On November 16, 1974, the Arecibo radio-telescope in Puerto Rico, transmitted a radio signal to outer space. It was directed at a globular cluster, M13 - a massive cluster of hundreds of thousands of stars, some 25,100 light years away. This was an attempt to communicate with galactic civilizations outside our own galaxy.Communicating in space:The Arecibo message consisted of digital information. Laid out in an array of 73 rows by 23 columns, it may appear like the picture above.The pattern in white, along the top row, defines the binary code used throughout the rest of the message. The second line shows information about the 5 essential elements of which we are made - hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus. The blocks in green and blue and the vertical white block show the special parts that make up DNA, the building blocks of life itself.Other parts to the left and right of the little red creature, show respectively the average height and population of the creatures here on earth. The yellow line depicts the sun and the relative sizes and positions of its eight planets and dwarf planet. Earth is identified by its displacement in the pattern. The violet radio telescope points to the code in white that shows the size of the telescope.If the Arecibo message is detected and decoded by a galactic civilization, it will take over 50,000 years before we will receive a reply. If we ever receive one, let's hope it's not the equivalent of a voice-mail message.More detailed information about our position in the universe was sent in another direction in 1977 on the Voyager mission. A capsule contained a gold recording of sounds here on earth, together with explicit engravings on its gold cover showing our precise location in the solar system.Courtesy NASA.Communicating in cyberspace:Much of the advice given to young learners networking in cyberspace is to do with the protection of personal identity. Young networkers, who understand the risks, use a nickname in their communications. They take care not to share personal data such as full name, age, phone number, email address or street address.Both the Arecibo message and the Voyager information contravene the precautions now recognised to protect personal information when communicating. If these missions were launched today, would we be so willing to share precise details about ourselves as well as our precise location? We'll have to wait a bit to find out what the consequences might bring us.( 5 ) <<- related posts->> ( 3 ) ( 2 ) ( 1 )

Mercury photographed by Mariner 10 - 1974 Courtesy NASA.You may not have realised that the image of the Voyager record cover in my previous post was copyright free. Oh yes, I credited the image source - NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration).At the turn of the century (I love that line) I was building a series of digital resources on astronomy. Where did I get my images from? NASA.I remember getting a call from our copyright officer, way back in 2000. He wanted to check out some of the things I’d been building - for copyright clearance, etc. I bundled all the resources I’d had onto a CD. Some had already gone up on the web site.I had my heart in my mouth, for I’d spent a lot of time creating these resources. But when I showed the pictures to our copyright officer, all he came up with was a beaming smile from ear to lug.You see, I’d remembered to credit NASA on every photograph. Here’s a recent close up of Mercury. That’s right. The planet. It was taken by the Messenger spacecraft on its second sweep past the first rock from the sun. You can learn more about that mission at the Messenger site.Mercury photographed by NASA's Messenger - 2008Courtesy NASA.NASA photographs of astronauts, or members of their family, are not quite the same though. It would be courteous to clear any such photographs with the people at NASA before publishing.The pictures are fabulous - literally out of this world.Thank you NASA! Thank you America! Thank you Obama!

A perennial difficulty for teachers and trainers is establishing effective learner engagement. In recent years, interest has been high in this area. Frequent engagement is seen as a powerful indicator of the success of a learning programmeParticipation is a feature of dynamic learner engagement. Michele Martin recognised this through her assertion that the worth of learning in a wiki, blog or chat room is improved when learners participate through comments.But for this to happen, the teacher/trainer must mediate in a way that initiates and maintains learner participation. In the main, learners won’t participate just because there are wonderful things to learn.Techniques for this have been practiced and improved in the classroom for centuries. Stimulating online engagement is more difficult when the learner does not have direct contact with the teacher/trainer, or with other learners.My experience is that there is a portfolio of techniques that contribute to successful elearner engagement. How these are applied relies on the experience and personality of the teacher/trainer and how online resources are selected for use. I summarise these techniques here.Teacher/trainer mediation:This is a most important factor. For many learners, engagement will not be initiated if there is no teacher/trainer mediation. Initially, it must be regular, and it must be done by the teacher/trainer actively contacting the learner directly.Encouragement and assistance when needed is provided through this mediation. The type of technology used to mediate will depend on what is available to the learner and the teacher/trainer at the time. It is not rocket science. There is often no need for sophistication.Many younger learners still respond well to contact by landline phone or mobile - vocal or text. Use of a webcam, through Skype or other related technology, can also provide the necessary presence of the helpful encouraging teacher. But this technology does not provide the necessary intervention provided by phone.Daily contact may be required in the initial stages and I'd recommend it. The frequency can be reduced after a while. Less often than once a week, however, is likely to be met with a decline in learner engagement.Ease of use:Digital equipment should be transparent when used for teaching and learning. I’m talking about barriers here. Even the keyboard can provide a barrier to some learners, so there will be basic minimum skills requirements for the learner if such barriers are to be insignificant.The design of the learning management system plays an important part in encouraging engagement. It is the interface between the learner and the learning resources, so it must be simple to use. Getting to the learning material should involve the minimum number of screens and links to click through. A good maximum rule is three clicks from logon.Selection of digital resources:The term digital learning resource refers to just about anything that can be sent to a learner by email, or downloaded from the Internet, and displayed on the screen. The scope of what can be made available, from a simple data chart to a sophisticated interactive device capable of assessing student learning, is too broad for me to discuss here.However, there are two simple rules that can be applied to their use. The first is to do with quality and appropriateness. The second is to do with how they are used.Pedagogy:Selection of a digital resource, or even a related series of them, has to be done carefully and with the learner in mind. It is not just sufficient to provide a resource that covers the topic or part of a topic. A learning resource that is difficult for the learner to use, for whatever reason, will discourage engagement.It could be that the reading level of the text in the resource is above the level in the learner. When this happens, even the most colourful and attractively interactive resource will offer poor encouragement if learning relies on reading from the text.Frequency of use:Learners tire from lack of variety of approach and media providing learning. A large module, built entirely of digital resources, provides little incentive to progress to the next module. This applies particularly if an unvarying template is used throughout a course.An interactive digital resource is excellent for a one-off tutorial or for revision, provided it is not exactly the same as the resource used earlier in the module.Death by Chocolate:I apply the good chef metaphor when selecting digital resources:A poor chef includes chocolate as an ingredient in every dish. But it is a shortsighted one who excludes its use altogether. If the only recipe available that includes it is a mediocre one, then chocolate should be off the menu.A good chef chooses recipes wisely.In sum:Timely feedback is essential for effective learning.Frequent teacher/trainer mediation provides support when needed.Encouragement lets the learner know someone is looking after them. Though the frequency of teacher/trainer mediation can be eased once a good level of engagement has been established, infrequent mediation leaves the learner feeling abandoned. If the learner ‘switches off’, the whole cycle often needs to be started over again.As with digital resources - variety of technique, media and learner activities all ward off boredom and make learning fun. Boredom wins the award for the greatest incentive for learners to disengage. Having fun is a natural companion to learning.( 6 ) ( 5 ) << - related posts - >> ( 3 ) ( 2 ) ( 1 )

