It’s done

Ahh. So here we are. We have come to the end. Only it isn’t an end at all really. More like a gate flung wide open to endless new possibilities. This course has exceeded all my expectations.

I am in awe of the profound elegance of Robert Frost’s The Road Not Taken – and I take the liberty of seeing this poem in the road I have taken in 23 Things.

I love the imagery of taking a path less trod, and having to make a conscious choice to do so. And that once we have taken that path, we are unlikely to go back that way again. I am already saying, with a sigh, that I have taken this less travelled road of personal learning, and that that has made all the difference. I can’t go back now.

The highlight for the course for me has not been a specific ‘Thing’ – they have all been useful whether it’s new learning or something I already new (although the ones that took me out of my comfort zone into a public place were probably the most rewarding!!!)

But the highlights instead are two-fold. Firstly the structure and presentation of the course. Well written, well paced, clearly structured and excellent explanations each week of each ‘Thing’. That leads to the second highlight: knowing that all this brilliant professional development is going to remain available. Knowing that if I forget something, or want to try something new, I can go back and access succinct, spot on information, strategies and help. Who could ask for anything more? I don’t even want the steak knives. Hand on my heart, the learning was sufficient recompense.

Tracking and analytics

The Moodle statistics are fascinating. The last few months have been a rocky road with my father in law passing away, his wife passing then hospitalised – and all that such events entail. So I have often felt I am dragging the chain, and I see this reflected in the days of inactivity in Moodle Statistics. But here we are, and the stats say I’m done. That feels brilliant. Had the course been less worthwhile I am sure I would have passed it in.

I do think statistics like this could be very useful to students – who I find often just don’t have a sound sense of how they are doing (either over-evaluating or selling themselves short). With courses that are so short, and assessments that don’t always give timely feedback, statistics like these could be one useful means of formative feedback – particularly if accompanied by a note from the lecturer on class average, top blogger stats and the like.

In Semester 1 week 2 of a graduate diploma course this year, I made a brief comment at the end of a session that looking in Moodle I noticed that there were ‘only 4 students who had not yet opened their readings or class notes’. Each of these four students quickly accessed Moodle and caught up. Subtle pressure? Perhaps. But without it the students will fall behind and put themselves under unnecessary stress.

On the other hand, there does seem to be something a little uncomfortable about finding out that someone (lecturer, course designer, etc) can/has been watching. I make sure students know Day 1 that Moodle has that information. So having this information available to the students, seems to me to be a win-win.

As an aside, the Educause article ‘Ethics, Big Data, and Analytics: A Model for Application’, Monday, May 6, 2013, raised the interesting perspective that in education, ‘to know’ entails an obligation to act on behalf of the student. If that be so, are we opening another huge set of responsibilities and work by opening up such analytics – in terms of now having that knowledge and therefore carrying some “consequent challenges of student … performance management” (Kay, Korn & Oppenheim, 2012)?  Or could this be the most personal tool we have to help students and meet our responsibilities as educators?

David Kay, Naomi Korn, and Charles Oppenheim, “Legal, Risk and Ethical Aspects of Analytics in Higher Education” Center for Educational Technology & Interoperability Standards, vol. 1, no. 6, 2012.

Visualisation tools

If just used once or twice, Wordle or Tagxedo certainly can give an visual impression of text. As one of a raft of tools for presentation, they certainly have a place. I am reading Linda Harisom’s Learning Theory and Online Technologies  at the moment.

She argues that it is critical and timely to look at the intersection of learning theory and technology if we are to have a theory-informed approach to extending and transforming educational practice. If I could have a superpower, it would have to include being able to read at warp speed – but still feel as though I am savouring every word and each new idea.

Harasim, L. (2011). Learning theory and online technologies. New York, NY: Routledge.

Evernote

I am currently at Online Educa so decided to give EndNote a run for its money by using it to take notes at the conference.  I LOVE my pen and paper for note taking – always in a carefully selected A5 notebook, which opens flat and has a pretty cover. I always know where my notes are and I can line my pretty notebooks up along my bookshelf.

However, I accept that there are some advantages in computer-based rather than ink – and the CreATE team can be rather convincing. So here goes.

The photo below is the opening plenary with, from the right, Mark Stevenson, Aida Opoku-Mensah, Howard Rheingold and Lisa Lewin. Brilliant – the lot of them.  And combined they were even more impressive than the sum of their parts.

SO, in the first instance you might want to look at Howard Rheingold’s blog 

And for my testing of Evernote, here are the notes I took from a session on E-Examinations instead of pen and paper – and wobbly photos from the book of abstracts on my knee. https://www.evernote.com/l/AguyNm9tGyJP1orc55kOviScgzUjo5Jxif4

I am nearly converted.

