I mean the virtual world, of course, the Internet. Sure you might pay a monthly fee for connection but what is that next to all that you can get: Free CSS, free HTML templates, free JavaScript, what’s all this? People give their templates for free, write tutorials for free, offer tips and tricks for free.
My 11-year-old boy even works for free on the Internet. He manages two forums about video games consoles. He writes reviews about all the games he has used, he tries new games weekly and writes tips and tricks (like tutorials), and suggests story lines to the designers, and trades games. All of that, for the pure enjoyment of writing and expressing his opinion. I get paid for doing less than that!
I have been looking for ways to learn CSS and JavaScript and so far I have been following tutorials on the Internet. Sometimes I feel that to learn all this, one needs a new mindset; a way of thinking that our children seems to be now born with nowadays. We adults, it seems to me, have to acquire… or learn to acquire (there you go) that extra space in our minds. And alas! As I am sitting with my laptop reading, learning, visualizing and playing in my head how to use CSS and JavaScript for my project,... I find... a new Website, or let’s say a few new Websites (new to me) that are offering JavaScript, CSS, XML templates for free.
They are:
Enjoy it!
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Sunday, February 25, 2007
The impact of Podcasting
At the university where I work, we have several email lists that were originally created for the purpose of communicating important announcements. Unfortunately, these lists turned out to be a channel or medium used to deliver SPAM messages within the university that eventually turned these lists into an annoyance. To alleviate this, a new system was implemented where anybody could submit an announcement through a web application, and this announcement would be then classified accordingly. Then, each individual (end-user) would get an email with a list of the new announcements available, and they would have the ability to access only the announcements the end-users chose to view through this web application. Well, this system has been in place for almost a year, and based on recent survey results, almost nobody takes the time to go an look at these events.
On the other hand, sometime back, I was reading a magazine article about Podcasting. In this article they talk about the impact that podcasting is having in the corporate world, and how companies use podcasts as a way to communicate important information about new products or send "a message from the boss". Although companies are already experiencing the benefits of podcasting, the article also mentions that it will still be a while before we see this trend in other places or settings. However, this is a start, and with the help or RSS and Podcasting, users will be able to really "customize" pr "filter" only the messages that they want to listen or read through their news aggregator.
On the other hand, sometime back, I was reading a magazine article about Podcasting. In this article they talk about the impact that podcasting is having in the corporate world, and how companies use podcasts as a way to communicate important information about new products or send "a message from the boss". Although companies are already experiencing the benefits of podcasting, the article also mentions that it will still be a while before we see this trend in other places or settings. However, this is a start, and with the help or RSS and Podcasting, users will be able to really "customize" pr "filter" only the messages that they want to listen or read through their news aggregator.
Plan all you want...
Since a portion of what we are supposed to learn in this class is to be able to guide our web projects to completion via successful project management, I thought I would take a few moments to share my story with you all. It might be interesting, or not, but it will certainly allow me to vent a little.
I've been guiding a really cool project for a year now. By design, we were going to use blog software to create an article based community forum (not forum software, but a forum) for faculty at my institution to share and comment on teaching and other professional experiences. A lot like what we have going on with this blog, only times about 1000.
We worked on the project for months. We spent many hours working with multiple departments to design the specifications of the page. We selected the software, created many customizations. We held a focus group to get initial feedback. All in all, we did everything by the book to have a successful project.
Unfortunately, we had excluded one group of decision makers that saw our finished product, loved it, but had reservations that the information was available to the public. These changes were at the very core of our design, and required us to redo 80 percent of our work.
The moral of this part of the story is that buy in is important, but so is getting all the buy in needed. Had we done a better job of incorporating a few people that we thought were neutral to the project, we would have been done ages ago.
Moving on, I sat down with my team and a revised list of specifications. We set an aggressive deadline to roll out our new service on Feb. 27. This gave us 3 months to reinvent the wheel. In a way it was a good thing. As we redid things, we took the opportunity to get things right the second time. Opportunities presented themselves that weren't there the first time. We did a good job of briefly exploring these new options without changing the scope of the project... we'd put it on a phase 2 list.
I started work last Monday with a handful of last minute tasks, a week to complete them, and a deadline of Tuesday at 3:00 for an unveiling at an event that would be hard to reschedule. The next day, 5 days ago, a sever virus hit our campus that spread like wildfire. All the PCs (go Mac!) on campus had to be touched. Each touch takes about 2 hours. Higher priority projects than mine had to take the back burner. I've worked 75 hours since Tuesday with more to do this week.
The lesson I've learned from this experience is one of priority. It seems that no amount of planning can ever address all the bumps in the road, but having a good sense of priority, and being able to order things on the fly because of that sense, will save lots of time. I was not in a position to make the tough calls with the priorities of hundreds, but I've been able to observe some great leaders who were. As a result, we've navigated much of this hurdle in a reasonable time without other services crumbling.
