Friday, Nov 12

9:30 AM-10:45 AM

E-readers and E-books: Good, Bad and Ugly

Mykonos AB
Moderator: Kathleen Kalata; Presenters: Mary Jane Clerkin, Catherine Kelley

When it comes to the question, e-text or physical text? I can’t make up my mind. I’m a fervent consumer of actual, physical books, but not without incalculable appreciation for the value of networked hypertexts. I have resisted buying an e-reader because I’ve been afraid it will lead me away from physical book purchases, or cause me to read less because the absence of a physical object provides no behavioral triggers or reinforcements. Yet I often pine for the convenience, markup, and digital archiving features of e-books. More recently my only hesitation to take the plunge has been that Kindle doesn’t support color or open formats. If physical book purchases let you add on the digital format for ~$1, I’ll be hooked I’m sure.

Even though I’m still unsure what I think of the e-text revolution, some might expect this particular session to be pretty tame. But this isn’t just a contest of competing media, it’s a question of what effects do the different usabilities and affordances of the two text systems have on us as readers and learners? I’ve been migrating towards online/digital reading behavior research as a primary interest in my PhD studies, and there remain some cognitive and behavioral questions around the use of e-readers and e-books that I am hoping will be drawn out in this session, either by the presenters, or the moderator, or the crowd.

10:45 AM – 11:00 AM

Open: Beverage Break

Grand Foyer

Yep.

11:00 AM-12:00 PM

SEGUE (Supporting Educational Goals for Undergraduate Excellence) to Curriculum Design

Aventine E
Moderator: Lynette Woods; Presenters: Cynthia Davis, Elizabeth Mulherrin, Loyce Pailen

My new position in Distance Ed at UVU has Marc and I supporting the Curriculum Office with instructional design services for faculty, and so I’m glad to see this session on the schedule. Indeed, I can’t let myself even look at the other sessions for fear of being lured away.

But if I were to have looked at the other sessions, I’d probably also consider “Using Multimedia to Increase Faculty Effectiveness” or “Creating a Compelling Learning Experience”, as I’m always open to new ideas that I can share with our faculty that will enliven and enhance their teaching.

12:15 PM-1:30 PM

WCET Awards Lunch

Pavillion

If the weather’s nice, I’ll probably go lunching (and skating) on my own.

1:45 PM-2:45 PM

E-Portfolios

November 12, 2010, – Aventine E
Moderator: Jared Stein; Presenters: John Ittelson, Kathleen Willbanks

I’ll be moderating this session on e-portfolios, a subject on which I am no expert but have increasing interest in. Please join in on this session, as your active participation will help me foster a dynamic discussion with our sure-to-be compelling presenters

E-portfolios are entering the mainstream, but questions of objectives, design, technology, evaluation, and ownership remain relevant and critical to long-term success of often expensive e-portfolio projects. This session includes perspectives related to research and analysis of problem(s) to be solved, evaluation of projects, and institutional scalability. Kathleen Willbanks will report on the status of several e-portfolio projects at various institutions, as well as their use in accreditation. Jared Stein serves as interlocutor in this session, encouraging dialogue with participants and reframing scenarios to include alternate perspectives and new developments in philosophies and practices of e-portfolio systems.

If I weren’t moderating this session I’d surely be in the audience, or else popping into Ritchie Boyd’s discussion of the state of the LMS-driven online education environment in “Back to the Drawing Board” in room Aventine D.

3:00 PM – 5:00 PM

General Session: Pecha Kucha Smackdown

All I have to say to the Pecha Kucha participants is BRING IT!

5:00 PM on

I won a $100 dining gift certificate from WCET for my previous blog post, and hope to spend it with WCET friends Chris and Scott. But where to eat? Recommendations are welcome…

There are a number of poster and strand sessions scheduled that are worth highlighting; here are those that I’ve mapped out for my own path through the WCET 2010 events:

Thursday, Nov 11

10:15 AM – 10:45 AM

Poster Sessions

Grand Foyer

I plan to stop by Diane Monico’s session, “Transfer Impact: Online Course Participation”, which promises to “explore the relationship between online course experiences and the transfer of constructivist practices by preservice teachers”.

