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Wired article on the Khan Academy

Diigo group site for the 3D Game Lab course

Salman Khan talks about how and why he created the Khan Academy, a carefully structured series of educational videos offering complete curricula in math and, now, other subjects. He shows the power of interactive exercises, and calls for teachers to consider flipping the traditional classroom script -- give students video lectures to watch at home, and do "homework" in the classroom with the teacher available to help. He says students from around the world can tutor each other. This presentation was just given a few days ago.

Thanks Jennifer and everyone for this collegial, information packed quarter! In this blog post link, I've pulled together what I think are the most important "take-aways" that I've gotten from our class. I'm sure I've left out some important stuff, but maybe we can all collectively sort out the key ideas. I'm looking forward to seeing you all on Tuesday evening.

I saw Jennifer's link to the Screen-o-matic web site, and decided to try it out for the Module 9 activity. I think this is quite an amazing tool, much like Jing, except everything is transacted on the cloud, whereas Jing requires part of the application be installed on your local computer. Also, like Jing, the price is right (free!), although you can opt for a more developed version of the program for $9 per year, which isn't bad. I'm also a big fan of Photoshop Express, another free online tool that lets you edit images on the Web - which is why I did a short tutorial about a couple of its features. My biggest complaint about Screen-o-matic is that the audio is somewhat muddy - although this seems to be a petty complaint, considering how powerful and easy to use this tool is. Screen-o-Matic lets you save to their server, to YouTube, or as a video file to your local hard drive. You can find another account of this Screen-o-Matic trial run on my Web20Chronicle blog.

In the Summer of 2010, I taught an online class called the Fundamentals of Interactive Entertainment for the University of Tasmania, via the Human Interface Technology Lab under the sponsorship of Dr. Thomas Furness of the University of Washington. This course provides an overview of interactive media - video games and real-time interactive simulations. It includes information concerning the history, theory, technology, design, and social impact of these emerging communications media. The course consists of thirteen modules, and in the Summer of 2010, was made up of two weekly events: 1) A lab session which met every Tuesday to provide discussions, team planning meetings, and hands-exercises and 2) a live classroom session which was videocast directly from Seattle to a University of Tasmania classroom in Launceston, Australia. I posted more information regarding this project on my Web2.0 Chronicle blog. PLEASE NOTE: This narrated screencast runs two minutes past the 5 minute recommendation given by Jennifer.

Ann and Susan, Many thanks for your comments! One of the great benefits of this class and the Conrad/Boettcher textbook is getting a solid framework for understanding how to build and run an online class. Up until now, my learning process for creating online classes has been 1) suggestions/advice from colleagues 2) experimentation (flying by the seat of my pants!) 3) feedback from students 4) online resources. I really enjoy the dense concentration of information provided in the class and our ongoing conversation. The University of Tasmania class gave me the opportunity to pull out all the stops, and integrate everything I'd learned up until that point. Thankfully I made it through that stretch of white water, with an approach that seemed to work pretty well for that teaching situation. The final project exercise gave me a chance to identify key areas of every course that need to be attended to.

Ann, Tom Furness started up the Human Interface Technology Lab (HitLab) at the University of Washington around 1988 - he's been called the "godfather of virtual reality". At the HitLab, he was on the forefront of virtual reality technologies, working on immersive displays for medicine, engineering, architecture, education, etc. Before then, his background was in designing virtual cockpit simulations for pilots of high performance military jets. They needed to augment the pilot's cognitive field, in order to manage the complexity of 50 onboard computers, while flying the plane at supersonic speeds. He decided that he wanted to apply this technology to civilian, rather than military uses, which is how he ended up at the UW. About five years ago, New Zealand and Australia decided to set up their own HitLabs because of their remote locations. They see virtual world technologies as way to develop an exportable information-based industry for real-world applications. Video games and interactive simulations are currently leading the way in terms of artificial intelligence, information design, and sustained attention (entertainment) experiences. I've been teaching a class in game theory and interactive entertainment for the past five years at BC, which is how I got involved with this University of Tasmania course. You might be interested to know that one of the offshoots of the HitLab work in Seattle is the retinal scanner, which is pointing the way to portable immersive multisensory experiences. Microvision of Redmond is working on these wearable computing devices which may provide a new alternative to desktop/laptop/smartphone devices. And I agree, Ann - culturally and socially, the world is shrinking exponentially because of the Internet.

A few days ago, I went to an excellent workshop sponsored by the Center for Career Connections at Bellevue College about using LinkedIn. This Web 2.0 networking application has now become the most important online tool for presenting your professional profile and work experience to the public. One of the speakers, Web tools guru Miles Austin, said that if you don't have a developed presence online, you don't exist as far as potential employers are concerned. According to a recent survey, 78% of all job recruiters use LinkedIn as their primary application for finding new employees. The link above provides some useful background information about LinkedIn, based on the workshop. It also reinforced in my mind the importance of developing strong network contacts and carefully building an online persona. If you have an account on LinkedIn or create a new one - please add me to your network!

Being a guy, I was somewhat taken aback by the startling new statistics presented at a recent TED TALK by Hanna Rosin regarding the world-wide decline in male accomplishments/status relative to women. Rosen makes the point that the Marlboro Man and alpha male top-down manager, are going the way of the DoDo bird and dinosaur. Her point is that women are better at collaboration and consensual communication - which are skills well suited to our social networks and information-based economy. For example, how come I'm the only guy taking this class on how to build collaborative online learning environments - where are my male compadres?