So that's my story. I was gonna build some cool stuff in JavaScript and write about that on Saturday, but I'll have to get to that next weekend. It is funny, sometimes I don't look forward to my ETL work sessions that I set aside each weekend, I have to go to the library to work as motivation. But after this weekend, I can't wait to relax with my laptop and actually use my brain!
I've been guiding a really cool project for a year now. By design, we were going to use blog software to create an article based community forum (not forum software, but a forum) for faculty at my institution to share and comment on teaching and other professional experiences. A lot like what we have going on with this blog, only times about 1000.
We worked on the project for months. We spent many hours working with multiple departments to design the specifications of the page. We selected the software, created many customizations. We held a focus group to get initial feedback. All in all, we did everything by the book to have a successful project.
Unfortunately, we had excluded one group of decision makers that saw our finished product, loved it, but had reservations that the information was available to the public. These changes were at the very core of our design, and required us to redo 80 percent of our work.
The moral of this part of the story is that buy in is important, but so is getting all the buy in needed. Had we done a better job of incorporating a few people that we thought were neutral to the project, we would have been done ages ago.
Moving on, I sat down with my team and a revised list of specifications. We set an aggressive deadline to roll out our new service on Feb. 27. This gave us 3 months to reinvent the wheel. In a way it was a good thing. As we redid things, we took the opportunity to get things right the second time. Opportunities presented themselves that weren't there the first time. We did a good job of briefly exploring these new options without changing the scope of the project... we'd put it on a phase 2 list.
I started work last Monday with a handful of last minute tasks, a week to complete them, and a deadline of Tuesday at 3:00 for an unveiling at an event that would be hard to reschedule. The next day, 5 days ago, a sever virus hit our campus that spread like wildfire. All the PCs (go Mac!) on campus had to be touched. Each touch takes about 2 hours. Higher priority projects than mine had to take the back burner. I've worked 75 hours since Tuesday with more to do this week.
The lesson I've learned from this experience is one of priority. It seems that no amount of planning can ever address all the bumps in the road, but having a good sense of priority, and being able to order things on the fly because of that sense, will save lots of time. I was not in a position to make the tough calls with the priorities of hundreds, but I've been able to observe some great leaders who were. As a result, we've navigated much of this hurdle in a reasonable time without other services crumbling.
So that's my story. I was gonna build some cool stuff in JavaScript and write about that on Saturday, but I'll have to get to that next weekend. It is funny, sometimes I don't look forward to my ETL work sessions that I set aside each weekend, I have to go to the library to work as motivation. But after this weekend, I can't wait to relax with my laptop and actually use my brain!
Friday, February 23, 2007
Styling with CSS
The more I delve into cascading style sheets, the more I wonder how I ever created a web site without using them. For an existing site where you need to make a style modification, CSS makes it so convenient. I’m web master for a site that has a particular event that’s advertised in it’s own special web site “section” every year. The site’s architectural template stays the same, but the graphics and color scheme of that section change every year to match the hard copy publications and advertising for the event. I pull up the style sheet from last year’s event, rename it for this year’s event, make the changes, and presto! There it is.
The IMU CSS project was challenging. First, I wasn’t sure of the actual IMU site design yet, and second, I was re-coding an old blog template for use on this project. Probably not the best mix to use for this assignment, but I was interested to see how the blog-turned-web site would work. Everything was moving along okay, if a little slowly since it had been awhile since I “spoke” CSS, until I ran across the float attribute. I had 3 sections that I needed “centered” equal distance apart. Guess what? There’s no such thing as a float: center attribute. “Since you have float: left/right, many people think there should be a float: center. The way CSS does it is to assign the margin to an auto value, so both sides get the same amount of margin.”
And even more on floating – this explains the theory behind float usage. So after that bit of research, I was able to correct my non-validating code and achieve the look I wanted.
Another thing I was reminded of while working on the CSS assignment was how different it is to work with a no-table page. Most of my sites that I work with daily are a combo of table and CSS, (Web 1.5 anyone?) so it’s always a little shocking to immerse myself in the full-on CSS code.
And finally, while digging in my old bookmarks, I ran across this 2003 IMU(?) titled "Why tables for layout is stupid: problems defined, solutions offered.”
The IMU CSS project was challenging. First, I wasn’t sure of the actual IMU site design yet, and second, I was re-coding an old blog template for use on this project. Probably not the best mix to use for this assignment, but I was interested to see how the blog-turned-web site would work. Everything was moving along okay, if a little slowly since it had been awhile since I “spoke” CSS, until I ran across the float attribute. I had 3 sections that I needed “centered” equal distance apart. Guess what? There’s no such thing as a float: center attribute. “Since you have float: left/right, many people think there should be a float: center. The way CSS does it is to assign the margin to an auto value, so both sides get the same amount of margin.”
