Flexknowlogy – Jared Stein

I conducted a 1hr demonstration of the open source learning management system Moodle 1.9.5 for higher ed folks in Utah and the Utah Education Network. The demo went well enough, and I hope some of my colleagues from around the State got a little taste of Moodle, especially as it compares to Blackboard/WebCT Vista. UEN facilitated this presentation to State participants via Wimba; I simultaneously streamed the session via Ustream using WebCamMax and recorded it for anyone who is interested: Moodle 1.9.5 Overview on Ustream.

As I reviewed the video I noticed I had made a handful of mis-statements that I should correct here:

• Martin Dougiamas is from Australia, not New Zealand.
• The book I reference at the beginning as inspiring me to rethink Moodle was Jason Cole’s “Using Moodle”
• Our Banner system talks to Moodle via a Luminus Message Broker plug-in, not LDAP (we use LDAP for WordPress MU)
• When I talk about adaptive quizzing, I meant to refer to educational research on web-based/hypermedia learning from the last decade or so.
• Though the Workshop tool has been dropped from Moodle 2.0, its functionality will not be replaced in the Assignment tool–instead a new Workshop tool is in development for 2.0

This week I’ve decided to give SlideShare.net a go, and have now posted a half-dozen slide decks from different presentations over the past few years, all CC-licensed.

I must admit: now that I’ve shared, I have to worry if every image was properly credited, and the occasional borrowed slide attributed to the original lender. May the open web forgive us our sins of omission!

I’ve got to take a minute to plug the software WebCamMax ($50), which lets you alter your (Windows) computer’s webcam input. I used it this week to facilitate quality, DIY streaming and recording of two WCET09 presentations using a laptop (with distinct graphics card), a lavalier mic ($50-$500) and Ustream (free). Here’s how it worked (more…)

I traveled to Denver this week for WCET 2009, and though I was sunk with a cold on the second day, so far I’ve enjoyed participating in the conference, and, as always, have found the Twitter backchannel (#wcet09) a great way to connect with more ideas, and more people (more…)

Ignite Salt Lake 2, “a community event celebrating the passion and creativity of geek culture” that sounds quite a bit like pecha kucha, is happening March 26th, 2009 at Brewvies Cinema Pub in Salt Lake City, Utah (677 South 200 West).

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?

On Friday, August 8 2008 I presented at Distance Teaching and Learning 2008 with Marc Hugentobler and John Krutsch. I’ve posted the the slides and the rubric from that session as the page, “The Cheatability Factor”.

Presentation Slides

cheatability_factor.ppt

For this session I added several slides that illustrate my gut reaction to a number of the new technologically-based approaches to inhibit cheating in assessments which I hope you will find amusing.

We had a lively and interactive discussion of the problem of cheating in online courses, and possible approaches to inhibit it. We took one participant through our cheatbility rubric explaining criteria and concepts along the way.

For the first time John administered Buzzword Bingo live in-session with bingo cards printed with key terms from our presentation. We did this not (only) as a self-deprecating joke, but as a means of focusing participant attention on the presenters and the dialog. I believe at least 6 participants scored a prize during this session while playing Buzzword Bingo, though John and Marc had to coax more than one participant to simply shout out BINGO instead of raising their hands!

Today I am presenting at the SFo MoodleMoot on how Moodle can be used to deliver Open Educational Resources, especially through our modification of Moodle, the Open Meta Mod.

Presentation slides are now available and you are welcome to participate in the backchannel through the chat window provided below.

Presentation Slides

openmod.ppt

Web Sites Referenced

• OpenCourseWare Consortium
• Open Educational Resources Commons
• David Wiley’s OpenContent Wiki
• David Wiley’s OpenContent blog
• Utah Open High School
• Creative Commons licenses
• MIT’s “Making the Case for OCW”
• Why a Reputation Economy?
• UK’s Open University LearningSpace
• OpenContentDIY
• Leigh Blackall’s slide on Another Way

P.S. After my presentation was over, I came back to my hotel to find this bus in the parking lot. It’s nothing less than a sign for a questioning open education convert.

It looks like I’ll be presenting at the 2008 MoodleMoot San Francisco, June 9 – 11, 2008 South San Francisco Conference Center on our Open Mod for sharing open educational resources. I’ll be dragging Kenneth Woodward along to explain the technical facets of the mod, and to delve into the community of Moodle developers.

Of course, prior to the conference Ken and I will have to work pretty aggressively with Clark Nielsen and John Krutsch to ensure that the mod’s features and functionalities are stable and presentable.

Marc Hugentobler, John Krutsch, and I will be presenting our online cheating sessions a couple times this summer, and would like to welcome everyone to attend:

1. The Cheatability Factor at Distance Teaching and Learning 2008, Madison, Wisconsin
2. How to Cheat Online & The Cheatability Factor at Teaching with Technology Idea Exchange 2008, Orem, Utah

Here are some details, reproduced from the proposals:

Promotional Summary

What is your online course’s “cheatability factor”? 75% of students have admitted to cheating during their college career, and according to some studies online assessment makes cheating easier. This session considers technical, philosophical, and environmental factors that may increase or decrease the cheatability of online courses from design to delivery, and presents a rubric used to assess those factors.

