Tēnā koutou katoaGreetings to you all( 6 ) ( 5 ) ( 4 ) ( 3 ) << - related posts - >> ( 1 )For my last post in September, I write a tribute to the mistake. Having made several mistakes this month, I feel that I should extol the virtue of this much maligned, yet salutary indicator.Of all the things that one does in a lifetime, the mistake deserves an accolade for being among the most unwanted deeds - deliberate or accidental. It is charged with bringing embarrassment, shame and criticism to its architect, and when recognised, can be looked upon with scorn even by young children.Metaphors and euphemismsThere is a mountain of expressions, metaphors and euphemisms that are used for the mistake:blemish, bloomer, blot, blotch, blue, blunder, blur, boner, boob, boo-boo, bungle, clanger, error, fault, faux pas, flaw, folly, gaffe, gaucherie, glitch, gong, hitch, horlix, howler, impropriety, indiscretion, lapse, mark, miscue, misdeed, miss, misstep, oversight, problem, solecism, slip, spot, stain, trip, typo, woopsy, wrong - the list goes on!It is the doom of the skydiver, headache of the politician and the ruin of investors. But it does not deserve its reputation.The mistake is the initiator of precision and perfection. Consider the supreme champions of archery and marksmanship. Who from these groups would achieve such keen accuracy and exactness without ever having made a single mistake?Music to the earsAnyone who has just learnt to play even the easiest of musical instruments will be only too aware of the self-correcting quality that the mistake imparts to the custom and practice of the learner musician.The fine ear of the soprano singer is tuned by practice in infinitesimal degrees, through which the delicate ability of the human ear picks up disharmony and imperfection, within a beat per second, in even the highest pitched musical notes.If we were projected back in time to the days when Yasha Heifetz first scraped a tune on his violin, or Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart plonked his opening ditty on the piano, what illuminating wonders might we hear of the first and subsequent mistakes made by these celebrated virtuosos?Darren Roberts made a list of ten ways the mistake or its consequence, failure, can be of benefit to the learner:Encourages lateral thinkingGives us experienceBuilds characterEncourages the strong and discourages the weak!Makes you honest with yourselfMakes one more intangible and thick-skinnedSuccess too soon can give false confidenceEncourages improvement and planningReveals your weaknessesSuccess is the attitude; failure is the lever"The person who never made a mistake never made anything," is a Scottish adage. It implies that the mistake is part of the fundamental nucleus that is at the core of any acquisition through learning.It becomes the hallmark of excellence by its default.Go easy on the exponentsAs a teacher, I go easy on those who commit mistakes. I try to take care over how I address them:May I never misjudge in speech or printThe might of that trite word but. Far from slight,This subtle linking word is no mere hintOf denial, but is a halting light,A fleeting signal found among othersFar less importunate; it makes its markAlmost unwittingly, and being terseCan pass unnoticed like a curt choked bark,A harbinger of prejudice expressed.It is the stamp that damns the accolade,The debit to annul the funds imprest,The contempt to denounce all plaudits made:And if before I use it I think twice,I could save cutting a most unkind slice.So celebrate the mistake. It fetches music to the ears, brings home celebrated champions, gives us award-winning scholars, and it put men on the Moon.Ka kite anōCatch ya later

