Week 3 Reflection: Education 2.0 - posted on WMU blackboard
WMU Blackboard at GoWMU
Friday, January 29, 2010
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Source
While you are editing your PBworks Wiki Page click on source. I am sure glad we do not have to do this in HTML. FrontPage makes this a lot easier.
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Stephen Hasenick Week 2 Reflection
Reading Reflection
My first notion of the Cone of Experience was that it is some logical steps or order. Throughout the article, Dale seems to be one-step ahead of me. He covers many of my question or thoughts. I tried to reason repetitively that direct experience had to be the best. Learning by doing uses more senses, so it must be a better way. Besides, symbols have no real meaning without adequate foundations.
I start wondering if I am wrong, with Dale’s difference in difficulty between a photograph of a tree and a dramatization of Hamlet. He continues to push me with contrived experiences of a steel plant. He is right, that it would be too complex, big, and deafening. So some complex tasks could be learned better by ‘editing of reality’ and leaving out ‘unimportant and confusing elements’. My logical rank order falls apart even more with mention of limits of space and time. I am unable to go back in time to learn history or travel in a spaceship to distance stars.
I still try to believe that direct experiences are at least more motivating. Yet motivation and imagination go hand and hand. Dale argues that students learn more imagination at higher steps on the cone. Siegel states imagination flourished in movies when control move to the artist. Yet I do not see artists spending more time at higher steps than engineers do?
The final straw is the use of symbolic experience in mathematics. A lot of higher-level math cannot be done on lower steps. The comment not to mistake the Cone device for exact rank-order finishes it. Obviously, I am not the first person to try to rank the cone.
Lesson learned, I will pick the steps, which give the best kind of experience to the student, and vary the experience as needed. ‘The question’ stills remains, what step is first, the picture or the word?
Questions
1) Early Impressions of using a blog and RSS reader: Setting up the blog was straight forward and about like setting up any new online email. Using a blog seems easy enough. Type up your paper or ideas in Word and paste it over. Finding classmate’s blogs would have been tougher, if not for Dr. Horvitz handy links. Outside of class, people would have had to email their web addresses or belong to a group. Blogs themselves are like any other source of information. Is the information truthful, fact based, and real?
The RSS reader seems to be just an extension of blogs. It makes gathering blogs easier to use. Like any new program, it has a slight learning curve to it. What I like about reader is that it searches for new blogs and keeps track of blogs I have read. Another nice feature allows re-naming blogs to keep them straight.
2) Which part of the cone: So far, blogs are just written words, like newspapers. The written words are verbal symbols at the top of the cone. I have not tried it yet, but I am thinking there has to be a way to capture pictures in your blogs also. Does U-tube have connections to blogs? The RSS reader appears able to link to things other than written blogs. The reader does not seem like a step on the cone, but more like a tool to gather different parts. These parts could fall in many steps in the cone. It is best setup for updating blogs, but just a link to a PowerPoint presentation would fall into Visual Symbols, Still Pictures, and even as low on the cone as Demonstrations. Many of the middle steps seem available for new technology improvements that readers could link.
3) Imaginative uses of Blogs and RSS reader: Creative uses would be to move Blogs out of the higher steps of the Cone of Experience to lower levels. Video conference would work better, but blogs and reader could be combined to simulate a scenario-solving group. Like Dale talks about many ideas do not fit just one area. A scenario could be setup by a teacher and students could role-play by blogging about ideas to solve the scenario. RSS Reader would allow a group to easily keep track of other blogged ideas and expand on them. This could be done in any field of study. It would be an excellent way to learn problem solving.
My first notion of the Cone of Experience was that it is some logical steps or order. Throughout the article, Dale seems to be one-step ahead of me. He covers many of my question or thoughts. I tried to reason repetitively that direct experience had to be the best. Learning by doing uses more senses, so it must be a better way. Besides, symbols have no real meaning without adequate foundations.