And even more on floating – this explains the theory behind float usage. So after that bit of research, I was able to correct my non-validating code and achieve the look I wanted.
Another thing I was reminded of while working on the CSS assignment was how different it is to work with a no-table page. Most of my sites that I work with daily are a combo of table and CSS, (Web 1.5 anyone?) so it’s always a little shocking to immerse myself in the full-on CSS code.
And finally, while digging in my old bookmarks, I ran across this 2003 IMU(?) titled "Why tables for layout is stupid: problems defined, solutions offered.”
Thursday, February 22, 2007
So many technologies, so little time.
As I was reading the lecture last night I was very happy to hear about using JavaScript again. And by “again” I mean that once I used to be proficient at JavaScript to make my designs “fly” and impress. Then, I stopped using JavaScript, I actually stopped using many Web things in favor of paper publications.
It sounds weird but, at the very beginning of the appearance of the Web, when publication designers like me transition to become Web designers, we felt prompt to meet and move to a happy-medium with the new computer engineers, who were the expert techies with the programming languages. Designers like me learned HTML and JavaScript from being challenged by these techies that our designs “can’t be done” and so we proved them wrong by learning a few tricks, like mouse-over, and pop-up windows that were not grey and ugly. It wasn’t hard-core programming at all, but the experimentation, I think drove these technologies to better themselves as we asked for more.
We thought that with the introduction of the computer we will have the paperless office and therefore all print designers will become Web designers and we will all look back at our books and say: remember that? Well, remember when we THOUGHT that? Well, instead of making the paper obsolete, the computer brought in the use of more paper and more paper. And so former book designers like me, after a few years using to publish Web pages, were called back to the market to be print publications designers again. And in the market, we are rarer to find than Web designers these days. And yet, the technology we use has also changed (for instance, we don’t have PageMaker now, we have InDesign). And also the print technology has advanced too, we have digital prints and/or color photocopies that print out very high quality prints and full volumes. So, I also had to bring myself back up to speed (though it took me a couple of hours for it seems print technology is more natural to me).
And so with the necessity in the workplace to use my many years of experience in publication, I folded my newly found experience with HTML and the Web in a drawer some place in my mind a few years ago. And as I come back and opened that drawer I find that things have changed and my HTML is vintage. The proud tags I attached are old and musty. Revisiting it, I found that to make text bold, I should not use "b" anymore, but "strong", or that "i" is now "em" and so on and so on and so on.
Likewise, as I was looking at JavaScript samples last night I was reminiscent to my earlier tries. Oh, yes, I thought. That and that and that can be done! There is nothing impossible for technology. It all depends on our time.
It sounds weird but, at the very beginning of the appearance of the Web, when publication designers like me transition to become Web designers, we felt prompt to meet and move to a happy-medium with the new computer engineers, who were the expert techies with the programming languages. Designers like me learned HTML and JavaScript from being challenged by these techies that our designs “can’t be done” and so we proved them wrong by learning a few tricks, like mouse-over, and pop-up windows that were not grey and ugly. It wasn’t hard-core programming at all, but the experimentation, I think drove these technologies to better themselves as we asked for more.
We thought that with the introduction of the computer we will have the paperless office and therefore all print designers will become Web designers and we will all look back at our books and say: remember that? Well, remember when we THOUGHT that? Well, instead of making the paper obsolete, the computer brought in the use of more paper and more paper. And so former book designers like me, after a few years using to publish Web pages, were called back to the market to be print publications designers again. And in the market, we are rarer to find than Web designers these days. And yet, the technology we use has also changed (for instance, we don’t have PageMaker now, we have InDesign). And also the print technology has advanced too, we have digital prints and/or color photocopies that print out very high quality prints and full volumes. So, I also had to bring myself back up to speed (though it took me a couple of hours for it seems print technology is more natural to me).
And so with the necessity in the workplace to use my many years of experience in publication, I folded my newly found experience with HTML and the Web in a drawer some place in my mind a few years ago. And as I come back and opened that drawer I find that things have changed and my HTML is vintage. The proud tags I attached are old and musty. Revisiting it, I found that to make text bold, I should not use "b" anymore, but "strong", or that "i" is now "em" and so on and so on and so on.
Likewise, as I was looking at JavaScript samples last night I was reminiscent to my earlier tries. Oh, yes, I thought. That and that and that can be done! There is nothing impossible for technology. It all depends on our time.
Sunday, February 18, 2007
Technology and Learning
Since the beginning of this semester I have been pondering in my mind what type of project I was going to work on. I want to teach one class of yoga on the Internet. Whenever I tell people that I am a yoga teacher, I hear the same mantra, people telling me how they are so interested in starting yoga, but --oh, gosh-- how little time they have; or, that there is no class located closer to where they live or work. The solution, I thought was an online lesson delivered though this wonderful medium, which interested students can access at a time and place of their convenience.