Tēnā koutou katoaGreetings to you allThis post is entirely my take on a current workplace problem. It is one that is being experienced by many who are charged with the duty to introduce the use of new technologies into the workplace. None of what's in this post is new, though my way of looking at it may be new to some people. In no way am I attempting to run over the much respected studies in communities of practice (CoP), though what is posited here may support that discipline.Why resist change?Change has been happening since communities first began. A quick look at the development of civilisation throughout history shows that change happened in fits and starts. Historians catalogued the periods according to the recognisable practices and cultures that prevailed during these times.There were periods when nothing seemed to alter significantly - over hundreds of years. Resisting change seems to be what people do.Long live the King!Many changes that did occur in communities were often brought about by a new ruling head of state, or equivalent, who introduced change by legislation. Communities did not necessarily always want change.Even with forced legislation, communities found ways of coping, and grew to live within the new conditions. When a ruler died, it was usual that communities preferred that the successor maintained the status quo. Of course, this didn’t always happen.Dynamic versus staticPractices that have survived for years within communities seem to be supported by a dynamic stability. Though small changes are constantly occurring within the working of these, most are subsumed with time.Over a significant period, however, their general appearance is of no major change. Such practices are genuinely stable. Their dynamic quality is not unlike those found in other systems.A 19th century engineer, Henry Le Châtelier, observed that systems in dynamic equilibrium tend to oppose any change brought on them from outside. Wikipedia explains it under Le Châtelier’s Principle:"Any change in status quo prompts an opposing reaction in the responding system."It has found application in many disciplines. Communities appear to behave similarly to the systems to which this tenet applies. Is it too implausible to assume that communities behave like other well-known systems in equilibrium?A vehicle for changeToday we read the reports from innovators who seek change in the use of new technology in the workplace. They are often dismayed at the resistance met in their attempts to bring about change in the use of new technology by others.This is significant considering that some of the most rapid changes in community practices, involving the use of new technology, have happened in the last few decades.Though it is a fantastic ingredient, present day technology cannot be held solely responsible for the advent of change. It may be the seed, but it has to be spread through practice.When this occurs, we say that the community moves with the technology. What actually happens is that the technology moves with the community. The vehicle for change may not be new technology; more likely it is the community.Imposing new technology on a workplace community is most likely to generate some resistance. This human behaviour has become well-recognised. Belief that new technology that takes off like a rocket in one community will do likewise in the workplace, is likely to be met with disappointment.Teenagers seek ownershipIt has been found that teenagers who get into Web2.0 technology generally do so to remove themselves, in some way, from adult supervision. You could see this in the moves made by teenagers in hopping from one social networking application to another. Teenagers did this simply because they found that the application they were currently using was becoming popular among adults.Teenagers want space to themselves - nothing new here. They also want ownership of their own space. Ownership is something that comes by default when teenagers seek a breakaway application to use in networking. They find it. It’s theirs.Can adults be a bit like teenagers?What if some of those characteristics survive the teenage years? What if ownership is something that adults can also appreciate when it comes to using a new technology? Ownership of the space generated by new technology could well be a community-assisting factor when it comes to introducing new technologies to the workplace.I've found that this approach has worked with learning resources used by teachers who were involved in the initial stages of planning and designing of the resources. Teachers who had ownership of the resources through this participation, were more likely to select them for student use than those who weren't involved in resource development.In summaryA community may well resist adoption of new technology as a property of the equilibrium that is a state of the community - it is likely that this is a human behavioural quality.The vehicle of change that brings the use of new technology by a community may well be the community itself, and not the technology.Ownership may well be key to a community adopting a new technology - ways have to be found to ‘gift’ the space for adoption of the technology by the community.Ka kite anōCatch ya later

