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Barbara Lindsey

From Knowledgable to Knowledge-able: Learning in New Media Environments | Academic Commons - 0 views

  • The message of Wikipedia is not “trust authority” but “explore authority.” Authorized information is not beyond discussion on Wikipedia, information is authorized through discussion, and this discussion is available for the world to see and even participate in. This culture of discussion and participation is now available on any website with the emerging “second layer” of the web through applications like Diigo which allow you to add notes and tags to any website anywhere.
  • Many faculty may hope to subvert the system, but a variety of social structures work against them.
  • Our physical structures were built prior to an age of infinite information, our social structures formed to serve different purposes than those needed now, and the cognitive structures we have developed along the way now struggle to grapple with the emerging possibilities.
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  • The physical structures are easiest to see, and are on prominent display in any large “state of the art” classroom. Rows of fixed chairs often face a stage or podium housing a computer from which the professor controls at least 786,432 points of light on a massive screen. Stadium seating, sound-absorbing panels and other acoustic technologies are designed to draw maximum attention to the professor at the front of the room. The “message” of this environment is that to learn is to acquire information, that information is scarce and hard to find (that's why you have to come to this room to get it), that you should trust authority for good information, and that good information is beyond discussion (that's why the chairs don't move or turn toward one another). In short, it tells students to trust authority and follow along.
  • at the base of this “information revolution” are new ways of relating to one another, new forms of discourse, new ways of interacting, new kinds of groups, and new ways of sharing, trading, and collaborating. Wikis, blogs, tagging, social networking and other developments that fall under the “Web 2.0” buzz are especially promising in this regard because they are inspired by a spirit of interactivity, participation, and collaboration. It is this “spirit” of Web 2.0 which is important to education. The technology is secondary. This is a social revolution, not a technological one, and its most revolutionary aspect may be the ways in which it empowers us to rethink education and the teacher-student relationship in an almost limitless variety of ways.
  • Even in situations in which a spirit of exploration and freedom exist, where faculty are free to experiment to work beyond physical and social constraints, our cognitive habits often get in the way
  • Most of our assumptions about information are based on characteristics of information on paper.
  • Even something as simple as the hyperlink taught us that information can be in more than one place at one time
  • Blogging came along and taught us that anybody can be a creator of information.
  • Our old assumption that information is hard to find, is trumped by the realization that if we set up our hyper-personalized digital network effectively, information can find us.
  • Taken together, this new media environment demonstrates to us that the idea of learning as acquiring information is no longer a message we can afford to send to our students, and that we need to start redesigning our learning environments to address, leverage, and harness the new media environment now permeating our classrooms.
  • Nothing good will come of these technologies if we do not first confront the crisis of significance and bring relevance back into education. In some ways these technologies act as magnifiers.
  • Usually our courses are arranged around “subjects.” Postman and Weingartner note that the notion of “subjects” has the unwelcome effect of teaching our students that “English is not History and History is not Science and Science is not Art . . . and a subject is something you 'take' and, when you have taken it, you have 'had' it.” Always aware of the hidden metaphors underlying our most basic assumptions, they suggest calling this “the Vaccination Theory of Education” as students are led to believe that once they have “had” a subject they are immune to it and need not take it again.5
  • As an alternative, I like to think that we are not teaching subjects but subjectivities: ways of approaching, understanding, and interacting with the world. Subjectivities cannot be taught. They involve an introspective intellectual throw-down in the minds of students. Learning a new subjectivity is often painful because it almost always involves what psychologist Thomas Szasz referred to as “an injury to one's self-esteem.”6 You have to unlearn perspectives that may have become central to your sense of self.
  • We can only create environments in which the practices and perspectives are nourished, encouraged, or inspired (and therefore continually practiced).
  • So while the course is set up much like a typical cultural anthropology course, moving through the same readings and topics, all of these learnings are ultimately focused around one big question, “How does the world work?”
  • Students are co-creators of every aspect of the simulation, and are asked to harness and leverage the new media environment to find information, theories, and tools we can use to answer our big question. Each student has a specific role and expertise to develop. A world map is superimposed on the class and each student is asked to become an expert on a specific aspect of the region in which they find themselves. Using this knowledge, they work in 15-20 small groups to create realistic cultures, step-by-step, as we go through each aspect of culture in class. This allows them to apply the knowledge they learn in the course and to recognize the ways different aspects of culture--economic, social, political, and religious practices and institutions--are integrated in a cultural system.
  • The World Simulation itself only takes 75-100 minutes and moves through 650 metaphorical years, 1450-2100. It is recorded by students on twenty digital video cameras and edited into one final "world history" video using clips from real world history to illustrate the correspondences. We watch the video together in the final weeks of the class, using it as a discussion starter for contemplating our world and our role in its future. By then it seems as if we have the whole world right before our eyes in one single classroom - profound cultural differences, profound economic differences, profound challenges for the future, and one humanity. We find ourselves not just as co-creators of a simulation, but as co-creators of the world itself, and the future is up to us.
  • I have often found myself writing content-based multiple-choice questions in a way that I hope will indicate that the student has mastered a new subjectivity or perspective. Of course, the results are not satisfactory. More importantly, these questions ask students to waste great amounts of mental energy memorizing content instead of exercising a new perspective in the pursuit of real and relevant questions.
  • When you watch somebody who is truly “in it,” somebody who has totally given themselves over to the learning process, or if you simply imagine those moments in which you were “in it” yourself, you immediately recognize that learning expands far beyond the mere cognitive dimension. Many of these dimensions were mentioned in the issue precis, “such as emotional and affective dimensions, capacities for risk-taking and uncertainty, creativity and invention,” and the list goes on. How will we assess these? I do not have the answers, but a renewed and spirited dedication to the creation of authentic learning environments that leverage the new media environment demands that we address it.
  • The new media environment provides new opportunities for us to create a community of learners with our students seeking important and meaningful questions.
  • This is what I have called elsewhere, “anti-teaching,” in which the focus is not on providing answers to be memorized, but on creating a learning environment more conducive to producing the types of questions that ask students to challenge their taken-for-granted assumptions and see their own underlying biases.
Ben Rimes