My client, the yoga teacher that trained me, has been hesitant about my ideas. I asked her to select a class that she was going to teach to her students at the studio. I was going in to take pictures (and get permission from the models to use the pictures), later design the structure, design the Website --CSS and all--, look and feel, perhaps do some animation of sorts… My client has doubts and her own ideas too. Why don’t I use the Internet to explain empirically, the basis of yoga, to make them interested, as to later draw people to visit her studio and join a class? Is she talking about using the Internet sort of like a marketing tool. Is she talking about edutainment? Horrors!
She based her point of view on the definition of yoga: It is to bring mind, and body together in relaxation at one particular moment within class time. And that moment might not happen over the Internet in one class. Yoga is an experiential learning. It might be true that the Internet would convey this experience at one point in the future—perhaps thought some special technology (virtual reality?), but to seriously bring a yoga class --like the one we impart in person, to a group of people,-- with all the subtle energy changes that can be felt physically, and the group energy which unites at one point during the period of class, and the personal relaxation, and the final experience of the meditation, …all this might not be immediately possible today. Or, might be too complex of a task to be able to do it all in one online class.
The questions circumnavigating my mind are: Is technology that efficient and sufficient for this kind of experiential learning/teaching? Is it able to convey an experience of such subtlety? The Internet student, not being able to get that experience in one sitting, might feel bored, or weird, or simply disinterested from the first session. The energy we feel in class while doing yoga together, my yoga teacher pointed out, is what makes yoga differ from any other kind of exercise.
My client, the yoga teacher that trained me, has been hesitant about my ideas. I asked her to select a class that she was going to teach to her students at the studio. I was going in to take pictures (and get permission from the models to use the pictures), later design the structure, design the Website --CSS and all--, look and feel, perhaps do some animation of sorts… My client has doubts and her own ideas too. Why don’t I use the Internet to explain empirically, the basis of yoga, to make them interested, as to later draw people to visit her studio and join a class? Is she talking about using the Internet sort of like a marketing tool. Is she talking about edutainment? Horrors!
She based her point of view on the definition of yoga: It is to bring mind, and body together in relaxation at one particular moment within class time. And that moment might not happen over the Internet in one class. Yoga is an experiential learning. It might be true that the Internet would convey this experience at one point in the future—perhaps thought some special technology (virtual reality?), but to seriously bring a yoga class --like the one we impart in person, to a group of people,-- with all the subtle energy changes that can be felt physically, and the group energy which unites at one point during the period of class, and the personal relaxation, and the final experience of the meditation, …all this might not be immediately possible today. Or, might be too complex of a task to be able to do it all in one online class.
The questions circumnavigating my mind are: Is technology that efficient and sufficient for this kind of experiential learning/teaching? Is it able to convey an experience of such subtlety? The Internet student, not being able to get that experience in one sitting, might feel bored, or weird, or simply disinterested from the first session. The energy we feel in class while doing yoga together, my yoga teacher pointed out, is what makes yoga differ from any other kind of exercise.
Friday, February 16, 2007
Still in the game
My thoughts echo somewhat those of my classmates that have posted entries concerning the overwhelming choice of web technologies available to us today. I’m so glad to know that I’m not the only one that occasionally pines for the good old days of plain html with a side of simple scripty goodness all held together by a carefully arranged table layout. Sigh. Those were the days.
Those were the days. Of simple, yet function-limited web sites. Remember when the Amazon.com site, for example, burst on the scene and they had a, gasp, shopping cart? And suddenly everyone was scrambling to learn cgi so they could re-write their sites to include cart and check out ability? Which also meant they probably needed a database backend? That technology has grown and improved over years and I’m not sure that if I had even learned those “advanced” coding techniques back then that I’d still be able to keep up with the latest versions today.
However, all of this to say, I’m not disheartened by the progress in web design, coding, and backend development; rather, I’m enthusiastic about it and what it means for the future. I get excited about the technology when I see events such as this being offered. I’d absolutely love to attend this event and be surrounded by the icons in the industry and soak up all they have to offer. Oh the possibilities! What I could learn! I fantasize for a few minutes about attending the conference, but then reality sets in. My rose-colored fantasy takes on a sepia-toned hue as I begin to imagine myself at the conference, surrounded by techies and terms, and ideas, and exciting Web 2.0 code that I don’t quite get, but wow I can see how that would be beneficial and hmm, why didn’t I ever learn this in the first place…and then I remember why I didn’t learn it in the first place: because there are only 24 hours in a day! And I’m busy maintaining my “perfectly” cobbled-together Web 1.0 sites (okay, some may pre-date that). I do however, acknowledge that there is room for improvement and that if I want to stay in the game of web design, I better learn what I can, when I can, and most importantly, apply it. So, projects like the IMU are perfect for me – if I can learn (or improve) and apply just one new technology that I haven’t learned before, then I feel like I’m still in the game, just moving a little slower, but not completely benched.
