I have not been posting to my blog lately. Sorry. Google took my TravelinEdMan blog offline for a week since they had perceived it to be a spam blog. I have cleared that up thankfully. I found out just as I was about to post a blog reflection related to attending a talk by Barack Obama on the night of April 30th, 2008. He was here for our presidential primary and he was electric! I will post that later on as I have something else to post tonight.
During the past few weeks, I have been working on my book that extends Thomas Friedman’s “The World is Flat” book to education. I have a draft nearly completed and it is approaching 220,000 words. Yikes. I have been interviewing many educational leaders for it. Among them is Julie Young, President and CEO of the Florida Virtual School (FLVS). Her comments were so thoughtful that I asked her permission to place them in my blog.
As background for you, the FLVS is among the largest online K-12 schools in the U.S. and perhaps the world. With state appropriations of over $50 million (Jacobson, 2007), during the 2006-2007 fiscal year, the FLVS had over 52,000 students from grade 6 to 12 enrolled in more than 87,000 half-credit courses (see Florida Virtual School, 2008). These enrollments were expected to exceed 100,000 during the 2007-2008 school year.
Here are my questions and Julie’s answers:
1. (Bonk.) How do you make learning engaging?
a. (Young.) First and foremost, we rely on the teacher to engage the student. While technology will increasingly allow us to customize the courseware itself to each individual student, we believe a proactive teacher who intentionally reaches out to students on a regular basis goes a long way in the battle for engagement.
That said, we’re moving ahead on the curriculum design side as well. Some past developments that have worked well with students are simple things like chunking the content and adding things like pace charts to give students simple tools to make their way through a course. The more ownership we can foster within students in their learning process, the more likely we will see engagement. We’ve also analyzed our courses to see where students are less engaged or where they might be stumbling over certain lessons. As we continually refresh and update our courseware, we look at that data in order to know where we need fresh interactive tools or lesson re-designs to keep engagement levels high.
2. (Bonk.) Why do students from so many states use the FLVS?
a. (Young.) Because we were so supported in Florida, we were able to develop and grow quickly. By the time other states began to recognize the need for an online learning option and began doing the research to see what was involved in launching a program, they realized that it just made more sense to come to a program like ours and purchase services.
We have been selling courseware, training, consultative services, and classroom seats outside of Florida since 2002. Those revenue dollars come back into development to keep courses at the highest quality level possible. We feel pretty good about being able to take the expertise we’ve been able to foster here and use it to provide a sort of a clearinghouse for quality online courseware and instructional design so that we can share that research and design with educators nationwide. Ultimately, more students will benefit as we partner nationwide.
3. (Bonk.) Are there any states doing what the FLVS did? Or using it as a model?
a. (Young.) Yes, there are a number of states who have modeled their program after FLVS. In fact, some of those states have also purchased courseware and services from us. The Southern Regional Education Board, in fact, has encouraged all of the states within its purview to follow the FLVS model, not just from an instructional design stance, but also from a policy and fiscal support standpoint. Florida has worked hard to remove legislative barriers to online learning, and SREB encourages other states to take note and follow suit.
Some states have adopted many FLVS policies in terms of the daily school operations, but their model may be completely different. For instance, leaders in Wisconsin took the stance that online learning should be a grass roots initiative versus state-led. The Appleton district took the initiative to launch a program, and after much research, they chose FLVS as their curriculum provider. That choice has resulted in a long-term partnership which has included myriad consultations and training. They have taken the principles that made FLVS a success and have found ways to apply those principles to their unique circumstances. Today, the Wisconsin eSchool is a large consortium of numerous districts that share resources and serve students through much of the state. We are proud to be their provider and partner in the journey.
