Sunday, July 31, 2011
The lonely online learner
While online learning is the greatest thing invented since the 2-minute cup of noodles I’m worried about its side effects. All I’ve done since I’ve enrolled in this course is sit in a room facing my permanently-switched-on computer with the door closed, curtains drawn and a heater at my feet. I only leave the room to get a snack which I eat while I continue to surf, type and think of proper ways to comment on some highbrow theory. What’s even more worrying is that I’m developing a very broad and flat bum, sore neck, claw like fingers and a very negative attitude to nice people who dare to disrupt me to find out how I’m doing or invite me out. I don’t know if I’ll ever be comfortable in the real physical world again after this stay in the secluded and remote world of online learning.
Monday, July 25, 2011
A new definition of literacy
Remember when literacy was defined as the ability to read and write print-based materials? Well, if that’s all you are competent to do, then you are far removed from a world where people find, seek and make meaning from a technological mix of text, graphics, video and sound. You have never, for instance, participated in audio-visual conferences, used search-engines, responded to emails, visited virtual environments, websites and social networks, or created a personal website, blog or wiki (NSW Department of Education and Training, 2010). You don’t also have the literate skills to critique texts and comprehend information from multiple perspectives, or the ability to deal with complex interfaces, countless images, video clips, pop-ups, real-time texts, downloads, hyperlinked texts and icons.
Today’s students who have access to all that technology at their finger-tips so to speak will be required to use higher-order thinking skills to “distinguish fact from fiction, argument from documentation, real from fake, and marketing from enlightenment (Jenkins, Purushotma, Clinton, Weigel & Robison, 2006 p. 44). The impact of using highly honed thinking skills is that educators must be prepared for negotiated curriculums where students will approach a task using different strategies and diverse sources and arrive at various conclusions. Students will also be evaluated on how fast they locate, evaluate, use, communicate and disseminate information through a variety of technologies. In an education setting where learners may be more literate in new technologies than the instructor, the role of the educator is to be “ less sage on stage” and more a “guide from the side” where the former suggests the teacher as lecturer and the latter, teacher as facilitator (Gordon 2009, p. 61).
Yet, technology is not without its challenges. Mastering a software application will not be enough, for instance, to develop informed decision-making and critical thinking skills. Successful learners are creators of information rather than passive software users. Educators must also be vigilant about the lack of access of some learners to technology and its learning opportunities creating what educators call the participation gap. Those with computers are able, for example, to develop comprehension skills and the competency to quickly and easily find information online. Assessing technology skills is another challenge. How does one assess a student’s ability to locate and analyse the information on a webpage or grade them for their co-construction of content in a wiki or for their contributions to online discussions?
Defining literacy in today’s context could be perceived as an elusive task. As new technologies for information, communication and collaboration emerge literacy may be thought of as a moving target, continually changing its meaning depending on what society expects literate individuals to do. As Howard Gardner (2008) has so aptly put it, literacy – or an ensemble of literacies – will continue to thrive, but in forms and formats we can’t yet envision.
References
Gardner, H. (2008, 17 February). The end of literacy? Don’t stop reading. The Washington post. Retrieved from http://www.washingtonpost.com
Gordon, C. (2009).An emerging theory for evidence based information literacy instruction in school libraries, Part 1: Building a foundation. Evidence-based library and information practice, Vol.4:2. Retrieved from http://ejournals.library.ualberta.ca/index.php/EBLIP/article/view/5614/5320
Jenkins, H., Purushotma, R., Clinton, K., Weigel, M. & Robison, A. (2006). Confronting the challenges of participatory culture: Media education for the 21st century. the MacArthur Foundation, Chicago. Retrieved from http://newmedialiteracies.org/files/working/NMLWhitePaper.pdf
NSW Department of Education and Training (DET). (2010). Literacy Learning and Technology. Retrieved from http://www.curriculumsupport.education.nsw.gov.au/literacy/assets/pdf/packages/tech_lit_learn.pdf
Today’s students who have access to all that technology at their finger-tips so to speak will be required to use higher-order thinking skills to “distinguish fact from fiction, argument from documentation, real from fake, and marketing from enlightenment (Jenkins, Purushotma, Clinton, Weigel & Robison, 2006 p. 44). The impact of using highly honed thinking skills is that educators must be prepared for negotiated curriculums where students will approach a task using different strategies and diverse sources and arrive at various conclusions. Students will also be evaluated on how fast they locate, evaluate, use, communicate and disseminate information through a variety of technologies. In an education setting where learners may be more literate in new technologies than the instructor, the role of the educator is to be “ less sage on stage” and more a “guide from the side” where the former suggests the teacher as lecturer and the latter, teacher as facilitator (Gordon 2009, p. 61).
