Category: Musings

A Tale of Two Chapters…well, one

Lisa M Lane

Way back in the distant past (2007), I was asked to write a couple of chapters in a forthcoming book about digital learning in the humanities. I agreed, and wrote one on Course Management Systems (duh) and one called “Learning With Style”. They were well-documented, yet informational, designed for the new online college instructor.

The second chapter focused on learning styles. I was big into learning styles then, the idea of catering our teaching to hit as many learning styles as possible, based on Gardner’s multiple intelligences. I had even given presentations on the subject, including one at San Diego City College, which I was asked to reprise in 2008.

The chapters disppeared into the void for a couple of years. Then this fall, the editor contacted me. A new editor had been assigned at the publisher, and would I be willing to update the sources and do a little editing in response to her suggestions? Why, sure.

Trouble was (isn’t there always a problem?), I no longer believe what I wrote in 2007 about learning styles. I have, quite simply, changed my mind. (As the saying goes, if you can’t change your mind, how do you know you have one?)

I was conversing with a colleague at San Elijo, and we were discussing how students on campus have been using their challenges and difficulties in life as justification for not completing their work. My response was, “This is college. They’re here to overcome those things, not wallow in them.” Then I started thinking about learning styles, and how I’d changed what my students do in class in a way that clearly emphasizes writing: gathering evidence and developing a thesis. And how this semester, not for the first time, I had a student say to me, “Well, I’m no good at taking notes from lecture. I’m a visual learner.” But he wasn’t a genuine visual learner — he just liked pictures. He didn’t analyze visuals any better than he did text.

A number of my students have been told that they have a particular learning style already, before they get to me. They are beginning to figure it’s my job to cater to it. But I need them to write, too — we’re doing historical inquiry here. Is it good teaching to let them wallow in their “preferred” learning style?

So I decided to rewrite the chapter. First I wanted “Teaching the Students We Have”, with an emphasis on how students really are today, what they need, how we should teach them. My editor said OK. Then I changed it to “Reducing the Distance in Online Classes”, which involved less rewriting, but reducing the learning styles thing to a small section and bringing in some current research. My editor said OK (he’s quite amiable).

Then I found it. A great new study saying (ta dah!) that there is no evidence that catering to learning styles increases their learning, linked from this post at the British Columbia Institute of Technology. Vindicated!

Alignment Problems

Lisa M Lane 1 Comment
Flickr CC photo my Michael Maclean

I avoided grading all morning. I cleaned out my in-box (down to 76 messages!), worked on a project that’s not due for weeks. All because I wrote a really bad essay question, and the results were terrible.

The question was:

“Choose any specific piece of art from the Modern Art and Music section of the lecture, and explain in thesis style how it represents the prevailing ideas of this timeframe.”

Most students couldn’t answer the whole thing; either they didn’t tell me about an artwork (I got movements instead) or they didn’t know what the “prevailing ideas of this timeframe” were (this was for the 1920s). It didn’t matter that I linked to the lecture section; the answers were awful. A total disaster.

When this happens, I think my question is bad, and I make a note in Zoho Writer to change it next semester. But I think it’s a bigger issue. It’s not just a bad question. It’s out of alignment with what I’m doing now in discussion, where they create their own stockpile of primary sources each week then work on creating historical theses.

That method I’m very happy with, and I think it is bringing more students toward satisfactory work toward the important Student Learning Outcomes of using evidence and creating interpretive historical theses (our outcomes are based on historical skills, not content knowledge).

All my classes feature seven evenly spaced quizzes during the semester. Each have some multiple-choice questions from the text or lectures, but at least 30% is based on two essay questions. In my on-site class, I create the essay questions on the fly each time, because they are based on what we do in class. I am gradually making the questions imitate the format I’m teaching them: thesis, followed by three pieces of evidence or eras/topics supported by evidence.

But online, I create the essay questions in advance, because I like to get all my online classes “set up” before the semester starts. They tend to check content, or try to get it combined with the context (like my lousy question). Only near the end of the class do I do the thesis-evidence pattern. And now that they’re doing it in discussion, this doesn’t make sense.

It’s TIME to ALIGN.

Education or Schooling?

Lisa M Lane

In every issue of FACCTS (the publication of the Faculty Association of California Community Colleges), there has been a column by David Megill, my former colleague at MiraCosta and a wonderful advocate for faculty rights and independence, one of the first “edupunks” I ever encountered. In the Fall 2009 issue, instead of just Dave’s column, there was a Point-Counterpoint feature with Dave on one “side” and Rachel Winston on the other.

Megill argued that mass education itself is problematic, especially with its efforts to create “student learning outcomes” to apply to all courses and every student. He argued for “multileveled education not defined by arbitrary degrees.” In response, Winston argued that community colleges are there to provide access to all, precisely for those degrees, our “ticket” in society.

These ideas connect to the main paradox of community colleges: we are open access, yet provide transfer-level curriculum that takes the place of the first two years at university. Universities, of course, choose their students; we do not. So for those of us who teach transfer classes, can we provide the equivalent university experience? By law, we must, for everyone who comes: grades alone determine who is suited and who isn’t for academic work.

But the bigger question is whether we are here to provide “schooling” (with its requirements and degrees and accountability) or “education” (a meaningful experience of discovery for each student, something only that student can make useful in their lives). Megill is critical of “schooling” and wants “education”; Winston sees the value of “schooling” as an opportunity for all to possibly achieve in society.

And this connects to, interestingly enough, educational theory itself, particularly the new field of connectivism, pioneered by George Siemens and taught with Stephen Downes in the mondo CCK09 massive open online course. I was a member of CCK08 and tracked my learning in a blog. That class was clearly “education”, although I also got “schooling” credit. But the premise of connectivism itself was clearly “education”, and many of its adherents are anti-schooling.

