Eloquence (be)heard

I'm not an expert in technology.  I'm not.  Just ask anyone who is an expert, whether in hardware or software (including how to use either or both to accomplish specific tasks) and you'll hear a chorus of agreement. Not. An. Expert.

Now that we've established my credentials, read on.

After talking with a peer about a specific technology we both use and for which we are planning a short presentation for faculty, I was baffled when I received an email that said: "I want to thank you for our conversation Tuesday; I think I learned more during that time than in many many (name of technology) seminars all rolled into one!!!"

I have no idea what I did.  So I asked my peer what was different about the "babbling" (my word, because that's pretty well how it felt) and received this reply:

My first impression is that the technical stuff wasn't the focus, rather, the focus was on interesting stuff we can do and (how) this technology can assist us.  It was--we can use this technology to make our teaching better. Also, it was a willingness to go outside the confines of (the technology) to achieve the goals we want to achieve in our teaching.

Then there was that confident, knowledgeable tone you have when we speak about this stuff. The sort of "of course you can do this" attitude didn't hurt either.

And here are vestiges of my first corporate job, where I found unexpected allies in the technology group of the insurance company where I worked.  Allies who offered solutions to problems I had and critiques (often accurate) of the other business problems they could have solved, had anyone bothered to ask. What intrigued me was how helpful I found the tech folks to be, how willing they were to share what they knew, and disenfranchised they seemed to feel. Even in our language, there was Technology and there was The Business, as though they were distinct factions, rather than intertwined and interdependent elements of mutual success.

Fast forward almost 30 years and the dialog is similar between Technology and The Faculty.  The vast majority of what I shared with my peer last week was shared with me by technology experts on campus. If I'm confident in the use of any technology, I owe much of my comfort to the people who've answered my questions, fixed the things I have (frequently) broken, laughed when I challenged them to explain it in terms that even I can understand, and generally provided solutions to my problems.

You gotta' actually DO it

Bouncing among several books seems to work for me.  Whether it's a short attention span, an inability to remember which book I'm currently reading, or just a reading style (I rather like that...I may use Reading Style more often), I am usually reading multiple books.  The past couple of days, it's been The Medici Effect.  Again.  (And, by the way, I enjoyed the improv class, survived the live performance with peers, and have plans for Improv II in the spring.)

On the heels of a several discussions this week about online teaching--some with peers who teach online and some with peers who do not--I was primed to read that people who are voracious readers, self-taught, and hands-on learners are more creative.  They actually do things, try things, break things, handle things...they learn in the the somewhat gritty world of up close and personal.

And the implications for online teaching are easy.  Teachers who want to use technology to teach are going to have to move past the theory and the models and the paradigms and actually wade into the technology.  To try it, break it, handle it...get up close and personal with it.  No amount of reading, planning, discussion, or practice will take the place of actually doing it.

And the innovators?  They've already tried it, taught themselves, learned from their mistakes...and quietly (more often than not) kept right on going.  They may not be the ones doing the talking.

We talk too much

It's not that I'm opposed to conversation; I thrive on razor-sharp dialog, lightening-quick humor, and premise-challenging interactions.  What I want to stop is the habit of lecturing that we've somehow substituted for teaching.

My semester is off and running and I am reminded (yet again) how much I enjoy the craft and calling of teaching...and how frustrated I am by the myriad forces that have created an increase in the size and number of lecture courses.  I am one of the fortunate ones, afforded the opportunity to work with smaller, specialized  undergraduate classes and the ubiquitously-diligent graduate classes.  Even there, however, the method of teaching is not always ideal, as noted by one of the exiting graduate students this summer:

There was no course in the MMBA program (where) we were able to get one-on-one or even group interaction with a professor.

This bothers me, as an educator, as the parent of a near-college-age student, and as a citizen.  The advent of classrooms and schools rather than individual or small-group interaction (think "Socratic method") were an attempt to be efficient and effective in educating more people more quickly.  Good idea.  Good intention.  Mediocre implementation, taken as a whole.

This is on my mind, of late, due to the steadily growing body of data that indicates we have a better way to educate--one that is efficient, effective, and replicates many of the best aspects of the mentor, the dialog, the one-on-one.  But don't take my word for it. Listen to Daphne Koller, who has enough academic credentials and research experience to be more than credible when she says:

We should spend less time at universities filling our student's minds with content by lecturing them, and more time igniting their creativity...by actually talking with them.

News that isn't

Yikes.  I know it's not a particularly professional response to what I'm reading this morning, but it's honest.  I guess I could go with 'wow' or 'how frustratingly short-sighted,' but I think I'll stick with the mono-syllabic expression of shock and alarm that preserves the element of humor.  A bit of humor and a strong dose of get-a-grip seems helpful when reading that tools can do some things better than people (gasp!) and how that's all well and good right up until the trite we-can't-let-machines-replace-us fear is invoked.  