Tēnā koutou katoaGreetings to you allrelated posts - >> ( 2 ) ( 1 )Tony Karrer has taken the initiative to revisit a question asked in a previous post, about First eLearning: What advice would you give to someonenew to the field of elearning?This question is worthy of being asked twice.I admit that I lurked on this one - for a few weeks.ObservationMy observation of teachers starting into elearning has shown that the usefulness of their experiences in the early stages can vary considerably. This is often because of ad hoc approaches to their so-called upskilling.This post outlines the areas of need I believe are essential for a first elearner. They are listed roughly in order of importance, but all are essential.No skill is too rudimentary to acquireLearners who are willing to put in the time, pursuing a grounding in these basic skills, on their own or in a course designed along the lines given here, will be well on the way to coping with elearning.At first reading, some of these skills may appear to be too rudimentary. If absent they will lead to faltering at the early stages when the elearning apprentice should be building on higher skills, as a student or as an elearning instructor.All of the skills listed here are those an elearning instructor may well need in helping a student learn the same skills, and so must form part of the elearning portfolio.Here's my To-learn-list for the Elearning Apprentice links to sections:(relevant information lies in a link at the start of each header)short-keysfile managementnetiquettesearch enginesstudy the URLan image authoring toolan html editor or html writerskills in LMS or VLEPre-requisite 1: Why a practicing knowledge of short-keys?As basic as this skill may seem, it is essential for any elearning apprentice to have a practicing knowledge of the rudiments of using short-cuts on the keyboard. Without these skills, working with the mouse on pull-down menus would prove tedious in the extreme. Short-keys are powerful key-strokes that find universal use on a huge variety of software.return to listPre-requisite 2: Why file management?File management skills are essential for e-tidiness. As much as these seem old hat (back to basics and all that) ignoring their essential worth can mean confusion, and even some real headachy problems for the apprentice elearner later on.As well, fundamentals such as knowledge and understanding of file dimension and file size, and the distinction between the two, are part of the ABC that an elearning apprentice must follow.Pre-requisite 3: Why netiquette?Basic communication skills are often overlooked. Elearning apprentices need those skills if only to assist with their own learning. For anyone intending to use their elearning skills for the instruction of others, netiquette is a life and death necessity.return to listPre-requisite 4: Why search engines?Being able to search effectively using a database or web search engine is another fundamental skill. It brings into play pre-requisites 1 and 2, and is the bread and butter of the elearning researcher.Pre-requisite 5: Why study the URL?Understanding the structure of a URL and what it means to the technician is key to understanding how links operate in web-based elearning today. An introductory knowledge of how a URL can be applied utilises a direct application of file management skills.return to listPre-requisite 6: Why an image authoring tool?An in-depth knowledge of an image authoring tool is not required and could well be a waste of time. I’d recommend that this be a part of an introduction, but not a major component. It can provide significant useful transferable skills.Designing images and attempting to make a simple animation can give an elearning apprentice the feel of how these tools work. Much of the fundamental theory of how they function is also transferable. Some authoring tools are more complex to use than others. The simplest is probably the most efficient to use in terms of time spent learning the basics.For instance, creating an animation in PhotoShop ImageReady involves much the same principles as in Flash. ImageReady is more likely to convey the principles with less angst and in a much shorter space of time, and so prove more effective. It may be that a suitable Web2.0 tool can convey the same transferable skills.The emphasis is on the transferable skills.return to listPre-requisite 7: Why an html editor or html writer?Once again, there are a lot of transferable skills that can be acquired from a good introduction to html writing/editing, without having to learn much at all of the hypertext markup language (html).A good WYSIWYG that permits the learner to appreciate layout as well as functionality, can open up a cornucopia of valuable skills.Building html in single pages on a server with relative links to images and other pages on the same server can also provide invaluable practice in file management. Building html in single pages with absolute links to Internet sites can be a useful skill for the elearning instructor.return to listPre-requisite 8: Why skills in LMS or VLE?The application of the aforementioned skills come into their own when an elearning apprentice operates, hands-on for the first time, a learning management system or virtual learning environment, such as Moodle. These applications are the bread and butter of elearning instruction.In the unlikely situation where the elearning apprentice does not have the opportunity to use one of those applications, building a blog and actively using it with links, uploads, downloads and embeds can cover many of the skills required. Participation in challenges, such as the past Comment Challenge, can provide the elearning apprentice with many far reaching skills and ideas for life-long elearning.Ka kite anōCatch ya later

Tēnā koutou katoaGreetings to you allI’m going to be very noncommittal (that’s a change! says you).Just take a moment or two to check out the video I was sent recently from my daughter’s Facebook account.Reflect on how you felt when you watched the video.You might like to watch it again.What’s the first thing you felt when the puppy responded?Was it an endearing feeling?Was it soppy cuteness?Was it an interest in Pavlovian reaction?Was it concern for the puppy?I’d like to learn about your response to this video. Please share how you felt by putting a comment at the end of this post.Ka kite anōCatch ya later

Tēnā koutou katoaGreetings to you all ( 7 )<< - related posts - >> ( 5 ) ( 4 ) ( 3 ) ( 2 ) ( 1 )I was catching up with my reading this morning. I’d been looking for a good site for tips on elearning writing skills, when I came across this one by Cathy Moore. I recommend it. You’d find it easy to read.She covers all the usual things on good writing: paragraphing, short sentences varying in length and structure, clear language and simple words.ReadabilityCathy has an ideal set of slides that you can scan quickly. She also explains about setting up Readability Statistics in Word. I’d no idea the option was there.Once set up, you can measure the Flesch Reading Ease on a click. It gives a first check on the ease of reading of a block of text.A study of popular magazines and newspapers shows a direct match between popularity and Flesch Reading Ease. The highest and most readable scores for the most popular magazines come in at 65.A tool, not a solutionCathy is careful to explain that it’s a tool, not a solution. Here’s how to set it up. Open a Word file and choose:Check that there’s a tick in Show readability statistics. Running a spell-check on a typical post in Word follows the usual routine, ending in a report. It shows a list of data, as well as the Flesch Reading Ease.I was a bit sceptical of all this at first, so I decided to put it to the test.I selected a number of my posts that I knew had been very popular, and some that were certainly not so. I keep Word files of the text of all my posts, so it was easy to check them on their Flesch Reading Ease.How I writeWhat I found made me stop and think again about how I write. Here’s a list of titles of some posts. I put them in order of popularity, measured from data in Google Analytics, beside their Flesch Reading Ease.FRE - Post Title65.7 - 5 Explanations of a Zen Proverb73.2 - Splitting the Knol71.1 - How do I know what I think till I see what I write?52.8 - So This is What You Want38.4 - Complexity Science and Social Media Learning34.8 - Science, Technology, The Silicon Chip and Social NeedI don't believe this is the only way to predict the popularity of a post. But clearly, these numbers are trying to tell me something. I think I may be looking at Readability Statistics in future.By the way, the Flesch Reading Ease of this post comes in at 75.8.Ka kite anōCatch ya later

