#8 Research issues

Meyer’s “The Web's Impact On Student Learning” (2003, TheJounal) touched on many aspects of current online dynamics
(or pandemonium??).

It reminds me of my IDT diagram (at left). I am organizing a framework to incorporate the salient factors (from the micro up to the macro scopes plus the time aspect) similar to my IDT chart to be a research roadmap, and try to experiment a research incorporating the idea in the following section.

The idea relating to the research issues mentioned in Meyer’s article, Senor’s “Moving Beyond Comparisons: Evaluating Online Learning in Its Own Frame of Reference” has good comments and propose feasible suggestions. He raises several questions to challenge the reviews from some authority on the comparative or some one-shot research modes. He critiques on the logical and philosophical aspects of the comparative research, such as the skepticism from Institute for Higher Education Policy (IHEP) which calls for the typical demand on the positivistic verification on randomized experiments, production of predictive outcomes for individual learners, tests with content or construct validity, etc. on a recently rapid growth yet still in its early fledging stage of online development. He adds up that “most importantly, the comparative approach takes attention away from the improving practice goal focusing on online learning in its own frame of reference”.

There are many potentials in developing the online research instruments to conduct online’s own frame of research reference, for example he points out Swan’s content analysis instruments based on Rouke et al’s typology (2001) in assessing social presence. The indicators (SPIs) derive from affective, interactive, and cohesive typology. In addition to his suggested feasible approaches, I am thinking the “design research” which integrates design and research in one episode could be a solution as well. It is not just for IS or IDT crews but is good for online educators, practitioners, and researchers as well. It is tempting!!

Orlikowski and Iacono (2001) propose that Design research is a set of analytical techniques and perspectives (complementing the Positivist and Interpretive perspectives) for performing research- an extra tool for researcher to contemplate! They suggest that design research involves the analysis of the use and performance of designed artifacts to understand, explain and very frequently to improve on the behavior of aspects of Information Systems. Such artifacts include - but certainly are not limited to - algorithms (e.g. for information retrieval), human/computer interfaces and system design methodologies or languages. Design researchers can be found in many disciplines and fields, notably Engineering and Computer Science, using a variety of approaches, methods and techniques.

So this is another cross-fertilization of research paradigm available for deployment.

Revised #7 CEHD Open House on Feb 25 (M) - a brief report

I attended the Feb 25 (M) CEHD Open House activity.

I read through the mission statement of the Academic Technology Services: Advance the purposeful use of new media and digital technologies in the educational programs of the College of Education and Human Development. Academic Technology Service is a collaborative effort between CEHD instructors, instructional Technology Fellows, and Academic Technology Service staff.

There were 21 faculty and staff projects presented in the room 320, 325 and 330.
Then I stopped by several demo stands. I would like to report two cases (due to time limit): The first one is the SmartBoard usage (the newest version- I think) of Dr. Clover. It was a good one for Art Education and any other disciplines that are heavily relying on visual input and output (which discipline is not - in this visual culture age?!) It facilitates multi-faceted functions that previous version did not offer.

Another interesting one is “The Developing Vlogs “ subbed by a grad student Ms. Doerr (the instructor has other commitment-I think). The book that they use is “Secrets of videoblogging- Vidoe blogging for the masses” by Michael Verdi and Ryanne Hodson. The Vlog production resources, in addition to the book, there are videoblogging sites, videoblogging for Dummies and iMovie/Window Movie Maker. I think a final output, which is a 2-4 minutes video product, incorporated many learning technology theories and practices (such as used wiki and blogs to collaborate and brainstorm ideas from partaking members; learned the video editing tools to combine texts, sound, videos and other interactive features to illustrate “learning by doing”). Many of their topics were situated in specific communities, for example, Ms. Doerr’s DinkyTown project. I observed the constructivist paradigm demonstrated in students’ works. Ms. Doerr’s “Commings Bookstore” of Dinky Town project was published in the YouTube, which is similar to a mini Breeze.I enjoyed and learned a lot today. I sent a thank–you note to Brad (one of the organizers).

In the cyber era, constantly learning and updating is essential. I have been a part time student for a while. To build a sense of belonging and rooting to specific learning communities is very important to me. Reflecting on my previous years’ part-time learning due to some barriers, I felt I should have learned more or should have been able to participate more if I have the luxury like right now – a full time student within the learning vicinity without being curbed by the time and space hindrances. Anyway, wouldn’t it be what the cyber learning is about – broadening the accessibility to reach population who might otherwise have no access to the learning opportunities???

Having said so, it does not mean that I did not learn well enough from my own local communities (Eau Claire and Menomonie areas), since we all belong to various types of communities and play different kinds of roles. Jumping outside of my own fish bowl (or comfort zone) to another one is a good adventurous learning experience.

#6 Bransford et als’ “How people learn" mini hands-on ch3

Bransford et als’ “How people learn: mind, brain, experience and school” is an enlightening book for anyone caring about, and wanting to be the best part of this education industry.
I reflected some of my own practices on chap 3 by using one of the courses (Race, Ethnicity and Diversity studies) that I developed and teach (both online and f2f).
This course, mainly had a very intense reading, writing and reflecting component.
As they states that one of the important goals for schooling is to prepare students with the capacity of being adept and adaptive for new problems and settings. The index of transferring ability is a benchmark for successful teaching or an indicator for instructional improvement (Bransford, Brown and Cocking, 1999).

So the key question in this chapter is “How well do the students’ learning transfer to new problems and situations?” Here is a simple draft helping me recall (impressionistically, about 3 years ago) the piloting teaching in a brand new course in that semester to check on myself retrospectively. (It is never be exciting or is so extravaganza as GoNorth!!!) And most importantly, this chapter helps me to do a very tiny hands on project. Thank Bransford at als and you! I should have retrieved students’ work for a better and concrete analysis. Hopefully in the future, I have chance to do so in an academic way.

