Miles' Tomes

7 Oaks PD Day with Lionel Laroche

Posted by milesmac on February 5th, 2013 | No Comments Posted in Pedagogy

incidentally...

One thing we lose with targeted searches online compared to the old paper-based encyclopedias is the incidental learning. It's learning about the Roman Emperor Tacitus, looking at pictures of tadpoles, and learning a few words of Tagalog on the way to researching your biography of Maria Taglioni.
I too am a little nostalgic about encyclopedias.

Are the recommended videos in the sidebar, or the close-but-not-quite search results today's version of this incidental learning?

Posted by milesmac on February 1st, 2013 | No Comments Posted in Pedagogy

What is #EdTech and Why Integrate? A Discussion Question.

"Post a brief paragraph with your definition of educational technology and your thoughts about why we should integrate technology into learning. "

This discussion question was posed in a class I'm taking on Educational Media and Technology. Here is my response. How would you approach this?

Educational technologies include both objects and strategies when they are used to bring clarity, aid understanding, illustrate concepts, model interactions, or allow for exploration by teachers and learners to achieve learning goals.

It could thus be said that Instructional Design itself is an educational technology; when deployed, this strategy is meant to make meaning from a situation and clarify the task at hand. Algebra tiles in math, microscopes in science, globes in social studies are also educational technologies in addition to the conventional understanding of technology as electronic devices.

Using technology for instructional purposes reflects authentic and ubiquitous communication forms employed elsewhere. Technology integration demands more than just introducing the technology into the classroom. Professional development on the tool's function leads to more efficient use. Thoughtful understanding of how the tool influences and shapes the learning/teaching process contributes to more effective use.

While technology in education is important we do well to understand that the mere presence of technology does not affect the learning process. It is the thoughtful use of the tool along with corresponding modifications to the context that makes technology meaningful.

For the next couple of years much of my time will be spent on coursework as I have enrolled in George Washington University's Graduate Certificate in eLearning, the first step toward completing the Masters Degree in Education Technology Leadership. In the spirit of learning in public, I plan to use my blog as a thinking and processing space. I'll use the #GWETL tag here on the blog and the same hashtag when tweets are course related. At the moment, I'm registered in Instructional Design and Applying Educational Media and Technology.

Posted by milesmac on January 30th, 2013 | No Comments Posted in Pedagogy

Does learning content differ from learning processes?

Planning for Learning

Fair Warning: I don't know yet whether learning content differs from learning processes. There are no answers here, just more questions exploring whether traditional instructional design models can accommodate all.

Connectivist Learning blurs the line between teachers and students in a community of interconnected learners and ideas.

Connectivist Learning blurs lines between teachers & students in a community of interconnected learners & ideas.

Whether we are traditional sage on the stage lecturers, or constructivist minded creators of learning environments, planning is an essential element of an educator's craft. Instructional design models emerged in the 1940s as a way to standardize outcomes, to ensure a predictable product with known characteristics. Design models served to create an effective and efficient model for optimizing learning experiences, delivering content, and assessing achievement. While instructional design as a thoughtful and thorough creation of learning activities, the methods by which it is implemented need to evolve to accommodate emerging technologies.

Acknowledging the symbiotic relationship between tools and the context in which they are used, we must also consider how learning environments and experiences have to change to accommodate significant changes to learning technologies. Traditional instructional design models are challenged by radical changes to the way education is delivered, or, more appropriately, the way people are leaning. Constructivist approaches to learning invite self-directed, self-paced, open exploration and understandings that grow out of the individuals own epistemology. That is not to say that everyone gets to determine what is right and wrong, rather it suggests that there are as many ways to acquire knowledge and understanding as there are people in the world. Constructivism seems to me an unleashing rather than a harnessing of intellectual effort. It broadens the scope of observation while encouraging creativity and diversity in engagement.

Learning to Plan in a Different Context

Massively Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are new models of program delivery that necessarily break from traditional models of instructional design. Larry Cuban observes that while initial attempts at MOOCs merely transplanted traditional lecture-based models of teaching into a digital space, some efforts are leveraging the unique capabilities of online learning environments to create entirely new models of learning.

...where students learn from one another, form online communities, crowd-source answers to problems, create networks that distribute learning in ways that seldom occur in bricks-and-mortar colleges and universities. In other words, student-centered or learner-centered pedagogy.