4. (Bonk.) What happens next for FLVS?
a. (Young.) We are moving forward with developments in curriculum and in our instructional methods. On the instructional side, we have adopted what we are calling a “Symphony of Skills,” which is a mélange of best practices from several sources, including the Partnership for 21st Century Skills, Phil Schlecty’s “Working on the Work” concepts, and Quantum learning. We are training our staff in all of these pedagogical theories and looking for ways to infuse our instructional approach with them. On the curriculum side, we are partnering with the Academic Advanced Distributed Learning (ADL) Co-Lab in Wisconsin to push ahead to next-generation content development. We are thrilled to be working with the recognized creators and developers of Sharable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM), which forms the basis for object-oriented learning.
5. (Bonk.) Do you have an interesting story or 2 where you impacted learning of someone in a way that you did not plan?
a. (Young.) Earlier in our development, we didn’t realize the secondary skills that students would gain from working in the online learning environment. We’ve seen students develop in their ability to speak clearly with an adult because they actually talk one-on-one with instructors fairly regularly. (They can’t hide as easily as they can in a classroom.)
b. (Young.) We’ve also seen students grown in their ability to organize themselves, take initiative, and take ownership of their learning—simply because of the nature of our environment. Likewise, students have developed in their ability to read and write, again because the online environment requires them to do so more often than the classroom.
Finally, we’ve seen students grow in technical skills. They often come into this environment with a mistaken belief that they know all about the technologies we use, but they don’t. What they do have, however, is a fearless willingness to try. They dive into the content, and the fact that they are learning to use tools like a web-conferencing, VOIP, or a simple PPT at the same time they are learning content may be seamless to them.
One other thing that comes to mind in terms of unexpected outcomes is the life management and coping skills that so many students have gained through our health and life management courses. We get so many questions about how it is possible to teach personal fitness online, but what the naysayers don’t see are the almost daily letters we receive from students and parents about how life changing the course was. We’ve had students write to say they lost 10, 20, 40 pounds, and many have said that other family members lost weight as well because they actually did the workouts together! These are the same students who likely would have gotten nothing out of a school gym class.
We’ve had students from the life management courses write that they’ve improved their ability to communicate with their families as a result of the course. One student who had been running with a rough crowd wrote that he realized he had made poor choices that had adversely affected him and his family, and the course taught him how to turn things around for himself. He actually said that he believed the course and the teacher saved his life. It doesn’t get much better than that.
6. (Bonk.) Friedman says the world is flatter now. I think it is open. Do you see the world opening up?
a. (Young.) The world is definitely opening up in terms of access to information and to people. The possibilities, as Friedman so eloquently portrayed in his book, for information exchange, collaboration, and teamwork are almost mind-boggling, as are the ramifications for our personal, educational, and work lives. I think this new world of open access provides for students some exciting and unprecedented opportunities for learning. It also presents new dangers.
Part of my passion as an educator is to help other educators understand how vital it is that we be willing to pioneer within this new “open” world on behalf of our children. If you think of pioneering days of old in this country, no one would have dreamed of sending children out to forge a trail to the West ahead of their parents. Yet, so many parents and educators today are willing to throw up their hands and say that they just aren’t good at technology or they are just too old to change their way of teaching. That’s the equivalent of sending our kids into a wilderness with no map or compass. We have to be willing to provide the maps and the compass so that when they get out into this new open world of instant access, they will have guideposts, warning signs, and even a moral compass to keep them on a productive path.
7. (Bonk.) Are you familiar with the MIT OpenCourseWare (OCW) initiative? How might free or open educational resources (OER) be used or promoted by FLVS?
a. (Young.) Yes, we are familiar with the move to open courseware, as noted by MIT and others. It is certainly a trend, and it is something we have discussed and will continue to discuss at FLVS. There are challenges, such as finding ways to share content without compromising state or national standards requirements, but we will continue to explore options that will allow us to do more sharing in the future.
Thanks for listening or reading this interview. As I indicated, Julie is quite thoughtful; small wonder the growth of the FLVS. As always, your comments are appreciated. You can read more about the FLVS in my upcoming book.
