Flexknowlogy - Jared Stein's ARCHIVED blog - update to jaredstein.org

Google Wave – Ideas for Teaching and Learning

Stein — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 16:23:08 +0000

I began the following Google Wave yesterday as a means of orienting myself to the functionality and features of Google Wave, but more importantly as a way to move past the more mundane and obvious applications for education. As you will see, I invited a number of colleagues and contacts to join, then made the Wave open to the public … Read more on jaredstein.org

Domain Changed to jaredstein.org

Stein — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 20:15:02 +0000

I’m changing the domain of this blog from the over-long “flexknowlogy.learningfield.org” to ” jaredstein.org“. Though the change is immediate, flexknowlogy.learningfield.org will persist indefinitely in order to preserve external links.

This was made easy and possible through Donncha O Caoimh’s WordPress MU Domain Mapping plug-in.

Stream Conference Pres with WebCamMax and Ustream

Stein — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 22:37:31 +0000

I’ve got to take a minute to plug the software WebCamMax ($50), which lets you alter your (Windows) computer’s webcam input. I used it this week to facilitate quality, DIY streaming and recording of two WCET09 presentations using a laptop (with distinct graphics card), a lavalier mic ($50-$500) and Ustream (free). Here’s how it worked:

Prior to the session, run WebCamMax on the presenter’s laptop and under Source > Main Source choose “Screen” as the primary source.
If you want to have a picture-in-picture (for example, of the laptop’s integrated webcam), you can choose a secondary input under Source > PinP Source 1.
Minimize WebCamMax.
For a mic set up, I used a production-quality wireless lavalier mic from Sony (thanks to Adam and Scott), but really any mic will do. Instead of an XLR output from the receiver I used a simple male-male stereo mini cord, plugging the other end into the laptop’s mic port.
Then, I simply login to Ustream and initialize the broadcast.
I make sure that Ustream is using WebCamMax for the video source, and the external mic as the audio source. Don’t forget to test the audio levels!
Hit Begin Stream and Begin Recording, minimize the ustream window, and you’re off to the races.

The ustream broadcast will capture whatever activity happens on your computer, whether that’s a PowerPoint presentation, computer application, or web browsing–similar to Jing or Camtasia. Loaner mic aside, this was a very inexpensive, portable solution that turned out better results for computer-based presentations than most ustreams from a tripod-mounted camera, which only capture the projector screen.

Slides, Video from WCET09

Stein — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 21:44:24 +0000

I traveled to Denver this week for WCET 2009, and though I was sunk with a cold on the second day, so far I’ve enjoyed participating in the conference, and, as always, have found the Twitter backchannel (#wcet09) a great way to connect with more ideas, and more people.

On Thursday I shared an hour with Terri Rowenhorst of NROC introducing folks at WCET 2009 to open education and some of the ideas and directions orbiting around it. Mine was just a half-hour pres, and didn’t get into some of the meatier bits that interest me; nonetheless the slides and video may be of interest:

You may have already heard some of the Twitter buzz about Chris Lott’s presentation, “Closing the Gutenberg Parenthesis”, so here are links to his slides, video, and wiki:

Chris let me moderate this session, and it was exciting to monitor the backchannels on Twitter and ustream for questions, ideas, or challenges that I could interrupt him with. As always, Chris did a fabulous job presenting a continual stream of rich ideas on technology and learning. I must admit I may have underestimated both Chris and the WCET audience prior to the session; both seemed quite comfortable with complex and provocative notions embedded in our connected culture and interplaying with Ong’s concept of a “secondary orality”.

Skateboarding in Education

Stein — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 18:18:14 +0000

Those of you who know me personally probably know I’m into skateboarding. The following 4 minute video highlights some efforts to bring skateboarding into K-12 physical education, and even using skating as a gateway to learning about physics and construction. Au-then-tic!

Watch Video: Skateboarding in Education

Online Class: What Size Do You Want To Be?

Stein — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 20:06:31 +0000

Earlier this week my boss asked “what I had” on capping class size in online courses. I had nothing, but it’s an interesting question. In Distance Education at UVU we have seen online class sizes vary from just one student to hundreds of students–the decision is made by the academic department chair in consultation with the instructor. This question is therefore pertinent for our academic department chairs, especially as UVU moves to reduce class size-based instructional compensation. Administrative pressure to free up class space and meet students’ demand enlarges this issue. However, a view of recent and available articles reinforced what I already suspected: there is no single optimum size for an online class; instead, class size should be informed by learning objectives, curriculum, instructor load, and teaching philosophy.