As usual, I think we need a combination of both.

http://lisahistory.net/media/TeachersPetshort3.mov

This clip from Teacher’s Pet (1958) — and indeed the whole film, regardless of how one feels about Clark Gable and Doris Day — brings the issue into relief. Gable is a high school drop-out, a die-hard experienced journalist (“newspaperman”) and Day is a college journalism instructor (at a night school, like community college). He has “education” in terms of practical experience, she has “schooling”, and each shares their point of view with the other. Each becomes changed as a result. Romantic nonsense aside, it’s a good film for highlighting these issues.

Four Web Technologies That Shouldn’t be Geeky Anymore

Lisa M Lane 6 Comments

Blogs have been great. You can now create one without much technical knowledge at all, using Blogger or WordPress.com . This technology, originally seen as some type of journalism, really just makes it possible to create a web page without worrying about all the trimmings, or learning Dreamweaver or, God forbid, HTML. Facebook works (though I find it’s interface unfriendly) — people figure out how to use it for what they want. Twitter is easy. So is shopping for goods and services, at Amazon or Craigslist — sites that have to make it easy so you’ll come back. YouTube just works, because it’s so big it’s easy to search.

But why are the very best technologies the web have to offer so geeky still?

1. RSS
I was trying to explain RSS feeds to people way back in 2006, with RSS the Oprah Way. This really shouldn’t be necessary anymore, to understand RSS. It’s ridiculous to have to look for the orange RSS symbol, copy the feed URL, and paste it into an aggregator. It feels like having to crank up the car. Words like “subscribe” never caught on. And the readers are still clunky, even Google Reader, which is best because it finds the feed even if you just have the URL of the site. But why are we copying and pasting URLs at all? Why is the main improvement on this system disparate buttons on pages to help us “Add to Google Reader”? This should be a simple as bookmarking — a Save button. No one should have to know the word “feed”.

2. Wikis
They should have been like blogs were originally — set up as editable documents, but with multiple authors. Instead, they are awkward, with Edit tags on pages, and weird CamelCase linking. It feels like you have to be a member in the Wiki club. They should be drag-and-drop by now, like Gmail’s mail tags — just pull in a link. They should have sidebar menus that make themselves, or where you can make a map and it all falls into place. Meant for collaboration, they are now basically just webpages, run by a person or small group.

3. Tags
Folksonomies be damned, without drop-down tag menus everyone does their own. Tagging is such a great idea — tagging instead of folders, so an item can go in more than one place. It’s revolutionary, even without the idea of sharing or searching other people’s tags. But it’s so hard to search tags anywhere, since there is no obvious hierarchy or assumption of tagging. No, I’m not in favor of an approved list of tags. But you have to be a filing expert to use them properly. Why not something like a menu, but you can add to it and customize it if you want to? That way ordinary people can find stuff. I can’t even find my own stuff, my tags are such a mess.

4. Embed
It changes everything, yes. But why do we need to see the code? Why can’t you click Embed and have something just ready to put wherever you want. No clipboard, no “copy code”. Open your blog, wiki, or webpage, click Embed, drag the thing you want to embed from another window.

These are the four technologies that will help us manage information, be creative, work together. So why can’t they be less geeky?

A Favorite Painting

Lisa M Lane 2 Comments

One of my favorite paintings is “The Fighting Temeraire being Towed to Its Last Anchorage to Be Broken Up” (known also by various other titles). In addition to Turner’s artistry, I am captured by its message.

The romantic, beautiful sailing ship is being towed by an ugly, polluting, industrial tugboat to be destroyed. The sailing ship represents the past, and the tug the future, making it a conservative image.

It is also an appreciation of old technologies, a subject I have written on before. I insist that my reception is better on my rotary dial phone, that music sounds better on long-playing records, and that Microsoft Word 5.1a was a great program.

New technologies answer new needs. In most cases the needs are speed, portability and convenience. All of these, of course, are demanded by a speeded-up life, and themselves speed up life even more. Since an iPhone isn’t ugly and choking with smoke like Turner’s tugboat, people don’t realize that new technologies both enable and cause a different quality of life.

A trip on the sailing ship would be slow and inconvenient. It would take weeks to arrive at my destination, and we’d be at the mercy of the winds. But, like the romantic painters, I’m not sure the steam ship would be as good for the soul. Or that cleaning a record and gently lowering the needle isn’t as good a use of my time as checking email.

Demanding Flexibility

Lisa M Lane 4 Comments

On a similar path to that of Christy Price, I have been shaking my head a lot about our younger crop of students, because I see so much lack of success among such bright people. In many ways, Price’s article supported my understanding, but even after reading it, I remained disillusioned: it sounds like all will be solved if I make things less boring. Trouble is, my classes aren’t boring, and my students admit that. I still have lots of D’s at the end of the semester.

I have read a great deal over the last several years about “Millenials” or the so-called “Net Generation”, beginning with EDUCAUSE’s 2005 book Educating the Net Generation and ending with Price’s article and a more current Educating the Net Generation from the University of Melbourne. I have given several presentations on what our students need in terms of instruction to match their learning styles, while at the same time experiencing joy in the energized classroom and despair at their grades. There has also been an ongoing struggle regarding their unwillingness to meet deadlines, deadlines which I need in order to control my heavy workload. As a result, I have built much flexibility into the deadlines themselves, but then I feel awful when the students fail the class because they can’t catch up on the work.

Well, after four years, these students are not only in my classroom, but in the workforce. When I read Business Week’s A Saner Workplace, I felt I understood a bit better, and could connect the academic world to what’s “out there”.

