StigmergicWeb

I’m not sure what I was expecting for convocation. I had done this twice before - first for a B.Sc. (Specialization - Genetics) then again two years later for a B.Ed. (Secondary Biology). I’m at an age (that’ll wait until next post) at which one doesn’t expect to feel giddy at the prospect of participating in convocation exercises. I was feeling pretty happy about the M.Ed. being done, about the legitimacy of adding M.Ed. at the end of my name when appropriate, and very excited about the increase in pay once I had the degree. If I’d been asked to describe my feelings while on my way to the auditorium I would probably have said I was happy and pleased with my accomplishment.

Then I picked up the robe and hood. It started to feel a little bit like I had just left platform 9 and three quarters on the Hogwarts Express. As the graduands began to wander backstage in preparation for our procession, we donned our robes and were instructed in the proper way to hold the hoods when we walked onto the stage for the convocation. We looked rather scholastic and medieval in our costumes, which I suppose is the desired effect. We were marshalled into place for our procession and led into the front seats of the auditorium. The band was playing, the attendees were all on their feet and we found our way to our seats. Then we stood and waited while the rest of the procession made its way in. Then we stood and waited as the platform party (president, chancellor, college deans and so on) made their way in all wearing their brightly coloured robes. Finally, after singing Oh Canada, we sat.

So we sat, people talked, more people talked, etc. The honourary degree that day was being given to Roy Romanow, who is the former Premier of Saskatchewan (greatest place in the world, in case you didn’t know). Roy is an extremely good public speaker so his speech to the graduands was a welcome alternative to the dry, sleep-inducing speech that usually seems to be part of the required ritual for convocating.

Finally, it was time for the best part. Row by row, we were called up to line up then make our way across the stage to receive the parchment. I know that getting the parchment is purely ceremonial and the important piece of paper is the transcript, but when my row went to line up everyone, at least everyone around me, had silly grins on their faces including me. Most of us receiving M.Ed. degrees were into our teaching careers and you wouldn’t think we would be the types to be subject to giddiness, but there we were smiling, waving at family and waiting to proceed across the stage. More ceremony ensued, including the bestowing of the Ph.D. degrees. I’m not sure if I would ever want to get a Ph.D. because their robes bear more than a passing resemblance to a court jester. On the other hand, they did get to take a seat on the stage after receiving their degrees, which looked kind of cool. More ceremony ensued, then we were dismissed to go find our families and friends. My wife even gave me a frame for the parchment as a grad gift. My first two degrees are sitting somewhere in the boxes in our basement instead of being properly displayed somewhere so it is a much appreciated gift.

So - now I am done getting the degree and looking forward to putting it to good use. Since I didn’t write a thesis for my degree and since I didn’t have the chance to express my gratitude at the convocation for those who helped get me here, I didn’t have any forum for acknowledging those who got me here, so here it goes. I want to thank Len Proctor and Barry Brown for being excellent mentors and for sharing their experience and wisdom with us. I want to especially thank Rick Schwier for prompting me to do some of the best thinking and writing that I have done in my life (so far) and for being a great friend. I want to thank all the other students in my classes - I learned so much from all of you. If you have read this blog while I have been thinking out loud over the past few years, I’d like to thank you for your attention; and if you left comments I need to give you a big thank you for provoking me to think more deeply and critically about my ideas. Finally, and most important, I need to my children and my wife for supporting me while I was working on this - I couldn’t have done it without you.

That felt pretty good. And now, back to marking math exams. Getting the degree is great, but real life is calling!

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It occurred to me earlier that starting today, there are four significant countdowns in my life:

1. Tomorrow (Oct. 26) Apple releases Leopard. I suppose this isn’t really that significant or specifically involve me, but I am looking forward to the updated OS. I think that having automated backups via Time Machine will be the best feature, not that automatic backups are new but it has a bee-yoo-tee-ful Apple wrapper on the whole thing which looks like it will make backing up and restoring easier to manage. Hopefully this will make backups part of all Mac users lives. Backups are important - I have learned that the hard way! I haven’t ordered my copy yet. I’m waiting to see if it crashes Alec’s dual quad core first. A small, petty, evil part of me is kind of hoping it does. ;^)
2. Two days hence (Oct. 27) I convocate from the University of Saskatchewan’s M.Ed. program in Educational Communication and Technology. I’ll probably have more to write about it after the convocation is done.
3. Three days hence (Oct. 28) is my birthday (sound the trumpets and let the pigeons fly). It won’t be a multiple of 10 (or even a mere multiple of 5) so it doesn’t feel especially significant. But it will be a prime number so I will be, once again, entering the prime of my life. As with the convocation, I might have more to blog about at the time. Then again, maybe not. After a certain age it becomes just another day, albeit a day for sleeping in. Also, my report card marks are due in on Monday, so my birthday will include a whole whack of marking.
   
