Friday, August 30, 2002

Elearning Course "A non-traditional course on online learning. Instead of having an instructor provide the content, a facilitator provides a topic topic for the group to debate and disseminate. Essentially, the content is one sentence...i.e. "What is the effectiveness of elearning when compared with traditional classroom delivery." That's it. From there, the group dissects the issue. Learners (and the facilitator is a learner in this process) present viewpoints, provide links to articles, resources, and theories. " 1:30:29 PM    comment []

Learning with Confidence "Does education help prepare students to successfully cope, risk, and innovate in a rapidly changing world? A fearless approach to learning, one where mistakes are valued for the lessons they provide, is recommended. Far too often, students allow themselves to be immobilized by fear of making mistakes." Another recently recurring theme. I refer to the transparency of a learning (or working) environment often when I am discussing the potential value of weblogs in education. Only by making our usually internal processes visible can we (or anyone else) figure out if we're on the right track or not. An unwillingness to make public mistakes often arises from a learner's ideas about intelligence. If intelligence is believed to be a fixed asset, risk-taking holds little value ("I either get it or I don't. If I don't, I probably never will, so why risk looking like a fool?"). Conversely, if the learner believes that intelligence is a dynamic attribute that can be affected by effort, the risk of public stumbles are not as likely to hold them back from trying. This all speaks to the need to incorporate mechanisms into learning environments that will assist the learner and the teacher in discovering these preconceptions and in working to modify/correct them if necessary. (I'm reading How People Learn, and I find it fascinating.) 1:27:10 PM    comment []

referencing multiple media An interesting conundrum I've found myself in... I have throughout my life recognized the recurring phenomena of what I call "sticky themes". It isn't a complex concept--for whatever reason an idea strikes me as intriguing, so I mull it over. Immediately, I begin to recognize other applications of the concept in wildly diverse areas of my life--each reinforcing the concept. It is sort of like when someone you know buys a new car and you immediately begin to see instances of its make/color/etc everywhere you go. Suddenly it seems everyone is driving a white Camry.   So, lately I've been listening to audio books on my iPod as I work out in the morning. I was listening to The Next Fifty Years: Science in the First Half of the Twenty-First Century a month ago. The author of one of the chapters discussed a theory (posited by Arthur C. Clarke? I can't remember...more about that in a minute) about interstellar space travel. The theory stated that the first group to finally embark on an interstellar journey will be passed by their grandchildren, who will have figured out a way to get there in half the time. Soon after that, they will be passed by their grandchildren, and so on... Such a dilemma might cause the first generation to just wait, but here is where the repeating concept (for me) was born. Without the advances brought on by the efforts of the first generation, the ability of the next crew to improve upon it would be stifled. So I begin to see repetition of the concept everywhere. I know, I know...very basic. But to me, the most profound concepts usually are. I'll probably ramble more about this later. The point of this post, however, is quite different than this idea.   How can I maintain "references" from an increasingly diverse set of information sources? When I thought of the concept I had read in the book, I immediately wanted to go back to my notes that I had scribbled in the margin, only to realize that the margin (and the notes) were all mental constructs (which, for me anyway, are regrettably quite a bit less reliable than ink on paper). It is much the same in many areas of my life. I have begun to be spoiled by the convenience of my weblog tools. In this arena, I find my dependence on Mike Krus' little bookmarklet javascript called RadioExpress!, which allows me to grab a section of a web page I'm viewing and quickly annotate it as an entry into my weblog. I don't keep favorites or bookmarks any more. It is all kept in my weblog/klog. Now if I could just figure out how to make RadioExpress! work on my iPod... 11:45:50 AM    comment []