It may be the slightest bit hypocritical and/or short-sighted to be thankful for a hammer (which works far better than the heel of my shoe...) or a screwdriver (try using fingernails...it's not pretty) and bemoan tools that specifically--and selectively--affect my own profession.  What has me a bit ruffled this morning is the NPR article which opens with this paragraph:

Computers have been grading multiple-choice test in schools for years.  To the relief of English teachers everywhere, essays have been tougher to gauge.  But look out, teachers:  A new study finds that software designed to automatically read and grade essays can do as good a job as humans--maybe even better.

It doesn't get a lot better from there, as the NPR article continues to sound the alarm about the tool, how students might game the tool, and the danger(s) of using the tool to replace both good teaching and good teachers.  Credibility is lent to the NPR article through judicious quotes from (with requisite links to) a New York Times article about a study conducted at the University of Akron.

The scary part is this:  The NPR story was largely based on an interview with the author of the New York Times article.  But only the reader (not the listener..) who takes the time to read the NPR article, follow the links to the New York Times article, and then follow those links to the original source will find this:

Shermis, the lead author of the Akron study, says thrift-minded administrators and politician should not take his results as ammunition in a crusade to replace composition instructors with...robots.  Ideally, educators at all levels would use the software 'as a supplement for overworked [instructors of] entry-level writing courses, where students are really learning fundamental writing skills and can use all the feedback they can get.' "

At this point, I have so many browser windows open (love this tool!) that I'm having a bit of trouble keeping them in the order that makes sense to me.  But by now I also have access (because of this amazing tool...) to the original study conducted at the University of Akron.

I can read the study for myself and draw my own conclusions, conclusions which are likely to be far more similar to those of the lead author than those of the NPR writer who does not quote or reference the original work--at all.  Yikes.

Dancing geek

The pedagogy of teaching fascinates me, despite the hubris implied by use of the word 'pedagogy' in public.  Taking pride (of the appropriate kind) reflected in preparation and professionalism in ones craft as an educator requires an awareness that teaching is both art and science, in somewhat equal measure.

Benjamin Bloom's Taxonomy of Educational Objectives is part of the rich science of teaching; understanding how to use the taxonomy is part of the art.  Long a fan of the elegant simplicity of a hierarchy of thinking skills, I have used Bloom's Taxonomy in course design, test design, and content delivery.

In the midst of teaching, explaining to students how learning happens seems prudent; students are, after all, my partners in the process and it helps if we're doing the same dance steps.  The step-wise progression from lower order thinking skills to higher order thinking skills is beautifully choreographed in the latest revision to Bloom's--we now have digital verbs.  For example, from the Update to Bloom's Revised Taxonomy:

• Remembering - bookmarking, searching, googling, social bookmarking
• Understanding - advanced/ boolean searches, blog journaling, annotating, subscribing, tweeting
• Applying - executing, playing, uploading, editing
• Analyzing - mashing, tagging, linking
• Evaluating - commenting, posting, moderating, collaborating, reviewing
• Creating - programming, blogging, podcasting, publishing, wiki-ing

For those of us who are pedagogists as well as closet geeks, this is really good news.  It means I can use technology as more than a tool to enable learning objectives related to other content.  The effective and well-planned use of technology is its own pedagogy, music to the ears of a geek who dances.


Related Ramblings:
Learning Through Teaching: Pandemic consumption
Learning Through Teaching:  My cup runneth over
Learning Through Teaching: The "no textbook" decision

Dreaming in class

I wish I could take credit for it, but I think I just blundered into it.  Regardless of the genesis, what's happening in the classroom is the stuff that dreams are made of.*

The week before classes started, the new president of our state university system presented to our faculty his call for innovation**--specifically, in the form of on-line education within our state's higher-education system--and the virtual dominoes snapped into place:  What better illustration of the concepts and challenges of innovation, creativity, and change than one issued to the system in which students find themselves? Suddenly, having 11 graduate students from multiple colleges in an elective course on Innovation and Creativity appeared as the gift it is and the course was adjusted to incorporate a semester-long project revolving around online education.

So far:

• Students are applying concepts, theories, and models to a system they understand.
• We're all learning about the state around us (literally and figuratively).
• Business decisions about innovation are more easily understood or, at the very least, more easily discussed.
• Pre-conceived ideas (mostly negative) about online education are being replaced by facts obtained through research.
• Faculty from other colleges are lending support to the students in my class.
• Technology and instructional design colleagues are also lending support to the class.
• The faculty and staff who visit the classroom and/or read the material being gathered and posted on Blackboard are excited about the process.
• We are using tools and technologies seamlessly, both as tools and as research topics.
• I look forward to class.

One goal for the semester is to develop a sample of what quality online education, incorporating best practices and using the tools available.  The class has selected the subject matter and a sub-group is focusing on development of the actual product.  