4. Four days hence, this blog is done (mostly). I mentioned before that I needed to rebrand - change the focus or the scope of what I am writing about, so I will be moving shop. I’ll still be writing about ed-tech kinds of things, but that is only going to be part of it. I want to write about so many different things and I feel like I need a new space to do that. I’ll definitely leave a last post here regarding that. This site won’t be completely gone but I’ll have more to say about that in 4 days.

I think I’ll have a lot to say in the next few days. I hope that I’ll also have the time to write it up and share it with you.

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Alec Couros and I are in the midst of putting together a course for the University of Regina. Officially, the course number and name is EC&I 831: Computers in the Classroom: Appropriate Curriculum and Instruction Related to Computer Technology but Alec and I are referring to it as Open, Connected and Social Pedagogy. We’ll be offering it in the second semester, from January to April 2008.

The official outline is rather vague, but we will be focusing on the principles of learning being “open, connected and social” (full credit to Alan, D’Arcy and Brian for coming up with that pithy little phrase) and focusing specifically on open and social tools/software for the classroom, how they can be used and how pedagogy changes the way we perceive and guide learning and knowledge. Social learning and connectivism are two key pedagogical concepts that guide the course. The will be offered completely online. We’re planning to use a synchronous tool for once a week get-togethers, about 1.5 hours/week where we can discuss course goals, content and create collaborative opportunities.

That’s the elevator pitch. What we really want to do is get some educators and edtech folks together for some great conversations and opportunities to collaborate. There are two ways we’re looking for people to participate. Obviously we are looking for students since we need some enrollment for the course to run. If we get a high demand for the course, that will help to make sure we run it again next year. If you are interested in that way of participating, details are for registration are available at the Distance Learning Division of the U of R.

The other way you can participate is involved in the discussions and collaborations. If you’ve got some ideas about using social software/web apps/web 2.0 (ugghh), we would welcome your contributions in some way. We’re looking at a number of ways to get people involved in some way - maybe wikis, maybe doing some RSS mashup of blog feed, maybe podcasting. In the end, it will probably be a mix of all these things and more.

This is a new implementation of an existing course, so we’re still not exactly sure where it will end up. If you want to get involved to see where it goes, leave a comment or send me an e-mail (robwall at gmail dot com).

There is some irony in my being involved with this course but that’s another blog post that will have to wait.

Working on two online course projects has given me the impetus to take a look back at some of the things I learned and some of the work that I did while working on my M.Ed. I think I have learned a few things about online learning and instructional design. One of the constant themes - almost a fundamental principle - that I found in my classes and readings was a simple and obvious one. Online learning is different from classroom based learning. If you have experience developing online course this may elicit a “Well - d’uh”, but if you are a novice at online course design you would do well to keep this in mind.

The most eloquent articulation of this concept came from David Wiley in an article he wrote in TechTrends entitled The Polo Parable. Go ahead and have a read. If you haven’t read it before, it’s well worth it. I’ll wait here until you get back.

Good story, that one. I think David gets right to the kernel of the concept in the epilogue:

The moral of the story is that the concatenation of English words “move my class online” is perhaps the most preposterous sequence of syllables ever to escape the mouth. And yet we all unconsciously fall prey to the subtle wiles of the siren’s song – “just do what you always did… those tried and true techniques you have battle tested in the classroom will serve you well online … trust what you know… do what you have always done… that’s the responsible thing to do.” Imagining that classroom teaching techniques can be successful transplanted into an online environment is even more ridiculous than assuming that the water polo play book will, unaltered, lead to a winning polo season on horseback.

I’ve been re-reading a paper I wrote in which I developed some of these ideas. I’ve been pleasantly surprised to find that the paper, written way back in 2004, still seems relevant. I guess that although three years in internet time equates with about a decade of real world time, basic concepts about teaching and learning persist. If you nodded your head while reading the Polo Parable, that proves the point.

At the time Rick suggested that I revise the paper a bit and get it published. I think he meant the dead tree kind of publishing where a few other people get to judge the quality of your work then decide if it’s worth the rest of the world seeing. Bah, I say. I have the interweb to disseminate my work to the rest of the world. It’s a longish read - about 23ish pages of dead tree, not including the references, but here it is: Before you snorkel that horse ….

Yes, this entire post was written just to pimp my paper. I feel cheap, but it’s out there now. I think it was the best work I did during my M.Ed. so I wanted to share it with you. I’m hoping to revise it and bring it up to date, so if you have any comments leave them here.

I’m getting started on a couple of interesting instructional design projects right now. One is the design of an online computer science class for Grade 11 students. I’ve taught CompSci many times before and used a blended instructional model where the students and I were all in the same room, and all the resources and assignments were online. It shouldn’t be too much of a stretch to adapt that to being completely online. I have a personal stake in how well the course is designed because I’ll be teaching it next semester.