Those were the days. Of simple, yet function-limited web sites. Remember when the Amazon.com site, for example, burst on the scene and they had a, gasp, shopping cart? And suddenly everyone was scrambling to learn cgi so they could re-write their sites to include cart and check out ability? Which also meant they probably needed a database backend? That technology has grown and improved over years and I’m not sure that if I had even learned those “advanced” coding techniques back then that I’d still be able to keep up with the latest versions today.
However, all of this to say, I’m not disheartened by the progress in web design, coding, and backend development; rather, I’m enthusiastic about it and what it means for the future. I get excited about the technology when I see events such as this being offered. I’d absolutely love to attend this event and be surrounded by the icons in the industry and soak up all they have to offer. Oh the possibilities! What I could learn! I fantasize for a few minutes about attending the conference, but then reality sets in. My rose-colored fantasy takes on a sepia-toned hue as I begin to imagine myself at the conference, surrounded by techies and terms, and ideas, and exciting Web 2.0 code that I don’t quite get, but wow I can see how that would be beneficial and hmm, why didn’t I ever learn this in the first place…and then I remember why I didn’t learn it in the first place: because there are only 24 hours in a day! And I’m busy maintaining my “perfectly” cobbled-together Web 1.0 sites (okay, some may pre-date that). I do however, acknowledge that there is room for improvement and that if I want to stay in the game of web design, I better learn what I can, when I can, and most importantly, apply it. So, projects like the IMU are perfect for me – if I can learn (or improve) and apply just one new technology that I haven’t learned before, then I feel like I’m still in the game, just moving a little slower, but not completely benched.
Sunday, February 11, 2007
What Is the Best Choice?
I was reading Jeff's Advanced Technologies posting on WebsoftMJLJ for this week's lecture. In this posting he poses an interesting question... What are the best choices for educational technologists?
Although this question is related to Jeff's IMU project, I am sure that all of us have found ourselves in Jeff's situation. What technology is the most appropriate for a given situation? Although not easy to do, we can somehow answer this question with a general answer. For instance, what technology would be appropriate to deliver training materials to a set of users? As an answer, we can suggest to use a web page, or maybe producing a CD-ROM. We can even suggest to develop a printed "How-to"guide and still be able to provide a proper answer.
However, once we decide what solution we implement, there is a more granular level where we, as instructional technologists, still have to make a choice on what technology is the most appropriate. If we decide to deliver training materials through the web, should we make it interactive? If we are looking for interaction, what's the best technology we can use? Action scripts in Flash, or perhaps we should use any type of DHTML? Yes there are systems available that we can use to help us manage these types of questions, however, as instructional technologists, we know that we are responsible for knowing of the different technology solutions available, but are we also responsible for knowing all the specific details for each one of the possible technologies as well? At what level does this stop?
Although this question is related to Jeff's IMU project, I am sure that all of us have found ourselves in Jeff's situation. What technology is the most appropriate for a given situation? Although not easy to do, we can somehow answer this question with a general answer. For instance, what technology would be appropriate to deliver training materials to a set of users? As an answer, we can suggest to use a web page, or maybe producing a CD-ROM. We can even suggest to develop a printed "How-to"guide and still be able to provide a proper answer.
However, once we decide what solution we implement, there is a more granular level where we, as instructional technologists, still have to make a choice on what technology is the most appropriate. If we decide to deliver training materials through the web, should we make it interactive? If we are looking for interaction, what's the best technology we can use? Action scripts in Flash, or perhaps we should use any type of DHTML? Yes there are systems available that we can use to help us manage these types of questions, however, as instructional technologists, we know that we are responsible for knowing of the different technology solutions available, but are we also responsible for knowing all the specific details for each one of the possible technologies as well? At what level does this stop?
Copy and Paste Learning
All that I know about web markup, scripting, and programming, I learned in as-needed basis by finding what I needed, copying and pasting, tweaking through trial and error. Over the years this has resulted in an understanding of html, css, javascript, php, and perhaps others that is limited, spotty, and devoid of any sort of application of best practice.
The tutorials on W3schools.com are great.. and I've known about them for years, but the truth is, unless I NEED that new skill at that moment, I can't stay focused, or I forget it in five minutes. So if I inherited some project and needed to tweak style sheet, I'd learn just enough to do so.
I have vowed to do no copy and paste for my projects in this class. It isn't about not wanting to steal, cheat, or be lazy, it is about wanting to look a page that I created completely by myself. That way, when I know that I know what everything does. It is a sad admission that I have created things in the paste from a talent of hobbling things together, and I have only been about 50% clear on how it did what it did.
It has already paid off. I applied what I learned from the xhtml and css tutorials to create a page and a stylesheet using nothing but things that I understand. I probably can't convey the excitement I feel in this blog... but I can share my dirty little secret.