WARNING! LONG POSTIn my previous post, I outlined a portfolio of techniques that contribute to successful elearner engagement. Most of the techniques were those I developed during a period of research from 2000 to 2002 while teaching at The Correspondence School (TCS).In 2002, I presented a paper at the DEANZ Conference. I was part way through the research project. The results I’d gathered of my year 10 and year 11 learners who were following a programme of learning in Science, had shown promise the previous year.It was on the strength of that research (2001) that I presented my paper at DEANZ 2002. At the end of that year, I had clear evidence that the success I’d seen the previous year was reproducible.At DEANZ 2008, I was set to present a paper on the findings of my research (2000 to 2002). Through an administrative swan-up (a swan is bigger than a cockerel) I never presented my paper. Here is a brief summary of what I would have presented.Research in elearning and associated resources:TCS eSection (2001 - 2002) was a pilot group of 10 teachers, from early childhood to secondary, headed by Derek Wenmoth. The position description for a teacher in the eSection carried the following objectives:Responsible for enhancing the educational outcomes of students, through the provision of appropriate resources and frequent interaction with the student that provides meaningful and informative feedback on progress and engages and motivates the students in learning.The establishment of the eSection was a first step towards achieving the goals outlined in the strategic plan of TCS. It was proposed that this would see us move rapidly towards elearning, while also maintaining a traditional curriculum delivery. The School was ultimately to adopt a new interactive teaching model, making use of digital resources.Within the confines of the position description, teachers in the eSection were to find out the most effective ways to communicate with learners. We were to explore methods to create digital resources and to discover the most efficient ways to teach distance students using available digital technologies.Day to day contact with elearners:This was an exciting time. As a distance educator of several years, I’d never had an opportunity to be in contact with my students on a day-to-day basis, and for them to have direct access to a digital learning environment that provided immediate assistance when required.Past experience in science teaching had taught me the significance of using models and visual resources that supplemented and enriched traditional learning methods.There was no elearning management system in the school when we began preparation in 2000 for the following year. By the time the School had chosen to use Blackboard, I had already organised my learners, each with their own web pages that I posted their assignments to - I never got round to using Blackboard in this research.A simple elearning interface:At the end of 2001 I had a rudimentary learning management system designed and built by a brilliant technician, Glen Ogilvie, with some suggestions from me.The simple LMS was robust and easy to use. It permitted my learners to access their own page where they viewed a summary of their progress. Assignments that learners had completed, as well as those on hand, were displayed, together with links to the relevant digital resources.The courses my learners followed were all print based and consisted of write-on booklets. My job was to support them in their journey through the courses. As well, I was to provide them with digital learning resources that enhanced and extended the curriculum coverage of each Science booklet.Here is a link to the enhancement page that accompanied the second of two year 11 booklets on electricity.The html scripts on the resources were designed for the latest Internet Explorer Browser in 2002. Links may not operate the same way in more up to date browsers (for example, when viewed in Firefox, glossary links are opened with a double click).In the weeks leading up to sitting the external National Certificate of Educational Achievement examination in Science, all eSection year 11 students were provided with an online tips page. I use this same updated page with my learners today.Here are excerpts from my end of year report 2002.Year 10 group:The engagement and achievement of year 10 eSection science students (2002) reflected the results that I’d found with the previous, though smaller, group of year 10 students in 2001. In general, work submitted by students was of a high standard.The return of student work showed that significantly more of the course was completed than would have been expected from students in the mainstream school. This, as well as anecdotal evidence gathered from student responses and other areas over the two years, suggested that the learning environment that was made available motivated student learning (for example see Case Study - Alycia).Year 11 groups:The mainstream level 1 science students I taught in terms 3 and 4 provided data which allowed a comparison between elearning and mainstream students. Only a few students in the mainstream group had an email address, so communication with those students was chiefly by return of marked work and written letter.There was a significant difference between the average achievement of students in the eSection group compared with the mainstream group. In the following analysis, the term "active student" refers to a student who had sent in at least one item of booklet work this year.Selection of students for comparison of the groups:There was virtually no socioeconomical background information, either recorded on the student database, or available elsewhere in the School, of the students in the groups.All active eSection students reached the standard to pass in at least one area of achievement. Six active mainstream students did not send in any test material for assessment, including the School September examination.For statistical purposes, it was necessary to discount these latter students for a fair comparison to be made since the total absence of standard test submissions from a student did not necessarily mean that the student had not reached the standard in at least one area of achievement. It was considered that student data selected in this way provided a more valid comparison.Comparison of achievement:The selection process gave a group of 15 eSection students and a group of 15 mainstream students. The average number of booklets returned per student by each group was almost the same.Tables 1 and 2 show the actual achievement standard test results of active students in the eSection group and the mainstream group respectively. In charts 1 and 2, the number of complete booklets returned, and the number of passes in each category (pass, merit or excellence) is represented as "average per student".For the eSection group, the number of achievement standard tests that gained at least a pass averaged a value of 3.3 per student. The corresponding student data for the mainstream group showed that the number of achievement standard tests that gained at least a pass averaged a value of 2.8 per student.One eSection student passed all achievement standard tests with excellence. If the contribution due to this student is ignored, the most significant difference between the groups is the number of achievement standard tests passed with merit and averaged per student. In the eSection group. Almost twice as many students passed standards with merit as achieved straight passes. In the mainstream group, however, the number of passes gained with merit and the number of straight passes were the same.Tables of raw data on standards achieved 2002:Table 1 (achievement data for eSection group).Table 2 (achievement data for mainstream group).Bar charts - averaged per student (year 11 groups). click chart to enlarge.Case Study - Alycia - 2002:This case study is of a student I taught in 2001. The name of the student and her grandmother’s name are aliases. All other information relates directly to the student.Alycia is a delightful, 15 years old, full time student. She lives with her grandmother, Mary, a very caring, supportive caregiver who shares Alycia’s many interests and encourages her to pursue those as well as her school studies.Alycia does not keep good health. It was partly due to this, and the treatment she was receiving for it, that eventually brought about her referral to TCS by Special Education Support. Evidently her appearance, brought on by the medication she was given, had contributed to her being the victim of severe bullying in her previous school.Among other subjects she studied was year 10 Science. The eSection year 10 Science course is made up of two parts:Paper based resources - 15 standard Correspondence School booklets covering all aspects of the year 10 science curriculum.Web enhancements that accompany lessons in the paper based resources, permitting student self-assessment, as well as providing direct email feedback between teacher and student.Alycia was immediately stimulated to learn more about science when she became a student in the eSection. She seemed to really enjoy using the computer for her lessons and saw the potential it had to help her to learn. One of the comments put on the student database by her form teacher was:"(Alycia) really enjoying science with the e-school. Is doing this to the exclusion of other subjects."Her interest in science was obvious. Alycia wrote this in one of her early emails:"I’ve got to tear myself away to work on my other courses . . . !"Alycia visits her grandfather regularly. One day she took her science lessons to show her grandfather, for she was able to access her page on her grandfather’s computer. The next day she sent me an email about it:". . . He is very interested in Science and so is really pleased that I am too. He thought the activities were really great. . . . . . I really enjoyed the lab and so did my Grandad."Alycia had used the computer to bridge a generation gap with a common interest in learning about Science.I believe that it was the inclusion of the computer and the support that Alycia received from Mary, that prompted her to take up Computer Studies midway through the year. This year and last, Alycia has achieved most of the credits in Computing at level 2 and at level 3 towards a National Certificate.At the beginning of term 2, Alycia had access to her own web page on TCS web site. Her page held the links to the digital enhancements to her Science lessons. She was quick to provide me with a digital photograph of her new bichon frise puppy to put on her web page. She took a real pride in using the web page in her science learning.Alycia’s enthusiasm for anything that takes her interest was evident from the start. This was the case with her eagerness to learn about Science, her zeal in using computers, and her joy in making her own music.Alycia’s interest in music was made apparent to me just after the September 11 terrorist attack in New York. She wrote a song about the attack and its implications for humanity, and sent me a copy of the words in an email. At the same time she apologised for not being able to let me hear her song.I sent her the site for Pure Voice, one of the recommended free technologies used for sending voice messages by email. When Alicia had downloaded the software, she and Mary immediately sang the song into her computer microphone and sent me a copy of the recording by email. The song was in two-part harmony with a twin guitar accompaniment, sung and played by her and Mary.It was some weeks later, when Alycia was recovering from a period of illness, that I put a music sound file on her web page, at her request. The music was a simple electronic piece and was selected so that it played as soon as she opened her web page. When Alycia eventually got back to her normal work routine and visited her web page, she brimmed with enthusiasm at what she had heard and sent me an email:"I've been really snowed under with personal pressures and work so it hasn't been until now that I've been able to really get back into work. I went into my web page today and I heard the music. I think the music is great, it's a really fun beat and it's got a really funky sound. I love it."Alycia went on to complete the year 10 Science course, and did very well in her overall achievement in Science. She was well equipped to go on to study her chosen year 11 subjects in 2002.The events outlined in this case study show the significance of the incidental interactions, as well as the subject specific interactions, between student and teacher in the development of a good working rapport in the distance learning environment. Key to this success is the immediacy of the communication between student and teacher, made possible by the computer.Alycia’s case is by no means an exception, for it is the close proximity of student and teacher, brought about by using digital technology, which can facilitate student centred learning in a distance learning environment.return to year 10 group( 6 ) <<- related posts - >> ( 4 ) ( 3 ) ( 2 ) ( 1 )

