Doc Talk Part Deux

What is Educational Technology?

AECT Definition
Educational Technology is the study and ethical practice of facilitating learning and improving performance by creating, using, and managing appropriate processes and resources (Januszewski & Molenda, p.15).

Tedesco’s Working Definition
Educational Technology is the study and practice of the creation, use, and management of technological processes to enrich learning.

Where Does My Research Question Fit In?
Aligning my research questions with the AECT definition is difficult; however the closest alignment would be with the “creating and using” section of the definition. Using the Seels & Richey (1994) domains of Educational Technology for alignment, my research question would include components of UTILIZATION, DEVELOPMENT, and DESIGN.

Literature Review Research Question
How does experiential learning activities using mobile learning devices and case-based learning design strategies increase intrinsic motivation of students while satisfying curriculum objectives?

Concept
Wherigo is a toolset for creating and playing GPS-enabled adventures in the real world. Wherigo allows geocachers to interact with physical and virtual elements such as objects or characters while still finding a physical geocache container.

Using Wherigo, pre-service teachers will design (DESIGN), develop (DEVELOPMENT), and create Wherigo adventures.

This is where I need the most help…figuring out what I will actually investigate.

References
Januszewski, A., Molenda, M., & Harris, P. (2007). Educational Technology. Hillsdale: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Seels, B., & Richey, R. (1994). Instructional Technology. Washington: Association for Educational Communications and Technology.

Wherigo Epiphany

I am excited because today I was able to meet with my surpervisor and talk about all my crazy research ideas. We narrowed down a topic that I think will produce some great research. I will be studying the topic of gaming in education using the program Wherigo with my pre-service educators. Wherigo is an application that allows you to create interactive geocache games...sorta like a handheld version of Where in the World is Carmen San Diego.

Dr. Lock & Digital Collaboration

In a group reflection we take a moment to reflect on the points of Dr. Jennifer Lock's discussion which resonated with us.

A candid comment made by Lisa about how she felt dissapointed lack of innovation used in the study got me interested in looking at some of the new collaboration tools that exist on the market. Having done a fair bit of research I found a wonderful free, real time collaboration program called Drop.io. Have a quick watch of the video and see how the world on online collaboration is evolving.



I have already become a user of Drop.io and you can use it to enjoy our reflectionary podcast.

Wristwatches, Willy Wonka Wrapper Degrees, and the 6th sense

So, I took Dr. Jacobson's device and listened to a podcast on my way to school yesterday.

I have been waiting for a long time to listen to a podcast that I had downloaded of one of my favorite speakers, Sir. Ken Robinson (or Dr. ... I just presume that Sir. has more status? ... or is this the EdD/PhD debate all over again?). The speech was part of the Hammer lecture series and focused on his latest book titled: The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything. Here are the parts I found most interesting:

1. Standardized Tests in Education

Robinson does a wonderful job of using the catering industry to provide a candid analogy of what our education system is vs. what it should be. He argues that we have homogenized children by removing the personalization and diversity from our education system by the increased reliance on standardized testing. I completely agree with his argument that we have been sold the "fast food" model of education. If you like where this is going, this part sets the stage for the other 4 parts I found intriguing.



2. Wristwatches

Ken illustrates Prensky's concept of the digital divide (or digital revolution) that has occurred through a conversation about wristwatches. Do you wear a wristwatch? I don't.


3. The Irony of Education Inflation

Robinson lands another solid punch when he describes the problem of education inflation. He candidly explains how degrees are becoming devalued. He explains that degrees used to be like Willy Wonka's 'Golden Ticket' and they have now become more like a Willy Wonka wrapper. The irony of this is that creativity and imagination is lost as additional schooling creates more homogeneity -- we become industrialized and confined into our disciplines. Food for thought.


4. My Aha! moment

Ken tells a chilling story of a child who was told by a teacher that they would not amount to anything, and how they were eventually vindicated. Robinsion talks about how we must accept the differences of the people we encounter and should not steer people away from their passions as we cannot predict their potential. My favorite quote of this talk comes from this segment where he says, "if we live a life that is straightened by this particular conception of academic ability we deny the multiplicity of talents on which our community actually depends." This resonates with me because this is where I feel educational technology can fit into our schools -- allowing students to explore their creativity and imagination and exposure to the world around them.