As I said, the following is a very plain and rough memory to assist me tracking on the key points in this chapter:

1. Initial learning (prior knowledge and experience): a day one survey plus Making a Safe and Trustful Learning Community Activity to understand online learners' initial knowledge and experience. From this very important step, you remembered and recognized each individual vividly from their description, photos, video postings, anticipation, energy, initial personality understanding, prior knowledge and life, family and working experience.

2. Time spending on learning: explicitly explained the expectation of efforts in the syllabus and online documents (time spending per week to engage with contents, peers, and facilitators...etc).

3. Opportunity to use knowledge to create products and benefits for others as a motivating factor: one of the projects was that students engaged in community service by designing an activity (using any software) relating to course themes (race/ethnicity, gender, class, sexual orientation/identity, and disability issues) that indicated learners’ learned knowledge applying to a cause that promoted a common good.

4. Active learning: “Engage” or perish! – the major online interactive components keep everyone busy in a meaningful way (hopefully - expected!) : synchronous and asynchronous sharing, discussion, critiquing, ppt, videos and movies comments and appreciations on forums.

5. Frequent feedback: among peers, guests, and facilitator. Prompt feedback from me was announced (Within 24-48 hours. Live-meeting were encouraged by appointment. These were two of the most effective principles to a successful online class.)

6. Learning Context (single vs. multiple): online environment and real life settings (at home, workplace and communities were integrated into weekly reflection).

7. Contrast cases: learners provided comparisons and contrast from real life examples and go through Bloom’s taxonomy process and made into showcase to post.

8. Abstract representation: learners used learned terminology or created their symbolic terms to describe the phenomena they observed in the weekly structured, semi-structured and threaded discussion and writing.

9. Cultural practices that support learners' prior knowledge: It derived from individual learner’s uniqueness (their family- SES, upbringing, experiences, race, gender, disability…etc. to weave into writing, reflection and discussion in a safe and trustful environment, since this course was dealing with real life issues and problems. So everyone was situated in authentic and contextualized conditions. Everyone had all kinds of stories to tell and listen in addition to the books’ episodes).

10. Transfer between school and everyday life: writing reflection, reporting daily experiences and doing projects that tie to what they learned from school to the daily life, family, workplace, and community settings were routine jobs for the course.

11. Metacognitive- students learned about themselves by reflecting on how they learned and observed how peers learned by self assessment, mutual critiquing and mutual grading, as well as suggested if they taught how they would organize a better teaching and learning environments (content, pedagogy, technology…etc.)

As you read – uneventful! I could not believe that what I did mentioned above, was nothing particularly exciting – from today’s standard!!! Well, as least I was Deweyianly learning by doing and transferring via this chapter!!!

CI8395 Reflection#5 An organized chart relating to Trends and Issues in Instructional Design and Technology (Reiser and Dempsey)

The chart was pdf.ed but still won't show up on this posting screen!! ( I attached a original chart in the email.)
It was dealigned into the following texts:
The center is a box where the learner's learning is located and surrounded by technology, pedagogy, facilitating/educator, technology, assessment and research.
The outer layers are educational philosophy dichotomy, ecological system theory, human capitals issue (HPI/HPT), and Instructioanl design theories and models.

Each of the following section is a box originally. Among the boxes there are multiple links connecting each other.

Central layer
Learning/Learners:
Characteristics, Motivation, and Performance (learning outcomes)

Pedagogy
1. Based on positivism-> teacher-contents centers; classroom based; goal predetermined; objectives defined; activities, materials, and assessment are teacher driven.2. Based on Relativism-> student centered/building learning communities; authenticity, real life experiential/contextual learning; learning by doing; problem solving; case studies; situated learning; environment/context based;teacher facilitating and student orchestrating (collaborative learning); individuals construct and negotiate activities, materials, and assessment in the specific context; reflecting and sharing collectively constructed knowledge (learning communities).
Emergency of Learning Sciences: an alternative to the instructional sciences which is theoretically based on cognitive sciences and relies on constructivist cognitive disciplines such as cognitive anthropology, situated learning, everyday cognition, ecological psychology, distributed cognition and Deweyian pragmatism.

Contents
a. Discrete, compartmented, fragmented, territorial,
b. Integrated, contextualized, multidisciplinary.

Technology:
EPSS – (electronic performance support system) Instructional media continuously fast changing world, which is a double edged sword.
Formal and informal learning, adoption, adapting, and professional development are significantly contributing to human performance improvement.
Barriers/alternatives: Rogers’ Diffusion theory (knowledge, persuasion, decision, implementation, and confirmation.)Adopters categories: readily adopt 2.5%, early adopters 13.5%, early majority 34%, later majority 35% and laggards/resisters 16%)

Facilitating/Teaching-Facilitators/educators
Characteristics; Working ecology; Intervention and social presence patterns; Social presence; Feedback system.

Assessment
a. Formative and Summative.
b. Product evaluation vs. Process evaluation
CIPP (context, input, process and product) proposed by Stufflebeam
Kirkpatrick’s 4-level model: (reaction, learning, behavior/transferring, and results) evaluation.

Research:
Integration of design and research (Design Research) is a big trend.
Others are: action research, qualitative, quantitative, ethnographies, content analysis, phenomenology, enthnomethodology, case studies, and many others.Collaborative by nature.