Tēnā koutou katoaGreetings to you allcourtesy make your own comic Michele Martin has raised the issue of The Power of Blogging isn't Just in Reading Them, in a few of her posts. She has stuck to the idea that the power of blogging is in writing comments, rather than in lurking.I admire her. She is committed to what she believes.Learning through questions, and discussing in a classroom or social community, has gone on for hundreds of years. People have also learnt a great deal from books during that same time.Writing commentsSo what’s wrong with just reading a post and learning from it? What is so special to learning about writing a comment on a blog post?If learners want to learn, they will learn. The same desire may well tempt learners to put comments on blog posts. They may even ask questions there.So the difference between those who lurk and want to learn, and those who comment, may not be so great. Learning takes place when the learner wants to learn.Learning can happen if the learner sits quietly during class, for instance. Certainly, asking questions will help. But if learners do not ask questions in class, they may still go home and read about what they’ve learnt in a book. Many do. They may also lurk on a few blog posts on the Net.Early researchI have a lot of respect for the research done by Lev Vygotsky. He was a child psychologist who lived in the early 1900s. In recent years, Vygotsky’s findings have made people think about the importance of social interaction in learning. This led to a belief that learning may be better when learners study in communities.Some educators have come up with the idea that interactive online communities could be good learning environments for young people. This is not far removed from Michele’s idea that learning is more effective for the commenter than for the lurker.Most of Vygotsky’s studies were on mother and child. I doubt the notion is sound that Vygotsky’s findings can be extended to learners in online communities.A better approach to this might be to study the use of online learning communities. That way they could be compared fairly with other ways of learning.Learning methodsSo far, not much has been done to compare the use of interactive online learning in a fair way with other learning methods. There’s been little evidence that shows learners do any better when they study online than learning by other means, for instance.So I sit on the fence about the idea of getting people to write comments on blog posts as a better means to learn. I'm not at all sure that writing comments would be needed in every case. But for those who do need it, could a better ploy be to work on their desire to learn?Once they have that desire, they might even venture to ask questions - in comments on blog posts.Ka kite anōCatch ya later

Tēnā koutou katoaGreetings to you all( 5 ) ( 4 ) <<-related posts - >> ( 2 ) ( 1 ) courtesy make your own comicI'm drafting out a cybersafety policy for TCS.It's not an easy task. The policy should apply to everyone involved with the school. That means the whole school community.A mission of involvementI've drafted a sheet to introduce students and parents to what cybercitizenry is all about. It's the start of our mission to involve the whole school in being more responsible on the Net. It will be printed on one side of an A4 sheet. The sheet will also show the Hector's World logo that I am not permitted to display here.Have a scan of it. Tell me what you think by putting your comment at the base of this post. I need your advice on this first introduction:Things you must know about CybercitizenshipYoung people find lots of different things when viewing the Internet using digital equipment. While a lot of this can be fun, helpful and useful, some of it may upset them or cause distress.What is Cyberspace?Cyberspace is made up of the parts of the Internet that can be seen with digital tools. Students using it can learn. They may also find entertainment there. As well, people can meet others there. Links can be made between family and friends. They can find information there on almost any topic.What is Cybersafety?Cybersafety is the safe and responsible use of digital tools and gadgets that can access the Internet. These include mobile-phones, digital cameras and webcams. Each day, New Zealand children are exposed to the benefits, and potential risks of cyberspace.Even young children may be skilled in the use of digital tools. But they may not know how to use the Internet safely and responsibly.Everyone has the right to be safe. Adults share a special responsibility for the safety of children in this new space.What is Cybercitizenship?Anyone who goes online is a citizen of cyberspace. Young people learn to find their way round cyberspace in many ways. But they must also learn the basics of good behaviour as cybercitizens.Cybercitizenship is more than just knowing how to get on to the Internet. People need skills to think about things found there, as well as knowing how to look after personal data. They must learn to think of others and act in a responsible way to other cybercitizens.Learners need to know how to deal with things that might be risky. Young people are more able to get the best from the digital equipment when they follow the rules of cybercitizenship.Remember…A learner who may seem to know how to use the Internet may not have all the know-how to be cybersafe.For more on cybersafety, check out http://www.netsafe.org.nz/.To learn about helping the very young online, check outhttp://www.hectorsworld.com.Ka kite anōCatch ya later