What is this #anyqs thing? | Sine of the Times: Dividing the Universe by Zero - 8 views

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    An interesting way for educators that are interested in inquiry based learning to share resources, videos, and other discrepant events for use in the classroom. Most resources shared via twitter contain the tag #anyqs, which stands for "any questions" to encourage learners to ask questions about what's going on, and provide their own guiding questions.
Clif Mims

LectureTools - iPad app fostering engagement in lectures - 19 views

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    "LectureTools is a student response system that also allows students to take notes linked with the slides and videos presented in class, answer instructor generated questions and pose questions to the instructor. All notes, questions and activities are instantly synchronized with the LectureTools web application."
Walter Antoniotti

Statistics using The Quick Notes Learning System - 0 views

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    Traditional course in Statistics is outlined in twenty-four, two-page learning units each followed by a two-page practice set and two pages of Quick Questions. Learning units and practice sets are designed as a continuous case dealing with marketing questions for descriptive statistics and probability and then dealing with manufacturing questions for inferential statistics. Complete solutions are provided at the back arranged in a row so they appear as the solution to case problem.\n
Jeff Johnson

Ideas and Thoughts from an EdTech » Inside Learning - 0 views

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    "I'm currently teaching first year university students and require them to blog. There are many benefits for having them blog but I've found it to be one of the greatest ways I've been able to get into the thinking and process of my their learning. Asking them to describe their learning and thought process provides me with insight not only to appreciate their efforts but to inform my instruction and decide on what further supports I can provide to take them to the next level. This technology remains a powerful way for learners to reflect and share their thinking on a variety of endeavors. As much as teachers and schools say that process is as important as product, this often is more lip service than practice. Process takes time and talking about learning can be tiresome. The transparency of blogs make this a shared experience that no doubt can provide all students a greater opportunity to learn from each other. The advent of blogs in schools often is deployed as a way to bring technology into schools. That's the wrong reason. I recently read this quote on Doug Johnson's blog: At a conference last week, Mark Weston from Dell computing stated that asking the question, "Does technology improve student learning?" is the wrong question. The question should be, "Does technology support the practices that improve student learning?"
Ben Rimes