5. The 6th Sense

Robinson illustrates how schools can be closed questioning environments by talking about what children are taught about our senses. It brings up a moment of quandary for me as I sometimes question the 'holier-than-thou' value we attach to peer-reviewed journals. I feel that all people are founts of knowledge and the story of the Anlo-Ewe people is a prime example of that.



I have a feeling that if you got this far in my blog post the next thing you will do is look up the 9 senses ... now that is education!

Scratch!

When Dr. Li presented her research on Enactivism and Education through Gaming, I was most impressed with Scratch -- a modular programming language with a simple interface that allows users with little to no programming knowledge to create interactive games.

This is interesting to me because I teach pre-service teachers who will become Computer Studeies teachers for students in grades 7-12. Scratch does a great job of taking abstract concepts and making them easy to integrate and understand. One of the problems teachers in the field of Computer Science face is that it is hard for students to write a program that is interactive and graphical without a great deal of time and coding. Scratch has solved this problem by removing the complexity of graphics programming, and allowing you to focus on the structure and design of computer programs.

I will definately spend more time working with Scratch!

An interesting comment/discussion that emerged during Dr. Li's presentation was childrens fear of failure in school settings. It reminds me of Sir Ken Robinson's TED talk titled "Schools kill creativity", in particular the section titled 'facing the fear of being wrong'


His main point is that our society stigmatizes mistakes and the result of this is that we "educate people out of their creative capacities". I cannot agree more with what Sir Ken has to say, but I am also motivated by the thoughts and research of Marc Prensky and Dr. Qing Li who realize that gaming can be a viable educational resource for our 21st century learners.

P.S. More on Sir. Ken Robinson tomorrow!

More Friends, Less Friendships: An Interesting Paradox

I want to take a moment to discuss specifically what is lost with the “near ubiquitous” use of ICT (specifically at home/work).

Firstly, as professionals who are in the Ed. Tech field, I would be preaching to the choir if I were to discuss what the benefits/advantages are of using ICT in our daily lives. What people in our field sometimes neglect to do is to recognize the sacrifices we have made during the adoption of ICT and its pervasiveness in our daily activities.

I will organize this response in two subtopics. These subtopics will flow together because they ultimately follow one main thread that is, the loss of human contact, personality, and quality relationships. For many, this response may appear to be a big rant, however I think that it is important to reflect on the drawbacks of the technology that were are all so passionate about promoting.

Before going any further, I must also recognize my personal bias, and that is that I am not a user of Facebook or Twitter, nor do I intend on signing up for either service for personal use. With that being said, most of my opinions are formed based on my experiences, conversations, and observations of ‘users’ of these social networking tools.

MORE ‘FRIENDS’, LESS FRIENDSHIPS

I contend that the use of social networking applications (in particular Facebook and Twitter) have actually changed the quality of personal relationships. In the past (pre Facebook and Twitter) we would contact friends/relatives in a variety of ways (e.g., Post, Email, Telephone, Face-to-Face). In those times, the obvious constraints were time and money, so phone calls and visits were well planned and schedules were forged to allow for people to share “quality time” together. Because of this I find that my friends are very close and our conversations are deep and we connect on a variety of social levels. We remain genuinely interested and involved in each other’s lives because we place a high value on our friendships and make sacrifices (e.g., time, money) to support this end.

On the contrary, I find that the relationships formed in the Web 2.0 era have shifted from ‘friendships’ to ‘acquaintanceships’. I think that a topographical look at a relationship web (pre mainstream social networking applications) would be tight and highly interconnected. Now relationships webs have become very expansive. I argue that this shift from ‘friendships’ to ‘acquaintanceships’ happens directly from the fact that sites, such as Facebook, promote a very shallow (in both senses of the word) form of communication between people.

The mainstream social networking tools of Web 2.0 are very two-dimensional. I watch people browse their Facebook account where they have 100+ “friends” with whom they share quick asynchronous messages (e.g., wall posts), pictures, and status updates of less than 140 characters (Twitter) it is not hard to recognize that this new environment does not foster the deeply connected friendships of the past. Facebook and Twitter have essentially become venues to hold digital popularity contests.