I’m also working with Alec in the design of a grad level class (Ed Curriculum and Instruction 831 from the University of Regina if you’re interested in joining the fun). We’re going to be looking at open, connected and social technologies in the classroom and appropriate pedagogies in the connected age. It should be a lot of fun, but I guess that’s the whole point of these things.

My problem with both of these projects is where to organize all my notes and ideas. I have OmniOutliner Pro for organizing all my hierarchical lists like to do lists, learning objectives and that sort of thing. Or I could use Notebook from Circus Ponies, or Journler to keep track of general sorts of notes in addition to hierarchical things. Freemind is a great program for brainstorming or mind mapping, and it’s even open source to add to the goodness. In keeping with the spirit of the EC and I class, I could use some of the terrific online tools - Google Docs and Google Notebook for collaborative writing/note taking. How about Mindmeister or bubbl.us for some mind maps online. Of course, there’s always good old Wikispaces or PB Wiki (or many others that I don’t use or know about). My brain is addled with the surfeit of tools and choices that I’m not sure where to begin.

Maybe I’ll just go back to the basics!


(by Olivander, released under Creative Commons AT,NC,SA license)

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Along with some colleagues, I toured around two different implementations of online learning in the K-12 system. In both cases, they have experienced substantial increases in the number of students that they serve. The growth in online learning among K-12 students is burgeoning and ready to cause some real changes in the way that we think of schools.

The first visit was to the Saskatoon Catholic Cyber School - thanks for the info, Darren. They have a comprehensive approach to online education, providing not only courses to students, but also some supports and even some ways to provide a sense of school community (some of these were student driven). Some (most - I’m not actually sure of the ratio) of their courses are managed through WebCT, but a substantial number of their resources were public and blog based. The use of blogs, RSS and aggregators were key elements of their communication and information dissemination plan. I was delighted to see that my own meager blog was included in a screenshot of Darren’s aggregator!

The cyber school operates on a continuous registration system - students can register at any time during the school year, and they have 150 days to complete the course, which may result in students picking up their work in September where they had left off in June. All work is done asynchronously and all the interaction within the course is teacher-student, so while their might be a school community there seems to be little opportunity for any kind of classroom community to flourish. A goal of the cyber school is to offer course materials and resources so that teachers in face to face classrooms will be able to use some sort of blended or hybrid learning with a combination of classroom based learning and online learning.

The second stop was the Online Learning Center of the Saskatoon Public School Division. The model they have adopted is to deliver courses online and also to provide resources for classroom teachers. They are not a school so much as an alternate delivery system for courses. The courses are delivered asynchronously and offered over a school semester. Students register at the start of the semester and the final exam is at the end of the semester. Since all students are proceeding through the course at the same time, although not necessarily the same pace, the opportunity exists for some class community to develop. Since the model is to deliver courses, not create a school, there isn’t any opportunity for a school community to develop.

Of the two, I think the first model - the fully fledged cyber school - works best. Students are offered not just courses but a school community. I would expect that students would be much more likely to take further classes if they already felt part of a community. Course communities are great, perhaps even essential for some courses to succeed. The problem with course communities is that they expire on the last day of the course. An ongoing community in which the class is embedded would better support student learning. There are also public parts of the community - the various blogs - and a private part of the community supported within the WebCT framework. (I’m sure it would also work very nicely in Moodle!)

The school division where I work is looking at developing some online learning. We’re a geographically large division with all varieties of schools from small town K-12 schools all the way to comprehensive high schools. I’m not sure what kind of model will work best for us. I expect we’ll copy a bit from both of these models, steal borrow from others and make up a few things of our own along the way. These sorts of things tend to take on a life of their own after a while, so I’m not sure where we’ll end up but it should be a fun ride! Stay tuned for further details …

Thanks to Steve Dembo for pointing this one out. I had read Taylor Mali’s poem before, but the power and passion he delivers in performance speaks for all teachers. As the school year draws to a close, this is a great message to remind us why we do what we do!

I should be working on the project, but I have to shine some light on this piece by Christopher Sessums (brought to my attention by Stephen)

Christopher D. Sessums :: Weblog :: Intellect, Emotion, Spirit, and Will: Another Side of Connectivism

His post is an exploration of some of the ideas of/quotations from The Courage to Teach (is this worth reading? - comments welcome on this), and its connection to connectivism. One thing that Christopher says

teaching is not about the methods you employ, but instead about the personality, the disposition, and scruples one brings to the learning environment

Too right! I’d even add one more item to the description of what teaching is not about - teaching is not about the content, its about the process - what we do much more than the course/subject/teaching. One of the difficulties teaching at the secondary level is that we tend to lose track of this, misdirected by being “subject experts”, whereas Kindergarten teachers seem to do the best job of this. Perhaps that is why Kindergarten is the place where we learn all we really need to know, at least according to Robert Fulghum. The Kindergarten teachers I’ve met all understand that teaching is about process.