The Official SAT Question of the Day - 2 views

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    Simple, easy, to the point study questions to help practice for the SAT one day at a time. Would be useful for flipping test prep by staying focused on authentic learning in the classroom, while students test prep for homework.
Dean Mantz

4 ?'s to Ask Before Integrating Technology - 22 views

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    Edudemic shared this brief but solid post providing 4 questions to ask prior to integration of technology.
Dean Mantz

Cybraryman Internet Catalogue - 8 views

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    A collection of methods questioning techniques.
Dean Mantz

Live Question Tool Chooser - 15 views

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    Greate option to conduct backchannel and provide options for folks to post questions.
Steve Fulton

backchan.nl -- Conferences - 15 views

  • backchan.nl is tool for involving audiences in presentations by letting them suggest questions and vote on each other's questions. backchan.nl is intended for conference or event organizers who want a new way to solicit questions from the audience and make better use of question and answer time.
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    One of the aspects of Backchan.nl that I'm excited about is the option to create multiple channels ahead of time. This will be a useful time-saver on the days when I have four consecutive classes and I want each class to have its own channel. Richard Byrne
sisindrireddy

British Citizenship Exam | British Citizenship Exam Online. - 0 views

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    In British citizenship exam, the number of questions has been kept to minimum but the entire arena of questions has been incorporated to make it a perfect fit.
Brevity Software Solutions Pvt Ltd

Questions to Investigate At The Time of Hiring a Mobile App Developer - 0 views

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    We, at Brevity Software Solutions are showcasing mobile application development services and here we define a blog using questions to ask while hiring a mobile app developer. To know more, feel free to visit our blog.
Jennifer Lamkins

Access, Analyze, Act: Asking Questions That Make a Difference - 8 views

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    Lesson Plan Grade Range: 6-8, 9-12 Think like a journalist and examine what it means to ask the right questions of politicians and public figures to make sure the public learns what they need to know about leaders in the community and the nation.
Peter Kimmich

Prepare to be Grilled: SAT Sample Q's & A's - 0 views

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    Test day is coming... Sample questions, with answers and explanations, for the SAT Reasoning Test.
jodi tompkins

Woopid Video Tutorials - 6 views

  • Watch free technology training videos! Get help and answer your computer and gadget questions with thousands of video tutorials for PCs, Macs, and tons of different applications.
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    Watch free technology training videos. Get help and answer your computer and dadget questions with thousands of video tutorials for PCs, Macs, and tons of different applications.
Kris Abel

Assurance sought on data retention plan | The Australian - 0 views

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    "A JOINT parliamentary committee examining Labor’s controversial data retention plans has again sought assurances on the vexed question of what it wants stored." Read More.....
Clif Mims

EDpuzzle - 4 views

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    "This is a really nice tool for adding questions to YouTube videos. It removes ads and tracks student progress. The interface is really slick." -- Kevin Smith
Alicia Kelley

Storyline Online - 0 views

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    This is a story website. Your class will be able to listen to stories and complete questions and discussions that are related to the story
andrew jhons

Learn Mensuration with the Online Math Tutor! - Tutor Pace Blog | Get Unlimited Online ... - 0 views

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    Mensuration is the branch of mathematics which is widely used in the everyday problems. No matter what standard you are in, where there is math, there is mensuration and along with it are the most complicated questions. The online math tutor keeps all the mensuration formulas, units, conversions, methods, examples...
Clif Mims

AllThingsPLC - Research, education tools and blog for building a professional learning ... - 3 views

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    "This site was created to serve as a collaborative, objective resource for educators and administrators who are committed to enhancing student achievement. We invite you to share your knowledge, ask questions, and get expert insight into the issues teachers face each day in the classroom."
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