For several years we have been told that the Millenials need technology to educate them, because they are so techno-savvy. A lot of us have come to realize that such technological proficiency may be true when it comes to their cellphones and keeping tabs on their friends, but it doesn’t translate to using technology for learning. As dana boyd wrote, “Teens are not familiar with RSS feed readers or aggregators like Del.icio.us“, the types of tools that might be used for research.

We’ve also come to realize that many students care more about how they are treated as individual persons than they do about the course material, whether they learn anything, what grade they get, or whether they transfer to university. For those “cool” professors who are always ready to use different methods and adapt to changing conditions, these students have continually mystified us with their casual attitude toward their educational progress. More importantly for our working conditions, they have continually demanded that they be allowed to ignore deadlines, to submit work when they want.

Last year Pam Cox-Otto spoke to MiraCosta’s employees about teaching this new student, and humorously explained how the worldview of Millenials differs from that of Baby Boomers. Most professors apparently are Boomers, though I am actually on the cusp between Boomer and Generation X. Like the boomers, I will “work for pizza” and help out the company. Like the Gen X’ers, I am relaxed in the classroom. But here’s what she told us that Gen Y (Millenials) really wants: friends, working groups, parallel careers, and… flexibility.

The Business Week article “A Saner Workplace” is an excerpt from Womenomics: Write Your Own Rules for Success by Claire Shipman and Katty Kay. It doesn’t focus on Millenials or NetGeners, nor does it really focus on women, though it seems to. But it is talking about how some workers would trade some pay to get lower hours, and want to be able to telecommute or have flexible work time. What I think my students want is flexible everything. This is why so many who are not suited to online learning take online classes anyway. We have plenty of students who do not have the independence or self-discipline to learn online. They then compound a misunderstanding (that online classes will take less time) with the demand that they be able to do the work whenever they want.

Not only do I understand the insistence on controlling your own time, I am with the Millenials on this one. My desire for flexibility is almost as important to my working life as the joy in making distance education less distant through designing my own classes.

Although students who fail the online classes sometimes do so solely because they mistake flexibility for less work, most fail for the same reason on-site students fail. While I cannot yet tackle the reasons they don’t watch their grades or focus on their future, I can see their work habits causing missed deadlines. Our working society, past college, is apparently changing as people demand more flexible working conditions. This is an extension of what my students are doing: trying to get a better deal for themselves out of a system that is heavily structured, that wants to control their time.

But this play for control also seems to be based in an assumption of negotiability. My students take too many units, and don’t do their work on time, because they assume it’s all negotiable anyway, and they can just opt out if it doesn’t work. Womenomics refers to “changing priorities” and “more freedom”. The article refers particularly to dual-income couples, but gets into the generational issue, as consultant Bruce Tuglan is quoted:

They are going to be the most high-performing civic-minded workforce in the history of the world, but they are also going to be the most high-maintenance workforce in the history of the world.

I can tell you from the classroom, they already are. What they lack in academic skills, they make up for in unsupported confidence in their own abilities (likely developed through having their “self-esteem” protected at all costs, the “everyone gets a medal” soccer team syndrome). Even with those bright students who possess solid academic skills and personal determination, I still have to make provisions as things come up in their busy lives in order for them to succeed. They’re high maintenance whether they are good students or not.

My colleagues in educational technology and research firmly believe that this generation should be catered to, that curriculum should be developed around their desire to use flexible means to fulfill learning goals. Price agrees, promoting multimedia and approachability. As I dance in the no man’s land between my firm belief in the necessity of a historical base of canonical learning, and my desire to move toward offering free-form web-based research based on individual needs, it is helpful to me to see how the operational patterns of this generation are playing out in the real world.

I am not at all sure that self-directed learning will be profitable for individuals who confuse controlling their own time with doing less work, assume everything is negotiable, and can’t understand why anyone would write a blog for any reason other than helping friends keep up with ones personal life.

But there is a bright side to all this. Perhaps their unreasonable demands will lead to increased flexibility for people like me. For example, I’d really love to teach fewer classes and would happily take less money, but I am committed to minimum of 15 units per semester with 40 students per class. Maybe if I continue helping them along with increased flexibility, they can help me too, and I can afford the time to individualize their learning paths. Then they can work when they want.

Leading Horses: notes on helping, failing and peeking

Lisa M Lane 2 Comments

I do some shocking things to help my students succeed:

  • Questions in advance: all multiple-choice quiz questions are available in advance, with two tries to check your score.
    But, I have students who don’t use them.
  • Late work accepted: All quizzes and assignments are accepted up to a week late for partial credit. For on-site classes, homework may be turned in as a replacement for the quiz for partial credit.
    But, I have students who don’t avail themselves of this and get 0 points.
  • Samples posted: each quiz is followed by real-life examples from the exams of current students.
    But, I have students who don’t read them.
  • Help available: each class features both an extensive FAQ and a Help forum open to all.
    But, I have students who write things like “I couldn’t find this cartoon at the website, so I can’t answer the question”.
  • Access to me: via IM, email, Messages, etc.
    But, I have students who don’t contact me all semester.
  • Shout-outs and encouragement: in every discussion forum, I summarize and note the contributions of particular individuals.
    But, I have students who don’t read my posts.
  • Self-assessments and rubrics: instead of just assigning participation points, students write self-assessments comparing their own performance to that of the rubric, on which I base my grade.
    But, I have students who don’t do it, or do it as if there were no rubric, or tell me what they think they should get in the class because of all the effort they feel they put into it.