If this is the first time you’ve visited this blog, or even if you have had a chance to read a few posts, you may be wondering what this blog is all about. If you are a regular visitor, you might still be wondering - you should also be congratulated for sticking with me this far.On this auspicious centennial occasion, I have pledged to give you a quick run down on how this blog started, what its reasons are for being, and whether it’s going to be worth your while visiting again during its next hundred or so posts - a daunting thought!When and why was it built?Construction began in May 2008 as part of the Comment Challenge - a set of reflective learning tasks for commenters and beginner bloggers. May was not an easy month for me. During that time, the framework of the blog was put in place on a foundation of blood, sweat and tears.Before June, the blog generated 24 posts. Many of these related directly to the assignments given by Michele Martin to help me to become a blogger. Michele is to be thanked profusely for her patience, advice, determination and her attempts to create a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.Why Blogger?I’d like to think that the ‘Blogger’ bit is evident. But in all fairness to the critical thinking reader, I chose ‘Blogger’ because:It’s the nickname of the provider of my blog.I always wanted to be a blogger (at least since the end of last century).The sound of the word connotes someone who is down-to-earth (cf. bog (ger), logger, etc) and I think of myself as a down-to-earth straight thinker. (I know! Many will dispute this. So?)Why Middle-earth?Middle-earth is the name that J R R Tolkien gave to the mythical land of the hobbits. It is also the name given affectionately to Wellington City by Peter Jackson who has a home there. He is the Oscar-winning film producer whose genius blossomed in his Lord of The Rings film trilogy, premiered in Wellington.Much of that epic was filmed in Wellington. As well, Weta Workshop is in Wellington. Weta created the amazing animated creatures and other props used in the making of the trilogy.I live in Wellington, so the Middle-earth part of the name is relevant on several counts. The same reasoning sprang to mind when I named my little book published last year, called Sonnets of Middle-earth. Though my interest is poetry, what I write may not be.Why astronomy?The use of observations of planets, stars and other phenomena in the cosmos dates back thousands of years. Through watching the stars, legend has it that around 950 AD, Kupe navigated his way to the shores of Aotearoa (New Zealand). Astronomy is part of the culture and folklore that belong to the Māori people of Aotearoa.Regular visitors may have noticed that, occasionally, I write a post related to astronomy (not astrology). No, I’m not an astronomer. But I do have an interest in Science. Believe it or not, astronomy was the first true Science.Why learning?Science and knowledge are often said to be one and the same. Many people believe that knowledge can only be acquired through a journey into learning. Which brings us to another reason for this blog.Of the hobbits who lived in Middle-earth, one or two in particular went on what were amazing journeys, there and back again. With the help of others, they brought back many secrets. My hope is that, in this blog, we can continue our journeys of exploration, into the little-known land of elearning.Who knows what treasure we may bring back?

Self-assessment is one of these lonely things that some may think smacks of navel-gazing. The practice may not always be looked on as a laudable, useful activity. In the context of apportioning ticks for knowledge or ups for skill achievement, it looks inward.Yet for the lone learner, it has the potential to be a very important and effective learning tool. The temporarily, teacherless elearner has little option than to practice self-assessment. Indeed, any learner who takes the initiative to learn on one’s own (as a life-long learner would) is confronted with the need to assess his or her own learning progress.In this post I’m going to attempt to list the pros and cons of learner self-assessment with a view to providing possible insight into ways of improving its design.the pros:Timeliness:Even the simplistic answer-at-the-back-of-the-book has the advantage of immediacy. As a young and failing student of Mathematics, I was saved from continuing along that path of failure. I was given a gift of a falling-apart Math textbook from a caring teacher.It had the answers at the back. Many successful distance students have discovered what I did - immediate feedback of knowledge gain, or skill attainment, can provide powerful encouragement for further learning.It can be performed at a time convenient to oneself, as can the learning activities that should accompany it. Through a series of immediate self-adjustments in learning or understanding, acquisition of skills and knowledge can be accelerated.Self-paced:Self-assessment can be a complementary accompaniment to self-paced learning. No other form of assessment is as convenient in this respect. For some learners, it can also be looked on as non-threatening. There is no embarrassment borne by checking one’s own answers - no possible exposure to others of ignorance for the sensitive learner.No need for sophistication:Computer based instruction, or any development of that, can be a facile means of self-assessment. Even if it’s the computer that does the assessing, the learner is still in control of the learning pace. Well-designed digital resources don’t have to be overly sophisticated to be successful either. Their real strength is immediacy. When the resources are being designed, there is always the potential to give helpful explanation and further teaching where appropriate.Strength in introversion:The introverted learner can often find an inner strength that contributes to momentum gained in learning. For those learners who can provide this for themselves, it can bring a new self-confidence.the cons:The solitary learner:Self-paced self-assessment in learning is a lonely journey for many learners. For some it can also be depressing. A lot of its success depends on personality. The extroverted learner who enjoys discussing and chatting around the topic can find the learning atmosphere brought on by self-assessment to be hollow, lonely and boring.Assessment requires energy:Learning on one’s own requires energy and initiative. The learner is required to bring energy to the learning process nearly all of the time. Self-assessment can be just another boring task that the learner has to do. In this respect the digital resource may provide some relief. However, energy is still required to ‘hook on’ to the learning. Without that, the process can become mechanical and the incentive to stay on track can fade away.Lack of encouragement:Nearly all of the encouragement provided by self-assessment comes from the learner. There is no great pat on the back - no accolade that brings the moment of joy and celebration of what has been accomplished in learning. It can be nothing more than ho-hum, which is far short of encouraging.Frustration in extroversion:The extroverted learner, who needs people around for ideas and interaction, can become frustrated and exasperated with the task of self-assessment. Some find dredging up the energy for learning to be enough of a chore, without adding to it yet another duty of checking for mistakes or learning that’s gone awry.In summary:In most elearning environments, computer assisted self-assessment can form a major part of the learning cycle. So critical is this to learning, that the design of the feedback given to the learner can make or break successful engagement. A simple RIGHT or WRONG response has its uses. But it can be severely limiting when it comes to encouraging engagement.A better process may lie in providing a sweep through part or all of the learning cycle, perhaps without having to say YOU'RE WRONG. Another approach to the learning cycle is always useful too. But for some purposes, a simple chart or checklist may be all that's needed.( 7 ) << - related posts - >> ( 5 ) ( 4 ) ( 3 ) ( 2 ) ( 1 )

I attended my daughters’ Prize Giving Ceremony last night. I have two at the same school. One got a prize.We filed into the large hall for a ceremony kicking off at 7.30. And what a ceremony! Speeches, musical entertainment, speeches, singing, speeches, prize presentations, more musical entertainment, prize presentations, speeches, prize presentations, and more singing and speeches.The performances by the girls were magnificent. Their singing and their orchestral music were truly inspiring. Much of it was arranged and conducted by the girls themselves.The highlight of the evening was the Head Girl’s speech. It was the only speech by a student. She was by far the best orator. And she delivered by far the best speech - full of wit, it had real punch. I felt good about that, for the other speeches were, well . . . I couldn’t help but thinking that a prize-giving ceremony that ran to over three hours must have another message. It certainly wasn’t a message for the students of the school.The audience, of girls, parents and family, was exhausted after the first two hours. Some had left by 10-o-clock, and the ceremony was still going on with no promise of an end in sight. Sigh.When the ceremony eventually came to a close, after a summary of the guest speaker’s speech by another well-meaning speaker, we were invited to tea and sandwiches. The rooms of the hall were milling with hundreds of people.My wife and I spent a good 15 minutes looking for our daughters. We found one. She was utterly exhausted. I went off looking for the other.Approaching midnight, as I drove my family carefully home, I was reflecting on all that I had witnessed. I wanted to feel like a proud parent. I was a proud parent. But none of that parental pride was left.I felt that my daughters had been duped by their own school.I had my reflections confirmed by a colleague and father of a girl who’d collected a prize at the same ceremony. "It’s all about the school patting itself on the back," he said.Why do school’s do that? Why do they need to do it? I thought that schools were ‘putting students first’. Perhaps I was wrong in this case.