Assumptions about online class size are often based on “traditional”, face-to-face (f2f) class experiences. Past studies suggest that the effectiveness of f2f classes is negatively tied to the number of students in the class, and that a range of 12-25 students may be an acceptable plateau for many classes. The ideal may in fact be a 1-to-1, mentor-like relationship between student and instructor–such as described by Bloom as the 2-sigma problem. We can also comfortably state that more students can equal more work for the instructor (more questions, more grading, more interaction)–potentially at the cost of instruction. At the very least we can assume that there are some class sizes at which learning will inevitably suffer (Drago & Peltier, 37), for all courses require some degree of student-instructor interaction, don’t they?

We thus may be inclined to believe that there must be some correlation in online courses as there is on face-to-face courses. Indeed, a number of commentators on the issue recommend the same class sizes for online courses as have been recommended for traditional courses, even though there is still little research on the effect of class size in online courses. Toth & Montagna conclude that in ten years of research on the subject there is no consistent evidence of a predictable connection between student achievement and online class size. Why might that be? It may be that best practices in education are changing (informed by evolving learning theories and “21st Century” learner needs) such that student-instructor interaction is no longer critical. I think more likely that f2f and online courses are very different animals (though they are not always treated as such by instructors or students). Online courses have a number of specific dimensions of design and instruction that relate to their effectiveness. It may be that through careful course design and effective teaching strategies, online courses can reflect increased class size differently than face to face class size, reducing or even eliminating negative effects depending on the course.

Determining Optimal Class Size for Online Courses

Class size is not the sole predictor of teaching effectiveness in online environments; in “The Effects of Class Size on Effectiveness of Online Courses” Drago & Peltier cite five factors of teaching effectiveness: course structure, course content, instructor support and mentoring, instructor-student interaction, student-student interaction. Of these five they recognize only one as significantly and negatively impacted by class size: instructor-student interaction (31).

Though only one of five factors, instructor-student interacton is by no means a negligible dimension in online courses. Indeed, it may be more important to course effectiveness due to online learning’s larger transactional distance. The fact that students and teachers are rarely if ever in the same place at the same time may lead both to students and instructors to feel isolated, thereby reducing motivation. For students, transactional distance may have the added threat of making students feel unnoticed or unseen, a sense that may increase inclinations toward academic dishonesty. Transactional distance can be counteracted by increasing “presence” of instructor and students in the online environment.

The importance of presence and instructor-student interaction may vary from course to course. Every course is different, and courses and departments have different goals and outcomes to consider. Once we recognize this, we find questions that can help us determine optimal class size:

Mentoring and feedback. Is learner success reliant on instructor-student interactions? Some courses thrive on learner interaction with informed and knowledgeable experts. If so, decreasing class size may increase instructor-student interaction.
Teacher load. Do assessments require direct instructor review and feedback? Multiple-choice questions do not, but essay questions do. A course that can be accurately assessed with well-design multiple-choice questions may allow for a greater scale of students than one that needs one that requires more subjective review of individual assessments.
Classroom community. Could an interdependent learner community support course objectives? If so, large class size may not be an obstacle, but a boon.
Course curriculum. Are so-called “lower order” thinking skills (remembering, understanding) the focus of the course? This may allow for more objective assessments that can be automated, reducing instructor load.
Course design. Is the course designed to provide rich, engaging content, relevant learning activities that help learners to take ownership of their learning? A well-designed course that encourages and supports learner independence is probably less reliant on class size for its effectiveness.
Technology training. Is the instructor fluent with the technology? If s/he is capable of navigating the system rapidly and interacting with students using the best available tools, this may allow for more instructor-student interactions at less cost to their load.
Course management. Has the instructor good online course management and time-saving strategies? Such strategies can reduce the load of online teaching, allowing instructors to facilitate more students.

Though these questions aim at the core issues of curriculum, course design, and teaching of online courses, they unfortunately are too subjective to predict real numbers for online class size. One must therefore base actual enrollment caps on experience, and it is here that we might as well look to f2f class size as a starting point. It is probably less harmful to students if class size starts as small as possible, increasing semester by semester as informed by both the student and the instructor experiences.