Finally, I think that we have forgotten the importance of human contact and specifically human touch and its role in our relationships. Touch is a very powerful sense, one that we learn to appreciate from infancy. Touch is arguably the most effective, yet simplest, form of communication. I feel that for an ‘acquaintanceship’ to become a ‘friendship’ it must, at the very least, involve some form of human contact (e.g, a hug, a pat on the back, a kiss on the cheek, a shoulder to cry on). Hence, I feel that these technologies have created a very odd paradox whereby people now have more “friends” yet less “friendships”.

FREE SMART PHONES ARE VERY COSTLY

It is commonplace for workplaces to provide their employees with Smart Phones which offer all the conveniences of an office in the palm of ones hand. Granted, these devices provide a quick and easy way to connect with colleagues/clients regardless of thier location in the world – one must remember that these conveniences come at a cost.

Not until the advent of PDAs and Smart Phones have we ever been so “attached” to work that we now have the technology to literally bring our offices home with us. What I find most disturbing is that it is common for a Smart Phone user to physically strap this device to their body! The imagery is haunting as technology has allowed work to become a 21^st century appendage. (NOTE: I can’t help but picture Darwin’s evolution of man diagram changing)

How naïve are we to think that by taking these “free” phones, we are actually improving our lives? How bizarre is it that we now, as a culture, accept (and respond) to emails sent at all hours of the day and night?

Now, more than ever, I find that it is nearly impossible to establish what today’s concept of “regular work hours” are. There is no longer a clear division of home-time and work-time and sadly because of this people have become more wed to their jobs than their spouses.

CONCLUSION

To wrap this all up, I think it is important to investigate the theory that has been written about our evolving human nature as it relates to technology use. Most notably I will reflect on the writings of Linda Stone who has been credited with coining the term “continuous partial attention” (not to be confused with multi-tasking) which she describes as the natural process where we constantly “want to effectively scan for opportunity and optimize for the best opportunities, activities, and contacts, in any given moment.”

Linda goes on to state that: “We pay continuous partial attention in an effort NOT TO MISS ANYTHING. It is an always-on, anywhere, anytime, any place behavior that involves an artificial sense of constant crisis.”

I agree with Linda as she describes how we now find that people tend to function in an artificial state of crisis. I feel that the state of crisis is artificial because we are the ones guilty of creating the sense of crisis (e.g., attaching Blackberries to our own belts). We have gotten to a point in our society where we feel like we can do 10 things at once with the same quality and attention to detail as if we had done the tasks separately. Even in my current workplace I find that we bite off more than we can chew and instead of focusing on doing a few things well, we do many things adequately (at best). I feel that people who function in a state of CPA have come to accept mediocrity as the norm because they are simply ‘performing’ until a more interesting stimulus comes their way.

Why I have never blogged before

As a professor of technology in a faculty of education as well as a person who considers themselves in-tune with current and emerging technology it surprises many people when I tell them that I have yet to participate in this social media/networking phenomena. People are shocked when they hear that me, of all people, has never registered for an account on: Blogger, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, ...

I am well aware of the utility and novelty of these sites and how they have become a part of the social fabric of our society -- I have just been very discerning and have yet to really understand how I will incorporate myself into the world of Web 2.0


WHY NO LOVE FOR BLOGGING?
If I were to quote a gender stereotype, I would say that I am a typical male who rarely digs deep to share my feelings, therefore sharing these thoughts and feelings with strangers seems completely absurd. I find it difficult to bare my soul and be vulnerable through narrative, which is why I have never written a diary and failed any journal writing assignment I have been forced to complete. Despite the fact that I have a good sense of humor and consider myself to be a good storyteller, and with no offense to bloggers, I suppose that I don't have the ego to dedicate a website to myself and my thoughts/experiences.

With all that being said, I have turned over a new leaf and signed up for an account on Blogger. The first challenge I faced was to create a name for my blog! After pondering for quite some time for an appropriate title I reflected on what I thought this blog would become (it's that damn backward design to teaching -- gets you every time!). As I embark on the adventure of pursuing my EdD, I aptly named my blog "Doc's Orders", as I feel this blog will follow my progress (order of events) through the EdD candidacy process.

Thanks for reading my first ever blog post!