I start wondering if I am wrong, with Dale’s difference in difficulty between a photograph of a tree and a dramatization of Hamlet. He continues to push me with contrived experiences of a steel plant. He is right, that it would be too complex, big, and deafening. So some complex tasks could be learned better by ‘editing of reality’ and leaving out ‘unimportant and confusing elements’. My logical rank order falls apart even more with mention of limits of space and time. I am unable to go back in time to learn history or travel in a spaceship to distance stars.
I still try to believe that direct experiences are at least more motivating. Yet motivation and imagination go hand and hand. Dale argues that students learn more imagination at higher steps on the cone. Siegel states imagination flourished in movies when control move to the artist. Yet I do not see artists spending more time at higher steps than engineers do?
The final straw is the use of symbolic experience in mathematics. A lot of higher-level math cannot be done on lower steps. The comment not to mistake the Cone device for exact rank-order finishes it. Obviously, I am not the first person to try to rank the cone.
Lesson learned, I will pick the steps, which give the best kind of experience to the student, and vary the experience as needed. ‘The question’ stills remains, what step is first, the picture or the word?
Questions
1) Early Impressions of using a blog and RSS reader: Setting up the blog was straight forward and about like setting up any new online email. Using a blog seems easy enough. Type up your paper or ideas in Word and paste it over. Finding classmate’s blogs would have been tougher, if not for Dr. Horvitz handy links. Outside of class, people would have had to email their web addresses or belong to a group. Blogs themselves are like any other source of information. Is the information truthful, fact based, and real?
The RSS reader seems to be just an extension of blogs. It makes gathering blogs easier to use. Like any new program, it has a slight learning curve to it. What I like about reader is that it searches for new blogs and keeps track of blogs I have read. Another nice feature allows re-naming blogs to keep them straight.
2) Which part of the cone: So far, blogs are just written words, like newspapers. The written words are verbal symbols at the top of the cone. I have not tried it yet, but I am thinking there has to be a way to capture pictures in your blogs also. Does U-tube have connections to blogs? The RSS reader appears able to link to things other than written blogs. The reader does not seem like a step on the cone, but more like a tool to gather different parts. These parts could fall in many steps in the cone. It is best setup for updating blogs, but just a link to a PowerPoint presentation would fall into Visual Symbols, Still Pictures, and even as low on the cone as Demonstrations. Many of the middle steps seem available for new technology improvements that readers could link.
3) Imaginative uses of Blogs and RSS reader: Creative uses would be to move Blogs out of the higher steps of the Cone of Experience to lower levels. Video conference would work better, but blogs and reader could be combined to simulate a scenario-solving group. Like Dale talks about many ideas do not fit just one area. A scenario could be setup by a teacher and students could role-play by blogging about ideas to solve the scenario. RSS Reader would allow a group to easily keep track of other blogged ideas and expand on them. This could be done in any field of study. It would be an excellent way to learn problem solving.
Avatar and Siegel - Not this weeks reflection
On Monday, I saw the movie Avatar, as Siegel mention I forgot I was in a theatre. I felt like I was on an alien planet with beautiful scenery. Eye candy? Well, no real education value, but a 77.3 million dollar opening weekend definitely achieve the desired end.
I questioned, how was I able to relate? I have never been to Planet Pandora. How then could I disappear mentally into the film without direct-experiences? Did I relate due to my own experience of hiking in forest, climbing of mountains, and flying. On the other hand, maybe I do not need prior direct-experiences to associate freely at higher levels of the Cone of Experience.
I questioned, how was I able to relate? I have never been to Planet Pandora. How then could I disappear mentally into the film without direct-experiences? Did I relate due to my own experience of hiking in forest, climbing of mountains, and flying. On the other hand, maybe I do not need prior direct-experiences to associate freely at higher levels of the Cone of Experience.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Wisdom Tools LLC - Not this weeks blog
Did anyone follow the link to Wisdom Tools Scenarios mention in Siegel article? They have some interesting concepts on Scenarios. They are developing a real exciting new program with NASA that is a serious learning game called Astronaut: Moon, Mars and Beyond.
Monday, January 18, 2010
RSS at Google
At first, I thought it was as easy as just hitting follow on others blog pages. So I hit follow on everyones blog.