So, some of them fail. I figure that among the various rights I ascribe to them is the right to fail. I’m trying to get past the point where I think every failure of theirs is because I did something wrong.

leading horse

Flickr photo by NeuralVibrance

It’s interesting to note that, over twenty years, I have experimented with many different methods, from the bizarrely open to the strict instructivist. I’ve done this both for myself, because I take pride in my work, and to increase student success. BUT the result in terms of assessments and drop-out rate is almost invariable. My retention and “success” statistics rarely shift over the long term, but my more open methods have created less stress for me and certainly more opportunities for students, if they take advantage of them.

Last week, an instructor wrote me, distressed because students who weren’t enrolled till fall were getting into this semester’s course to look at the tests (Moodle has a self-enrollment system). I discovered in the documentation that you can change your “enrolment key” to prevent this, and currently enrolled students won’t be affected, so I sent out a message to all Moodlers. Then I started to go through this semester’s courses to put in a code on all my classes (I don’t use one).

Then it occurred to me. As with all the other things I’ve done, it won’t make much difference. If a student from next semester sees the tests, they will face two sections. One is multiple-choice, where I already give the questions in advance anyone, and the other is essay, which I won’t grade, obviously. If they look at the sample essays I’ve posted, then try to copy and paste them, I’ll probably recognize them because they are the ones I selected as examples. If they use the samples to create their own, they’ll learn something anyway. I took the enrollment keys back off.

I was told once about a professor who had a huge test bank of multiple-choice questions, which he vigorously protected. He figured, as many do, that prevention of cheating could best be accomplished by having a huge test bank so students rarely got the same questions. The very day he got up to 1,000 questions in the test bank, he found a printed copy of all of the questions left behind at a student’s desk. At first he was angry. Then it occurred to him that if a student actually studied all 1,000 questions, they were learning anyway, so what the heck? I remember that story all the time to remind me what I’m trying to do, whether the students choose to fail or succeed, sideways or otherwise.

My Dream Classroom: Historical Sensurround

Lisa M Lane 6 Comments

I’m not usually much of a dreamer, and I don’t want to get too wild here, but what I’d really like is multiple projections on every wall, and multiple audio speaker areas that can be separate or combined.

Right now, no matter how fancy, all media is focused at the front of the room. Best viewing is in rows facing the front, or theatre seating. This configuration, of course, supports old-style presentation.

Screens on each wall, with separate projectors, would allow a more immersive, less presentation-focused environment. If connected to computers, each area of the room could work independently. I imagine groups working on separate projects.

I imagine all four walls with images of an interior set in the historical timeframe. I could “decorate” the whole room to make it look like we’re in a Victorian study, for example. Or a Celtic hut. Or the Roman Senate. Heck, they could decorate the room.

This multimedia installation is round, not square,
but you get the general idea.

I could rotate images of artwork from the timeframe we’re working on, surrounding the students with the cultural artifacts of that time. For assessment, they could look around and choose which artifact or artwork they want to discuss on a test (right now I can only put up a few at a time, and more on one screen makes each one smaller).

Some screens could have text from a primary source. Audio could be music from the era, or speeches, or both. Whatever else the Net Gen may or may not be good at, I’ve proven in class they can intake multiple media sources simultaneously.

With this vision, it’s getting hard for me to design such environments on one screen, which takes up only 25% of one wall at the front. Students at the back are literally distant from the sources. They couldn’t be with Historical Sensurround. The environment would force involvement at some level of the brain.

And I’d love to recreate environments like this. Second Life settings in our First Life. Transient installation art. Just dreaming….

OK, the new class format

Lisa M Lane 1 Comment

I decided to try an interactive syllabus, linked to graded activities in Moodle. My special thanks to the Moodle fairy (Mary Cooch) and Andrew Field for showing me, via Twitter, how to have a standard web page syllabus that links to Moodle exercises without hiding them and making them inaccessible. I almost had to give up the interactive syllabus as soon as I thought of it, but when I tweeted my despair, these two came through with this great suggestion.

As a result, the main page in Moodle is really focused:

Clicking on the Interactive Syllabus brings up one internal web page with everything linked from it:

They will have to bring something to class each day, and write a lot. For Mondays, they have typed homework, plus must post the thesis from that homework before class. At first I tried Assignments for that, but it didn’t let them see each other’s theses. Since thesis writing is a major historical skill, I want that more transparent. So I did it in Forums, one for each week, simple format. Then I’ll rate them using the same ratings I use for homework anyway. Because my default on my site lets students rate posts, I used the Override function for each forum to Prohibit students from “Rate posts” and “View any ratings”. That way their work is public, but their grades are private.

So I’m back to the idea that they must work online, here in the interest of sharing the most difficult task of the class: developed historical theses. I have tried small groups for this, or reading the theses aloud, but this is really more efficient. What I really wanted was to use the Q&A forum format, because they have to post first before they see what the other students posted. But the button to post said “Ask a question” (it’s supposed to be used for that), and I thought they’d be confused, since they aren’t asking a question. Just another way the technology controls the desired pedagogical method. Moodle giveth, and Moodle taketh away.

I kept it in Moodle even though I would have liked something more open. Partly this was for thesis sharing without fear, but mostly because of two issues: management (not always a big deal if I like what I’m doing) and materials. I confess: some of my materials are copyrighted by others, or not linked for attribution. For Fair Use, those should be behind a passworded system.

I’m thinking I need to design an open course from the ground up, without a textbook or other pre-conceived ideas. But for now, we’ll see how this works. As we start, I intend to let James Zull’s The Art of Changing the Brain (2002) influence what I actually do in class, as well as what I learned from Stephen Downes’ ideas of modeling and demonstrating as being a teacher’s main responsibility.