The tutorials on W3schools.com are great.. and I've known about them for years, but the truth is, unless I NEED that new skill at that moment, I can't stay focused, or I forget it in five minutes. So if I inherited some project and needed to tweak style sheet, I'd learn just enough to do so.
I have vowed to do no copy and paste for my projects in this class. It isn't about not wanting to steal, cheat, or be lazy, it is about wanting to look a page that I created completely by myself. That way, when I know that I know what everything does. It is a sad admission that I have created things in the paste from a talent of hobbling things together, and I have only been about 50% clear on how it did what it did.
It has already paid off. I applied what I learned from the xhtml and css tutorials to create a page and a stylesheet using nothing but things that I understand. I probably can't convey the excitement I feel in this blog... but I can share my dirty little secret.
Friday, February 9, 2007
RSS vs Rumaging on Syber Space
It takes one snowing Virginian day to keep me in and let it out. Only that the snow melted too soon and I had to go to work anyways. But here it is, my first Blog ever.
For a long while I thought that learning only happened when the information to be studied came from the lecture of a teacher to the eager student in the front row of a classroom. But it is not happening like that anymore. Online learning means a lot of reading, researching, checking, comparing, applying, doing—Constructivism, I guess. No verbal discussion other than online, no funny remark by a smartass student… It is a lot of rummaging on Cyber Space.
Surprisingly, though, this semester it hasn’t totally happened like that either: I also get a little lecture and some first-hand samples face2face with a teacher. At my new job, sitting next to me, conspicuously in her smart appearance sits the Queen of Blogs. Amy, the writer, producer, and creator of Crazy Mokes (http://www.crazymokes.com/), is the proud subscriber to over a 100 blogs, which she receives via RSS. While in my head I am thinking a thousand things and using Wikipedia or Google to keep up with my own internal questionings. She receives everything she ever wanted to know, anything she ever wanted to read, through her RSS reader, like bloglines.com.
As my questionings, now directed to her increases, she kindly gives me the tour.
Why! Look at it as your own personal journal you don’t mind your younger brother to read, or your personal newsletter to the world or family members overseas, or your letter to the editor to an imagining self-owned newspaper (…or writing assignment to EDUC266). It is just a website with a software (she uses WordPress from: http://wordpress.org/) that makes it easy to, well, make a Blog, which incidentally comes from Web and Log coined together (well, I knew that one from Wikipedia) and because blogs are expression of ones personal style, she chose her own style and produces her own banners, sometimes photos taken by her, other times…. like this month featuring Mrs. Pacma. Amy says, “I'm currently addicted to playing Ms. Pacman, and so I thought it would be fun to have a ms. Pacman themed banner for February, with little hearts for the dots.”
For a long while I thought that learning only happened when the information to be studied came from the lecture of a teacher to the eager student in the front row of a classroom. But it is not happening like that anymore. Online learning means a lot of reading, researching, checking, comparing, applying, doing—Constructivism, I guess. No verbal discussion other than online, no funny remark by a smartass student… It is a lot of rummaging on Cyber Space.
Surprisingly, though, this semester it hasn’t totally happened like that either: I also get a little lecture and some first-hand samples face2face with a teacher. At my new job, sitting next to me, conspicuously in her smart appearance sits the Queen of Blogs. Amy, the writer, producer, and creator of Crazy Mokes (http://www.crazymokes.com/), is the proud subscriber to over a 100 blogs, which she receives via RSS. While in my head I am thinking a thousand things and using Wikipedia or Google to keep up with my own internal questionings. She receives everything she ever wanted to know, anything she ever wanted to read, through her RSS reader, like bloglines.com.
As my questionings, now directed to her increases, she kindly gives me the tour.
Why! Look at it as your own personal journal you don’t mind your younger brother to read, or your personal newsletter to the world or family members overseas, or your letter to the editor to an imagining self-owned newspaper (…or writing assignment to EDUC266). It is just a website with a software (she uses WordPress from: http://wordpress.org/) that makes it easy to, well, make a Blog, which incidentally comes from Web and Log coined together (well, I knew that one from Wikipedia) and because blogs are expression of ones personal style, she chose her own style and produces her own banners, sometimes photos taken by her, other times…. like this month featuring Mrs. Pacma. Amy says, “I'm currently addicted to playing Ms. Pacman, and so I thought it would be fun to have a ms. Pacman themed banner for February, with little hearts for the dots.”
Tuesday, February 6, 2007
Are you in the zone?