Now I found Google has a link on it's page to reader. Now it is link two different ways. Reader is nice, it keeps track of which blog I have read already. Atleast Google copied my already made links.
Now I found Google has a link on it's page to reader. Now it is link two different ways. Reader is nice, it keeps track of which blog I have read already. Atleast Google copied my already made links.
Friday, January 15, 2010
Stephen Hasenick Week 1 Reflection
Roberto Joseph in Beyond Technology Integration: The Case for Technology Transformation states ‘technology might allow us to transform our teaching methods in ways that could result in quantum improvements in learning’. In some ways, this is happening, but for what skills. My teenage son has learned how to increase the levels of his gaming character, by using certain tricks in an online game. He learned something, just maybe not a worthwhile life skill. A more essential skill, he learned on the same game was how to buy low and sell high to make money for use in the game. Learning from play is not a new idea. Before formal education, it was a natural way to learn. Combining play and computer technology has a great potential for learner motivation.
From what I have seen in formal education, I agree with Joseph that a technology transformation on how we teach has not happen. Technology has just made education more convenient. Take this online course. It is a lot more convenient to study whenever and learn online than to drive a long distance. Technology has made teaching and learning easier. I find it a lot easier to teach from a prepare presentation on the computer than to use a marker board. Students have it easier to find information on the web than to use an encyclopedia.
Postman would say what problem did this solve. Invention is often about making something less work or more convenient. Electric windows and cruise control are less work and handier. Yet, he is right this does not solve a problem by itself. Technological improvements are merely tools. It is up to people to find new and creative ways to use these tools to improve life or learning.
Joseph and Reigeluth article talks about a required fundamental shift in roles of both people and technology. Of these, I think the shift in people seem to be the harder one to achieve. People have resisted change thorough out history. The Luddities and Postman himself in Of Luddites, Learning, and Life article are examples of this. I see people at work who are still stuck in the Industrial Age systems, even when recent studies showing the importance of human factors with teamwork and decision-making.
Postman has a good point, that learning still needs to be about ignoring and discarding information, but what information. Wrong information is just confusing and a waste of time. I hate it when I do an internet search and get tons of worthless results. In the information age, the most important skill maybe learning how to shift through data. I totally disagree that ‘none of this (starving, crime, abuse…) happens because of a lack of information’. How can you make a decision without accurate and sufficient information?
I am excited to learn about which methods worked, that Joseph said showed considerable promise seven years ago, when the paper was written. Where are these methods now? I hope that they are out there and I just lack the information about their location.
From what I have seen in formal education, I agree with Joseph that a technology transformation on how we teach has not happen. Technology has just made education more convenient. Take this online course. It is a lot more convenient to study whenever and learn online than to drive a long distance. Technology has made teaching and learning easier. I find it a lot easier to teach from a prepare presentation on the computer than to use a marker board. Students have it easier to find information on the web than to use an encyclopedia.
Postman would say what problem did this solve. Invention is often about making something less work or more convenient. Electric windows and cruise control are less work and handier. Yet, he is right this does not solve a problem by itself. Technological improvements are merely tools. It is up to people to find new and creative ways to use these tools to improve life or learning.
Joseph and Reigeluth article talks about a required fundamental shift in roles of both people and technology. Of these, I think the shift in people seem to be the harder one to achieve. People have resisted change thorough out history. The Luddities and Postman himself in Of Luddites, Learning, and Life article are examples of this. I see people at work who are still stuck in the Industrial Age systems, even when recent studies showing the importance of human factors with teamwork and decision-making.
Postman has a good point, that learning still needs to be about ignoring and discarding information, but what information. Wrong information is just confusing and a waste of time. I hate it when I do an internet search and get tons of worthless results. In the information age, the most important skill maybe learning how to shift through data. I totally disagree that ‘none of this (starving, crime, abuse…) happens because of a lack of information’. How can you make a decision without accurate and sufficient information?
I am excited to learn about which methods worked, that Joseph said showed considerable promise seven years ago, when the paper was written. Where are these methods now? I hope that they are out there and I just lack the information about their location.
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