Geoff Cain points to this shift from individual constructivism to collaborative connectivism where community and content are part and parcel of learning. Traditional instructional design processes like Dick & Carey's are taken over by the learner with support and guidance from the instructor. In this way the learner comes to understand the processes by which to learn, rather than simply receiving content. Courses establish a framework within which the learner achieves his own learning goals. Stephen Downes, in a Huffington Post article notes that, "...the process of taking the course is itself much more important than the content participants may happen to learn...". He clarifies that content itself isn't irrelevant, but "serves merely as a catalyst, a mechanism for getting our projects, discussions and interactions off the ground."

Considering Context for Instructional Technology

Instructional Technology (EdTech)

First thing that comes to mind when we hear Instructional Technology is a computer, mobile device, or the internet. Technology has come to mean something with circuit boards. As tools that facilitate communication and engagement with content, we can fairly include base 10 blocks, alge-tiles, globes, microscopes, paint brushes, and any other such tool. Introducing alge-tiles requires a shift in thinking from simple numerical understanding to visualization of algebraic equations. As such, the teaching and learning activities must also change to accommodate the unique requirements of the tool. There is a connection between the tool and the context in which the tool is used.

Desktop publishing with my students in the early 90s made it clear that the traditional writing process of outline, first draft, second draft, final copy didn't translate well to the digital platform. I would have students print their work at intervals with a header indicating the date and time, but it took a tremendous amount of time to track all the changes from version to version. Digital writing is a fluid process, rather like forming castles from a bunch of sand - we shape, mold, reshape, add, remove, rework again until it gets to a point where it is "good enough". The processes are different, the work flow is different, and the mindset is different. Whereas writers may have thought much more about phrasing and word choice before committing to paper, now, with digital editing, the pressure is off for initial drafts. Get the ideas out and fix it up later, is the mantra. Because a piece of digital writing can easily be edited weeks, months, or years later, only that which is printed and published is ever in a final state. While writing mechanics are the same, teaching and assessing writing in a digital space is different enough from paper and pencil to warrant contextual change.

Instructional Systems

Introducing new instructional technologies (the hardware and applications) require a consideration of the instructional systems or contexts in which it will live. Careful observation of changes to the type of engagement, evolution of traditional processes, and deployment of new strategies contribute to understandings on a systemic level of how this technology necessarily changes the design of instruction. Distinguishing between instructional technology and instructional systems is to understand the larger picture and appreciate how the context is affected by the tools that are used.

Posted by milesmac on January 19th, 2013 | No Comments Posted in #GWETL, Pedagogy

Instructional Design: Overkill or Good Practice

Instructional Design & Lesson Planning

Lesson planning gets easier, and more intuitive with experience. The flow of a lesson through activation, exploration, engagement, and assessment becomes a natural part of what you do. Working with more than a dozen teacher candidates over the years, almost all roll their eyes when the time comes to submit formal lesson plans for an observed class. It's a chore, to be sure, and seems like overkill, yet these activities help a new teacher internalize the elements necessary to maximizing learning. One of my favorite things to do with teacher candidates is to plan - to dig into curriculum, make connections, sequence out ideas, scaffold experiences, consider criteria and rubrics for assessment, set timelines, and anticipate how students will personalize their product to demonstrate learning.

Instructional Design is as formal a process as I've worked with and is reminding me that some elements of my own planning have been under-emphasized. Below is an outline taken from the course syllabus reflecting the Dick & Carey Model of Instructional Design (Dick, W., Carey, L., & Carey, J. (2009). The Systematic Design of Instruction (7^th Edition). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education Inc.)

Instructional Design Process:

Needs assessment and front end analysis
Identifying instructional problems
Conducting instructional analyses
Analyzing learner, context and task characteristics
Writing performance objectives
Developing assessment instruments
Developing an instructional strategy and sequencing content
Selecting delivery methods and resources (media selection)
Developing instructional materials
Designing and conducting formative and summative evaluation
Developing a project implementation and management plan

Of course in day-to-day teaching it is unreasonable to expect this depth of instructional planning, but bringing those under-emphasized elements to mind can't be a bad thing. A good comparison is formative assessment - while it can be formally prepared, implemented, and assessed, it can also be ongoing, at-the-moment informal observations and remediation. Fundamentals of instructional design are formal processes, but can also be implemented on a micro level within a class period.