I am always fascinated with technological advancement. In my lifetime, I’ve witnessed amazing developments in tools. Next to my fascination for new tools is my curiosity about why, with all the tools we have today, people are still moaning about us being behind the times.We have people who write posts pressing us to give up using books. They see them as stone-age content containers. We have people who wonder if we should give up using paper. It’s seen as a bygone technology that has no place where we are going. There's some merit in all of those ideas.I dropped in on Darren Draper’s wonderful post, "We’re almost there", and left a comment:We ARE in 2008, yet we pine for an age that hasn't arrived.It is about perception. We have not yet come to grips with the idea that, though technology has advanced, the human frame has not.To cope with and project for the twentyfirst century, needs not only different education, but a whole shift in how we operate as individuals and as communities. Though the technology has given us the tools, our own biological limitations keep us in limbo.And yes, we get frustrated. For humans CAN fantasise about what COULD be. That's why we are able to progress. Just the same number of years back into the twentieth century and we did not have computers as we know them today. We did not have the Internet the way it is today. We did not have blogging or Twitter or Seesmic - or YouTube.But you know the funny thing? I was in school in the 60s. They taught me all I needed, to cope with how to use the technology of the twentyfirst century, which is why I'm blogging today. That’s why I use Google. That’s why I embed YouTube videos into my blog posts.The technology permitted the blogging. It was not my ability (or lack of it). If blogging had been around when I had just left school, I would still have been able to do it - FACT.We have an arrogant opinion of ourselves. We think that because we have invented wonderful technology - and we have - that the way we think and the way we work as communities should also have improved by leaps and bounds. Get real. This is the twentyfirst century.And this is the reality of the twentyfirst century. We have the technology. For as much as we'd like to, we just don't have the brains yet.

My brain activity while I write this post - according to Typealyzer.Bloggers are generally categorised as thinkers, scientists or mechanics. That’s the conclusion I might have come up with when I decided to find out more about how Typealyzer categorises blog sites listed in my RSS Reader.Michele Martin, Stephen Downes, Amy Gahran, and others wrote posts on the latest Web2.0 download for performing a Myers-Briggs analysis from a blog address. Stephen declared (I think with tongue in cheek), "The fact that my site turns out to be INTJ - exactly as I test consistently on the Myers-Briggs tests - is coincidence. Right?"Data validity:The inference is that data from a blog site can be used to determine the personality of the writer. Hmmm. This could have implications to do with data validity, if a blog site was used to categorise the person who writes posts on it.I decided to do a bit more exploring. What I found gave me food for thought. By the way, the Typealyzer put my blog site in "The Thinkers" category. The picture above is supposed to be my brain activity while I write this post.Anyone who has visited my blog and inspected my blog roll will be familiar with some of the bloggers whose names I list here. Yes. You’ve probably already worked out what I did.Site analysis:I went through the list of blog sites in my RSS Reader. I took each site and pasted its address into Typealyzer. It didn’t take long. A few sites incurred errors for one reason or another and couldn’t yield any data. There were other sites I visit less often that I left out of this study.Apart from Mathew Needleman, whose site yielded "ISTJ The Duty Fulfillers", here are the sites listed according to the names of the bloggers associated with them. I have deliberately listed their names in some sort of random order. Admittedly, this analysis is entirely anecdotal. The sites were certainly not chosen at random for they are all selected from my RSS Reader.What could it all mean? I mused over the results. The most prevalent sites were the INTJ and INTP types. Of all the least likely personality types I’d meet in a crowd of 100 people, the INTJ and INTP would be among them (according to Myers-Briggs USA inferential statistics). In fact, together they would represent just over 5%. That’s 5 people, in a room of a random sample of 100!I also wondered about the sheer lack of IS types other than the mechanics who seemed to be almost as prevalent as those in the two other groups. If they'd followed statistics, however, the mechanics should have been more numerous.My selection?I recalled Michele Martin’s posts on homophily and wondered if it was something to do with my choice of blog sites. Have I been unconsciously selecting blog sites according to their 'personality'?Or is Typealyzer not really doing a valid analysis? Stephen Downes’ and Michele Martin’s evidence, in support of Typealyzer’s accuracy, seems compellingly convincing. Using USA inferential statistics, their claimed personality types are among only 2.1% of the population. Yet the group they are in is the largest group listed in my table. There are 13 other group types not listed here because I simply didn't find any more. Where are they all?All sites in my blog roll are written by bloggers who have an interest in training or education. Could this be a factor, an artefact of how they are selected, that has put them into these exclusive groups? One last thought. I was introduced to Amy Gahran’s site through Stephen Downes’ post. She found that her site returned "ENTP The Visionaries". When I entered her site address on Typealyzer, the return was "ESTJ The Guardians".I wonder if I was holding my mouth right.( 2 ) << - related posts

Tomorrow at TCS, a colleague and I will be giving one of the last eTech sessions for the year. Our session will be on the use of OneKey, the kidsafe search engine. This is a repeat of sessions for teachers that proved extremely popular earlier this year.We will show a group of secondary teachers, hands on, how Boolean search criteria can be used as a tool for making resources used in student project work.A contractor in the school, who learnt about the planned session, pointed out that, OneKey isn’t as safe as it could be. For instance, when the search criterion, ‘date’ is entered, OneKey returns a range of dating agency sites.The implied argument is that, perhaps we should not be using OneKey as a search engine with year 9 to 13 learners who would be using their own computers at home.I see OneKey as a safer alternative to regular Google. Used with the recommended preferences on a browser, it seems reasonably safe.My argument:Students should be well supervised while using a computer in the home - under any circumstance. This is part of a recommendation on cyber safety I’m about to present to the school’s Board of Trustees, seeking approval for implementation in 2009.Parents are to be made aware of the possible dangers when learners have access to the Internet. The learners are also to be made suitably aware of the possible dangers of using equipment on the Net.With proper instruction and supervised practice, I feel that there is no reason why young learners shouldn’t be able to advance to using regular Google as they moved up through the school.Road safety as an analogy:Children should be introduced to road safety. They should also be well supervised, during their formative years, when walking on the walkways adjacent to road traffic. Sooner or later they should be able to use pavements by themselves.What is the alternative to this? Prohibiting children from walking to school, as a blanket rule for road safety, is not an option in my mind. Why should there be any difference when it comes to using computers with access to the Internet? Surely the same principles apply.related posts->> ( 4 ) ( 3 ) ( 2 ) ( 1 )

I was impressed with Mattias Östmar’s response to the questionsI asked him. He left a comment on my post, Thinkers, Scientists or Mechanics and was quick to respond to my interrogating disposition.Mattias’ Typealyzer looks interesting. At first sight, it looks like some sort of Web2.0 gadget. It is. But there has been a lot of research gone in to its design and development.Mattias is from Sweden. Hear what he has to say about his latest researches into blogs, blog posts, writers and personas, and what he and his team have done. I found them fascinating, especially the potential to investigate networking behaviour.Learn more from Insights from the blogosphere.related posts - >> ( 1 )

