Un-connected
I have been using my blog space lately to make some important points about many aspects of ubiquitous connectivity–the efficacy of living and working in a connected environment, the need to recognize and utilize students’ need for connectivity in our classes, and the immense benefits of having information available when you need it, among others. I believe that understanding the nature of Web 2.0 connectivity in our teaching and learning activities is critical for success with out students.
However, I’m using today’s entry to remind myself that being disconnected is also important. The eight-day lag in entries is due to a trip that my wife and two sons took through Alaska to the Yukon Territories and British Columbia (CN) and finally to Haines, Alaska–a trip total of over 1500 miles. The purpose was to support my sons’ relay team in the Kluane Chilkat International Bike Relay, a 148 mile race from Haines Junction, YT to Haines, Alaska. <brag> They each rode stellar 40 mile legs.</brag> We took a couple of extra days to take some hikes in YT and explore the area–a highly recommended activity even if you live in Alaska and are used to spectacular scenery, bears, lakes, mountains, and mosquitoes. (It’s not all sweetness and light here.)
We didn’t take our laptops. We took our cell phones for emergencies, although they were never turned on. The boys had their iPods, but their use was self-regulated to car time. There were a few times during our trip that we missed our technology–several times we noted that we needed to Google this or look up that on WikiPedia when we got back home, and when I realized I needed a new tarp I had the urge to see what new tarp designs were out there–but for the most part having no connectivity was not even on the radar. We talked, we set up camps, we hiked, and we had an absolutely great time sleeping in tents and cooking on our camp stove. We did hit the computers when we reached home to catch up on e-mail, check the news (nothing good there), and get in a bit of WOW time. But the un-connected time was great.
In my college classes, when we discuss one-to-one laptop classrooms or other ubiquitous computing models, someone inevitably brings up the fear that students will miss having books, or needing to go to the library, or being able to write with a pencil. I have to remind them that using technology is not an all-or-nothing proposition. Using laptops in a classroom does not mean that you throw the books away. Having Google at your fingertips does not mean that you ignore the resources of the library. Composing on a computer does not mean–well, okay, I can’t write with pencil and paper anymore, but I write more and write better with my laptop. Why go backwards?
Similarly, being connected doesn’t mean that you give up your real life for your virtual life on-line. Un-connecting is a healthy thing.
Here are a few photos from the trip.
Created with Paul’s flickrSLiDR.
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Random Thoughts
- Is teaching a “radical impossibility?” Is learning actually a product of teaching, or is it a natural consequence of human behavior? In this blog, John Connell reviews a paper by Ron Burnett called Learning to Learn in a Virtual World (PDF file). The review is interesting–the paper is fascinating.
- Looking for some new resources for research? Some information about professional associations, lesson plans, museums, or teaching jobs? Take a look at TeacherXpress–thousands of reviewed links “for busy teachers.”
- TeacherTube is a shared video service that specializes in educational videos–instructional videos that you can use as reference material as well as professional development.
- Are you getting as much power as possible from Firefox? This list of keyboard shortcuts from Mozilla.org will help you search, navigate, browse, and manage bookmarks with ease.
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Having a Second Life in Teaching
The more I explore the virtual communities of blogs, wikis, Del.icio.us, Flickr, and other social networking resources, the more I become convinced that university-level teaching can be greatly enhanced by using these technologies with students. In part that’s because so many of our students come to us already conversant in these technologies. In fact, most of them have developed their learning habits and learning preferences by sharing, exploring, and collaborating in such environments. They’re used to the immediacy and connectedness of social networking. If their brick-and-mortar university environments do not reflect these learning opportunities, will they be as involved in learning as they should be? We may not know the answer to that for a few more years as students may (or may not) begin making their enrollment decisions based on the kinds of learning opportunities available at their target institutions, and that’s probably fodder for a future blog entry.