Yet, technology is not without its challenges. Mastering a software application will not be enough, for instance, to develop informed decision-making and critical thinking skills. Successful learners are creators of information rather than passive software users. Educators must also be vigilant about the lack of access of some learners to technology and its learning opportunities creating what educators call the participation gap. Those with computers are able, for example, to develop comprehension skills and the competency to quickly and easily find information online. Assessing technology skills is another challenge. How does one assess a student’s ability to locate and analyse the information on a webpage or grade them for their co-construction of content in a wiki or for their contributions to online discussions?
Defining literacy in today’s context could be perceived as an elusive task. As new technologies for information, communication and collaboration emerge literacy may be thought of as a moving target, continually changing its meaning depending on what society expects literate individuals to do. As Howard Gardner (2008) has so aptly put it, literacy – or an ensemble of literacies – will continue to thrive, but in forms and formats we can’t yet envision.
References
Gardner, H. (2008, 17 February). The end of literacy? Don’t stop reading. The Washington post. Retrieved from http://www.washingtonpost.com
Gordon, C. (2009).An emerging theory for evidence based information literacy instruction in school libraries, Part 1: Building a foundation. Evidence-based library and information practice, Vol.4:2. Retrieved from http://ejournals.library.ualberta.ca/index.php/EBLIP/article/view/5614/5320
Jenkins, H., Purushotma, R., Clinton, K., Weigel, M. & Robison, A. (2006). Confronting the challenges of participatory culture: Media education for the 21st century. the MacArthur Foundation, Chicago. Retrieved from http://newmedialiteracies.org/files/working/NMLWhitePaper.pdf
NSW Department of Education and Training (DET). (2010). Literacy Learning and Technology. Retrieved from http://www.curriculumsupport.education.nsw.gov.au/literacy/assets/pdf/packages/tech_lit_learn.pdf
Saturday, July 23, 2011
Animation in education
During my first job as a reporter in a Singapore newspaper several, and I mean several, years ago, I attended a training programme to learn the conventions of newspaper writing and how to increase my productivity by writing against very tight deadlines. I still remember the horror I felt when we were given huge antique-looking typewriters to produce our articles. Everything in that mechanical junk conspired to work against my race with time. The keys had to be deeply and firmly pressed to get a print out and worse, my edit button was a bulky rubber eraser. Thankfully, our real workspace was equipped with computers and customised software configured for the fast production of our articles for the 4 am production of the daily newspaper.
My point is, technology was in my time all about speed, volume and productivity. Not that it isn’t that way today, but we’re better now at using it to do some beautiful things for us like create and entertain and learn and play. For my blogs, I am going to spend some time researching and grasping the beauty of a feature of technology that I can use to make teaching and learning a more dynamic process. I will start with the role of animation in adult learning. The animated video by Robinson (2010) on what’s wrong with our current education, speaks for itself.
While educational animation has all the indications that the content will engage, motivate and educate the reader better than, say, static images would, Lowe and Schnotz (2008) argue that research on the inherent effectiveness of animation in learning is not conclusive. They suggest that animated materials can only be successful if the design employs principles that govern how learners develop understanding when they work with animation. For this reason Lowe and Schnotz (2008) have published a book with lessons for an improved way to design educational animations for a range of contexts. The first section in the book titled Information Search and Processing shows how to create tasks from animation. The second section on Individual Differences and Strategies, discusses how animation influences learning. The third section on Interactivity and Learning illustrates the potential benefits of using advanced technology for interactive learning, and the fourth section titled Instructional Issues draws on several research sources for the best strategies on the use of animation in learning.