These are poster sessions, so it’s kosher for me to move from one to another, right? Also high on my list is Robert Beauchamp’s “Simulations and Video of Landfill Construction, Operation, and The Removal of Contaminants by Plants”. I rarely see good simulation examples, but the idea is compelling enough that I keep looking for gems.

10:45 AM-12:00 PM

Using Data Mining and Modeling for Retention

Aventine F
Presenters: Shannon Corona, Phil Ice

Very interested to see what they have done with data mining. Retention issues aren’t part of my job description, but data mining is an increasingly interesting field of study for educators, and it’s certainly caught my attention.

Those of you who have attended conferences with me know that I sometimes switch sessions half-way through–not necessarily because the session is bad (though sometimes it is), but because another session looks to be equally good and I can’t bear to miss one or the other. In this case that would be…

Think Globally, Act Openly: Multiple Approaches to Open Educational Resources

Aventine E (right next door!)
Moderator: Muriel Oaks
Presenters: Una Daly, James Glapa-Grossklag, Susie Henderson, John Makevich

I expect to pop in to see other perspectives and practices on the publishing and reuse of OER. Openness is one of the most important movements in 21st century education, and real-world examples of openness in practice are increasingly a staple of ed tech conferences. Why, it seems like just last year we were explaining what CC means… Not any more, right? Right?

12:15 PM-1:15 PM

Rethinking The Academy in Times of Great Change

Ballroom
Moderator: Richard Katz
Presenters: David Longanecker, Peter Smith

As un-social as I tend to be I often skip out on the round table conference lunches (no, I don’t hate chicken), but I think the title of this general session belays a very current and important topic as for-profit higher ed institutions challenge non-profit presumed monopoly, and provoke them to shore up their core values or even rethink their modus operandi.

1:30 PM-2:45 PM

Does Social Networking Equate to Social Learning?

Aventine D
Moderator: Chris Lott
Presenters: Ritchie Boyd, Scott Leslie, Ann Randall, Jared Stein

Yes, that’s me. I’m filling in for a surely more knowledgeable expert, but am happy to offer what perspectives I can on the use (and abuse) of Web 2.0, social media, and social networking in higher education. I’ll bring what I know from my personal practice, from my use of such technologies and networks with students in the f2f, hybrid, and online courses I teach, as well as other examples from my institution. My hope is to bring a particularly critical–even skeptical–perspective to the debate conversation as we move to questions of habits, attention, cognition, and evidence.

The mind-bending cognitive powers of Chris Lott will be moderating this, so you know none of the presenters will get off easy with airy slogans or trendy claims.

If I wasn’t going to be in this session, I’d probably check out:

Learning Assessment Systems that Work! Collaborating for Student Success

Mykonos AB
Moderator: Catherine Kelley
Presenters: Jeff Grann, Amy Hilbelink, Juanita Ikuta, Judith Steed

Assessment is the third corner in an educational triumverate, though it often gets a bad rap for poor design or implementation. I remind our faculty that assessment is not just to prove a student’s competence, but also a chance for learner and instructor to reflect on their performance and make important changes.

Someone blog this session and let us know if it’s good?

3:15 PM-4:15 PM

If I manage to hack it through the Social Networking session, I may take a stab at creating ebooks from digital content via the ePub format:

Create Your Own E-pub

Aventine F
Presenters: Eric Converse, Silke Fleischer

On the other hand, the inimitable Scott Leslie will be presenting on OER, which appears to be a sweet, sweet concoction of both data mining and openness:

Tracking Open Educational Resources

Mykonos AB
Moderator: David Kendrick
Presenter: Scott Leslie

4:30 PM-6:00 PM

Opening Reception

Pavilion

Don’t bet on me being here vying for a free drink ticket; I’m going skating. I may, however, be up for:

6:30 PM-8:30 PM

Tweet Up Dinner

Lobby

Use #WCET10 to find your fellow attendees for an informal get-to-gether. Groups may elect to head to dinner, the pool, the lobby bar, or any number of activities! Follow the tweets for this meet and greet!

So those are my plans for day 1 WCET 2010. I plan to follow up with days 2 & 3. If you’re going, too, let me know and maybe we’ll meet up!