For the past year or so, I've been meaning to join up with a group exploring the use of multiparticipant virtual worlds for education. This activity gave me the chance to check out one of the best resource sites for this topic - RezEd at .http://rezedhub.ning.com/ . More information regarding my experience is posted on my blog. If you watch my RezEd presentation, please remember to turn on your computer audio - otherwise it won't make much sense... :-)

This is the Google form self-check survey for the student activity indicated for Module 7.

This link is to my development of a learning activity that maps to a course learning objective for Module 7. The activity I've chosen to work on for this project is in response to one of the learning objectives for a class called Visual Storytelling (CMST 115) that I'm teaching for Bellevue College. The learning objective (or understanding) I'm addressing is a final project that has students demonstrate their ability to put into practice a selection of visual storytelling skills that were taught during the quarter. This activity was designed to make use of authentic learning principles, derived from the ideas of Marilyn Lombardi - which are available in complete form in her article, Authentic Learning for the 21st Century: an Overview.

Thanks for your comments, Mary Ann. One of the big take aways I've gotten from our EDUC 251 class so far, is the idea of relinquishing progressive amounts of control throughout the quarter - so that students at the end are teaching part of the class and demonstrating their acquired skills in some kind of collaborative, hands-on project. I've been exploring this idea over the past few years as I've become more comfortable with my teaching - and both the Boettcher reading and Jennifer's course structure validate this approach. One of the more interesting recommendations for "authentic learning" is having ill-defined goals - meaning that students have to fill in gaps with their own solutions - derived from general or even vague instructions. This enhances creativity, innovative pathways, and problem solving. Cool idea!

I find this to be a really interesting teaching approach, proposed by Indian educator Sugata Mitra. It's a model of group learning, via computer, with feedback by a benevolent observer. To me, to me this is one of the best examples of the "knowledge constructivist" approaches to teaching and learning. I'll be curious to see what you all think.

This is my review of the plagiarism checker, Dupli Checker

This is my post for the assignment to map learning objectives to specific "evidence of understanding"

There's a friend of mine, named Terri O'Fallon, who has been teaching online courses for graduate student cohorts, that are involved in a learning community lasting over extended periods of time (1-2 years). Terri says she knows a learning community is "taking hold" when she can sense an overall feeling of comfort and camaraderie. She says this is not unlike getting to know a friend over time. In the cohort, participants are initially superficial and formal, but gradually move into discussions having greater range and depth, when things are going well. This is her touchstone for a successful program.
I'm not sure the sheer number of posts is necessarily the best way to measure effective student learning. You can assign a grade to discussion assignments, and that will always be a motivator to participate - but I think working towards a thriving community with all cylinders firing - requires building the right conditions for rapport and engagement to take place. That's a much trickier prospect, and I'm not sure you can always be successful within the short span of a quarter.

I thought I'd try something a little bit different for Module 5, and do a CMS review of a current online course that I've been working on, called Visual Storytelling. It's a review of a Blackboard/Vista-based online class, but I'm also blending a couple of presentation technologies together to create this - SlideRocket and Camtasia. If you take a look at it, you'll want to make sure your audio is turned on - otherwise, it won't make much sense... It runs just under 10 minutes. This was a useful exercise for me, because I became aware of numerous changes I'd like to make for the next iteration of this class. These presentation tools are now very powerful and easier to use than in the past. SlideRocket has only been around for about 2 years, and it keeps getting better! You can also access this presentation by way of my Web2.0 Chronicle blog.

Thanks everyone for your feedback and comments! Mary Ann, I did see your photos from the Galapagos, and it seems like they will make great material for an online class presentation especially with your underlying message - the importance of biodiversity to our long term survival. I'm really glad you're teaching this material... I wish we were more aware of these dire issues 50 years ago! The Visual Storytelling class will be offered again in Fall 2011. Susan... One useful application of online lectures/presentations is that they can free up classroom time for more exploratory dialog and hands-on activities, as appropriate. Students also like them, because they can stop and review material at their own pace. Jennifer - I'll be happy to give an overview some presentation media I use during your office hour on Thursday. This would be a good experience for me, since I've never taught a session using Elluminate. If you could give me some quick tips beforehand, that would be welcome. I can't do it this week, but Feb 24th or following Thursdays look open.

Thanks for posting this, Mary Ann and Joy... I just hope that we don't all end up teaching only online courses - or worse... being replaced by next-Gen forms of fully automated artificial intelligence instructors :)

Last night I had a great conversation with Jennifer during her office hour on Elluminate (Thursdays from 8-9PM). This was a very valuable experience for me! Jennifer gave me an overview of Elluminate, and then proceeded to demonstrate screen sharing by showing me how she makes use of Twitter to filter information, and connect with a wide variety of different communities of interest. The demo itself, which allowed me to view her screen while she surfed the Web, was a great example of one useful form of real-time online instruction. I filled up two full pages of notes during our conversation, with a wide variety of links and keywords to investigate over the next week.
Today, in a subsequent email conversation, Jennifer generously has offered to cover the Twitter overview next Thursday during her class office hour. I think you'll find this as valuable as I have - and I'm planning to rejoin her next week during another live class session. I hope you all can make it!

Here's the link to the Elluminate session:
Thursdays 8:00 PM to 9:00 PM in Elluminate Live! : http://bit.ly/EDUC251