Outer layers:
Educational Philosophy - a quick dichotomy:
Epistemology and ontological foundation of teaching and learning
a. Positivism: Knowledge exists independent of learners. There is an absolute truth.
Design Framework:
Objectivism-transfer knowledge form external to inside the learner’ arrange conditions to promote specific goals. e.g., behaviorism, information process cognitive psychology
b. Relativism: Knowledge is constructed by the learners. Truth is contextual.
Design framework:
Constructivism: guide the learner in construction knowledge. Provide a rich context for negotiation and meaning construction.for negotiation and meaning construction.Educational

Ecological system theory:
Bronfenbrennery perspective:
microsystem,
mesosystem,
macrosystem,
exosystem and
chronosystem

Instructional design theories and models.
Theories (see the philosophy box) and models (behavioral, cognitive information processing, schema, cognitive load, situated/anchored/situated cognition, Gagne’s theory of instruction and 4C/ID holistic approach)
The basic System approach:
Core elements/phrases of ID-ADDIE: Analysis (Front-end Needs assessment) Design, development, implementation and Evaluation.
First principles of instructional design
· Learning is promoted when learners are engaged in solving real-world problems.
· Learning is promoted then existing knowledge is activated as f foundation for new knowledge
· Learning is promoted when new knowledge id demonstrated to the learners.
· Learning is promoted when new knowledge is applied by the learner
· Learning is prompted when know knowledge is integrated into learner’s world

Human Capitals:
Shultz and Becker: knowledge and performance capabilities of population (more than the natural resources) correlate to the economic success of a country.
HPI/HPT: human performance improvement.
It is human or non-instructional factors that need to be well addressed, investigated as well improved in the performance that ties to human capital enhancement.

CI 8395 reading reflection#4

I continuously read CI 8395 assignments. Reminding myself – don’t be distracted by enormous lines of knowledge and inquires permeating in all kinds of publications. So far, my readings are focusing on research methods and methodologies, according to the syllabus guidance. After having posted my reflections, I told myself that I need to concentrate on what I promised myself in the first reflection. Visualize the big but start from small, and do it right now! I have a preliminary draft to critique on Aviv et als’ Network analysis of knowledge construction in asynchronous learning network.
But what happens is that there are always some endorphinic surprises waiting ahead when browsing is part of the cyber habits (or OCD – online compulsive disorder?)! An interesting article tied to one of my observations I need to post right now! It is Luke Fernandez’s article – “An Antidote for the faculty-IT divide” (EDUCAUSE quarterly, Vol.1, 2008) that articulates one of my long term observations on the relationships among IT department, administration and faculty body (both in UW-Stout, and CVTC, but not sure yet at UMN). The catchy phrase in the article is “Do campus IT Department harm higher education?” He narrates an episode from one of the renowned personal-technology columnists (Wall Street Journal) Walt Mossberg’s indictment on IT Department’s “regressive, poisonous, and centralizing power” that negatively affects on technology development in many campuses. It happened during Mossberg’ giving a speech to high-level administrators at last June’s Chronicle of Higher Education presidents’ forum. Mossberg accused IT departments of centralizing technology and maintained that these centralizing initiative discourage the development of solutions tailored to the needs of individual users. As Mossberg put it, “big IT departments don’t want to learn it because they don’t want to support it. It’s part of the problem of centralizing all this stuff.
For unknown reasons, the speech transcript was not released, but the ripple effect arouse debate and dissection in the EDUCAUSE CIO email discussion list, on a Chronicle of Higher Education podcast, and in the November/December 2007 issue of EDUCAUSE Review.
Fernandez concludes that good relations between IT and faculty can be promoted by understanding and addressing the cultural divides that exists between the administration and faculty.
This event added one more “elephant- in- the -room factor” to one of my research interests – macroscopic contextual analysis of online teaching and learning environment.

CI 8395 reading reflection#3

In the typical expression of his vision, Wiley’s article- “Open Source, Openness, and Higher Education” comments on the issue of FOSS (fair open software sources). (Innovate Journal of Online Education Volume 3, Issue 1 October/November 2006).
He made an analogy of Friedman’s the flatting world to the necessity of the open trend of information accessibility.
Too familiar with the similar tone of clichéd yet passionate comparison (personally I committed the similar relative deprivation comparison a lot): Look at the business, science, and other areas of society where leveraging changes to their benefit is imperative, and then grudge on our higher education that still has not adapted and adopted enough in response to these changes. He argues that higher education's willingness and ability to evolve toward openness will be a strong predictor of a promising future. He envisions such enactment as equivalent if not exceeding the First Morrill Act (1862), which granted land to the states for colleges that would "promote the liberal and practical education of the industrial classes on the several pursuits and professions in life". Openness must become a core part of academic culture, he proclaims. This event motivates me to looking into the so called “Open Access Movement” (in everything- can- be- commoditized time and place??). One site strikes out- “Scholarly Exchange” with vision of creating and promoting accessible and sustainable open access publishing (http://www.scholarlyexchange.org/open_access.html)- I wrote about it in my reflection#2.
Then greedily again, I collected the following open sources (at this moment, I have not formed the perception of quality and quantity of these sites). I did find many sites provided by countries outside of America (Since not in English, I did not collect them so far.) Here they go:
http://www.doaj.org/doaj?func=subject&p=2&cpid=127 Directory of open journals
http://www.sloan-c.org/publications/jaln/index.asp
http://www.joci.ecu.edu/index.php/JoCI Curriculum and Instruction
http://www.jofde.ca/index.php/jde Journal of distance education (Canada)
http://www.thejeo.com/ Journal of educators online (open, individual)
http://jite.org/index.html Journal of information technology
http://www-jime.open.ac.uk/ Journal of interactive media in education
http://www.ncolr.org/jiol/ Journal of interactive online learning
http://www.jld.qut.edu.au/ Journal of learning design
http://www.literacyandtechnology.org/ Journal of literacy and education
http://jolt.merlot.org/ Journal of online learning and teaching
http://escholarship.bc.edu/jtla/ Journal of technology, teaching and assessment
http://english.ttu.edu/kairos/ Kairos : a journal for teachers of writing in webbed environment
http://kt.flexiblelearning.net.au/ The Knowledge Tree: an e-Journal of Learning Innovation
http://www.westga.edu/~distance/ojdla/ Online Journal of Distance Learning Administration 1998
http://pareonline.net/ Practical Assessment, Research & Evaluation 1988
http://lttf.ieee.org/learn_tech/index.html Learning Technology 1999
http://education.fiu.edu/newhorizons/ New Horizons in Adult Education 1999
http://www.nmsa.org/Publications/RMLEOnline/tabid/426/Default.aspx Research in Middle Level Education Online 2007 open
http://www.swin.edu.au/sbs/ajets/ Australian Journal of Emerging Technologies and Society (directory of open access journal) 2003
http://www.citejournal.org/vol7/iss4/ Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education 2000
http://www.ifets.info/ Educational Technology & Society 1998
http://ejite.isu.edu/ Electronic Journal for the Integration of Technology in Education 2002
http://www.online-journals.org/i-jet
International Journal of Emerging Technologies in Learning 2006
http://www.jotmi.org/index.php/GT Journal of Technology Management & Innovation 2006
This reading led me into another interesting article. I will post in a separate file.