Social networking is an interesting and engaging concept, but much of it is still text-based and–chat rooms not withstanding–asynchronous. When I write a blog entry, I have to wait until someone reads it and (hopefully) comments on it. When I update my Del.icio.us bookmarks, it takes a while for my subscribers to discover and investigate them. What if I could interact virtually in real time with folks from all over?
As it turns out, it’s not only possible but it’s a wildly popular pastime in which more than 7 million people worldwide participate on a daily basis–sometimes obsessively so. It’s called Second Life–an on-line 3D virtual world where you assume an identity, choose an avatar (your virtual representative), explore, and interact with other avatars in real time. I recently acquired an avatar (named Elwood Vella) and have begun shuffling around to see what happens. So far, I’ve actually been avoiding other “people” that I run across until I feel a bit more comfortable with the environment. Instead, I enter various locations and read the help files. (I’m not much more interesting than that in real life, either…)
The interesting thing about Second Life, however, is that I did not arrive at it through the “normal” social channels. I arrived at it because I was reading the e-Learning and Instructional Support web site from Oakland University. This fascinating site is a guide to learning activities through Second Life. It seems that many universities have devoted considerable time and effort to develop “virtual campuses” where students (or potential students) can explore, take classes, chat with other students, watch videos, and generally go to school through their Second Life avatar. Many videos of these sites–from institutions like Ohio University and Texas State (click here for a complete list)–are available that will give you the experience of what it’s like to visit a virtual campus. You can also find out how to obtain a free Second Life account.
While walking around in a virtual environment may not be your cup of tea, I’d argue that educators should become familiar with them at the very minimum to get a sense of the kinds of experiences that our students may be having, and further to see the possibilities that virtual classrooms and campuses may have for our own students and institutions.
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Killing Creativity
There are tremendous pressures on public schools to “perform” these days. Many of these pressures are political (think “No Child Left Behind,” private school vouchers) and others come from parents and communities who may perceive that their schools are not fully serving their children. With regard to the latter, there are plenty of data to support the notion that some schools are underperforming when compared to US standards (check SchoolMatters for an excellent data source) and particularly when compared to students from other countries. (Perhaps this is not surprising given that our current administration routinely disregards science for political gain and that three current Republican presidential candidates do not believe in evolution, but we’re not going there today…)
Given these pressures to demonstrate yearly gains primarily through standardized test results, it’s not surprising that schools are often criticized for squelching creativity and suppressing academic behavior that may be perceived as tangential to the norm. Kris (no last name given) presents an excellent case for the suppression of creativity in her Wandering Ink post entitled “How To Prevent Another Leonardo da Vinci.” Based on ideas from the book How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci [Amazon link], Kris provides us with some interesting insights into the nature of creativity and how public schools tend to prevent its appearance. Here’s an example:
“2. Dimostrazione (from “How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci”)
What? Constant testing of knowledge through experience and persistence; accepting of and learning from mistakes
The Murder: Except in the sciences (and sometimes even then), knowledge is simply given and expected to be absorbed rather than questioned and tested. On tests and labs, wrong answers cost the students their grades, therefore it becomes unacceptable to make mistakes. Mistakes are less about learning experiences and more about losing marks. Questioning societal norms is a very negative thing, even if they don’t make sense.”
Kris’ observations should be required reading for all educators, K-12 through post-secondary.
Why am I writing about this in a blog about Web 2.0 issues? The answer is that we tend to look at Web 2.0 technologies (as well as others) as being the answer to allowing creative expression back into the pedagogical model. Blogs and wikis and social networking sites allow up to communicate, interact, and collaborate in ways that have never before been available. The web gives us information at our fingertips, potentially allowing us to explore interests (passions?) individually at out own paces. Therefore, unleashing these technologies in our K-post secondary classes will result in a veritable cornucopia of creative expression, right?
Not necessarily. Lecturing to students about the efficacy of blogs is the same as lecturing to students about constructivist teaching. If you’re not modeling the behavior you are advocating, you are proving that the behavior is just another concept to be learned for a test. Web 2.0 technologies are not inherently empowering–they must be used in empowering ways. Students learn much more from the model of pedagogy they are presented with than from the content of the presentation. To teach the efficacy of blogging, you must become an active blogger. To teach a constructivist approach to classroom teaching, you should model constructivism in your own teaching. Creativity comes not from the tool itself but from the context in which it is used and presented.