,

Organising or disorganising references

As part of 23 Things for Research programme, we are how we organise our references and write our reference list.  Several years ago I had a Summer Scholarship student working on some research with me.  For that reason only, I switched from EndNote to RefWorks – and I have not looked back.  The three features I particularly like are: the efficiency of its Write n Cite; that you can so easily share a RefWorks folder with colleagues; and that it is so easy to export directly from the Library Catalogue(and elsewhere) to RefWorks.  It is also well-supported with face-to-face workshops run by our brilliant Library staff, and by online tutorials, FAQs etc.  So although I am tempted to explore Zotero as an open source programme, I’ll just stick with RefWorks for now.

Unless someone writes such a convincing post that I am persuaded elsewhere!

Worth attending or presenting at

 Learning by Anne Davis

What’s good for Michelangelo is good for us. If you are still learning, there is a conference not to miss. ISATT is being held in Auckland in July 2014.  This is only the second time this international conference has been held in the Southern Hemisphere.  Why attend?

• The keynote speakers are outstanding thought leaders in their fields.
• It’s in Auckland.
• Abstracts don’t close until 26th November.
• The theme ‘Teaching for tomorrow today’ is highly relevant. From the ISATT website:

Our vision for the conference is inspired by the concept of teaching students today in preparation for a future that is already here. The theme ‘Teaching for tomorrow today’ captures the sense of urgency, excitement and challenge we face in modern times. We are particularly keen to share and discuss approaches that have significant impact on learners’ engagement in education from early childhood through to tertiary education.

For the 101 other reasons take a look at the ISATT website. What a win for Auckland!!!

 Auckland from Stokes Point by Sarah MacMillan

Where do we stand?

 

     Or

.     

.

.

Where are we with Science Education in New Zealand?  I presented this as an address to the Sir Paul Callaghan Academy of science teachers, as a very brief introductory overview of science education in New Zealand currently.  National and international reports are used to show our present science education landscape – so some slides are text heavier than is good practice, but in this instance that is intentional.

Take ten

Thing 12 is to share a link to a useful online video or presentation.

So, given that it is always useful to be inspired, watch Professor Randy Pausch’s last lecture. Entitled ‘Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams’, this 10 minute video is an abridged reprise – abridged from the original 1:44:09 lecture delivered after a standing ovation from a packed auditorium at Carnegie Mellon University. The talk was modeled after an ongoing series of lectures where top academics are asked to think deeply about what matters to them, and then give a hypothetical ‘final talk’, with a topic such as, ‘what wisdom would you try to impart to the world if you knew it was your last chance?’ The elephant in the room was that this indeed was Pausch’s last chance as he had terminal pancreatic cancer.

Pausch lectured in Computer Science with sabbaticals at both Walt Disney’s Imagineering studio and Electronic Arts. The video is slightly dated, but its message absolutely timeless.

Childhood dreams image by TheFoxAndTheRaven at deviantART.

 

Why curate?

So for this Thing (of reinforcing connections by reading other 23 Things participants’ blogs and sharing a link to a particularly good post on my blog), I was spoilt for options.

I decided initially to link to Nicole’s blog, Digital Exploration,to her post ‘GoogleFEST@ULearn‘, because of her particularly clever use of visuals in her articulately written text – with ideas to think about and links to read more widely.

E.g. Nicole’s positive comment and visual re the ULearn conference: “Overloaded and then sinking to the bottom of the pool.”

She has great examples throughout her blogs on how a picture can paint a thousand words.

BUT, then I read Helen’s post, ‘This man reads a book with no pictures‘ with its brilliant video link – in her blog Catching the Surf. Hmmm, no pictures in this book.

So, are pictures invaluable in  painting a thousand words – or superfluous and unnecessary?

Onto Suzanne’s post on ‘Selective Storytelling‘ in Blog Novice 1, where she writes, “The Web 2.0 allows us to tell our stories in new ways, but it doesn’t change the principles of storytelling. Our stories still need to be interesting and relevant or our audience stops listening. The stories are still told with a purpose in mind, be it entertainment, information or challenge – or a mix.”

So the essence really is great storytelling in a blog, a thesis or a novel – with or without pictures.

Thanks bloggers for such a feast of interesting posts.

   

Interesting posts from http://kadvacorp.com/design/design-ideas-for-fences/

Professional Social Networks

In weighing up the pros and cons of LinkedIn and/or Academia.edu, I was drawn again to Ned Potter’s Prezi You already have a personal brand: here are 5 ways to influence it. For example his advice to ‘[p]osition yourself as part of the dialogue about the profession. Build your brand by taking advice as well as giving it, and sharing other people’s content as well as your own. It’s not an empty exercise in self-promotion!’ As someone who distances myself from self-promotion. I found this last comment particularly thought-provoking as I have previously managed to distance myself from both blogging and creating a professional social network by putting it these into the ‘self-promotion–that–I–am–not–into’ box. It seems that is no longer an intelligent option.

My decision at the moment, is to start on my professional social network by responding to the University’s current ‘increase your impact campaign’ for staff https://staff.education.auckland.ac.nz/faculty/research/increasing-impact. That done, I shall revisit Academia.edu.