I recently left a comment on Rupa Rajagopalan’s post on eCube -6 Quick Steps to Create a Game Based E-learning Course. Rupa is an information developer whose primary focus for the past few years has been instructional design with a specialty in game based learning.She mentioned in her post about the importance of having the option to skip intros and tutorials in game based learning. Some learners can get put off doing something that is easy to work out during the game. Others need more help.I explained in my comment to her that I had used an example of this in a star-map resource, that I’d built specifically for year 10 learners in New Zealand. I linked to the resource in my comment.The following day, Rupa sent me an email asking if I’d like to write a post giving some detail about some of the ideas I’d mentioned.Here’s how I built the star-map resource.The objective:The curriculum objective for this resource was straightforward:Learn to use a digital planisphere to locate astronomical features.I began my hunt for a resource for this objective with the intention of finding a suitable Internet based planisphere for the southern hemisphere.A day scouring the Internet returned only star-maps and charts of the northern hemisphere. I decided to give up searching for a suitable resource in favour of building one from scratch. It didn’t take too long.The vision I had for making the game was to first build the planisphere and to make a tutorial for it. A series of quests, perhaps one or two, where the learner followed instructions to locate a set of objects in the sky, would provide the game.The main thing was to keep to the objective. For as much as I’d like to have veered off in cosmic directions, the objective was simple and the resource had to address that.The planisphere:I used Photoshop. I created a huge square and pasted in the scan from a paper planisphere that the school had used earlier to teach the same objective. With some elaboration, adjustments and additional features, the digital planisphere was complete. I used layers for the star names and constellations. When the planisphere was ready in Photoshop, I used 30 degree rotations to create 12 sectors that formed the twelve views of the night sky, one for each month of the year.Considering that there were 3 layers to start with, this gave 36 different layers, 12 monthly star charts with the accompanying 12 monthly name labels for the stars and the 12 monthly constellations.A crop in Photoshop, choosing the mid-month view of the night sky looking north, gave me the 36 views that were needed to make the complete planisphere.The engine:This was to be a web-based resource. I would use html built in DreamWeaver. A simple panel that I designed for monthly selection of views lay on the left of the view of the night sky. Two hourly intervals were convenient and provided a suitable range of three views from 8pm till midnight. Included in this panel were two toggle buttons that permitted selection of star maps, named stars and constellations. There was also a return to main screen button.The tutorial:It needed a tutorial. I felt that the best way to provide an optional tutorial was not to start with it. Instead, I put it as the first option so that it was always available, no more than two clicks away from the game.The tutorial used the ‘engine’ of the planisphere with overlays, where appropriate, to provide instructional text. I felt that it was important that every function of the planisphere should be covered in the tutorial, with no repetition. Learners had to be kept on track during the tutoring.I used a range of methods to achieve this.The trails:Originally the planisphere had two trails or quests. It turns out that they were quite successful. Learner feedback was more than favourable, though many requested more of the same. Eventually, I found the time to build a third and longer trail, which left scope for further ideas for projects in the future. The planisphere has three trails - Cosmic, Stellar and Galactic.Additional to the objective was a need to include a Māori cultural aspect as this is always also a part of curriculum objectives in New Zealand. I included three relevant Māori legends, one at the end of each trail.Why not more?I was always tempted to expand the resource. One idea I had was to link to some of the wonderful NASA sites at relevant points in the trails. I didn’t pursue this, simply because it would detract from the intended objective.The advantages of a digital planisphere:The original paper resource used in teaching to this objective involved the learners in an activity to cut out and construct a paper star-map. They were then asked to use it to locate stars at night.One fine starry evening, I tried one of those star charts and found that it was impossible to use. There were two reasons for this. One was that there was not sufficient light to read the star-map when looking at the night sky. The other was that even a torch didn’t help. Shining a standard torch onto the white paper star-map has a blinding effect on the eyesight.Some planispheres, like the one above, are printed with white dots for stars on a black background. This helps, but even the glare from the white writing on such a star chart, or the white border of the page it’s on, causes temporary ghost images in the eyes that ruin night vision.It is impossible to see any stars in the sky at night until these ghost images disappear. This can take several minutes and by that time you need to refer to the star chart again!This project was finished in 2000. One jubilant learner sent me an email after she’d used my digital star-map. She found it to be ideal. She had taken her wireless laptop into the garden, late one summer evening, and spent an hour or so locating Stars of The Southern Sky. ( 5 ) << - related posts - >> ( 3 ) ( 2 ) ( 1 )

Several discussions in recent months have prompted me to think of ways to assist the visually impaired to access blogs and websites. This topic can spark intense emotions in some people, usually the sighted. It is very much open to misinterpretation of intentions, so please be patient with me as you read this post. I am just a learner.Odiogo - a useful application?Only recently, I installed Odiogo by way of a trial. This is part of my intention to find ways of making access to the Net easier for those potential readers who are visually impaired. Many such people, who are web active, obtain access to web and blog sites through the use of assistive technologies.The quality of the audio presented by Odiogo is reasonable and may well be better than some downloadable screen-readers. Comments are not picked up, however, and in this respect the facility falls well short of being useful for any reader who wishes to participate in discussion. This is a biggie as far as I’m concerned.I am still unsure of how useful Odiogo could be to the visually impaired. I’d appreciate your help if you are familiar with the use of this technology, particularly if you have experience of its use by the visually impaired.Middle-earth blogspot’s a bit different:You may have noticed a few things different around my blog recently. For instance, I no longer use links in my posts that directly open the linked site in a new tab or window - I’m still amending a few odd links in earlier posts. Opening a new window can be confusing for the visually impaired who follow text on a post with a screen reader. Another is that related-post links will be found at the bottom of my posts from now on.Here are some other things I’ve learnt so far about blog posts and screen readers:Images:It’s possible for a screen reader to describe the content of an image in a blog or web page. This can be useful, especially of the image is referred to in the text. Information about the image can provide some relevance to what’s read in the text and has the potential to be helpful.But this depends entirely on the text contained in the so-called alt attribute in the html code associated with the image. Without this, the image has an invisible attribute. Such text should describe the image appropriately and explicitly for it to be of any use to the reader.The alt attribute of an image used in a post is accessible through the html of the post. It is found in the image tag and can have the form shown here:src="The image address on the site." alt="The explicit info about the image."Click here for more:A link should have a link-label that’s relevant to what is linked to, so that the reader understands what to expect. The common ‘click here’ and ‘more ’ link-labels do not convey anything useful and can actually be confusing to the person trying to interpret what they’re looking at.I guess a similar rule applies to link-labels as to image alt attributes. There is also the advantage that a well-labeled link or image is picked up more readily as useful content by search engines and can be an asset to the blogger.Blogroll position:I didn’t realise that the position of the blogroll was so problematic. Apparently blogrolls located to the left of the page cause problems. Blogrolls should be located on the right of the page.There are other parameters that can affect post readability for the visually impaired. Good summaries of those can be found at the American Foundation for the Blind web-site. Among the useful information there, is a page on How to Make Your Blog Accessible to Blind Readers and another on Improving Your Web Site’s Accessibility.If you have any information on Odiogo - good or less so - that might be of use to others, please add a comment under this post. As well, if you have any tips you may have on adjusting a blog so that it improves access to the visually impaired, put them in a comment here. I’d really appreciate that.related posts - >> ( 1 )

photo by Nicolas Allan.I recently left a comment on Richard Millington's post, You Don't Need To Be An Expert.He claimed that, "you don’t need to be an expert within the industry to build an online community. But you do need the ability to recruit and motivate experts." He saw the job of building an online community like that of the entrepreneur who simply recruits "experts who love to run an online community".I wondered about his idea and expressed that I would like to see it in action. Somehow I felt that, fundamentally, there was something askew with this idea. I left a comment:Building online communities is something that everyone seems to have an idea about. It's a bit like education. Everybody thinks they know how to teach.I would say, from my limited expertise in this field, that anyone who thinks it's about building is in for a shock. It's a bit like building a tree.Can you build a tree?You can build a log cabin. But that's what it remains. Watching an online community form and expand is more like growing a tree than building one.You have to plant the seed. They don't all germinate. When one does, you have to water it with care, provide nourishment and support. As it continues to grow, you may have the opportunity of seeing it blossom and fruit may appear - if you've cared for it properly, that is.As the tree gets bigger, more fruit can be harvested after each year's blossom. But you have to maintain the tree, lest it catches a disease and gets sickly. A sickly tree doesn't bear fruit.If the tree is from good stock, you may be lucky enough to take some of its seed and plant another tree or more. With appropriate care you can have an orchard of good fruit-bearing trees.But you have to tend the orchard, for the same reason as you had to tend the single tree that grew.No. I don't think online communities are built. I'd be inclined to grow mine.