On to the England class….

Tangled in Pedagogy and Technology

Lisa M Lane 7 Comments

Still planning for spring. Online classes are set up as usual, because I need more than a winter break to plan for changes. Except for the England class — gotta get back to that.

But the class that’s throwing me, the one causing me the most post-CCK08 angst, is my on-site class at San Elijo. Last semester I did new things with lots of energy: history skill sets, portfolios, recording my lectures then adding the audio to the slides I used and posting it all on Slideshare.

Fall Results

But the students didn’t do that well. They weren’t bored, they enjoyed the class and my teaching, and even got into some very good discussions about history. But they obviously did very little work outside of class and did poorly on tests. It was clear they didn’t study, view the slideshows or review their notes. Only a few participated in the online discussions. They seemed highly resistant to using the computer for anything, even after a free-flowing, fun session together in the lab. Many, as I wrote before, turned work in quite late. I did count it, but they still did poorly overall, much more poorly than my online students.

In other words, lots of learning seemed to be happening, but real knowledge didn’t occur. This despite the fact that I developed test questions around what we discussed in class, not on some pre-set conception of what they should learn. I literally based questions on the issues they brought forward. I tried hard to evaluate learning, not just content. In short, it failed. And the extra credit blog I introduced failed too, because the students posted but refused to revise. Kind of a similar problem.

The Problem No One Wants to Discuss

Maybe I’m hitting a big issue: they don’t want to use the technology to learn. Maybe this is the Problem No One Wants to Discuss. Especially to the highly privileged students who grew up with the internet, the opportunity to create a slideshow is just another assignment. They’ve seen lousy PowerPoints for so long they are not only unimpressed, they are tempted to snooze like we used to do when a teacher got out the filmstrip machine. They actively resisted the online forum because it meant thinking about history on the “weekend” (which here is anything after noon on Wednesday). Perhaps I should leave the interactive web stuff for my online classes instead.

In our classrooms it seems to be the vivid lecturer, the riveting showman, who captures the audience. This is what students say they want (and I’ve asked them). I’ve been that person. Won a teaching award for it more years ago than I care to mention. Right after, I stopped lecturing all together for a few years, to see if I could do everything with groups and inquiry. Retention (how many students stay in the class) and scores stayed exactly the same. I’ve tried many different techniques over the years, but the numbers rarely budge (except for one totally open inquiry experiment, which had a 70% drop rate so I never did it again, even though several students who were successful still remember the class as important in their lives — it’s amazing what you can do with a handful of students instead of 200). But really, my lectures last semester were good, and we had plenty of discussion and groupwork and inquiry besides lecture. I just don’t think they learned beyond the moments in class.

The Open or Closed Decision

So I’m loathe to spend a lot of time revamping the other half of the class for spring. I didn’t like the closed nature of the website, and am considering revising it. But they didn’t use it much anyway, except (some) to check their grades, so I’m considering going backward. Not quite to quill and parchment, as I said in Twitter, but close: handouts with blanks to fill in, actual objects, pieces of paper that need to be put together in a portfolio. This desire fights with the obvious: put it online! have them blog! track their progress through journalling! open things up!

Dave Cormier and George Siemens are currently teaching an online class in emerging technologies. I was hoping I could sit in (like I did on Alec Couros’ now legendary EC&I 381 class), but it’s a closed class. I wondered why, but Dave’s blog post explained that some students might need a closed environment within which to share ideas that were not ready for fully public view. I understand that completely. So that puts the course back inside a CMS if I want them doing things online, perhaps. Or in closed blogs. Or something.

When Technology Works

Technologically, the best thing that ever happened was serendipitous: last year when they ignored me and used Moodle Messages to secretly talk (and work) among themselves. A student set that up; they never used my system. You can give a party, a good party, but it’s nothing if people don’t show up (and, hopefully, take over, serve drinks, do dishes).

The use of technology is not, as I’ve been reminded by Twitter pals Blanche Maynard and Ed Webb, the point. It’s about rendering technology transparent, putting the focus on the people and the learning. I teach that in our POT workshops all the time. Pedagogy first! The constructivists would say that the problem is that I gave them things, I lectured (even if only half the class time), I didn’t let them decide what they want to study, I didn’t cater to the Net Generation. Well, I think it’s obvious that it’s not technology that plays the catering role, and their learning is most important.

So after a decade, I’m back to debating with myself the intersection of pedagogy and technology, the development of different techniques, and the definition of a successful class. Trying to find causes and effects that may not be linked in actuality. And telling myself it’s really not the time to do that when class starts in less than two weeks.

Abandoning the Idea of Distance Ed

Lisa M Lane 4 Comments

I arrive back at my blog after a stint as a student in the Connectivism and Connective Knowledge class. I created a separate blog, and found myself in an environment led by marvelous techno-utopians who believed that learning would be vastly improved if teachers got the hell out of the way and let learners find their own way among the sea of information and perspectives available via “today’s technology”, by which they meant the internet. In such an environment, I became (uncomfortably, to be sure) a traditionalist, pointing out the value of historical perspectives, 17th and 18th century learning theories, and previous media revolutions. I also became very critical of the current net hype.

The abilities of individuals to engage in this “connective” activity was assumed, rather than discussed. Even before the class I was aware that there was a perception that the “Net Generation” is different, that those born after, say, 1990 think and behave differently, that their brains are wired for speed, multitasking, simultaneous multiple inputs. I have even taught other faculty, in workshops on individual learning styles, that those who are younger (or, I was quick to add, sophisticated in their use of technology regardless of generation) didn’t see technology the same way as the other people. The net gen’ers, of whatever age, don’t see the technology itself, and only care about what it does.