Registration for TTIX 2010 has just opened, so visit the site now and sign up for free. The conference runs June 10 & 11 in Salt Lake City, Utah, which is a great little city in a beautiful environment.

Hope to see you there!

On Thursday I shared an hour with Terri Rowenhorst of NROC introducing folks at WCET 2009 to open education and some of the ideas and directions orbiting around it. Mine was just a half-hour pres, and didn’t get into some of the meatier bits that interest me; nonetheless the slides and video may be of interest:

• “Openness as a Catalyst for Education” slides on SlideShare
• “Openness as a Catalyst for Education” video on ustream

You may have already heard some of the Twitter buzz about Chris Lott‘s presentation, “Closing the Gutenberg Parenthesis”, so here are links to his slides, video, and wiki:

• “Closing the Gutenberg Parenthesis” video on ustream
• “Closing the Gutenberg Parenthesis” slides on SlideShare
• “Closing the Gutenberg Parenthesis” wiki with matrix

Chris let me moderate this session, and it was exciting to monitor the backchannels on Twitter and ustream for questions, ideas, or challenges that I could interrupt him with. As always, Chris did a fabulous job presenting a continual stream of rich ideas on technology and learning. I must admit I may have underestimated both Chris and the WCET audience prior to the session; both seemed quite comfortable with complex and provocative notions embedded in our connected culture and interplaying with Ong’s concept of a “secondary orality”.

First, I recommend you read Boone’s post, as I don’t want to re-state his exploration of both Gardner’s and John’s Open Ed 09 thoughts here. I think there is definite tension between individualism and communalism, especially in context of creativity. Such tension may be culturally inherited, or it may be endemic in our brains. I.e., we need to work in groups/tribe to survive; we want to claim individual power and perpetuate our own unique genes. It’s much deeper and richer than that.

…

As I sat in on John’s Thinkubator session I recalled how recently I had reluctantly agreed to author a full white paper collaboratively through Google Docs with a colleague. For a while we both were very sensitive to the other’s contributions–”do you mind if I enhance paragraph 10?” or “I’m going to rework your section on X, is that cool?” We were very courteously practicing the golden rule.

After a while, however, the insistence of the deadline and the necessity of coherence required us to abandon courtesy in favor of efficiency, and thus we diminished both of our individualizations of the article. We ended up with a decent article, produced in probably 75% (not half) of the time it would have taken just one of us to produce it. Do I feel like I own that document? No. Do I feel I co-own it? Yes. Do I want to take credit for it? Kind of, because in doing so I’m taking credit for someone else’s work, including their flaws. Did the structure of the project support our objectives? Yes, but I certainly wouldn’t adopt a collaborative approach for all, not even most, of the documents I author. I’d rather more closely tie my identity to my individual work, and that means making my exact contributions extricable from the original.

…

On a loosely related note, I was searching for an image for a presentation the other day, had exhausted CC licensed images on Flickr or Google, couldn’t find anything on the paid license site I subscribe to, and was seriously contemplating just stealing someone else’s IP. I should preface this by saying that CC and the availability of open-licensed works has allowed me to respect other people’s © IP more appropriately (OK, I know some of you want to pick the Copyleft fight with me, but some other time). But as I was looking at this ideal image, contemplating swiping it and using it, a shudder of confusion and regret came through me, and I realized, twenty years ago I wouldn’t have thought twice about appropriating the image.

No, I would not have just taken it.

I would have made my own.

Which led me to wonder, by refuting closed licensing, does openness provide a path that is “quicker, easier, more seductive”, yet diverts one away from creativity, innovation, and individual growth through distinguishing effort?

After some lengthy idling of engines, the real conversation starts when Downes asks, what does the university offer? Content, delivery, and credentials. Content and delivery is also possible outside the university, yes? Implication: therefore, there is no significant difference in effectiveness, no reason to choose one over the other (!?). Leaving the credential piece out of it, I object to Downes’s initial equivocation between learning that occurs within an institutional framework and that which can occur without. Just because learning can occur outside the university doesn’t mean it will occur as efficiently or effectively as our historical institutions. This is not to say that learning that occurs outside the university is de facto inferior, but one must compare outcomes. It’s an ugly equivocation that begs to be elaborated on, i.e. how can (or will) non-institutional learning be maximized?