I left a comment on Clive Shepherd’s post Blogging is No Longer What It Was. But this post isn’t directly about what I wrote on Clive’s blog.It’s just that I love blogging. I love the blogosphere and everything that’s in it. I’m not on a doctor’s prescription. But when I see a new post, I just feel like I’m witnessing something fresh and newly created - very very new - shiny, like a newborn star.Primal observation in space:I’m sure that the feelings I get when I discover things in the blogosphere are similar to the feelings my ancestors had when they looked up at the stars. Their eyes filled with wonder at what hung above them.The sky must have been a great sight in those days. No city lights to haze the atmosphere. Come to that, no haze. Astronomers using optical equipment today, talk about the ‘seeing’, when they refer to how clear the atmosphere is above their telescopes. The ‘seeing’ way back in the days I’m talking about must have been something special!Present day astronomers refer to the magnitude of a star - a number that they hang on how easy it is to see a star, or other visible light source in the sky. The fainter the star, the larger is its magnitude number.Our ancestors would have been able to see faint stars of about magnitude 7. Today, we are lucky to see stars of magnitude 5 near a town - that’s about 7 times brighter. It's simply because the glare of streetlights prohibits us from seeing objects much fainter than that in the sky.Observation in cyberspace:Often, when I look into cyberspace, I feel like an early, prehistoric observer, sitting high on a hill, looking up to a vast night sky.I make observations, and think that no one has ever spotted them before. Of course, like my ancestors, I am probably seeing some things that have been witnessed many many times - long before I saw them.In cyberspace there are some beautiful stars, some brilliant stars - some with planets, interesting nebulae and scatterings of faint luminescent clouds. There are comets and shooting stars. Now and again, a supernova explodes and releases so much energy that the whole of cyberspace seems to resonate with it.One of the observations I've made is to do with how commenters put their comments on a new post. Have you ever noticed, when a post first appears in the blogosphere, how most of the comments appear almost immediately afterwards? Logical don't you think?Some posts differ from others though. Some attract no comments at all. Others are like supernovae, attracting so many comments immediately after posting, that it takes a while before it all stops. But it is very, very rare that a swarm of comments appears against a post well after the period when that first activity has ceased.I often wonder about this. I take pity on these cold, abandoned, commentless posts.I even think about racing around cyberspace with a bagful of comments, specifically looking for old posts, perhaps ones with no comments at all (and there are millions) and just dumping comments, willy-nilly, wherever I can - copy and paste fashion - just to give these lonely posts a bit of company. A bit like one of the tasks in the past Comment Challenge, when participants were asked to write 5 comments in 5 minutes on 5 different posts. That caused a bit of a stir among sedate bloggers!Black holes:But posts go off y’know, like stars that appear in the night sky and then just disappear! They shine bright over a brief period, perhaps get brighter, fade a bit, glow dimly for a while, and eventually collapse into a black hole - lost in cyberspace, never to be found by the average observer. Not even winked at.Eons later, an intrepid wanderer might stumble across a darkly hidden post and check it out. Seeing this frozen, abandoned site of past activity, the observer realises that no one has been there for ages, and bounces off again into cyberspace, searching for newer, fresher territory.As I post this, I realise that what I’ve written is like a newborn star. It may shine for a short while. It may even attract some attention - a comment or two. But eventually, it will join a growing mass of black holes, lost in the vastness of cyberspace.They say that black holes are the re-cycling centres of the Universe.I wonder how long it will take for this post to be recycled?

From time to time there’s a need for a return device on a web page or blog post. It could be a special post that requires the reader to return to the original page, or even a position on a long post where the reader is required to return to a link on the same page.Remember to use the return to where you were key to come back to this position. Try it out here (this feature will not operate from RSS Readers).One link fits all:The return key has the advantage over a complicated series of links, in that only one return link is required. I found it useful when I wrote my Comment Guidelines. Occasionally I will link to that during a post.The return key at the base of the Guidelines page courteously permits the reader to return to the page where the link was, so reading may resume from there. No matter where your original link is, the return key cleverly bounces you back from where you came. Admittedly, it does no more than the 'go back one page' button, but it is correct and appropriate navigation.Try it. You can return here if you use the return to where you were key at the base of the Comments Guidelines page (this feature will not operate from RSS Readers).Return keys of this type are especially useful when a series of links, to separate resources, are placed on a page that require the reader to return to that same page each time. A good example of this is in linking to the so-called link-pages of a sequence of digital resources.By simply using the return key, the reader can easily come back to the same page. Try visiting these resource link-pages - remember to use the return keys to come back to this page.1 alkanes 2 alkenes(this feature will not operate from RSS Readers)Simple elearning assignment sheets can be created in Word using a series of digital resources with link-pages fitted with return keys. If links to these resources are embeded in a Word file, the associated return keys on the link-pages can also permit the reader to return to the Word file when finished. How does the return key work?Here is the script:Inserted into the html of a blog page or web page, it is placed at the required position where the return key is to be displayed. The key responds to text alignment like ordinary text, so centering and left or right aligning of the key can be done easily.The script invokes the browser history. When clicked, the key literally asks the browser to go back to the last linked page position.

Base words are uttered only by the baseAnd can for such at once be understood,But noble platitudes:--ah, there’s a caseWhere the most careful scrutiny is neededTo tell a voice that’s genuinely goodFrom one that’s base but merely has succeeded.Wystan Hugh Auden.I like to let a draft post cure a day or so before publishing it. Quite frequently, after this time, some drafts get the heave. This one was lucky. But I’m sure many will feel it should have joined the reject pile, along with a few others I've posted.Gina Mink’s post, and her own reply to it, got me thinking - about all sorts of things. Apart from the bother I had getting a comment, with a link, onto her post, perhaps the time spent attempting to do this allowed me to think more about how I write posts.Is my approach unique?I wondered if my approach is one often used by others. I’m aware that the twenty-first century culture that is held by some bloggers, is such that most do not dwell on the crafting. To them, getting the message across is where it’s at. I’ve no problem with that.I study poetry. I enjoy reading the skilled writing of others. From time to time, I come across blogs that are well written - almost crafted, and I can only admire those.The Fire And The Anvil:I recently re-read a wonderful little book by New Zealand’s celebrated poet James K Baxter. The Fire and the Anvil is a brilliant series of lectures. They are about the product of poets whose craft is forged in the fire of the creative mind. It's then hammered into shape by feedback from critics that alters the way the poets write. It is a reflective practice that involves the writing, the poets and their audience.Much though I would like to bash out a post and publish it in ten minutes, I can’t often do this. Too often I want to go back and alter things. Some call it stuffing mushrooms.I might even change a word or two after a post is published - almost heresy in some circles. Dave Ferguson has crafted a few posts on and around the topic of editing posts. But from the moment I think about a post, I am aware that I’m following much of the process that Baxter refers to in his book:The World Of Thou:It "denotes the whole various world of relationship where being meets being."The Matrix:"The primal substance of the" post, "non-verbal, which the verbal structure" of the post reflects - "its point of contact with the world of Thou."The Form:"The whole complex verbal pattern" which the writer creates in response to the matrix.Incubation:Baxter’s period of gestation, "during which the matrix is carried obscurely in the mind", is not unlike how the substance of the post is thought about before anything is entered through the keyboard or other interface.Texture and Time-life:These have their counterparts in the diction and crafting used by the writer. Sentence length and construction, the way each sentence sits with the paragraph, and paragraph length, are parameters that expert bloggers tell us are important to writing good blog posts.All of these parts of the post writing process have closely corresponding items in Baxter’s sequence.The crafting and how it helps me:For me the crafting is part of the reflective practice of writing a post. It’s not just the diction and the paragraphing. It’s to do with the thought processes that lead up to that.Ken Stewart wrote a post Why Do You Write. It prompted me to write a comment which I later copied with little alteration and put it in a post. This was one of the few times I posted without crafting. But it had the essence of why I write, how I write and all of what’s in it for me.Writing helps me organise my thoughts.Prioritising those sparks further thought.Organising what I write puts to rest serendipitous thought-threads.When these are processed through exhaustive cycles of writing and editing, it is as if the thoughts are put to rest. I can sleep on them.More reflective practice:There’s more to blogging than just writing exhaustively edited posts - I’m trying to avoid those. Lately I’ve made use of action research as a means to develop my way of writing posts.While I have not yet used blogging specifically as a teaching tool, it has helped me organise my thoughts about how I teach. This in itself is powerful reflective practice.Of course, action research is reflective practice. It can be widely applied to more or less any people-related activity. And like it or not, writing a post is a people-related activity.related posts - >> ( 8 ) ( 7 ) ( 6 ) ( 5 ) ( 4 ) ( 3 ) ( 2 ) ( 1 )