It’s not just about lip service…
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University 2.0
I’ve been doing some reading on the concept of “Teaching 2.0”–a loosely defined response to the Web 2.0 concept that is transforming some of our most basic social, political, economic, and personal communication models through increased emphasis on social networking, collaborating, and sharing of information. Web 2.0 technologies–chats, blogs, IM, wikis, social networks (e.g., FaceBook, Del.icio.us, Flickr, etc.), podcasting, YouTube–have transformed the way a generation interacts and relates to the world at large. Advocates of Teaching 2.0 are working with these technologies to provide students with more access to primary source knowledge and to give them the opportunity to work with the context of subject matter rather than just the subject matter itself.
“University 2.0” is an outgrowth of the Teaching 2.0 concept. Practitioners are dedicated to using Web 2.0 concepts to transform teaching at the college level through enhanced course design, teaching methods, and student expectations. A question recently posted to eLearnSpace nicely summed up the need for examining University 2.0:
“…what are universities across the world doing about this information revolution? How are we demonstrating to our future students that we are not only a part of this human network but that we are leaders in the movement? Most universities were built and designed to function effectively in a single geographic location to a specific group of people in a print based environment. Now that we can communicate with people around the world instantly and access books, journals, presentations, videos, and more online, we should think of the world as our classroom. Future students understand this information age and expect universities to be on the front lines. As the world moves toward a global economy and information can be accessed from anywhere in the world, universities need to think more critically about how they want to proceed in developing leaders of this brave new digital age.”
Ken Yarmosh offers some additional insights into the effectiveness of University 2.0 with a post to TechnoSight. I was particularly drawn to this quote:
“University 2.0 or perhaps Education 2.0 is the ultimate way that we can ensure learning really never stops. I’d love to read the blogs or listen to the podcasts of some of the professors and teachers I had throughout high school and college…”
In the real world of UAF SOE, it has often struck me that we need to figure out some way to support our students once they have their own classrooms and are looking for current information about issues relating to their own teaching. How cool would it be to be able to read a favorite instructor’s blog on current practices, to listen to a podcast or view a video that kept the former student connected to the university and also provided him/her with current information? Further, what if that former student could respond with real world observations from his/her classroom that could enhance the instructor’s insights into teaching practices and expectations? They can, of course, if the instructor and/or the former student maintains a blog…
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Blogs and Wikis in Teaching
Still very interested in investigating the idea of evaluating blogs, I recently came across an entry from the TechLearning Blog that caught my attention. An elementary school teacher in Shanghai who blogs with his students had some of his fifth grade students come up with their own rubrics for evaluating blogs. The results are interesting and can be seen on this page.
But once you get there, keep reading. The discussion evolves into a more general discussion of digital writing and wikis, with some interesting remarks from a high school social studies teacher who uses wikis to help students understand complex concepts through collaborative wiki writing.
In many places in the discussion, the term “Teaching 2.0” is mentioned. Here is a quote from the Techlearning Blog about the nature of Teaching 2.0:
“Teacher 2.0 puts students at the center of the learning experience; they [sic] allow students to control the learning environment and create content that contributes to the global body of information. Teacher 2.0 creates an environment that allows learning to happen. They [sic] guide students by engaging in conversations either virtual or face-to-face.Teacher 2.0 understands that learning occurs when every member of the class is both a student and a teacher. That teaching and learning goes beyond the walls of the physical classroom. [sic] Teacher 2.0 understands that content is ever changing; therefore focusing on skills that help us understand the changing nature of content is more critical than the content itself. Teacher 2.0 is caring, compassionate, and is willing to take risks.”
I am not aware of the term “Teaching 2.0.” I’m going to investigate it more. Perhaps it will become the focal point of another blog entry.
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