CI 8395 reading reflection#2

Thursday, February 21, 2008
I am trying to clear up some thoughts in order to be a responsible learning community member. There are thousands of treads and lines of R&D that keep many Web researchers, educators, and practitioners, and policy makers busy forever.To narrow down a line to investigate is an imperative for a grad student! Otherwise, drifting, floating and possible drowning all become possible. Having been teaching and developing various types of web-learning courses, I have to guiltily confess that I need to be seriously taking the responsibility in making the following conditions a reality:1. Emphasize the learning around students instead of the classroom, the institution (such as the Union, the faculty, the administrative, the policy makers, and other issues generated by the secondary stakeholders.) In this category, I am interested in examining the topics such as: transference, social presence, feedback system (assessments: formative and summative), learners’ and facilitators’ contextual settings as well as learners’ characteristics and facilitators’ interventions in the online environment.2. Focus on the strengths and the needs of individual learners. This means that “temporarily” I don’t have to be too empathetic on the cost-effectiveness of budgetary issues on the institutional level as well as the ambiguous teaching/facilitating side of scenarios.3. Assess the student learning outcome more responsibly and accurately.Just focusing on students’ learning, there are already many sub-lines of research challenging all the stakeholders. Though student learning outcome is highly correlating to many internal and external factors (I organized a chart to illustrate them- in progress and done will be posted soon), focusing on students as the core and from there, many other relevant research theories and hypotheses can be generated or tested. Again, assessment is affected by multifactors, which needs to be examined in the contextual environment in order to obtain the genuine learning outcome.4. Look for genuine and capable collaborators from a specific learning community. Capability and genuineness mean that collaborators develop the common interests, trust, engagements, reciprocity, carrying out projects, and can mutually challenge and grow together as well as sustain/expand the learning community.5. Make lifelong learning a practical reality (I benefit from this truism a lot even though not having enough educational budget in the pocket!)6. Keep on visionary awareness and capacity.Though thousand mile journey starts from the very first step, without clearly knowing where the journey up for (to a great horizon), all the steps might end up much ado! So continuously broadening the vision is a must.Here a visionary example (may have some overlapping with other visionaries): Ron Bleed published some of his ideas regarding the 3 roles of IT associates, 3 golden trends, 4 reasons for change and 3 strategies to engage changes:(http://connect.educause.edu/Library/EDUCAUSE+Review/TheITLeaderasAlchemistFin/40603 (1 of 11) [2/20/2008 9:08:03 PM])Three roles of IT persons:a. The information technology (IT) leader within higher education can be viewed from three scenarios: (1) the IT leader as plumber; (2) the IT leader as gardener; and (3) the IT leader as alchemist.Three golden trendsb. Gold #1: The 21st Century Hybrid Courses will be moving from the haves and have-nots issue (This moving, to me is very skeptical! How and when???) toward the blended learning- an evolving phenomenon that offers promise for addressing challenges such as access, cost, efficiency, and timely degree completion. In addition, this approach will impact aspects of the academy such as faculty development and rewards, student retention, college and department structure, as well as the notion of lifelong learning.c. Gold #2: The 21st learning spaces suggest the necessity to fuse high tech and high touch hybrid teaching and learning. The informal spaces create an environment in which students can talk informally and experience some of the other dimensions of becoming an educated person. In The Social Life of Information, John Seely Brown and Paul Duguid claim: “As much learning happens outside the classroom as inside.” The key to learning is “rubbing shoulders with multiple sensibilities.”6 Second, research shows that successful learning should be active, contextual, engaged, interactive, and social.d. Gold #3: The 21st century Literacy:Bleed used 2 visionary individuals’ Q&As (George Lucas and Bill Gates) to explain the 3rd gold (please refer to the original article), and concludes that the literacy of the 21st century will be composed of digital images and of sounds as well as of words and text. Thus, the preservation of traditional literacy formats and their use in the classroom will work to the detriment of an increasingly large number of students.Four reasons for change: For the 3rd gold, Bleed added up 4 reasons for change to a new form of literacya. Reason #1: The 21st century Students. By the age of 21, the average student today will have spent more than 10,000 hours playing video games, will have sent or received over 200,000 e-mails and instant messages, will have talked for more than 10,000 hours on a cell phone, will have spent over 20,000 hours watching television, and will have spent, at most, 5,000 hours reading books. So this is an omnipresent phenomenon of our student population!b. Reason #2: The Tipping Point. The phrase tipping point is a sociology term that refers to that dramatic moment when something unique becomes common. The year 2004 was the tipping point for the digital video and music world. Dramatic increases were experienced in the consumer market for digital video and music: for example, 150 million camera phones were sold worldwide in 2004, and the number of homes with digital video recorders increased 119 percent in 2004. So, seemingly there is no way to return!c. Reason #3: High Tech, High Touch, High Concept. Based on John Naisbitt (Megatrends) and later Daniel Pink’s elaboration, suggests that the current generation had technology build upon their left-brain abilities of logic, analysis, literalness, and sequential. Now, the right-brain abilities of creativity, empathy, pattern recognition, and the making of meaning will be needed to create “high touch” and “high concept.” Pink claims that the Industrial Age was built on people’s backs and that the Information Age was built on people’s left brains. The new “Conceptual Age” will be built on people’s right brains. We will move to a society of creators, empathizers, pattern recognizers, and meaning-makers.d. Reason #4: Visual Literacy Skills. Visual culture is permeating in contemporary societies. Thus how to provide students the literacy skills they need to effectively create and interpret visual content is a typical challenge .Finally, Bleed proposes strategies to infuse 21st century literacy
a. Strategy #1: A New 21st Literacy Course. A new course could be designed for the 21st century literacy skills which will become a requirement for graduation.b. Strategy #2: 21st Literacy across the Curriculum. The second strategy to advance the 21st century literacy is to program it “across the curriculum” by encouraging and supporting all faculty to assign student projects that use visual and aural media. Bleed provides two examples to illustrate such strategy: a) This approach occurred in the anthropology courses taught at Mesa Community College by Rick Effland. Instead of a ten-page typed research paper, Effland had the students create digital movies. He found that the amount and quality of the research done by the students in a video format far exceeded the quality of their work done with written papers. The students were more engaged, worked more collaboratively, and learned more when they used visual media.b) The Beijing Project at Colgate University. A Colgate faculty member and Raymond Nardelli, senior instructional technology analyst at Colgate, took nineteen students to Beijing and gave them an assignment requiring them to express what they learned. Allnineteen used video cameras, digital still cameras, audio equipment, and tablet computers to cover different aspects of Beijing such as nature, transportation, Tiananmen Square activities, childhood, music, fashion, neighborhoods, and markets.
c. Strategy #3: Teacher-Education Programs. Any teacher-education program that embraces the teaching of the new literacy will be on the cutting edge in the United States. (Europe and Australia have more momentum in this area.) Pace-setting institutions will attract favorable sponsorship, support, and recognition. Colleges and universities need to serve as a bridge between teacher-education programs and technology corporations, foundations, and influential associations.Bleed provides optimistic side of scenarios which make reading very “endorphinic”. I am always aware of on the roadmap, there are roadblocks which need to be identified, targeted and then solved!!!So with the microscopic practicality and a macro visionary reinforcement in mind, I think I can be more confidently to do what I should have done and will/can be done sometimes ago. Now go back to read, read, read, and thiiiiiiiiiiiink.
Posted by Crystal at 10:14 AM 0 comments Links to this post