Wiley recognizes that, for instance, States require teacher certification to work in a classroom. I half expected Downes to object to the teacher certification requirement in general, which might contradict his previous stance that home-schooling is a kind of abuse due to lack of teacher qualifications. I’m relieved that he didn’t.

“If you tore the covers off books (on Ruby) you couldn’t tell the difference.” Wiley says, “The books at Borders parade as choice without their being any significant difference between them.” Having reviewed tech books myself, especially XHTML and CSS books, I must say this is not really true. Yes, there are some books in any subject matter that are too similar. But there are just as many that are significantly different. Also, as the number of players in the market expands, and the number of publications–let alone editions–increases, tech book publishers are increasingly wary of being redundant. They are looking for the selling point, the distinction. Perhaps the desire for distinction comes only after the market is flooded with the generic version. Regardless, while this is incorrect, but I get the point: openness (and the Internet) brings more choice by liberating access to the market and means of distribution.

Downes goes all socialist and argues that financial incentives discourage variety because the bland textbook sells more. Again, I go back to the idea that once the market is saturated with the bland solutions, this opens a new opportunity for the unique solutions. Best example that springs to mind: “Head First” series, a quirky, sometimes silly, approach that integrates learning theories into the content as no other web language book does.

Downes suggests that because there are a large quantities of a single kind of learning object (pictures of ducks) that may be classified an OER, there is no lack of OER online. I can’t actually believe he doesn’t recognize that because one has plenty of a single thing that fits into a category, one has plenty of things in that category.

Wiley counters that there is relative value to learning resources, but leaves the argument unsubstantiated and shifts to talk about nonrivalrous nature of online resources. I think the argument here is strong, and hope he comes back to this.

Downes challenges Dave: you say a full course can be an OER, and you say an OER is digital. So can a full course be digital? He caught Dave off-guard because, again I think Downes equivocated OER with LO, and Dave didn’t realize he had actually asserted that a full course can be a learning object. There is a difference between a learning object and an OER.

Downes is challenging assertion that an organized course is more efficient (than what? at least more efficient than “floundering around”), but coming up pretty empty. Best counter argument he set aside, and that is that a course costs thousands of dollars to produce. Now he is questioning the goals or outcomes of education, and asking if a course is the most efficient path to “a good life”. So if you disagree with the outcomes of organized university coursework, for whatever reason, you might agree that, yes, a course of study is not efficient. But even if you believ the goal of university learning is self-betterment through access to knowledge, I still say that the regimented classroom and semester is pretty efficient.

This made me wonder if the most critical piece for learning is accountability: teachers and grades and administration hold students’ feet to the fire, making them read and study and produce things that make them learn–activities they may not have the discipline to do on their own. If I were to aim to lose weight (or, rather, bulk up), I would achieve my goals much more efficiently with a personal trainer driving me to work out every day under a particular, crafted, and organized regiment, rather than leaving it to me to find ways to exercise on my own. But if my goal is just to have fun exercising, yes, I’m better served just going off to skate.

Speakng of which, I’m going out to skate.