I read with interest this week’s lecture material on scaffolding, and in particular, Vygotsky’s (1978) Zone of Proximal Development. The type of IMU I will be responsible for designing falls in line with Vygotsky’s “actual development level” and “potential development level” suggestions. The following phrase is especially relevant for my particular IMU’s audience: “The zone of proximal development (ZPD) can also be described as the area between what a learner can do by himself and that which can be attained with the help of a ‘more knowledgeable other’ adult or peer. The ‘more knowledgeable other’, or MKO, shares knowledge with the student to bridge the gap between what is known and what is not known.” (Lipscomb, Swanson & West, 2004). While my IMU will provide instruction and assessment online, a practical assessment will be conducted by a MKO; in this case, our chiropractic clinic interns and floor doctors. Therefore, this online module needs to contain appropriate scaffolding leading to learner success during a practical examination, although, the learner may be referred back to the online module for review. Modeling and explanation scaffolds have already been identified for use in this module. The needs analysis should provide further insight into other scaffolding methods that may be incorporated.
Boettcher (2007), describes ten core principles for designing effective learning environments:
Principle 6: Every Learner Has a Zone of Proximal Development That Defines the Space That a Learner is Ready to Develop into Useful Knowledge
This principle brings us back to Vygotsky's ZPD. As Boettcher’s (2007) mentions, this principle calls for encouraging learner feedback and demonstration earlier and more consistently. This is key in helping to determine conceptual progress of the learner. Also mentioned in the explanation of this principle is what we’re being exposed to and experiencing now by utilizing team blogs – we’re posting blog entries, getting and giving feedback by posting and reading comments, etc., all designed to encourage our development by helping us reflect on our understanding. While the IMU I’m developing won’t be assessing by means of written reflection such as blogs, it will rely on feedback from mentors and peers through the use of practical exam sessions.
Boettcher, J. (2007). Ten core principles for designing effective learning environments: Insights from Brain Research and Pedagogical Theory. Innovate, 3(3). Retrieved February 5, 2007, from http://www.innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=54
Lipscomb, L., Swanson, J., West, A. (2004). Scaffolding. In M. Orey (Ed.), Emerging perspectives on learning, teaching, and technology. Retrieved February 3, 2007, http://www.coe.uga.edu/epltt/scaffolding.htm
Vygotsky, L.S. (1978). Mind in society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Boettcher (2007), describes ten core principles for designing effective learning environments:
The first principle, Every Structured Learning Experience Has Four Elements with the Learner at the Center, mentions the simple LeMKE framework: Learner, the Mentor/faculty member, the Knowledge, and the Environment. The third element of the framework, knowledge, relates to the content, or the problem that is the focus of the instructional experience. According to Boettcher (2007), the knowledge component is the answer to the question, "What is the knowledge, what is the skill, what is the attitude that the instructional event is intended to facilitate in the student?" As I’ve been working on the needs analysis, I kept returning to those questions to maintain focus.
- Principle #1: Every Structured Learning Experience Has Four Elements with the Learner at the Center
- Principle #2: Every Learning Experience Includes the Environment in which the Learner Interacts
- Principle #3: We Shape Our Tools and Our Tools Shape Us
- Principle #4: Faculty are the Directors of the Learning Experience
- Principle #5: Learners Bring Their Own Personalized Knowledge, Skills, and Attitudes to the Learning Experience
- Principle #6: Every Learner Has a Zone of Proximal Development That Defines the Space That a Learner is Ready to Develop into Useful Knowledge
- Principle #7: Concepts are Not Words; Concepts are Organized and Intricate Knowledge Clusters
- Principle #8: All Learners Do Not Need to Learn All Course Content; All Learners Do Need to Learn the Core Concepts
- Principle #9: Different Instruction is Required for Different Learning Outcomes
- Principle #10: Everything Else Being Equal, More Time-on-Task Equals More Learning
Principle 6: Every Learner Has a Zone of Proximal Development That Defines the Space That a Learner is Ready to Develop into Useful Knowledge
This principle brings us back to Vygotsky's ZPD. As Boettcher’s (2007) mentions, this principle calls for encouraging learner feedback and demonstration earlier and more consistently. This is key in helping to determine conceptual progress of the learner. Also mentioned in the explanation of this principle is what we’re being exposed to and experiencing now by utilizing team blogs – we’re posting blog entries, getting and giving feedback by posting and reading comments, etc., all designed to encourage our development by helping us reflect on our understanding. While the IMU I’m developing won’t be assessing by means of written reflection such as blogs, it will rely on feedback from mentors and peers through the use of practical exam sessions.
Boettcher, J. (2007). Ten core principles for designing effective learning environments: Insights from Brain Research and Pedagogical Theory. Innovate, 3(3). Retrieved February 5, 2007, from http://www.innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=54
Lipscomb, L., Swanson, J., West, A. (2004). Scaffolding. In M. Orey (Ed.), Emerging perspectives on learning, teaching, and technology. Retrieved February 3, 2007, http://www.coe.uga.edu/epltt/scaffolding.htm
Vygotsky, L.S. (1978). Mind in society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Relevant Video
I thought this video was pretty nifty and thought this was the perfect place to share it. The fact that it has moved from one blog to another sort of reinforces the point...