CI 8395 reading reflection#1

I took some short breaks from the gluing my eyeballs at the 8395 readings. Browsing on the Internet and digging out some old books of my interests from my bookshelves, I found an antique (in 1995, according to the Internet chronicle) book of Sherry Turkle’s - Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet.It rekindled my awareness of the multiple selves and multifaceted eyes in learning, thinking, and reflecting on the nature of knowledge and its constructs in the cyber era (in addition to Emerson’s dreams and beasts analogy, there are multipledimentional entities streaming in the subconscious as well as unconscious levels that keep the comprehension of knowledge intriguing). One of the rethinking was that I how I could conduct a comprehensible knowledge management on these oceanic information inundating in every minute and every second without being drowned?Then, I think I need to be a tough swimmer to propel myself into these knowledge 7 seas. I started greedily collecting all the glittered and non-glittered gems of wisdom and endeavors from thousands, thousands of knowledge workers and some tycoons. I began to reflect on my selfishness in these heartily harvesting. I cannot be a knowledge consumer most of my time - it is just unethical. But to be a “formal” knowledge producer (or better in this way- a “contributor”) stills quite a daunting task. See the following alarming statement stuck on my head- the Open Access Movement (http://www.scholarlyexchange.org/open_access.html) claims that:”Scholars have one primary obligation to themselves and society. That is to develop new knowledge and share it openly with each other and society. The Open Access movement has arisen partly in response to that desire and partly in response to the growing costs associated with traditional scholarly publishing efforts. Increasingly, new knowledge is being placed behind financial firewalls that impede access and benefit primarily the packagers rather than the producers of this valuable information.”Yes, generosity is a great virtue, I think. But reciprocity makes the virtue lasting forever- I am sure. So, there is a toggle between the recognizing individual’s endeavors and the demanding of public sharing. How do our knowledge producing and consuming communities render this issue justifiably? Where is the appropriate midpoint of the capitalistic rewarding system and socialistic democratization processes? Look at the currently rampant protecting movement of the intellectual property rights versus the widespread pirating acts coexisting in the cyber-world. What are the fundamental driving forces of the above phenomenon? Are most of the knowledge producers/workers so capitalistically driven (or motivated) to produce knowledge? Rethinking about Max Weber’s multiple dimension of SES argument, he remarked that not all the human beings chased monetary success. Prestige, fame, privilege, power, recognition, respect are sometimes more invaluable to certain categories of people in certain societies. And these invisible (or less quantifiable) rewarding systems of knowledge power and recognition maybe underplayed by the capitalistic mentality behind the scene, but why and how?To what extent the knowledge producers appreciate community members’ adoption, appropriation, borrowing and crediting their contributions versus prefer to proprietarize their knowledge products as commodities?
Posted by Crystal at 9:43 AM 0 comments Links to this post
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CI 5330 Old postings