I am employing the instructional design process today in preparation for workshops and training seminars I'm delivering in the coming weeks. The process prompts me to be thoughtful about elements I may normally have glossed over. I suspect that as I continue using the instructional design process I'll internalize more of it and it will become a natural part of what I do and how I see instruction.

Posted by milesmac on January 19th, 2013 | 1 Comment Posted in #GWETL, Pedagogy

#ETMooc Introduction

I'm cheating a bit for the #ETMooc introduction by simply copying my blog's About page content. I've been following MOOC discussions on Twitter, reading about MOOCs on blogs, and just generally interested in what it looks and feels like to be a MOOC participant. Listening to the online orientation I was reassured that this is a fluid, flexible, adaptable, customised (by me) experience of learning in the presence of other learners following their own plans as we meet together to share ideas and progress. It feels more like a learning community than a course or class.

This January I am re-enrolling in the masters program in education technology leadership I had to abandon about 15 years ago (feels like unfinished business). The distance program in the early 90s included VHS tapes FedEx'd to my house, dialing in to a BBS in Colorado to exchange data files, and lots of HTML coding web pages. The best way to learn new technologies is to use them for an authentic purpose - so here I am.

My current focus in the classroom is exploring 1:1 environments with iPods, interactive 3D environments like Minecraft, and Augmented Reality for adding layers of content to the visible world. Students are blogging and we use Edmodo as an extension of our classroom.

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I have always known I would be a teacher, though I wasn't always on that path, particularly in my own junior high and high school years. I do remember times as far back as grade 3 when I thought, "If I were the teacher, I'd do that differently."

TEACHING
After several years at the University of Manitoba for a BA (English / Religion) and Memorial University of Newfoundland for the BEd (Secondary English), I turned down jobs in southern Manitoba to teach in the remote North, an isolated fly-in First Nations reserve. I lived there for 5 years and was vice principal prior to taking a three-year secondment as Coordinator of Education Technology for 35 remote schools. During that period, I was working on a Master of Arts in Education and Human Development with a Concentration in Education Technology Leadership from George Washington University.

TECHNOLOGY
As a child, I was fortunate to have a friend very involved with computers so my technology exposure began around 1977-8 with the Commodore PET and an opportunity to visit the University of Manitoba to use the punch card mainframe to do my grade 5 math homework. In the '80s our television was connected to the Odyssey II and VIC 20; the late 80s Mac computers at University freed me from typewriter ribbons and correction fluid. Finally I purchased my own Mac LCII in 1991 when I took my first teaching job.

TEACHING AND TECHNOLOGY

I enjoy analyzing emerging technology and anticipating how education may change with access to these new tools. With my students, we have ridden the technology wave from learning office suite software, participating in e-mail exchanges, and coding personal web pages in the 90s, to blogging, podcasting, and digital video production in the 2000s, to today where we have gamified our physical learning space, create and explore in virtual worlds, and stay connected and organized using online learning spaces.

I connect daily with my professional learning network using social media. Reading and writing blogs regularly inspire and motivate through sharing, and dialogue.

THIS BLOG
Now, twenty years into the game and still loving it, still seeking ways of innovating in education, still learning, I feel the need to start putting the pieces of my career in some perspective. This Blog is the thinking space in which I articulate and record experiences, ideas, successes, challenges, plans...

As for the name of the blog, I'm increasingly less in love with it as time passes. In my mind, at the time it was a clever play on words blending three things: milestones, my first name, and large books. Now, I don't love it so much and I think it sounds more like I'm talking about some sort of foot disorder, and real milestones look like grave markers. Oh well... It's registered for another couple years. Maybe it will grow on me.

Posted by milesmac on January 15th, 2013 | No Comments Posted in #ETMOOC

PLNs should include the teacher next door

PLN Connections

We talk a lot on Twitter and in each other's blogs about the value of connectedness. Our PLNs are those folks who share amazing ideas, engage in research, think passionately about practice, and care deeply for students. I love my mornings with a hot cup of coffee, Twitter, and my RSS feed on the iPad in a comfy chair. By the time the rest of the family gets up for the day, I'm charged and ready to go to school.