Monday, February 5, 2007
SRL, Motivation, and the University
I had to wait a few days after taking in this weeks lecture to be able to work up enough clarity to make an entire blog post. This is one case where the blog format is really nice. Others' posts on the subject has given me more to think about.
Don's post about motivation definitely got me thinking. I have, as he has referenced, felt a drain in motivation this semester which I have attributed in part to the changes to the Blackboard learning environment. It is as if I feel the rules changed on me, like a certain element of stability had been lost, and the prospect of learning new ways of dealing in the environment exhausted me.
Strangely, as learner in this program, I have developed quite a few habits that are unique to me but are inseparable from understanding of what it is to be a student in this program. The fact that I go to the library every Sat. at 10 and sit in the same spot, or my red 1 GB flash drive that I use for all my work, or my giant to-do list I create at the beginning of every semester are all means I've created for myself in my learning efforts... tangible remnants of my intangible process of constructing new knowledge. Don even gives a followup post letting us know he misses the Bb group discussion... me too Don, but this is growing on me.
Jeff found and shared a link to a virtual commencement ceremony. I thought about this in the context of motivation and those thoughts I was trying to harness after reading the lecture. My impressions of these SRL discussions feel weird to me b/c it is hard for me to feel anything personal about the process. Sure, we know that if you plan well, you can in fact assist a learner in the process of creating knowledge without maintaining a physical presence, but in so many ways that strikes me as cold.
Edgar's post talks about his first online class and how it is a learning experience in and of itself. This process of reconciling one's impressions of how, when and where learning occurs with the reality of a situation can be very disconcerting, and is easier when you are in communication with others in the same boat.
More to my point, something like the discussion board, or even a virtual commencement (a virtual orientation would be even better) can go a long way to creating some of those constants that are both comforting and motivating. These things that exist outside of an individual learning experience are important as well, and having them pointed out by others reminds me that SRL is not necessarily as cold as some of the readings made me feel.
Don's post about motivation definitely got me thinking. I have, as he has referenced, felt a drain in motivation this semester which I have attributed in part to the changes to the Blackboard learning environment. It is as if I feel the rules changed on me, like a certain element of stability had been lost, and the prospect of learning new ways of dealing in the environment exhausted me.
Strangely, as learner in this program, I have developed quite a few habits that are unique to me but are inseparable from understanding of what it is to be a student in this program. The fact that I go to the library every Sat. at 10 and sit in the same spot, or my red 1 GB flash drive that I use for all my work, or my giant to-do list I create at the beginning of every semester are all means I've created for myself in my learning efforts... tangible remnants of my intangible process of constructing new knowledge. Don even gives a followup post letting us know he misses the Bb group discussion... me too Don, but this is growing on me.
Jeff found and shared a link to a virtual commencement ceremony. I thought about this in the context of motivation and those thoughts I was trying to harness after reading the lecture. My impressions of these SRL discussions feel weird to me b/c it is hard for me to feel anything personal about the process. Sure, we know that if you plan well, you can in fact assist a learner in the process of creating knowledge without maintaining a physical presence, but in so many ways that strikes me as cold.
Edgar's post talks about his first online class and how it is a learning experience in and of itself. This process of reconciling one's impressions of how, when and where learning occurs with the reality of a situation can be very disconcerting, and is easier when you are in communication with others in the same boat.
More to my point, something like the discussion board, or even a virtual commencement (a virtual orientation would be even better) can go a long way to creating some of those constants that are both comforting and motivating. These things that exist outside of an individual learning experience are important as well, and having them pointed out by others reminds me that SRL is not necessarily as cold as some of the readings made me feel.
Thursday, February 1, 2007
Online PMR ideas?
Over on Team Websoftmjlj’s blog, Jeff posted about how he was going to keep his PMR this time around. He’s started another blog to record his project work. That got me thinking about the most reliable way for me to keep my PMR. Usually I hand-write everything in my scheduler, but that’s not always handy for me unless it’s right by my side all the time, which its not. On any given day you can find me sitting in front of one of three computers, which means, one of three desks. (“Hey – where’s my scheduler?!”) So, Jeff’s idea of keeping track of time via an online application sounds like it would fit into my multi-computer-using scenario.
I’m tossing ideas around here, so please feel free to add to this with your ideas, recommendations, reviews of any of the following. Comments are open! ☺
Ideas for online PMR-keeping:
Keep a blog (via Jeff’s idea)
Google or Yahoo (any online) calendar
Base Camp
A wiki – using any online free version
I’m tossing ideas around here, so please feel free to add to this with your ideas, recommendations, reviews of any of the following. Comments are open! ☺
Ideas for online PMR-keeping:
Keep a blog (via Jeff’s idea)
Google or Yahoo (any online) calendar
Base Camp
A wiki – using any online free version
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)