Friday, July 29, 2005
July 29, 2005 (Friday) Daily Reflections. How much we "need" vs how much we "want" in distance education
July 29, 2005 (Friday)I revised my self-evaluation with reflections, but I have no ways to resubmit via WebCT. So, I have to expose my personal message here. Hope you could recieve my re-sent email on July 30, and discard the following old email message, thanks:(Dear Dr. Aaron, the following is a message that I emailed you today-July 29 Friday:Attached is my last reflections and self-evaluation file in an email sent to you today in case my blogs doesnot reach you.I uploaded it on my blogs http://www.tc.umn.edu/~huan0195/blogs/index.html and WebCT under Assignments icon - of Final Class Project and Presentation. Thanks for a wonderful class. Have a great rest of summer!Crystal Li-chin Huang)What do you believe is the future of distance education and what can we as educators do to move the field forward in the right direction?I am contemplating my belief of the future of distance education in this way: necessity is the mother of invention – if this still holds truth, and “invention creates necessity” is its ramification….Franz Kafka once said that he did not watch advertisements, otherwise he would be buried in wanting things… something like that. I am thinking the future of distance education depends on how much we “want” distance education verse how much we “need” distance education. Can we have the meat and eat it – this is a question.As educators, we have lots of freedom and tons of constraints in terms of personal, situational, institutional, and ideological complexity confronting us on daily basis.Just focusing one small episode within the institutional or technological complexity as an example: Oliver (2001) stated that “a major concern of online course management systems is that they emphasize faculty dissemination tools over student processing tools, even though than latter are more likely to promote student interaction and engagement.” (p.47) According to Olsen’s research (2001), CMSs were not meant to be a pedagogical tool, but rather a productivity tool for handling the distractive tasks of teaching. Yes, there is plenty of room for criticism, but most CMS products are constantly striving for better flexibility and seamlessness, such as supporting multiple forms of knowledge presentation, authentic assessment and the use of distributed tools assisting student in knowledge construction and meaning making (Harvey & Lee, 2001).Such episode of challenge and response is just a grand of sand from the beach. Still, there are vast areas of inquiries left for conscientious and conscious stakeholders to engage in.To move the distance education toward in a direction which is beneficiary to the greatest interest of humanity/common good, though sounding grandiose, is a way that every individual educator can strive for. As educators, conscientiously challenge our teaching philosophy, pedagogies, and strategies supported by authentic research and critiques within and beyond our teaching/learning communities (domestic as well as international) is a major way to check the trajectory of such a direction.Thanks for a great class led by a passionate facilitator who believes what he is doing!Crystal Li-chin Huang
posted by Crystal @ 6:17 PM 0 comments
Wednesday, July 27, 2005
July 27, 2005 Wednesday Pedagogical modes, Knowledge Acquisition Models, and the Metophors
7/27/05 WednesdayIn the following pedagogical models and modes of knowledge acquisitions, I tend to integrate part of the modes or models into my teaching/learning environment. I am courious about what the eclectic approach under what kind of pedagogical, instructional, and technological circumstance will be the better choice for the authentic and meaningful teaching and learning?Pedagogical models:views about teaching and learning. They are cognitive models or theoretical constructs derived form learning theory that enable the implementation of specific instructional and learning strategies. In short, they are the mechanism by which theory is linked to practice.Knowledge Acquisition ModelsCIP- The “mind as a computer metaphor” represents the information processing model, based on information processing theory, in which “the human learner is conceive to be a processor of information in much the same way a computer is.”(M.P. Driscoll, 1994, p.68), had led to a knowledge acquisition model know as cognitive information processing (CIP).PDP – parallel distributed processing model (or “mind as a brain” metaphor) An alternative view of CIP is the parallel distributed processing model In the PDP model, long term memory is perceives a dynamic structure (or network) that represent knowledge in patterns or connections with multiple pathway instead of fixed schemata as concept nodes and positions.Situated cognitive model (or “mind as a rhizome” metaphor) The situated cognition model resembles the PDP model but has additional characteristic that distinguish it from both PDP and CIP. These characters are a. the concept hat know ledge extends beyond the individual, and b. an emphasis on perception rather than on memory.Implication for instruction: aligned with constructivism epistemological assumption.Pedagogical models are: situated or anchored learning, cognitive apprenticeships, cognitive flexibility hypertexts, communities of practice, or learning communities, computer supported intentional learning environment, microworlds, simulations, and virtual learning environments.
posted by Crystal @ 9:44 AM 0 comments
Tuesday, July 26, 2005
July 26, 2005 (Tuesday) My Principles of Online Teaching
If you were to give 10 guiding principles for teaching online, what would they be and why?So far, I came up 5. I will add up if some ideas pop into my mind.Principle 1- Meet the needs of the “desire-to-learn,” in particular.The first guiding principle for teaching online is to facilitate the serious learners who are challenged constantly by time, space, finance, family, career, physicality, and other related bio-psy-cultural attributes or obstacles that ordinary learners do not have to face. Why? My answer is that I have seen some students who might try to find an expedient ways of leaning. For this issue, the pre-orientation of the nature of online learning is very importnat to the prospective students. Otherwise the attrition rate will worry the adminstrators as well as the facilitators.Principle 2 - Facilitator’s teaching philosophy and integrity supported by appropriate trainings and tech facilities, in particular, be versed and practice varies of pedagogical, instructional, and technological theories and models.Ideally speaking, an instructor with strong integrity, conscientiousness, and responsibility who is particularly interested in meeting the abovementioned students’ needs can be oriented into an effective and efficient online facilitator. I incorporated Thach & Murphy’s 7 principles here too: interpersonal communication and providing prompt feedback, promotion of interaction, reinforce teamwork skills, knowledge of