It's at school, though, where the real action occurs. It is there I sit with my colleagues and strategize about curriculum, community building, school culture and climate, nurture the individual kids in our classes. It is here where my most intimate professional connections exist.

The Teacher Next Door

Given the nature of our jobs, few people regularly see us in action which is why a trusted teaching partner is invaluable. Together, day to day, we make good ideas great, make challenging days bearable, and find hope in moments of frustration. My PLN for the most part is good at the big picture, showing me the forest view of education, philosophies, and practice. Having a trusted teaching partner can bring thoughtful reflection to the small picture; with them we examine moments, individuals, specific outcomes, unique challenges.

So while I engage with my amazing professional learning network across the globe, I also need to nurture relationships with the remarkably dedicated educators here at home.

Posted by milesmac on January 15th, 2013 | No Comments Posted in Pedagogy

Augmented Reality in the Classroom

Augmented Reality

My latest obsession is Augmented Reality. For the least year I've been getting my head wrapped around what it is, how it works, what it can do, how I could use it in the classroom, and understanding why it's more than a passing fad.

Augmented Reality (AR) blends our personal sensory experiences with digital information. Your car's GPS is a good start to understanding - it knows where you are, what direction you're facing. You tell it where you want to go, and it shows your route on a map and describes the route with voice instructions. Now imagine your GPS screen projected onto your windshield such that all the digital streets align with what you see out the window. Imagine further that information bubbles appear above the stores you pass showing name, address, operating hours, and today's specials.

Right There In Front of Me

AR, I thought, was in something to come in the future, but Christmas 2011 my son received a shirt that came with the Zappar app (http://vimeo.com/56028519). When you view the shirt with the app you can interact with the shirt image. The app recognizes the image and places content in specific places over the live image of the shirt. As my son moved around, the content stayed in place relative to the shirt image. I admit to being underwhelmed with this - how long is that going to hold anyone's attention? Not long, for sure, but I was missing the point. I didn't even recognize that this was Augmented Reality. AR had already entered the commercial market.

Beyond a cute tech gimmick, what purpose can AR serve? How can it help me do my job? How can it help students learn and communicate? The first few things I saw looked and felt more like play, having fun with a new technology. Here are some examples of simple AR applications.

: AR collector cards generate interest and, possibly, add value.

: Canada Post AR postage stamps creates interest in stamp collecting.

: AR Enhanced Business Card shows off cutting edge technology.

: 3D Paris - Virtual Pop-Up Book provide far more detail and interactivity than paper pop-ups. Amazing site: http://paris.3ds.com/

An AR tattoo target image will always look the same, but the user can change what happens when it is viewed with an AR app. Videos, images, sounds, animations, or any other digital content. (Particularly useful if you have to change your "I Love Mary" tattoo to an "I Love Alice" tattoo.)
http://www.bodyartdiary.com/augmented-reality-mark-holographic-skin-art-by-thinkanapp.html

Exploring more, I found other applications that caused me to rethink my understanding of how the real and virtual worlds interact and how we can use AR to create 24/7 learning environments. Consider these applications:

Viewing Augmented Reality Content

Right now, our devices are the information portals - the lens through which we engage with online content. AR still relies on the device, but it blurs the line between reality and data by making it appear as though they are in the same plane of existence. There are emerging technologies that more naturally brings AR content to the user. Google's Glasses are a wearable mobile device through which you can see the world and the digital data overlay. Being a connected location-aware device, the transparent screen displays relevant just-in-time information to the wearer. They could identify the store you're looking at, play a trailer for the movie poster you're viewing, or the type of tree under which you are having your picnic.

As cool as the Google Glasses are, there is something even more cool/creepy on the horizon. Enter the Solar Powered Augmented Reality contact lenses. These promise to display content you can see right from the surface of your eyeball. less creepy is Corning's "A Day Made of Glass." A vision of the future where every surface is an interactive glass display device that can both display and sense input.

What We're Doing Now With Augmented Reality

We have used Minecraft for the last year for student projects. Presenting the finished work was always a challenge - screen captures, video walk-throughs, or process papers help the viewer understand the primary features and learning points. This term we will experiment with Minecraft Reality which grabs a specified portion of the world so you can place it on a table and view it in three dimensions through your device. Students will use an iPad connected to a projector to give live tours and explanations of their structures. This video demonstrates how virtual Minecraft objects can be made to appear in reality through the device camera.

