lined up so that at the end of that hour I was tired. I had worked out hard. It was intensive work, as intensive as I could do.”

Building on his New York Athletic Club successes, he competed in the Olympic trials and, with his brother Bill, made the US team. The event was the steeplechase.

The 3000-meter steeplechase race, according to the International Association of Athletics Federations, includes 28 hurdle jumps and seven water jumps. Different stories about the origin of the event have sprung up. One legend has it that, with English villages about two miles apart, the only thing visible from one to the next was the steeple of the church. Competitive villagers raced from one steeple to the other—scaling walls and jumping streams along the way. In another story, two men on horses were racing. When one of the riders was thrown about two miles from the finish, he left his horse behind and ran the rest of the race on foot.

Ashenfelter’s FBI managers supported his Olympic bid. As the race neared, he was relocated to the Princeton, New Jersey, field office so he could do three workouts a day. Nevertheless, he arrived in Helsinki as the underdog, with the Soviet Union’s Kazantsev favored to win. But Ashenfelter had confidence in his training and abilities and set his sights on winning the gold.

He started out slower and stayed with the pack but knew he had the race. “There was no question that I was going to win.” When Kazantsev stumbled at the final water jump, Ashenfelter sprinted away to finish in a time of 8:45.4. Not only did he win the race, but he smashed Kazantsev’s unofficial world record and, in breaking nine minutes for the first time, set both a personal record and a US record.

Ashenfelter returned to Glen Ridge a hero. He later set records for the indoor two-mile, and from 1952 to 1956 was the indoor three-mile champion. Then, in 1957, at age 35, he announced his retirement from competitive running.

Horace Ashenfelter stopped competing 50 years ago, but he still runs through Watsessing Park several times a week. “It’s such an easy way to keep in shape. I don’t think there’s any question it’s promoted my longevity. I enjoy running. I enjoy being out, and taking a trot.”

CC – Some rights reserved. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License

Originally appeared in the Essex Running Club Newsletter, December 2008. Thanks to Chris Jaworkski from the Essex Running Club for editing this article.

Wise Contradictions

The well educated contradict each other. The wise contradict themselves. Wise? You decide.

Emerging Learning Design 2011: A Selective Recap

Really: Test to learn?

Wisdom of crowds? Or mindless mobs?

Remembering Nanny

The Long, Slow Road to Work

A Week with Apple’s iPad

First Reflections on Educon 2.2

Yes to Universal Health Care

Talk to Your Heroes