Kia ora tātou!Hello everyone!related posts - >> ( 6 ) ( 5 ) ( 4 ) ( 3 ) ( 2 ) ( 1 )It’s been three months and 40 posts, since I first put Google Analytics on my blog (installed 15 July). Observing the trends shows me a lot.What I found was not what I expected. Here’s a summary of seemingly unrelated things I discovered by watching Google Analytics (GA).No weekly pattern has arisen.The average blog popularity shown by GA increased steadily over 3 months from about 12 to 25 hits per day.Stories are uniquely popular. People like to read accounts of my family and me but do not usually comment.People like reading about (and commenting on) blog statistics.The number of comments on a post doesn’t necessarily indicate its popularity. One of my most popular posts didn’t get any comment.Leaving a comment on another’s blog post can make a significant difference to my blog’s popularity during the following 3 to 5 days. If it's a popular blog, the increase can be quite noticable.Inclusion of links on a new post to related posts (as shown at the top of this one) can revive the popularity of these posts over the following 3 to 5 days.The average time viewers spend reading my posts has substantially increased from just over 1 minute to 3 minutes. There has not been a significant increase in the text length of posts over the same time.Site hit rate drops steadily during a period when I don’t post. For instance, the graph shown above indicates clearly this decline from the date of the last post, 10 Oct 2008, from 30 visits to 16 over a period of 4 days.The average bounce rate for all posts has decreased slightly from 59% to 57%.Unusual post topics incur a surprisingly low bounce rate, reaching lower than 12%. Some of those are about the blogosphere.Topics that show a bounce rate of 0% (and there are a significant number) have no common theme. Some of those are about the blogosphere.Ka kite anōCatch ya later

Tēnā koutou katoaGreetings to you allRalph McTell's Streets of London was written 40 years ago.Its heartbreaking lyrics and haunting melody yield a story of abject poverty found in every country throughout the world today. Ralph tells it as an observer.When I heard this song in 1970, its story stung my eyes with tears of reality. At that time, I'd already seen poverty scenes walking the streets of my home town in Scotland.How can you help?You can make a cash donation to a charitable organisation fighting poverty.You can donate food at the local community centre in your area. We have pickup points at our local supermarkets.You can donate good clothes to a Salvation Army store or similar charitable outlet near where you live.You can choose to take public transport instead of driving or walk to work on a day this week and donate the travel cost you save to a poverty charity of your choice.You can tell your friends what you are doing to help poverty and suggest that they do likewise.Ka kite anōCatch ya later

photo by Mike Wood.One morning in 2002, I took the bus to work as usual. I’d seated myself next to a man who was fingering a strange looking laptop. No sooner had I realised that the lap-top had no screen, when a bus inspector entered the vehicle and announced, "All tickets please!"The inspector walked past, checking tickets as he went. But the man sitting beside me was still holding up his ticket. It clicked with me that this lap-topper was blind."He’s checked your ticket," I said. He smiled and nodded without looking up. Steven was congenitally blind. His job involved working with the Foundation for the Blind in Wellington. The odd lap-top, with its strange toothed keyboard, was in fact a Braille computer.Blind to the technology:Here was I, an elearning teacher. But I hadn’t given much thought to how the blind might access the technology that was so much my bread and butter.I thought Steven had been typing a letter. He told me he could use his lap-top for that. In fact, he had been reading a novel. We swapped email addresses when I spoke of a free speaking web-reader that a colleague of mine had found on the Net that same week. It must have been among the first of its type - an early version of WeMedia Talking Browser.Steven was excitedly interested. At that time, the web reading technology he used at work was so expensive; he could not afford to purchase it for his own use at home.A useful link:We kept in touch by email. Steven was careful to let me know that the link I flicked him was useful. He’d found that installation was easy, and getting to know the idiosyncrasies of the software wasn’t too difficult. WeMedia was a helpful tool for reading the Net.Some weeks later we met again on the same bus route. While we chatted, I asked which novel he had been reading that morning. "I’m recalibrating my computer map today", he explained. I hadn’t noticed that clipped to his shoulder, next the window, was a small device, the size of a bulky mobile phone."According to my GPS receiver, we should be at the Riddiford Street intersection", he said with a smile. And we were. He had been synchronising his map by checking it against the GPS signal.Steven explained how his computer map had saved the day only a few weeks before. He and his wife had been travelling by car up north. They'd got lost. Within a few minutes, Steven switched on his lap-top and found precisely where they were, using his map and GPS receiver.( 1 ) << - related posts