Students have also used Google Sketchup to create scale model apartments for Math. Using their hand-drawn floor plan, we are seeking ways to overlay the digital Sketch-up model on the two-dimensional plan. As the viewer rotates the floorplan page, the model will also rotate. The viewer can move about, tip to different angles, and see the model from almost any angle,

Some Future Augmented Reality Plans & Ideas

We are starting work on a school channel using Aurasma (think something like a YouTube channel for AR content) and "placing" content around the school. The idea is that subscribers to the channel can explore around the school and when they hit a target location, the app will load a visual poem, soundscape, or video. Students can place an explanatory video over their finished product on display in the halls. We can also use this channel to link podcasts or tutorials to images in textbooks (think something like a flipped class using augmented reality), animated explanations of concepts linked directly to class posters and resource materials. In the library, imagine viewing a novel cover and having reviews, author interviews, bibliographic reference, student responses, appear through the AR viewer.

Imagine a world where students identify interests and learning goals, load the appropriate AR channel and then go out exploring. The channel overlays information, identifies connections, and provides opportunities to interact with the world more deeply than they could without the overlay. A walk in the park shows every tree labeled, animals identified by sight and sound, terrain information, climate charts, biome analysis. Or, the same walk can show a different student dimensional measurements of objects framing a rock in a vector box showing maximum length, width, and height, surface area and volume of the bounding box. It could overlay a cylinder on a tree showing volume and allowing the student to change the height and see corresponding changes in values. Another student might "see" a simulation of the water cycle within a plant. Learning then happens outside school, in community and nature with custom overlays prompting the student to make connections, explore, and engage.

Today we are exploring this new technology and trying to balance the Wow Factor with productive and effective use of Augmented Reality

Unlinked image sources

Providing a glimpse "inside" the body. http://technoccult.net/archives/2010/01/11/augmented-reality-medical-app/

Real-time information about your surroundings (including today's deals, menu items, promotions, hours, etc.) http://gravito.wordpress.com/2011/02/18/nano-augmentation-a-reality-check/

3D models jump out of pictures you can walk around, turn about, and explore from all angles by moving about the source image. http://www.liveforfilms.com/2012/12/13/paris-3d-a-stunning-use-of-3d-design-and-technology/

Fun applications that use Augmented Reality postage stamps http://www.iphoneincanada.ca/app-store/canada-post-releases-augmented-reality-app-stamps-alive/

collector cards http://dennizai.blogspot.ca/2012/11/augmented-infinity.html?m=1

Posted by milesmac on January 9th, 2013 | 2 Comments Posted in big ideas, Pedagogy

Happy Cake Day, Milestomes.com

December 14, 2011 Milestomes.com was born with the blogpost "How Grades Change Conversations About Assessment & Achievement"

I wanted to start blogging partly in fulfillment of my employer's requirement to submit an annual statement of professional growth, but mostly because I started Tweeting and reading other blogs. I wanted to be part of the conversation and the professional dialogue. I had ideas and things to share, questions, opinions, and epiphanies.

Finding time to write would require some effort at first - Made a conscious effort to set aside some time each week In the early days. At this point, it is part of my daily experience. I spend a little time thinking, writing, outlining. When a post nears completion, I'll devote a bit more time to polish and publish. It is much more enjoyable than I initially thought it might be. It is fun to see the hit counter roll over another visitor, a treat when someone feels the post is Tweet-worthy, and a real joy to get an actual comment.

Over the year I feel like I've found a focus and am developing my voice. Daily experiences have begun to feel like potential blog posts - living in that frame of mind I think, "How would I tag this experience?" "What is the 'take-away' from what just happened?" "How would the lead sentence for this event sound?"

As a means of professional engagement, blogging has been very fulfilling. I appreciate the comments, the twitter dialogue, and the space to articulate my thoughts, and I look forward to another year ahead that epitomizes the phrase, "sharing is caring." Many thanks to you, colleagues, for sharing in your own Tweets, blogs, and comments.

Posted by milesmac on December 14th, 2012 | No Comments Posted in big ideas, Pedagogy

7 Oaks PD Day with Lionel Laroche

incidentally...

What is #EdTech and Why Integrate? A Discussion Question.