In doing so, here are some ideas to support student success in large online classes without overly taxing the instructor:

Understand realistically how the online course impacts your faculty load.
Do not write-off the students as “on their own” or think of Instead, build-in extensive support and maximize contact with students using discussion forums and mass e-mails.
Invest in developing or implementing cohesive, dynamic, and engaging online course materials as a means of improving the online course overall.
Train instructors to use the technology to their best benefit, thereby decreasing fear and frustration with the technology while reducing wasted time.
Teach instructors course management strategies (Turoff & Hiltz) aimed at large courses.
Shift responsibility for non-critical tasks (i.e. answering e-mail) from the instructor to graders or teaching assistants if possible.
Leverage class size to the benefit of the students by growing communities of learners, e.g. through groups, peer assessments, etc.

I’m sure there are more ideas out there, and from folks with more experience with large class sizes than me. The real point of this posting is to foster the dialogue through which we might come to practical solutions.

References

“Class Size – A Dangerous Discussion?” The TLT Group. Retrieved from http://www.tltgroup.org/ProFacDev/DangerousDiscussions/ClassSizeHome.htm
Colwell, Joy. (2004). “The Upper Limit: The Issues for Faculty in Setting Class Size in Online Courses”. In Proceedings of Teaching Online in Higher Education 2004. Retrieved from http://www.ipfw.edu/tohe/Nov10.htm
Drago, W & Peltier, J. (2004). The effects of class size on effectiveness of online courses”. Management Research News, 27(10) pp 27 – 41. Retrieved from http://www.emeraldinsight.com/10.1108/01409170410784310
Online class size: Balancing quality and cost. (2000). Distance Education Report, 4(17), 3.
Toth, L.S. (2002). “Class size and achievement in higher education: A summary of current research”. College Student Journal, 36(2) pp. 253-261.

What "New Speculations"?

Stein — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 15:05:41 +0000

Not unexpectedly, Jon Mott’s blog post, “Outsourcing Our Memory to Google” set my mind thinking in productively curious directions–even if I’ve ended up with no conclusions, and, indeed, more questions than I began with.

I’ve finally gotten around to reading through Ong’s “Orality and Literacy” (I skimmed it as an undergrad), a book which compares primary oral cultures to literate cultures, weighing the influence of technology. Mott’s point, that we need not teach students to learn information, but rather information-finding skills, reminded me of a passage that I highlighted in the early section, “Some Psychodynamics of Orality: the development of text, though “conservative in its own ways” ultimately “frees the mind of conservative tasks, of its memory work, and thus enables the mind to turn itself to new speculation”.

I expect this idea may be elaborated on later in the book, but as I read this I automatically wondered if instant access to networked information obviates “memory work” (i.e. memorization of information) even further, and thereby further freeing the mind for “new speculation”. If so, we can understand this as ultimately an advantage, a progression leading to future intellectual and cultural developments.

The next question: are we yet ready to recognize these “new speculations” for what they are? For what they and might be?

Ong reminds that literate individuals and cultures do lose intellectual and cultural abilities that are apparent in primary oral, and so we might expect similar losses as we become an instant-networks culture. What might these losses be? I know a number of critics have pointed to attention span, “flow”, sustained and deep reading, traditional concepts of plagiarism, etc.

Fixing E-Mails in WPMU LDAP Plugin

Stein — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 14:23:10 +0000

For our pilot run of WordPress MU for Utah Valley University we have installed and configured the WPMU LDAP plug-in to control user registration–basically syncing student/faculty/staff accounts with our Banner student information system. That’s a small tale in itself, but the short of it is Paul Nuffer and I had it working successfully after just a couple of hours. Or so we thought.

This week students reported receiving this error:

ERROR: is already associated with another account. All accounts (including the admin account) must have an unique email address.

There’s obviously something missing from this error–the identifying/offending e-mail address! It turns out that though all students actually have a UVU-provided e-mail address, only staff/faculty addresses are sent through to LDAP. Since WPMU requires a unique e-mail address, this was a big problem. Thankfully it has a small and simple solution.

For our needs I found it easiest simply to modify WPMU LDAP (ldap_ro.php) to concatenate an e-mail address from the provided LDAP information if one was not already provided.