I attended a teachers convention last week (brief aside from the depths of my addled brain - why are they called teachers conventions instead of teaching conventions? Perhaps that is where our focus begins to be misdirected). There were actually two teachers conventions in the same building, and I followed the crowd into the other opening keynote address. The speaker (sorry - name is forgotten) was talking about the power of media in the lives of our students. I appreciated her emphasis that we are not helpless or unimportant in the lives of our students. In fact, she said that the greatest predictor of school success is a strong connection with a caring adult. That connection is a greater influence in a young person’s life than all the media that permeates their lives. (This was in the week following the fabulous online connectivism conference, so the word connection had a particular resonance.) Often, that caring adult will be a teacher. What an incredible responsibility! Years ago, in one of the schools I taught at during my “temporary contract” career phase, there was a great thought written up on blackboard in the staff room - they don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. That’s a thought I try to keep in my head as the faces turn toward me when the class bell sounds.

I’ve just read this post from Andy Carvin about Seymour Papert - Andy Carvin’s Waste of Bandwidth: Prayers for Seymour Papert. Seymour Papert was hit by a motorcycle and “gravely injured” while in Hanoi for a conference. According to a report at boston.com, the accident on Tuesday left Papert, 78, in a coma. An e-mail from Hanoi says On tuesday afternoon, Seymour Papert got run over. He hit his head, and has had to undergo emergency neurosurgery.

I don’t think that educational technology would exist in its present form without his influence. We need to keep his ideas about the importance of play in learning ever present in our minds as corporations try to claim control over learning (by patenting e-learning, perhaps?).

I’m reading a paper right now entitled Comparing Weblogs to Threaded Discussion in Online Educational Contexts by Donna Cameron and Terry Anderson, published in the November edition of the International Journal of Instructional Technology and Distance Learning (thanks to Stephen for the pointer to this). When I write that I’m reading it right now, I mean that pretty much literally as I flip between the windows for this entry and the paper. I’d usually wait until I’m done reading the paper then write about it, but this is too compelling to resist putting thoughts on paper - er, web in real time.

Donna and Terry discuss the use of blogs as tools to create and sustain a community of inquiry. The community of inquiry model was developed by Terry Anderson, Randy Garrison and Walter Archer. It describes three elements of educational transaction - cognitive presence, social presence and teaching presence - and their use in designing online education. Their original research is available online at the Communities of Inquiry (CoI) website, and is well worth the read. At the time of the original research, they were looking mainly at threaded discussion, but these elements also work extremely well if one looks at blogs as the communication tool. This line of thought actually occurred to me two years ago when I was at a presentation by Walter Archer entitled Fostering Critical Thinking in an Online Environment at the Instructional Design conference in Saskatoon, in which he discussed the community of inquiry model. Dirk Morrison had also used the CoI model earlier in the day. One of my first thoughts when looking at the CoI model was that blogs could be used to create cognitive, social and teaching presence, not in any sort of centralized location, but in a much more diffuse and distributed fashion. Here are my notes from the presentation - Fostering Critical Thinking in an Online Environment. (I also blogged some notes about Alec Couros’ presentation on education blogging, and Alec has his educational blogging presentation slides online) My first podcast also describes the conference - StigmergicWeb podcast #1. (link is to blog entry)

OK - back to the paper. Donna and Terry (I keep wanting to retreat back into academic speak by saying “The authors …” or “Cameron and Anderson …”, but that wouldn’t be very blog-ish of me, would it? Informality is an inherent part of the medium. But I digress …) then show how blogs have positive and negative aspects with regard to all three types of presence. One particular thought I like is about teaching presence:

This means that the design of LMS based courses tend to exclude use of emerging Internet tools such as collaborative bookmarking, FOAF, podcasting, synchronous web conferencing and other social software and external database systems. Thus, the design and organization component of teaching presence is generally more restricted when LMS based conferencing systems are used as opposed to blogging tools.

Hmmm - maybe the choice of an open-source LMS versus a proprietary one is not as important as the consideration of why we need an LMS, and what other tools we might need to bring into the design of online learning. But again, I digress …

I enjoyed the paper and did a lot of nodding as I was reading it, more from my own ideas being affirmed rather than from any new perspectives. I think that these ideas have been around for a while; I’ve written and presented (at AMTEC - audio also posted - and a LORNET research symposium) about the utility of blogs as tools in online learning, along with many others far more intelligent and well-spoken than I am. If you are reading this, then you might have the same sense of familiarity. I think that having what we know fit within an established framework of online education should help in trying to get our ideas out to the larger educational structures we work in. Why not print a couple of copies of the paper, leave them strategically placed in your staff/faculty room and then see what happens? Of course, if you want to blog about the experience, that would be even better!