Wohl, Christie, Matheson and Anisman, (2010) present an example of how an educational animation was successfully used in a gambling intervention survey. The nine-minute presentation began with a conveyor-belt metaphor to illustrate that persistence in slot-machine gambling would not bring a player closer to a win. Instead, a bag of marbles metaphor showed that slot machines operated on the principle of sampling with replacement where the original odds are reset with each play. Then a cylinder metaphor was used to show the actual odds of winning on a slot machine as 90,000 to 1. The presentation concluded with a message listing seven low-risk practices on how to stay within expenditure limits when gambling. In the feedback, respondents who watched the animation said they understood the concept of sampling with replacement by not endorsing the conveyor belt metaphor. I think this is testimony of what Lowe and Schnotz (2008) were trying say about how animated material is more successful if it employs the principles of learning.
References
Wohl, M., Christie, K., Matheson, K., & Anisman, H. (2010). Can animation-based education correct erroneous cognitions and reduce the frequency of exceeding limits among slots players? Retrieved from the Ontario Problem Gambling Research Centre website 2490_Wohl Research Summary FINAL.pdf
Robinson, K. (2010). RSA animate: Changing education paradigms. Retrieved from the Extreme Presentation ™ method website http://extremepresentation.typepad.com/blog/2010/10/sir-ken-robinson-on-education-animated.html
Lowe, R. & Schnotz, W. (Eds). (2008). Learning with animation: Research implications for design.
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, New York.
My point is, technology was in my time all about speed, volume and productivity. Not that it isn’t that way today, but we’re better now at using it to do some beautiful things for us like create and entertain and learn and play. For my blogs, I am going to spend some time researching and grasping the beauty of a feature of technology that I can use to make teaching and learning a more dynamic process. I will start with the role of animation in adult learning. The animated video by Robinson (2010) on what’s wrong with our current education, speaks for itself.
While educational animation has all the indications that the content will engage, motivate and educate the reader better than, say, static images would, Lowe and Schnotz (2008) argue that research on the inherent effectiveness of animation in learning is not conclusive. They suggest that animated materials can only be successful if the design employs principles that govern how learners develop understanding when they work with animation. For this reason Lowe and Schnotz (2008) have published a book with lessons for an improved way to design educational animations for a range of contexts. The first section in the book titled Information Search and Processing shows how to create tasks from animation. The second section on Individual Differences and Strategies, discusses how animation influences learning. The third section on Interactivity and Learning illustrates the potential benefits of using advanced technology for interactive learning, and the fourth section titled Instructional Issues draws on several research sources for the best strategies on the use of animation in learning.
Wohl, Christie, Matheson and Anisman, (2010) present an example of how an educational animation was successfully used in a gambling intervention survey. The nine-minute presentation began with a conveyor-belt metaphor to illustrate that persistence in slot-machine gambling would not bring a player closer to a win. Instead, a bag of marbles metaphor showed that slot machines operated on the principle of sampling with replacement where the original odds are reset with each play. Then a cylinder metaphor was used to show the actual odds of winning on a slot machine as 90,000 to 1. The presentation concluded with a message listing seven low-risk practices on how to stay within expenditure limits when gambling. In the feedback, respondents who watched the animation said they understood the concept of sampling with replacement by not endorsing the conveyor belt metaphor. I think this is testimony of what Lowe and Schnotz (2008) were trying say about how animated material is more successful if it employs the principles of learning.
References
Wohl, M., Christie, K., Matheson, K., & Anisman, H. (2010). Can animation-based education correct erroneous cognitions and reduce the frequency of exceeding limits among slots players? Retrieved from the Ontario Problem Gambling Research Centre website 2490_Wohl Research Summary FINAL.pdf
Robinson, K. (2010). RSA animate: Changing education paradigms. Retrieved from the Extreme Presentation ™ method website http://extremepresentation.typepad.com/blog/2010/10/sir-ken-robinson-on-education-animated.html
Lowe, R. & Schnotz, W. (Eds). (2008). Learning with animation: Research implications for design.
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, New York.
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