Paul Bearne on the WPMU LDAP list suggested a more holistic solution that is equally simple: prompt users to enter an e-mail address through a form field if LDAP does not provide one. I’m guessing Paul B. is going to script this into the plugin, but if not that’s a good task for me for some rainy Saturday, and another fine chance to give back just a little to the WPMU community that I ♥.

Qs on Attitudes Toward Institutional v. Informal Learning systems

Stein — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 16:05:25 +0000

As I begin the pilot of our WordPress MU installation for Utah Valley University, questions naturally arise as to expected usage of the system. This led to the idea of running a short survey for students, faculty, and staff that asks if and how they would use such a community publishing platform. I then wondered if students or faculty who already had a blog would use the institutional system as a blog, whether in addition to or as a replacement for their own (even if only to meet a course requirement). This, of course, led me back to the idea of “creepy treehouses“ (A term I have consciously avoided over the past year), and set me to rethink the survey to ask the following primary question:

How do (students’ | faculty | staff) attitudes toward institutional learning and communication systems differ from attitudes toward informal learning and communication systems?

This isn’t nearly as relevant to the WPMU system as originally intended, but I do expect to be able to address the system through this survey without overwhelming participants. Some of the survey questions that pop into mind ask about personal use of social media, perceptions of institutional technology, relevance of both toward learning, perceived efficiency for learning, likelihood of using new institutional technology, etc.

I’m posting this here in case any readers (who I haven’t lost yet through neglect) have ideas on how to keep this useful while maintaining a sharp focus. Suggested questions are, of course, welcome.

Re. Communal vs Individual Voice

Stein — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 23:22:14 +0000

Boone Gorges asked a great question about openness that has been itching at my mind ever since I drove out of Vancouver from Open Ed 2009: Is there a tension between individual vs communal voice (i.e. creation)? And while this post started out as a long-ish, impromptu comment on Boone’s blog post, I figured if I didn’t pay some attention to my blog this month, even roughly-whisked and half-cooked attention, I’d risk losing grip on it forever. (Thus the following instances of ellipses that stand in for confused thoughts I’ve yet to articulate.)

First, I recommend you read Boone’s post, as I don’t want to re-state his exploration of both Gardner’s and John’s Open Ed 09 thoughts here. I think there is definite tension between individualism and communalism, especially in context of creativity. Such tension may be culturally inherited, or it may be endemic in our brains. I.e., we need to work in groups/tribe to survive; we want to claim individual power and perpetuate our own unique genes. It’s much deeper and richer than that.

…

As I sat in on John’s Thinkubator session I recalled how recently I had reluctantly agreed to author a full white paper collaboratively through Google Docs with a colleague. For a while we both were very sensitive to the other’s contributions–”do you mind if I enhance paragraph 10?” or “I’m going to rework your section on X, is that cool?” We were very courteously practicing the golden rule.

After a while, however, the insistence of the deadline and the necessity of coherence required us to abandon courtesy in favor of efficiency, and thus we diminished both of our individualizations of the article. We ended up with a decent article, produced in probably 75% (not half) of the time it would have taken just one of us to produce it. Do I feel like I own that document? No. Do I feel I co-own it? Yes. Do I want to take credit for it? Kind of, because in doing so I’m taking credit for someone else’s work, including their flaws. Did the structure of the project support our objectives? Yes, but I certainly wouldn’t adopt a collaborative approach for all, not even most, of the documents I author. I’d rather more closely tie my identity to my individual work, and that means making my exact contributions extricable from the original.

…

On a loosely related note, I was searching for an image for a presentation the other day, had exhausted CC licensed images on Flickr or Google, couldn’t find anything on the paid license site I subscribe to, and was seriously contemplating just stealing someone else’s IP. I should preface this by saying that CC and the availability of open-licensed works has allowed me to respect other people’s © IP more appropriately (OK, I know some of you want to pick the Copyleft fight with me, but some other time). But as I was looking at this ideal image, contemplating swiping it and using it, a shudder of confusion and regret came through me, and I realized, twenty years ago I wouldn’t have thought twice about appropriating the image.

No, I would not have just taken it.

I would have made my own.

Which led me to wonder, by refuting closed licensing, does openness provide a path that is “quicker, easier, more seductive”, yet diverts one away from creativity, innovation, and individual growth through distinguishing effort?