While taking the class, I read Mark Bauerlein’s The Dumbest Generation (2008), with its extensive research demonstrating that the younger crowd is self-centered (or friend-centered) and permanently adolescent, thanks in part to their overuse of the internet for social networking. I can easily see his research in my own students, many of which are entitled, dependent, and print illiterate. [Only just now, while writing this post, I had a student frantically contacting me because she did not submit an assignment when it was due, by 5 pm. I closed the assignment at 6 pm (an hour’s grace, I thought), so it afterward required a password. In the last few hours she has emailed me 5 times, asking why I’m not immediately answering her message to give her the password. This pecular combination of entitlement, dependency and lack of personal responsibility is endemic — this is an “A” student I’m talking about.]

Now I am reading Don Tapscott’s Grown up Digital: How the Net Generation is Changing Your World (2008), which shows research the opposite of Bauerlein’s and promises a better world led by this generation. And it was here I finally understood the word “transparency”, the idea that a technology with which one grows up is transparent: you don’t see it. Most people of my generation still see the technology, talk about “using the computer” to do something. To Net Gen’ers, that would be like “using the television” instead of “watching Dancing with the Stars”, or “using the refrigerator” instead of “getting something to eat”.

This view connected immediately into my (recently evolving) position on the role of online education. In the Program for Online Teaching, we have begun seeing the same faces at the workshops, and they aren’t the faces on our technology decision-making bodies. When I invite other faculty to a workshop, many tell me they’re not interested in teaching online, so they don’t go. A couple of months ago I began sending out the POT newsletter to all faculty instead of those on the interest list, but there was no increase in participation. Then just in the last few weeks, we’ve had people who are new to campus searching around for some online teacher “training”, as if the Program for Online Teaching, with its extensive pedagogy-based workshops, didn’t exist.

I have begun to realize that the problem is separating online from teaching. Online teaching is, in all substantial ways, the same as any other teaching. When we say it’s different, we are seeing the technology — it isn’t transparent. And the result is that we focus on the technology, the course management systems and who runs them, and how to do this thing in Blackboard, and how to “train” college instructors. We create separate Distance Education departments, with separate deans, and talk about our “Distance Education program” because we see it as separate from our other education program. And I’m starting to think that such a perspective might be hopelessly old-fashioned and backward-looking, like asking how we can improve the reception with the rabbit ears instead of wondering if there’s something better to watch on the television.

I think it’s time for some good old-fashioned desegregation. Good teaching is good teaching, regardless of venue/mode. Not every lecturer can do well with small group work, not every constructivist can give a great lecture, not every in-class teacher can teach well online. No big surprise there. The technology itself has advanced enough that we can afford for it to be as transparent as the chalkboard, the overhead, the VCR. (Did anyone ever offer training on how to effectively use a video in class?) Perhaps we can stop separating our “distance”, “classroom”, and “hybrid” thinking, and instead work on teaching and learning.

Glorifying the Doofus

Lisa M Lane

I’m detecting a cultural theme here, as I watch Monk for the first time (I’m trying out Hulu). I’m also just coming off the Olympics, which I watched at nbcolympics.com, for the most part. That means I saw the trailer for Tropic Thunder about 132 times. And this summer, I saw Kung Fu Panda.

Kung Fu Panda is the story of a martial arts fanatic named Po who’s not very bright, in poor physical condition, but has a dream. He accidentally ends up being crowned the Dragon Warrior to fight a big battle, and is taught by serious warriors who have been training for years. He wins because he’s lucky and has heart. Similarly, the guys in Tropic Thunder are actors thrust into a real dangerous situation. They also appear to be nincompoops put into extraordinary circumstances. And Monk is clearly deranged, with numerous neurotic symptoms, although his brilliant deductions solve the crimes. His perspicacity seems as accidental and unnerving as his neuroses.

Unlike previous movies and tv shows with a similar theme (i.e. Karate Kid), the characters do not improve in intelligence or mental health as part of the story. Po does not get into condition or become more suitable as a warrior. The character flaws remain, and changes come via the external world. The other warriors come to appreciate the panda, Monk is enabled by his co-workers, and the actors become famous because their reality documentary wins an Oscar.

This approach fits right in with reading I’ve been doing regarding the decline of knowledge among Americans. Anti-intellectualism is now cool. According to Mark Bauerlein’s The Dumbest Generation, young people in particular don’t mind that they know little factual information pertaining to citizenship or history. I haven’t yet figured out whether that particular point is OK or not. My approach to history is not based on the retention of factual information, but rather the application of historical skills like interpretation and analysis. As I’ve read the book, two things have occurred to me. First, there’s no doubt that students know less about everything than they used to. Second, parents who grew up during times of deprivation or war tend to want their kids to have an easier life. This has happened — the current generation of young middle-class people have a high standard of living, to judge by their pasttimes. Each generation hopes that the next generation will not have to work as hard.

Schoolwork is hard work. It has been the method by which each generation has gotten ahead of their parents: earn a college degree, get a better career. And the opportunity to do so in this country has continually expanded for the last century. Access has become more important than anything, as the dream of mandatory schooling for everyone has become reality. Most middle class kids expect access to college, and a degree as a ticket to a job. College is a process, a series of hoops, not necessarily a learning experience or a place to obtain knowledge or wisdom. It’s like Po entering the Jade Temple, where the real scholars are, those who have worked hard, are talented, have earned their place. Naster Shifu has to adapt his teaching methods to the panda, using food as a motivator. Only then can the student rise to the level necessary to win.