Objectives and Description

Presentation objectives:

Participants will..

1. Discover the extent to which cheating-related problems exist in online education and online-based assessments
2. Consider factors that may contribute technologically, philosophically, or environmentally to online cheating
3. Examine a rubric used to measure the “cheatability” of online course
4. Discuss practices and strategies to avoid or minimize the impact of cheating

Presentation description:

Nobody wants students cheating in their online class, yet an estimated 75% of students have admitted to cheating during their college career, and according to some studies online assessment makes cheating easier. The problem is not only one of practical importance for educators, it is one of growing importance to instructional technologists, administrators, and anyone else with a vested interest in the validity and reputation of distance education and technology-enhanced teaching.

This session will first present information and collected research data that summarizes the state of cheating in higher education in general, and in distance education specifically. While a general awareness of the pervasiveness of cheating may be in and of itself an eye-opener to many educators and administrators, the motivations behind cheating and the responsibility teachers have to recognize their own influence on cheating can provide an alternative perspective on what is normally considered a quite simple choice. McClusky’s theory of Power-Load-Margin, for instance, informs teachers of the impact they may have on students’ lives, and the impact students’ lives have on their studies, both of which can lead students to choose to cheat. A number of environmental factors are particularly salient in online courses, such as ambiguity of definitions of cheating, actual or perceptual “distance”, level of instructor-student interaction, individual relevance or meaningfulness of activities and assessments, etc. Additionally, there are a number of more technical and technological factors that can increase or decrease both a student’s propensity to cheat, and his/her ability to cheat.

By considering these technical, methodological, and environmental factors, Distance Education at Utah Valley University has developed a rubric to assess online courses and report on potential factors that may increase or decrease the cheatability of online courses from design to delivery. This rubric is (1) provided to teachers engaging in distance education course development or instruction, (2) made available to administrators and department chairs as an example of our mutual interest in preserving the integrity of online education, and (3) implemented internally as a tool in our course design process to better evaluate and recommend online assessments before, during, and after an online course is delivered.

Because cheating itself is a complex and sensitive issue informed by experience and diverse perspectives, this session seeks to engage participants in a dialogue on cheating, online assessments, and technology. We predict there will be naturally flowing discussion and debate between participants who may favor one approach over another, e.g. a “direct assault” approach which seeks to thwart any and all attempts at cheating using technology or applied strategies, vs. “hearts and minds” pedagogical approaches that focus on course environment, assessment design, and student engagement.

Looking ahead to conferences in 2008, I’m already planning on attending ITC’s elearning conference in Florida in February as a pure particpant/observer. And of course I’ll be co-hosting and probably presenting at our Teaching w/ Technology Idea Exchange in June. There are a few other conferences that I’m interested in presenting at:

• Distance Teaching & Learning in Madison, Wisconsin (proposal deadline: Jan 15, 2008). I could do an online course showcase or two. Japanese comes to mind, and I’m pretty proud of my new version of Web Essentials. Or I could just push for a regular session proposal, but what topic? “Authentic Applications of Social Networking Tools”? or the yet-unfounded “LMS-Less”?
• Collaboration 2008 – The Southwest Vista User’s Group in Salt Lake City, Utah (proposal deadline: Jan 11, 2008). No idea on a topic here, as I’m not a BB Vista advocate, but I should try to present to support the Utah cause.
• WCET’s 20th Annual Conference is held in Phoenix, AZ November 5-8 this year. As far as I know, the call for proposals is not yet open, and I don’t see a proposal deadline. WCET sessions usually annoy me because each speakers get approx 15 minutes to talk, sharing a 50 minute session with other presenters who may or may not have similar ideas, and may or may not develop synergy. I would love to do a pre-conference at WCET this year, but am not sure how to go about suggesting one to the WCET folks.
• C()SL is sure to have another OpenEd 2008 conference, at which I’d love to present our still-alpha OpenMod for moodle. But will that ever be completed?

I think more than anything I simply need to motivate myself to come up with a good presentation and submit by said proposal due date(s). If needs be, I can use a vague title and determine the specific content as the months pass. I also am considering collaborating with colleagues on a presentation, though I myself often disdain presentations with multiple and unnecessary “support” presenters.

Which leads me to consider the fact that attending a conference can be quite different depending on whether I go by myself or with comrades. I’m a loner by nature, so the solo experience is wonderful in that I tend to learn a lot and reinforce my internal motivation to strive for excellence. I also tend to explore ideas fairly broadly. And I’m always concerned with the bang-for-buck factor of conferences, and so going by myself means the department has more money to spread around at the other conferences.

When I’m with colleagues or comrades, however, the experience is substantiated by the affective factor, and my exploration of ideas tends to be deeper as we discuss possibilities and scenarios together. We also seem to develop a stronger team relationship, and return from such conferences more socially engaged, which is, of course, a natural agent for productivity and innovation in the workplace.

Regardless, I’ll sure to be practicing my own peculiar style of session attendance, which has gained the dubious label of “The Jared Method” by Mr. Hugentobler, where I pop into one session, grab the printed materials, listen to the opening lines as I scan the materials to evaluate the session, then (often) pop out to investigate another session in like manner. If colleagues are involved I can often verify or correct my first impression of the session later in the day.