Learning (with) Web 2.0

Rewind... Last fall (2007), I participated in a graduate course entitled, Teaching in the 21st Century: The Need for Change. This course was totally online ~ my first experience with a totally online course. I learned plenty about shifting practice in teaching, but most importantly (for me) I learned a lot about myself and how I learn.   

I have always been a good student. I do the work and generally perform fine on assessments. However, this course was different in that I was expected to set my own pace for working through the material, while meeting established deadlines along the way.  It was also my responsibility to determine what was important from the readings and video lectures. An online course puts the bulk of responsibility on the student.  

Once I realized that I'm a bit of a procrastinator and often save the bulk of work for a one time session, I was able to keep moving and get the work done. This will be an important thing to remember as more online courses become a reality for younger students. We will have to teach them to manage their time better!  

I learned that reflection is the most important part of the coursework.  The readings were important and so were the discussions, but the time taken to compose responses to readings and discussions was more time than I think I have ever invested in learning.  

In an online course, no one is telling you to 'remember this' or 'this will be on the test'. It's up to the student to pay careful attention and make critical decisions about what is important.  

This particular class ended with a research paper. Now, I had not completed a research paper in many years (too many to mention:). I gathered the recommended number of resources ~ print, online, etc. and sat down to write the paper. I wrote the paper in one day, although I had probably been forming it in my mind for a couple of weeks. I had worked hard throughout the course to stay on top of posting reflections and discussions, but when it came to the paper, I was not nearly as motivated. I was more just working to 'get it done'.  

Fast Forward...

This fall (2008) , I have been participating in a face to face course, Web 2.0 and Interactive E-Learning. This course has been a great chance to explore online tools for learning. It might seem odd for this type of course to be face to face, but it has really been helpful to work through how AND when to use/not use many of the tools.  

This course had us keeping a blog to reflect and once again, I found myself thinking hard to write thoughtful posts and to really synthesize the weekly readings into meaning for myself. Even thought this course was face to face, the majority of the learning happened on student time. We were expected to read the readings in advance and post a reflection and/or comment on another student's post.  

The end project for this course was not a paper, but an online portfolio to showcase the sites we had discussed. Well, I can tell you what, I spent at least 10 more hours on this project than I did on the research paper last fall. Preparing the site forced me to revisit many of the readings and websites and to make decisions about how to best portray those sites on my site. And, I now have a great resource site to use and share with others.   

Conclusions... I can't say where my research paper is, but I will never forget where to find the online portfolio. I can continue adding to the site to keep it current and to include more content as it becomes relevant for use in education. I take more pride in the online site project because it will be viewed my more folks than me and the instructor. It's a living project!  

It seems that whether a course is an online course or a face to face course, it will be a better learning experience for the student when:

1) it includes much opportunity for individual reflection
2) there is communication among the course members
3) a culminating project (if there is one) is meaningful, useful and editable.

  At least that's what works for me!

This talk from TED Talks is a great one and goes well with the One Laptop per Child reading for this week.

From the site:

Speaking at LIFT 2007, Sugata Mitra talks about his Hole in the Wall project. Young kids in this project figured out how to use a PC on their own -- and then taught other kids. He asks, what else can children teach themselves?

Direct link to video.

Interesting, right?!

Reading about ubiquitous computing is very interesting. The disctinction between ubiquitous computing and virtual reality is helpful:

Ubiquitous computing is roughly the opposite of virtual reality. Where virtual reality puts people inside a computer-generated world, ubiquitous computing forces the computer to live out here in the world with people.

The reading from Ubicomp was from 1996, so I did a little searching and found that they are still in action. In fact, there was a conference in South Korea just this past September. The page of demos is neat to read - from the Smart Makeup Mirror to the Minimalist Wearable Computer.

I have to admit that as soon as a presenter or workshop leader says, 'It's time to play' or 'There will be time to play', I am instantly turned off. I'm not sure why, because I always enjoy the opportunity to use said 'play time' to explore new tools on my own and construct meaning for myself. It may be because the word play relates to amusing oneself and in a workshop, I prefer to think of myself as working, not playing.

Really, it's funny that I should feel this way since I'm all for using simulations and other types of game based learning tools with students.  The article A Second Life for Middle School Science, made my interest in Second Life resurface a little bit. I hear a fair amount of talk about Second Life in education, but so far I've stayed pretty far removed. I'm having a bit of trouble managing my physical life, let alone delving into a virtual life. The article helped me see how this type of environment could be beneficial for students, once proper security measures were in place. However, I can say that it will be quite some time before I'd be willing and/or able to make a case for Second Life in my district!

 The article about Disney games was also very interesting to me. My 5 year old nephew received a Mix Max for his birthday and his dad was marveling at how quickly he was able to pick up the skills needed to play the pirate game. Now, he is not playing the MMO version, - this was a new term for me - but I bet he could if we gave him the chance. This article made me think about Club Penguin, which I wrote about awhile back. We haven't visited the club in quite some time, but now that my son is a little older, it might be time again. I can tell you, that even as an adult, I enjoyed the game play features of Club Penguin. That might be why we haven't been there ~ I'm afraid of spending too much of MY time there!

The Educause article Game-Based Learning:How to Delight and Instruct in the 21st Century, written in 2004 seems even more important since it's now 2008 (nearly 2009) and many of the points have yet to be implemented in universities, let alone high schools. Here are some of the points in the article that stood out for me:

~In summary, up to this point, education has been based on a model of scarcity because it was very hard to get good academic material. It was hard to get the right kinds of books. It was hard to get access to the teachers. So naturally, school formed a solution, an economical way of delivering information, using the classroom model, using the teacher model. What you basically got is a really constrained environment. Today, it’s about abundance: what do the models for learning look like now?

~But it’s not about the technology. It’s about the way that your culture is organized.

~Because one of the most effective uses of simulation is as a mechanism to surface assumptions. You put the simulation up there, and people play it out, and in the course of playing it out, they question the underlying rules of the game.

~One of the hallmarks of a good game is that it creates a game community. In order to play this game, players have to get information from other sources. They have to explore. They have to communicate. They have to post.

Taking these ideas and putting them into practice in classrooms should have a real impact on learning, and in turn, achievement.  I know it may seem like a leap of faith for teachers and administrators, but I just think it is time to make that leap. 

Wikipedia definition of mashup:

"A digital mashup is a digital media file containing any or all of text, graphics, audio, video and animation drawn from pre-existing sources, to create a new derivative work."

With that definition, it's possible to say that products students create are mashups, but I see mashups to be more on the technical side and the process students engage in as remixing. The problem arises when the materials students use in their mashups are copyrighted materials. Then, we need to be sure that the work they are doing is even more than remixing. That the remixing is actually transformative in nature. 

This slide provides a nice explanation for judging transformativeness:

 

Uploaded with plasq's Skitch!

 

A new code of best practices was released recently which will hopefully assist educators and students with interpreting copyright law and fair use guidelines. The full slideshow is embedded here for reference and the pdf for the code of best practices is here.

Finally The End To Copyright Confusion Has Arrived

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: use fair)

  

If you're in the mood for getting tingly about changes in education and copyright, take a few minutes to view Lawrence Lessig's TED talks presentation embedded below.