Why is it so cool to be anti-intellectual? I think it’s the intensely social nature of our society. Modern technologies are all about connecting people to each other, often in ways that have nothing to do with the transfer of knowledge. Connections in and of themselves are the point. It’s not the content, it’s the connection. Po succeeds because not only does he win, he connects with his competitors and teachers, becomes appreciated by the community. The Tropic Thunder documentary gets public recognition. Monk wins his cases and is known around town.

All the same, I am concerned about the loss of characters who improve themselves, learn something, and turn to the intellect as a means of solving problems. The stories must be satisfying, or they wouldn’t be so pervasive. Perhaps we’re all at some level a doofus. And we want to believe we’ll come out on top anyway. But I’m not sure where actual education stands if there is no motivation to improve oneself.

Musing on Getting New Glasses

Lisa M Lane 1 Comment

So I go to get my new eyeglasses, which are some sort of snazzy progressive multi-focal thing. The assistant hands them to me and I put them on. She then tells me to look outside, across the parking lot.

“Look over there toward those trees,” she says. “Look through the top part of the lens. Tilt your chin down.”

“Now look over here at this table, through the middle part.”

Then she hands me a printed chart. “Now look at this printing. You need to tip your head up so you can see through the correct part of the lens. No, not like that. Like this. See?”

Yes, I see. And sure, I’ll get used to them (in fact they aren’t near as weird as I thought they would be). But what struck me was the way I was expected to change my behavior to suit the technology. It’s not that the reading area is too small, it’s that I’m not tilting my head up enough. Seems soooo familiar.

Cop or Mom?

Lisa M Lane

<![CDATA[Driving down the street today, I saw an unusual number of sheriff's cars patrolling the boulevard. It is two days since California's new law went into effect, banning the use of hand-held cell phones while driving. A patrol car was crossing the intersection. Suddenly I heard a police car speaker, saying "Please stop using your cell phone!", presumably to the car in front of it. No one was pulled over; it was just a warning.

As with the seat belt law, here’s another one designed to make sure people do what they should do anyway. And now police are burdened with having to watch for drivers not buckling up and chatting on phones. I would much rather they get quickly to the scene of a crime, or monitor the crosswalks near our local school, where idiot drivers practically run over kids’ heels every morning in the crosswalk. In fact, when I requested a patrol be sent there between 8:50 and 9:00 am on a weekday to witness this dangerous behavior, I was told there weren’t enough officers to do that. Evidently they’re needed for chat check instead.

Yep, this is a rant. The seat belt and cell phone laws are designed to make you do what you would do anyway if you’d listened to your mother. If you have or had a mom, she likely told you to be careful, do things the safe way. That’s what most moms do. If you listened to your mom, you’d always buckle your seatbelt. You would not use the cell phone while driving, nor would you do what I consider the more hazardous “while driving” behaviors: arguing with your spouse, crying as you sing to that sad song on the radio, eating a hamburger, or putting on makeup, none of which is against the law…yet.

Grownups, however, by virtue of their advanced age, do not have to listen to their mother. So they drive like idiots, do unsafe things, endanger kids in crosswalks, etc. BTW, there is no law about the crosswalk thing. Apparently it’s totally OK to start moving your car while a pedestrian is still in the crosswalk, so long as you came to a complete stop at the stop sign first. Nevertheless, I’d bet your mother would tell you it’s not a safe thing to do.
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Compelling does not mean accurate

Lisa M Lane

<![CDATA[There have been a number of books recently about ideas that are compelling, that "stick" in the collective mind. The recent books Made to Stick (an ironically forgettable title!) and The Tipping Point indicate an interest in the mass adoption of concepts based on what makes them compelling.

But compelling does not mean accurate. Many false ideas are very compelling. Other works, like Thomas Gilovich’s 1991 How We Know What Isn’t So and the more recent Freakonomics (the authors have their own blog now) make this point well. People believe things they think of as facts which cannot be supported by evidence.

It seems to be trendy to base ones decisions, and even ones whole mindset, on elements that are irrational. I suppose in the larger sociological sense I am not surprised that people would act based on irrational impulses. But it makes me wonder what I’m doing as a college history instructor. History, of course, is about interpretation. But interpretation is based on facts; historical analysis must be proven with data and evidence. When students persist in sharing their feelings about a subject, and latching on to compelling but false information, it’s hard to fight the trend.

Take for example the Columbus story. Many people believe that Columbus was a hero because he defied the idea of a flat earth. And yet no one has ever seriously believed that the earth was flat. Most of my students reside near the beach, where one can gaze out across the Pacific Ocean and actually see the curvature of the earth. The myth seems to have developed to give recent immigrants pride in the European heritage during the early 20th century, by showing Columbus as an individualistic visionary. The flat-earth story is, in other words, powerful enough to stick. It sticks because Americans feel it is right to succeed in the face of stodginess, to boldly venture out and be proven correct in ones singular mission. The story feels good even though Columbus’ success was based on accident because his own geographic information was, in fact, false.

Similarly, I often read final exams claiming that in today’s society, women are socially and economically on equal footing with men. This is despite clear statistics indicating it isn’t so. It is compelling, and important, for students to believe that we have total equality. It seems emotionally necessary. Most of the white students feel the same way about racism, that it’s an issue of the past. Despite the very real possibility that such a view could prevent people from generating any positive social change, the idea of equality sticks because it is so satisfying.

This modern form of woolly thinking, as Gilovich notes, is simply more comfortable to the mind than actual analysis of the facts. Fewer Americans these days seem to enjoy intellectual activity for its own sake. Regardless of how much we “teach” people to think clearly, and use evidence, it’s much easier for them to express how they feel, which ideas they’ve found compelling, which fit with the concepts they already believe.