how to conduct a needs assessment, comprehension of new learning technologies and their impact on learners, and development of systems perspective of thinking.Principle 3- Institutionally take care of common good and self-interestAn educational setting offering online courses shall not emphasize too much on lucrative purposes. However, under capitalistic commercialism, educational products are desirable commodities acquirable to various levels of social class. To balance the common good and lucrative interest will reveal the depth and breath of a school’s mission and statement.Principle 4- Teaching online is scaffolded by visionary insight and systematic research. Educational online teaching is not to catch up the trend, which is always spearheaded by the business world. Educational online shall stand timingly on educational philosophy and pedagogy.Principle 5- Teaching online shall shorten the social gap and enhance the common goals of humanity. Online teaching has it niche in human learning/teaching experience. It functions more than transmitting knowledge, forming knowledge community, providing alternate educational opportunity, and evoking research and so on. It shall play the role as a social equalizer not the stratifier.
posted by Crystal @ 3:43 PM 0 comments
July 26, 2005 (Tuesday) Edugaming
I am not a member of the 40-under- D(igital) generation. I grew up and was educated in a period of time when visual imageries were quite scarce and even bleak (a slim type of CIP). The daily sensory and perceptual activities were adaptively geared toward audio-cerebral ways of learning when I was a grad and undergrad student in Taipei.So I quite understand the constant challenges on my performing/teaching in competing with the multimedia video-digital environment that most students grew up from; and how much visual stimuli students crave to keep focused in a technical college setting where open admission is an important policy to accept various psycho-physiological diverse students into the very demanding teaching/learning world.Once upon a time, I did not acknowledge the visual learning is supreme to the auditory learning (due to part of my previous educational acqisition being from CIP fashion). I was skeptical that the fast pace visual browsing would encode information into working, short term, not to mention the long term memory. Without the seriously exercising encoding, retrieving processing information, messages were drifting nowhere in the brain. Yes, we all hate memorizing and regurgitating (if any fill-in-the-blank questions dare to show up on the test sheets, you are doomed to be a bad teacher, no matter how important that knowledge is, unless crib sheets are allowed! Only True/False and Multiple choice are welcome with some essays that function as remedy or extra credits in case the wrong choice or wrong T/F were made.) As for group activities and discussions (reinforced PDP or situated models) that are always welcome as classroom (onground) procedures as long as they are not so much focused on CIP model of learnig. Anyway, all knowledge is on Internet, who needs the brainy short term and long term memory for?? I am not being dour here. Actually, the visual and kinesthetic ways of preference from students make me to reorient myself into the fascinating wysiwyg world. That explains the constructive situated-rhizome mode of learning based on our current econ-tech-cultural trends sometimes working better in several educational settings.Now as living in the info-tech-visual culture, looking, watching, or seeing is much more quicker, direct and powerful to register the sensory receptors via neural impulse transducted to the brain. It is paramountively high speed! My teaching/learning consciousness pushes me to understand more possibilities (such as PDP or Rhizome model) or alternate pedagogies is a way to help both students and myself to survive in this visually cool/cruel world.Playing educational visual games is one of several instructional strategies. For examples, students download “who want to be millionaire”, “Jeopardy, “ “wheel of fortune,” and other types of famous TV brainy games to incorporate the contents of readings or handouts to figure out their own meta-cognition, and meta-learning. It was fun, but getting stale quickly both to students and myself. In reality, most of instructors are far behind in designing and configuring meaningful pedagogical games that fit into classroom setting at the post-secondary educational setting (I mean, 2-year college, in particular.) Do students and faculty in the Ivy league need edutaining video games to aid teaching and learning? Some say, why not? Sooner or later!!!However, I am not so skeptical as Jane Healy, the educational psychologist and author of “Failure to Connect: How Computers Affect Our Children's Minds-and What We Can Do About It.” (Simon & Schuster, 1999). She believes that we not only haven't figured out how to make "intellectually appropriate and challenging and enriching" games for kids, we also don't yet understand the impact of gaming on kids' minds well enough to recommend this type of learning experience. But when we wait for researchers all figure out how to make intellectually appropriate and challenging and enriching games, the children could have moved to some other outerspace combating real star wars….I know I am always ambivalent toward visually double-edged high techs. The problem is that we are on the one-way-ticket info-super-highway, who can/will/shall control the brake?I like the Prensky’s social impact games. But some socio-political games as they noted have themes and portray ideas that are offensive to many people. I do see what they mean! I am wondering if a theme can be designed/programmed between some fine lines that entail some subtle socio-political whim/wisdom? Or their designers/programmers have specific agenda to accomplish?? A last, not the least, being still encapsulated in the “puritan” ideological era, religious and sexual “thematic” inquiries take great wisdom to show a little bit of insight!http://www.socialimpactgames.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=index&catid=10&topic=&allstories=1
posted by Crystal @ 1:26 PM 0 comments
Monday, July 25, 2005
July 20, 2005 recovered file