Another goal is to create and deliver a presentation about our design process, the questions raised, and the students' recommendations.  My goal?  To fill the auditorium (literally and through technology) with faculty and staff.  To include others in the dream. To see where this leads. To wake and find at least some part of the dream.

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* Though I've used Carly Simon's lyrics, credit is also due to Shakespeare.  

**The text of the presentation is here, with a link to watch.


Related Ramblings:

1. Stay tuned for Dr. Seuss
2. Accounts receivable or accounts paid?

Pandemic consumption

I have a weakness for English majors.  A case in point is Mark Bauerlein, professor of English at Emory University, and editor of The Digital Divide: Arguments for and Against Facebook, Google, Texting, and the Age of Social Networking.  In the eight-page introduction alone, I found several gems:

• In wondering about 6,901 comments posted in response to a 2,500-word newspaper piece, Bauerlein questions "what readers think when they encounter 4,838 comments to a news story and believe that post #4,384 really matters.  Is this democratic process or fruitless vanity?"
• "How many decades passed between the invention of the telephone and its daily use by 90 percent of the population?  Today, the path from private creation to pandemic consumption is measured in months."
• The phrase "reclusiveness in public spaces" aptly describes how we "look the same" to others (at the coffee shop, for example) whether we are reading a book online, checking Facebook, or contributing to a malicious gossip site.  "Nobody can tell, and that precise shelter removes one of the long-standing curbs on vicious conduct, namely, exposure."
• And, in the final paragraph:  "If we let the human realities that accompanied those older tools fall into oblivion...then we lose a part of our humanity, a historical sense of our recent selves."

More reading material...woo hoo!

Social networking: use and guidelines

The current assignment (due post-exam, of course) is to research and present findings on the presence and use of social media in corporate settings. As with anything new, the policies lag behind the actual use. One student (from a previous class of mine) found a Social Media Governance site, which contains blogging-related policies and/or guidelines from 99 organizations. While I've not read them all, my current favorite is the Yahoo! Personal Blog Guidelines 1.0. I like the common-sense, treat-them-as-grownups approach...and the lessons learned from the "experienced" bloggers inside Yahoo!. Our interest in this course is whether the use of social media is an extension of corporate strategy...or a bandwagon leap. The early discoveries are intriguing, as are the student opinions.

On a micro-level, the presence and use of laptops and cell phones in class is equally risky. Though I was taught that people tend to rise to the level of our expectations for them, I've found the belief to be both a truth and a trap. In this course, social networking--and, by extension, the associated technology--is potentially an enabler and a distraction. The students are generally quite respectful, though, giving attention to peer presentations and to my occasional formal "lectures."

But it takes everything in me not to walk around and check...are they on Facebook? Email? Twittering? (Doubly painful, that possibility.) What keeps me from checking with any regularity is the knowledge that faculty meetings and business meetings provide the same temptation to professionals who are expected to manage their own behavior. Perhaps this, too, is one of the learning experiences...for me, as well as for the class.

The first week of class

The first two classes were a lot of fun, at least for me. I've been able to watch what happens when 31 really bright students explore the content, the technology, the classroom, and their team. Structuring the assignments and then getting out of the way seems to be working, just as Marc Prensky describes it:

"One reason that the pedagogy of students teaching themselves never caught on as the mainstream approach – although it has been advocated by many, certainly since Dewey and probably since Socrates – is that the available tools for learners to use just were not good enough....Today’s technology offers students all kinds of new, highly effective tools they can use to learn on their own – from the Internet with almost all the information, to search and research tools to sort out what is true and relevant, to analysis tools to help make sense of it, to creation tools to present one’s findings in a variety of media, to social tools to network and collaborate with people around the world. And while the teacher can and should be a guide, most of these tools are best used by students, not teachers."

We're contributing as we are able, from the instructor's experience (sprinkled with curiosity) to the students' enthusiasm and willingness to explore. What an adventure...and there's an entire semester to go.

The crunch time cometh

Spending time with the various Google applications has kept me busy (who knew there were so many blogs to follow and sites to bookmark?), as I try to get a better understanding of how to modify some portions of the course and create others. Having technology tools readily available in the room is offering so many options; it's easy to become overwhelmed.

For the next 3-4 weeks, the focus will be revamping existing course plans and completing the new ones. The course is designed to be 50% lecture (the revamping) and 50% business simulation (the part we will be replacing with new content). When I've taught the course, I've made the lecture portion as interactive as possible; the limiting factors were the room configuration and the lack of computers, so this seems less daunting. The business simulation portion does not have a readily available equivalent and seriously daunts.

For now, the plan is to use Blackboard (which is already widely used here) for grading and administering exams. The rest is Google, with docs, reader, blogger, and bookmarks as starting points.