Belief seems to be becoming the foundation of thought. Scientific, rational issues, such as global warming or wiretapping, have become areas of belief rather than cogent analysis. I hear people say “do you believe in global warming?” If I believe that two plus two equals five, if that idea is compelling to me, it becomes my foundation for thought on the issue of arithmetic. If I see a movie that shows me that Queen Elizabeth was a closet romantic, or that Achilles had a California accent, or that Hitler was a tragic figure, and I feel these ideas “make sense” to me, it will color my view of history.

Robert Draper’s recent book on the Bush presidency, Dead Certain, indicates that such a belief-based approach can be helpful in running a country — there is no substitute for knowing you are right, even when you’re wrong. Somehow certitude itself is now seen as admirable. The attachment to powerful ideas rather than facts is seen as the moral stand, the righteous position. But it isn’t, at least not in a society based on rational ideas rather than fanaticism.

I am supposed to teach history as a social science, not a set of moral precepts. It makes me wonder whether the ancient Greeks were right, that history is a subject for teaching morality rather than objectivity. I begin to wonder whether it is possible to do both without transforming history into a belief system?]]>

Oolong and pop culture

Lisa M Lane

<![CDATA[My special thanks to the student who put this image on his final exam:

It not only made me laugh (and who wouldn’t need that after my last post?) but I had to go look it up and discover the story of Oolong the rabbit, who balanced things on his head.

The student was answering a question about how pop culture signifies a need for change, and here was an internet meme which, while perhaps not expressing a need for change, was definitely pop culture. And, after grading a bunch of exams, a bunny with a dorayaki on his head was definitely what I needed!]]>

next to of course god america i

Lisa M Lane

<![CDATA["next to of course god america i
love you land of the pilgrims’ and so forth oh
say can you see by the dawn’s early my
country ’tis of centuries come and go
and are no more what of it we should worry
in every language even deafanddumb
thy sons acclaim your glorious name by gorry
by jingo by gee by gosh by gum
why talk of beauty what could be more beaut-
iful than these heroic happy dead
who rushed like lions to the roaring slaughter
they did not stop to think they died instead
then shall the voice of liberty be mute?”

He spoke. And drank rapidly a glass of water

— e e cummings]]>

Behaving Badly

Lisa M Lane

<![CDATA[My favorite quickie news magazine, The Week, reported on Heather Mills, who was on a transatlantic flight when the movie system broke down. She responded by doing a foxtrot with dance partner Jonathan Roberts, reminiscent apparently of her dancing on “Dancing with the Stars“, in the aisle to entertain passengers. The audience did not applaud, or even respond.

In the blogosphere and on websites, the story is titled “Heather Mills bores plane passengers”, “Heather Mills ‘Humiliated’ After Impromptu Dance“, and even “Heather Mills Does a Rubbish Dance on a Plane“.

Now, you might think I’d consider this a non-story, but I am seeing here a distancing of a generation of people from other people. Whether or not she was a celebrity, Mills and Roberts tried to entertain the passengers, and were greeted with total silence. How rude. Non-response after giving it your all. Did the passengers think they were watching TV? Did it never enter their minds that it might hurt the dance couple’s feelings, or be socially inappropriate to not respond?

I have had similar experiences in teaching (I’m sure most teachers have). You give it your all, and are stared at in stony silence. I see a connection between passive media and this sort of behavior. One becomes accustomed to TV and the web presenting without requiring a response. At times I have wanted to dance around myself and say, “excuse me, I am not a TV, but a real live person — can you give me some feedback, please?”

On the other hand, perhaps the performers were used to it. I actually watched a single episode of “Dancing with the Stars” (I am so not a TV watcher), and was stunned. I watched because I enjoy ballroom dancing, and was told in dance class that lessons nationwide are experiencing enrollment growth because of this show. The totally lack of civility (not to mention the minimal time showing actual dancing) appalled me. Amazing levels of rudeness from the judges and contestants, and it was obvious that (a) that was what viewers tuned in for, and (b) everyone behaving badly thought they were being witty. Voltaire would be horrified.

When I mentioned my reaction to people who watch TV a lot, they said, “oh, yeah, all the reality shows are like that”. So reality is performers doing things and getting insulted. Then real reality is people trying to entertain others on a plane and being treated rudely. The implication for civil social discourse is scary. Manners are sometimes called the oil that makes the machine of society run more smoothly. I guess we’re more interested in the friction.]]>

Quotation for Today

Lisa M Lane

<![CDATA[“This crippling of individuals I consider the worst evil of capitalism. Our whole educational system suffers from this evil. An exaggerated competitive attitude is inculcated into the student, who is trained to worship acquisitive success as a preparation for his future career.”

— Albert Einstein, Why Socialism? (1949)]]>

The Sound of Clocks

Lisa M Lane

<![CDATA[Pretty sure all musings will focus on the history of technology, since that's where my main interests lie.

In this case, as I lay in bed listening to the clock ticking, it occurred to me how many people don’t. I have a number of clocks, and the watches I wear are all wind-ups, most of them bought on eBay.

I object to digital clocks and watches on the grounds that they make no functional sound and do not demonstrate the sweep of time. Time moves, it passes, it doesn’t just add up like a numerical equation (i.e. McDonalds’ “24 billion served”). It is cyclical, like our bodies, our lives, our history. The face of a real watch shows the sweep of time; you can see not only how far the day has gone but how far it has yet to go.

And the sound is not only of time itself ticking away, but of the actually function of the device. Not an electronic beep that has to be set, but the tune of the watch mechanism functioning. And when it stops, that stopping is completely predictable — I must wind it every 24 hours. None of this “ohmigod I’m late — my watch battery died!”. I become part of the passing of time.]]>