Tony Karrer’s Big Question for the month of December is, ‘What did you learn about learning in 2008?’This has certainly been a year of learning for me. I was involved in several projects, not all of them employment related. But they were all to do with teaching and learning.The long and the short of it all is, that I’ve learnt so much about learning this year; I can’t possibly cover it all in one post. So I’ve prioritised my list down to one item.Bookshops as big as supermarkets:Fifteen years ago, I listened to a soliloquy from a work colleague, at a meeting on learning resources. The proclamation was that books would be out of date in 5 to 10 years. I wondered about this idea. At the time, I couldn’t easily imagine the book being surpassed, and eventually replaced, by digital equivalents. Well, it didn’t happen. Instead, bookstalls became bookshops, and now we have bookshops like supermarkets. During most of this year, my older daughter has worked part-time in Borders, New Zealand. It is a huge new bookstore - easily one of the biggest shops of its type in Wellington.The demise of the textbook:But I was reminded of the prediction of the disappearance of books when I came across Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach’s post in September this year, and listened to her video. She spoke of the demise of the textbook.I reflected on the meaningful consequences of getting rid of books, and all resources like them, to do with content. This is what Sheryl is proposing as a panacea for enabling learning in the twenty-first century. She posits that what we have to do is ‘to unlearn’, for ‘learning doesn’t work that way anymore’. There is merit in some of what she says.Meaningful, authentic, passion-based scholarship:She speaks of ‘meaningful, authentic, passion-based scholarship’ while talking about preparing learners for an age that isn’t here yet. And again, I wonder.I speculate, as she does, on what it is that we should be teaching our students, if we don’t really know what they will need in the future. But I also wonder about the long-term consequences of eschewing content.Closely related to this theme are my experiences with some new projects that I have been involved with this year. These projects have not gone according to plan, for the plan involved dismissing previous experience and knowledge as past history.The accumulated experience and knowledge - the content - that could have assisted some of these projects, if only by consideration of what didn’t work, was simply not permitted to happen. The projects were all to do with learning. In particular, some were to do with elearning.Leaky buildings:I won’t be specific here, though I’m willing to discuss this fully in a different forum. But it’s all too much like the so-called leaky building syndrome that struck the property industry in New Zealand earlier this century.Through the introduction of new standards and materials, and by discarding established building practices - content - the building industry in New Zealand plunged itself into crisis. Houses were constructed that simply rotted from the inside, due to a number of unforeseen conditions that were fostered within the wall cavities of the buildings.Examination of the old standards, and consideration of why they had been established in the first place, showed that many fundamental portions of knowledge had been overlooked when introducing the new standards and construction methods. Implementing the use of a combination of new building materials, and new, untested building standards, caused a minor disaster in that industry that’s still being cleared up today.Leaky pipes:A minor crisis also occurred in New Zealand, near the end of last century, when unleaded automobile fuel was formulated and commercially introduced to the public. Insufficient testing, of a fundamental nature, led to several instances of fuel hose erosion resulting in the withdrawal and reformulating of some newly introduced automobile fuels. This came about through a similar lack of consideration of what had gone before.Learning to read:Some twenty years ago in New Zealand, phonetics as a method used in teaching reading, was removed from the curriculum, in favour of so-called word-recognition. My oldest daughter would have been severely affected through this curricular move, had I not given her necessary coaching, using phonetics.Luckily, I had enough common sense to help her myself, when I eventually found she was having difficulty learning to read. Phonetics is now being re-introduced as one of the methods for teaching reading in schools.Postmodernism?It is as if it is part of a growing culture - some say it’s a manifestation of postmodernism - that infuses the thinking like mycelia, whenever innovation is called upon. Innovation is a wonderful thing if it works.Simply discarding past experience and knowledge in the name of replacing those with some new and seemingly innovative idea, may not withstand the test of time.What we teach learners today, and what they learn, must withstand the test of time. This applies, whether it is process or content.This year, I wondered if throwing out the baby with the bath and the bathwater is a useful technique for achieving progress in learning.

Having saved the baby, conserved the bathwater and rinsed out the bath, I should get real, and properly address Tony Karrer’s question which was, ‘what did I learn in 2008’.In May:I learnt to blog. Here’s the summary.In doing that, I learnt that there’s a heck-of-a-lot of people out there who (obviously) enjoy reading blogs, but who don’t blog and who don’t comment much. I’ve had that confirmed a few times since then, while studying Google Analytics and AideRSS.In June:I learnt that the age-old rivals, training and education, were still as nebulously and controversially defined as ever.In July:I got an inkling that a lot of people who visited my blog were very interested in blogging as such. They were interested in the analysis and also the personalities depicted in blogs. My inkling was confirmed by a series of experiments that concluded in August.In September:I learnt that people have all sorts of wonderful ideas, models, metaphors and analogies for learning and how it’s done.Also that month, I gathered more evidence that, in my commentsphere, there were a lot of people with strong ideas about commenting and the written and unwritten rules and regulations about that.In October:I learnt that there existed a whole spectrum of what people believed was necessary preparation for getting into elearning.Coupled with that, in the same month, I found that there was a range of ideas around the blogosphere on the usefulness and effectiveness of commenting as a means for learning.In November:I discovered that bloggers in my commentsphere are keenly interested in the analysis of their own writing persona, even if just for fun.I also had it confirmed what a joy it could be to blog and participate in blogging.And it is a joy! Good will to all!

Michele Martin has recently coined a wonderful word: now-ness.It means the burden of present day communications technology used by those who wish to communicate with you - all at once. Not unlike infowhelm, and very much in your face, it's amplified many-fold by present day communications tools.I empathise with Michele, and others like her in this reasoned plight. Now-ness can be stressful. I sometimes find stress to be unpleasant and I have to find ways of controlling the stressors for myself. I left a comment on Michele’s great post, The Tyranny of Now. It went something like this:I was discussing this idea in the workplace recently. Someone said glibly that it's just like playing tennis. "You return the ball from whichever direction it comes - that's the skill."Multi-tennis:But it's more than just that. It's like playing tennis with several players, all of them on the other side of the net. And all are serving with a different ball. Sometimes it seems as if there are several dozen balls coming towards you all at once. Which do you hit?For a satisfactory return that leads to something useful, one has to simply ignore certain serves, and find ways of doing this. It's not easy. That way, however, you have prioritised your interactions. You are then in control. You can also have a win-win situation.Use whatever means, when necessary, to freeze that incoming ball in mid-air, while you return the previous one, otherwise you end up missing both.Who is serving?Email, the phone, text-on-mobile and your RSS reader are your servants. You're certainly not theirs. You could treat them like that. But you may end up serving few and usually none.I watch colleagues sprinting across the office to grab their ringing phones. Sometimes they make it, without a broken ankle. Other times they don’t make it before the ring-tone stops.I have voicemail. I use it, but I also clear it regularly. I have seen other people ignoring the voicemail they receive. Later, they complain that it takes too long to clear it all. Hmmm.Love all:I let voicemail kick in, if I'm having a face-to-face conversation with a colleague and the phone rings. It's just common courtesy. It also saves stress. When it's convenient, and as soon as it's convenient, I check my voicemail.I clear my email regularly too, but I don't use email alerts. They just distract me while I attend to other things - the phones are (bad) enough. Only family have my mobile number and they know to text me first - I've got my ring-tones on near silent, mainly out of courtesy to my work colleagues.There are other measures I take. They are as simple.When I discuss these things with work-colleagues, they throw their hands up in disgust. All I hear are excuses and complaints that they don't like leaving voicemail messages, so why should they expect others to. It’s then that I recall what they said about the time they took to clear their voicemail. I think of the people who took the time to leave them a message.Slicing an ace:My reaction is, get real! This is the twenty-first century. We built all this technology to help take the sweat out of life, not to get ourselves into a sweatball.Technology is a tool. We invented it to assist us, not hinder us. We have to learn to use the technology at our disposal.Otherwise, we invent a fine knife to cut our food, and end up slicing our fingers with it.Your serve.