Instructional Design & Development

1. ADDIE, Dick & Cary, and other ID models useful to revisit and reflect upon, especially for planning of critical stages of course design. Models do not necessarily inhibit rapid prototyping. UVU IDS might rethink how its course design process fits into such models (instead of immediate prototyping do we first analyze needs, course objectives, then outline content in design? Prototyping should be mid to late design phase).
2. Build instructional design models into project mgmt software as template. We in UVU IDS do something like this with dotProject, but could more explicitly label phases to provide data documentation and data.
3. Log instructional patterns (e.g. activities, interactions, assessments) and create “templates”.
4. Brainstorming ideas: aim for quantity not quality (no negations), stock conference room with treats and toys, limit to 1 hr/break & flow, focus everyone on the task, use online shared docs.
5. In design phase, instead of lists of info, make visual representations like wireframes & site maps. Let it be basic, ugly.
6. Tame your use of media to reduce cognitive load (read Clark’s Efficiency in Design again).
7. Avoid novelty for novelty’s sake (bad example: wave runner game with multiple choice questions, our Frogger game).
8. Try rapid e-learning dev tools like Captivate, Articulate, and Rapid Intake, but beware of outputs that aren’t accessible, web standards format.
9. More often than not Flash is just flashy.
10. PowerPoint continues to be abused by presenters from around the world, resulting in mind-numbing, soul-sucking internments. Folks talk about PPT design in terms of how many bullets, words, fonts per slide, with nearly no mention of “Presentation Zen”.
11. Also, a PPT designed for a (classroom) presentation is not elearning, even if you convert that PPT to Flash with Captivate. @BrianDusablon says #1 problem in e-learning is PPT. (#2 is systems that put obstacles between learner and learning.)
12. However, you can use PPT as an effective e-learning prototyping platform, if not a complete and robust authoring platform.
13. Surprise! Corporate training wants demonstrable outcomes, not rubrics that assert generalized ideals of quality based on theory. How well do our distance learning “quality” rubrics (QM, Chico) measure the actual effectiveness of learning experiences at helping students meet learning objectives? Isn’t that more important than, say, the 7 principles?
14. Though the session was canceled, it appears possible to use Google Spreadsheets as a data source for live e-learning content generation (think flashcards, quizzes)
15. UVU IDS should create all lesson discussions, assignments, and assessments as plain text files WITHIN the lessons folder, until Common Cartridge XML becomes useful on Moodle and Bb Vista.
16. URLs from augmented reality games session: http://argology.org, http://argn.com, http://unfiction.com

Questions

1. Does UVU IDS have enough accurate dotProject data yet to estimate the hour-cost of a new online course?
2. Non-linear ID is still popular, but is it effective? Have we passed the point at which hypertext inhibits learning and focus?
3. Where are communities that share DTDs and schemas, esp for e-learning? Does our XML DTD match any other known e-learning DTDs? (Really only Common Cartridge)

Reading List

1. Goal-based learning design a la Robert Schank
2. Humanizing education articles
3. Videogames and Education: Humanistic Approaches to an Emergent Art Form by Harry J. Brown
4. Chico State’s latest vers. of ROI
5. Survey of Instructional Development Models by Kent L. Gustafson, Robert Maribe Branch
6. Any empirical research on linear vs. non-linear (hypertextual) learning outcomes

Software Demo List

• Articulate (rapid e-learning development)
• Captivate (rapid e-learning development)
• ProForm / Unison (rapid e-learning development)
• Jing (screen capture)
• Agilix BrainHoney (LMS/learning system)

Deconstructing entrenchments of the fallen aesthete

The future will give us robots
endlessly yielding Great Thoughts
   exceeding Bill Gates
   or the "famous" Socrates
Yes, their brains will be based on Chris Lott's.

If you didn’t see Chris’s talk live, be sure to check out the archive on Ustream.

Anyone who knows me knows about the Teaching with Technology Idea Exchange, aka TTIX, a small, free conference dedicated to the open exchange of ideas and best practices in distance learning and technology-enhanced education. If I’m not soliciting proposals, I’m soliciting keynotes, or I’m soliciting sponsors, or I’m soliciting participants–and really, the participants are the most important ingredient for a successful idea exchange!

So let me formally thank and welcome everyone who’s planning on coming to Orem, Utah June 3-5 to present, participate, sponsor, exhibit, help or support. We know some people could not travel this year due to tightening budgets, but we hope to offset that with a sepcial announcement:

Instead of taping and archiving this year’s sessions, we are going to try to live stream each and every TTIX session via UStream. This means that participants from around the world will have a chance to watch and engage with TTIX live audiences via the backchannel. I’ll post more on this soon at http://ttix.org

Finally, of course, Marc and I will be tracking your participation in TTIX via social media to crown this year’s Grand Poobah, and give out some sweet prizes. Every blog post, Twitter update, Flickr photo, Delicious bookmark that you tag TTIX (#TTIX on Twitter) will count towards your effort to claim this coveted award, if you sign up.

I didn’t go to Ignite 1, but a 2-hour series of 5-minute presentations (20 slides or less) sounds like the best-ever format for a geek get-together.

Question: will Brewvies’ grill be open for business?