July 20, 2005 (Wednesday)1. The differences between the classic distance learner and the emerging online learner. Classic distance learners via correspondence, or home, studyCharacteristics: adults with occupation, social and family commitments. Independent, place-bound, adult, self-motivated, disciplined self-starter, and goal-oriented learners.2000 demographic survey- average 35, mostly women, have some college degree, full or partime employed, mostly middle class, very busy, attracted to what seems like an efficient means to study. Student’s locus of control (internal or external attribution of success and failure) and learning styles (verbal, visual, or kinesthetic) as predicators of success among college distance learnersEmerging online learners: discussion forum, group contributions, shared resources, peer assessment, and group projects – deemphasizes independent learning and emphasizes social interdependence and collaborative learning.The types of learning technologies that facilitate online learning and their application and use from the online learner's perspective. Web-based hypermedia; web-based multimedia, asynchronous and synchronous communication, web-based publishing and authoring tools, presentation and visualization tools, and Internet.The competencies and skills that lead to a successful online learner. Being fluency in the use of online learning technologiesExhibiting a need for affiliationUnderstanding and valuing interaction and collaborative learningPossessing an internal locus of controlHaving a strong academic self-conceptHaving experience in self-directed learning or the initiative to acquire such skillsThe differences between the traditional classroom instructor and the online instructor. On ground- face2face: manager, expert, disciplinarian, controller, dispenser of information, goal setter, and timekeeperOnline: resource, co participant, scaffolder, co learner, moderator, facilitator, coach, monitor, and advisorThe technological, logistical, and implementation challenges facing the online instructor. Technological challenges: online learners’ prior knowledge and experience of students and first time online facilitators; software challenges- appropriate technology and applications for both learners and facilitators; Hardware challenge: bandwidth/speed, hardware equipments from institutions.Logistical and implementation challenges: adequate training and assistance from support staff, pedagogical reengineering.The term intellectual property. Any item that meets one of these three criteria: (a) an author’s original creation expressed in any medium, (b) a new invention that has use, or (c) a text and/or graphic that identifies a provider of services or goods. Each of these has protection under various statues of intellectual property law (= copyright).
posted by Crystal @ 3:20 PM 0 comments
Sunday, July 24, 2005
July 24, 2005 Sunday- How can blogs be integrated in daily teaching and learning
July 24. 05 (Sunday)How can blogs be integrated in daily teaching and learning?Here are two interesting research via PPT- they were titled “Social Network Dynamics in the Blogosphere” and “Revolutionary Vanguard or Echo Chamber?Political Blogs and the Mainstream Media” @ Broggers at Sunbelthttp://www.blogninja.com/The blog phenomenon is an unprecedented domain providing collective networking as well as individual expression / creativities in terms of poli-psycho-cultural development. This can be a momentum for a genuine electronic democracy in the tech era.In teaching and learning environment, due to BlackBoard and WebCT having their life span within registered semesters, archiving and retrieving students’ academic works is an extra job. On the other hand, not all of students’ works reached the bar or interested in a continuity of teaching/learning process. I would like to encourage students who are really interested in a continuing dialogue after semester is done still connecting with the instructor via blogs.The other daily possibility for using blogs is a functional remedy when CMS is down or for maintenance sake, the blog might be an alternate ways to keep on flowing.I am still a novice in Blog/Brog world. I will learn more and do a better reflection! CrystalReferences:http://blog.lib.umn.edu/blogosphere A collection of essays on the nature of blog communication.http://www.blogninja.com/ Contains a collection of blog-related research on genre, gender, audience, and social networks, led by Susan Herring.http://blogtalk.net/ In its third year as a conference about blog researchhttp://blog.mathemagenic,com/categories/weblogResearch/index.html Lilia Efimove – collection of blog research.http://wiley.ed.usu.edu/ Wiley’s own professional webloghttp://teachable.org/blog/ Martindale’s own professional webloghttp://www.persues.com/blogsurvey/thebloggingiceberg.html To see the examples of blog interfaces, and to find all the other links and supporting resources mentioned in Martindale and Wiley”s “using weblogs in scholarship and teaching”http://www.reusability.org/blogs/trey/archived/000601.html A widely publicized survey site.http://incsub.org/association/poll. BROG paper nominated for Edublog award
posted by Crystal @ 1:41 PM 0 comments
Wednesday, July 20, 2005
Using Weblogs in Scholarship and Teaching by Trey Martindale and David Wiley
Sometimes I consider the proprietary educommercial products such as BlackBoard, WebCT, DTL (desire to learn)...etc are major Techcultural corporates, currently dominating vast educultural markets.The Cultural Inc. deserves the fair shares of profits for promulgating the fast transactions of knowledge via CMS design and developments. It looks noble but very expensive to maintain! One of the democratic ideas behind Martindale and Wiley is to challenge the tech power system – “ a step toward leveling the (publishing) playing field” – as they named it!If, as they predict that Blogs can be the next killer application, then what will happen to the those giant proprietary Incs? Will the Blogs someday turn their face to profiteering or the giant companies play the low keys for more common good? Crystal Li-chin Huang
posted by Crystal @ 7:00 PM 0 comments
July 20, 05 (W) Daily Reflections
July 20, 05 (Wednesday) Daily ReflectionsSo far, the smartest way of Blogger is to let everyone take charge of FTP - anytime, anywhere, as we have learned today (via UMN server).Though BlackBoard and WebCT can be done at home, I always feel inconvenient to FTP my teaching materials for updating my webstie (due to the server issue and my folders being stored at school public drives).
posted by Crystal @ 6:32 PM 0 comments
Tuesday, July 19, 2005
July 18, 05 (Monday)
1.What are your initial thoughts and impressions about the course and the content of the course? My initial thoughts and impressions are about designing the authentic and meaningful distance education courses that will help me improve my current practice in school and enhance my understanding of the updated trends in this field. And I got it today! I skimmed some chapters of the textbook, and found it very rich and interesting, in particular, chap 3. 2.What lingering questions do you have about today's content? I only know about Blackboard and WebCT. Should I try the road less traveled, and not to worry about which CMS is the most killing one? I also hope that most of us can select different type of CMS/authoring tools. So we all can learn from each other’s presentation about that specific CMS. I will try not to repeat the same LCMS if any peer has picked the one that I have known. But I don’t know if this idea is feasible. 3.How do you believe the content and discussions of today will impact your future practice? I know I always learn something really good from you. I am very interested in learning today’s Blogger. I am trying to learn more about it.
posted by Crystal @ 11:02 AM 0 comments