Memory chips have been increasing in size since they were first made. Each new development meant that larger chips could be manufactured.But there’s a limit to the useful size of a standard silicon chip. In recent years, big chips just haven’t been able to keep up with demands as far as speed and a few other properties are concerned.Electrical resistance:The reason for these limitations is because of a significant resistance to the flow of electrical current in a large chip, putting a limit on the speed at which signals can be transmitted within a chip. But this physical restriction may well be lifted through the use of thin layers of carbon known as graphene.Astonishing properties:Towards the end of last century, nanotubes and buckyballs - tiny structures made out of arrays of carbon atoms - were well known to have astonishing properties of strength, flexibility and ability to conduct electrical current. The single layers of carbon atoms that make graphene have similar properties to these nanostructures.Researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) have discovered a way to make best use of the amazing properties of this form of carbon. The recent breakthrough, using a chemical process, permits sheets of graphene to be made, far larger than ever before.Graphene sheets so produced have a lower resistance, by several orders of magnitude, than similar sheets produced by other methods.Memory chips of the future could well have huge storage capacity. It’s all to do with the property of carbon in thin layers to conduct an electrical current extremely easily. This permits individual parts of a chip to be made far more compact.On-off power ratio:Power consumption is a key feature of this future technology. The on-off power ratio of a graphene chip is huge - a million to one. Graphene has other useful advantages of being able to operate at extremes of temperature.In the near future, mobile phones, cameras and laptops could have unbelievable memory capacity using the graphene chip. ( 3 ) << - related posts - >> ( 1 )

In a previous post I responded to a request from Rupa Rajagopalan. She asked me to outline how I built a digital resource, and left a comment on that post requesting more on the same theme. In this post I feature a few other resources, with some detail on their usefulness.Spice in variety:I’m not advocating the exclusive use of digital resources for any purpose. My own feeling about digital resources is that one’s enough at a time. You may already have met my Death by Chocolate principle:A poor chef may include chocolate as an ingredient in every dish, but it is a shortsighted one who excludes its use altogether. If the only recipe available that includes it is mediocre, then chocolate should be off the menu. Good chefs choose menus wisely.A helping of fun goes a long way with the use of any resource. Applying some thought to how it may be introduced to the learner can spice up even a relatively mundane resource.Learning objectives:Resources are chosen to best fit a learning objective, whether it's to introduce a new topic, provide example problems, or for a revision purpose. Ideally a single digital resource should embrace one and only one learning objective.I believe that within strict limits, there may be some exceptions to this such as when a resource may be used to provide enrichment around a topic. The Virtual Electric Lab is a resource of this type. It was built as an introduction to electrical circuits and their simple components.Digital no substitute:I must explain, however, that none of the resources that can be found in the Virtual Electric Lab is any substitute for practical experience in connecting circuits. Where possible, the learner should be introduced to the practical aspects of simple electrical circuitry. Hands-on experience in handling such equipment is essential. This also permits the learner to become more familiar with simple electrical components.Young distance learners may not have access to such equipment, however, and this can also involve an additional matter of cost.Electrical currents:Being modularised, the individual labs can be used for separate objectives depending on the development and ability of the learner. The current lab can be introduced as a separate module, using the stations approach to introducing electrical components as resistors.Electrical meters:The meter lab similarly permits the presentation of voltmeters and ammeters and how they are used in circuits. Both of the above resources adhere to their respective objectives.Bells and whistles:If a broader sweep of the topic is in order, as would fit an able learner, then the complete lab with bells and whistles can be accessed. Again and depending on the ability of the learner and context of its application, a find-the-thimble approach can be incorporated into the lesson.For instance, a learner may be given a few questions to find answers to on the way, such as; who gave the Christmas lectures on the candle? Or how many turns per minute does the wind turbine make?In the main, the resources are interactive in that the learner is prompted to the next step within the resource and in some instances given simple questions that provide direct feedback to the learner.Playing with an incinerator:Sometimes it can be downright dangerous to expect a learner to find some things out by practical hands-on experience. An instance of this is learning about the relative efficiencies of complete and incomplete combustion in an incinerator.The Virtual Incinerator mimics the conditions of a real incinerator. It permits the learner to play about with it and make such observations as necessary to learn about complete combustion, with a certain level of safety.The suck-it-and-see-approach:Drawing scientific graphs is a skill that science learners need to acquire sooner or later. While a suck-it-and-see approach is used in this resource, some learner direction may be required before the resource is accessed by the learner. Provided the learner hasn’t used this resource previously, it can be used as an excellent revision tool for drawing graphs.Punnett Squares:Simple genetics can be fun. This resource introduces drawing Punnett squares, showing the outcomes of genetic crosses. It is a module that would form part of a course in genetics. Several methods are used to provide helpful feedback to the learner on example genetic crosses. related posts - >> ( 4 ) ( 3 ) ( 2 ) ( 1 )

" because whoever has something, will have more given to him."Mark 4:25I am not religious, neither am I against religions, but Diane Cordell’s post, The Others, made me think about Mark 4:25.She asks the questions:Q - Do you believe that our educational culture could be/should be more inclusive?Q - Are we reaching the Others?"My reactions to those were immediately, 1. A - yes, 2. A - no.Diane made me reflect on just how the educational culture that I know could be fairer, so that every learner was included, got a fair share, and got a fair chance to speak out. I wondered about practicalities and the reality of it all.I left a comment on Diane’s post:While it is true that teachers are not reaching all learners and all learners are not getting a 'fair share' (whatever that is), the practicality of it all is that teachers can't reach all learners. And of course all learners can't get their fair share.The question is, how do we go about cutting the cake so that each learner gets their fair share?I am a distance educator with some 200 or more students. The way the system operates, learners can phone me anytime they wish. I phone them sometimes too. But if a learner phones me and chats for 20 minutes, she's used 8 more minutes than I have allocated per week to spend with her.A fairer share:The reality is that my weekly ration is less than 12 minutes per learner to do all I need to do with associated teaching and learning. That includes phoning up the learner if need be. That's about 150 seconds per day per learner.Fair? I don't think so. But how do I, as teacher, make adjustments so that all learners get a fair crack of my time?Do I say to a caller, "Sorry, your time is up for this week. Give me a call next week and I'll give you the rest of the help you need"?Or do I lay aside Jenny's assignment that's next in line for assessing because she spoke to me for 20 minutes on the phone?After school:Classroom contact is not much different from this. When I taught in a classroom, I used to give coaching sessions for maths after school. Effectively it gave kids an extra 20% more time with me. You can see the theoretical leverage that had on their achievement. Though in reality it was not quite as efficient as that, it still made a significant difference for those who participated.A recent study has shown that the reason children from the so-called lower classes don't do so well at school is because, for them, the school IS the learning.For more privileged children, their learning continues at home and that includes during the holidays. Oh, it's not all maths, science and English for them in the holidays, but it's learning just the same. Their parents groom them in other useful skills in preparation for their place in society. How does a teacher redress that inequity?An eye for an aye:Callous I may seem to be, but in the environments that I have taught in, including the present, I adopt the principle that each learner gets from me what they are prepared to give. That's to say, if a learner is prepared to spend time on the phone with me, I am prepared to spend the time with them.Fair? I think so.

When I took part in the Comment Challenge this year, I not only became a blogger, but I also learnt a huge pile of techniques and different ways to go about writing a blog post. One technique I learnt was to cover more than one topic in a post - a very fine tack when attempting to follow a busy schedule of blog assignments.I’m using that technique in this post for I am honouring requests from two respected bloggers, Andrea Hernandez of EdTech Workshop and Paul C of quoteflections.Paul’s request for my 2008 Top Ten List brought me, once again, to consider my wonderful commentsphere. My Top Ten list is of the top ten superb commenters whose contributions have helped to make my blog come alive. Over 40 commenters made contributions to the posts on this blog since it began in May this year. My Top Ten Commenters for 2008 are:Virginia YonkersKen StewartSue Waters & Sue Waters (-: joint equal :-)Britt WatwoodPaul CMichele MartinBonnie KaplanLaurie Bartels (joint tenth equal)Christy Tucker (joint tenth equal)Shaun Wood (joint tenth equal)According to the terms of Scott McLeod's fantastic commenter award, this entitles the commenters in my top ten list to display the award medal on their blog.Very close to those were Tom Haskins, Andrea Hernandez,Tony Karrer, Rose DesRochers, Sarah Stewart and Nancy White, who all made equivalent contributions.There were many more amazing commenters who did not make this list. I pay a special tribute to those for the significant contribution they made to the discussions in Middle-earth this year.Andrea Hernandez tagged me at the beginning of this month and I didn’t pick this up until very recently. Her request was to create a Wordle from my blog’s RSS feed, to comment on it, to tag others and to link back to Andrea’s post, The Wordle Meme.I must say that I got a rather weird Wordle, for no matter how many times I tried, I always got a Wordle blimp and the word trust appearing as a separate display as shown above. I was surprised that trust was featured so prominently, though Andrea did say that Wordle draws from the most recent posts. Two of my latest posts were about trust.The rest of the blimp reflects what I’d expect, with the foremost words being learner, time, people, resource and resources.The contributors tagged in this post are invited to participate in the meme of their choice. Details can be found at Life is One Big Top Ten and The Wordle Meme.