By the way, I will be gone this week to Atlanta on Monday May 12th to meet up with Brian Ford from the UK to discuss my book and then to speak at UNC Charlotte on Tuesday (May 13. IU also speak this coming week at DePaul University in Chicago on Thursday and Friday (May 15-16). Let me know if you want to attend any of these talks. Last week I presented at Fresno Pacific University. PDF copies of my talks in Fresno can be found here: http://www.trainingshare.com/workshop.php#fpu2008
References:
Florida Virtual School: http://www.flvs.net/
Florida Virtual School (2008). FLVS fast facts. Florida Virtual School. Retrieved April 13, 2008, from http://www.flvs.net/educators/fact_sheet.php
Jacobson, Robert L. (2007, December 28). State-run virtual schools gather steam. eSchoolNews. Retrieved December 28, 2007, from www.eschoolnews.com/news/showStoryRSS.cfm?ArticleID=7328 (link no longer works); try this one for part of story: http://pryorcommitment.com/newsblog/?p=65
Saturday, 10 May 2008
Thursday, 17 April 2008
Online Language Learning Resources and Six/Seven Proposed US-UK Collaborative Initiatives from Prime Minister Gordon Brown
Ok, time for my second post of the day; before you read it, please be aware that my blog posting may be light for a while as I go back to working on my huge book project to extend Thomas Friedman’s “The World is Flat” book to education. Then again, I may start posting excerpts from the upcoming book since I do not yet have a publisher.
As indicated in my previous blog post, online language learning remains hot! And I mean sizzling hot! Just see the list of online language learning resources one of my research teams has compiled using our Wiki-RIKI site in Wikispaces in the past few months. Here is the linkto tons of Online Language Learning Resources: http://wiki-riki.wikispaces.com/Online+Language+Learning
There are so many resources, that they must be categorized and evaluated:
1. Free language exchange communities with instructional content (e.g., Livemocha, italki, Babbel, Soziety, Kantalk, ECpod, and many more; see above link!),
2. Free language exchange communities without instructional content (e.g., FriendsAbroad, Mixxer, Chinswing)
3. Free Self-Paced language learning web sites (e.g., Mango Languages, About.com from the NY Times, and lessons from the BBC)
4. Free Community-based Translation services (e.g., Cucumis, Mixxer again)
5. Podcast-based systems (e.g., Chinesepod, Englishpod, Spanishpod, Notes in Spanish)
6. Other resources: (e.g., Webheads)
So, it is clear that there are many ways to learn a language online. I am admittedly not an expert on learning languages online (hec, I do not even know my native language (i.e., English) that well…those of you sending me subtle (as well as not so subtle) emails of my blog post typos can attest to that). What I am interested in is emerging technologies for learning and opening up the world of learning to everyone on this little planet. I think that the above listed tools are a key part of reaching such a goal. At the Website noted above, my team has also listed potential areas for research, potential journals for publishing such research, related L2 acquisition theories that can ground such research, etc. There is a wealth of resources! Explore them!
Within just a few weeks of working in this area, the attention grew. As an example, read my previous post and all the article links and interviews within it. As another example, my team recently talked to consultants working with the Gates Foundation. These folks are searching for English language learning solutions at the community college level; in particular, online or technology-supported solutions. There is a dire need for supporting recent immigrants and others with English language deficiencies and needs. Do we recognize it at the federal level here in the U.S.? Not from what I can tell but this is not the area of my expertise. Over on the other side of the big pond they apparently do have political leadership and funding in this area (or will likely have funding, anyhow). In fact, UK Prime Minister, Gordon Brown wrote a piece, "Enlarging the Anglosphere," in the Wall Street Journal yesterday (April 16, 2008) which outlined areas wherein he seeks greater ties with the United States. See (same article--2 options):
1. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120830718371518015.html?mod=opinion_main_commentaries
2. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120830718371518015.html?mod=hpp_us_inside_today
Not sure why the Wall State Journal posted the same article twice but I list them both above in case one link comes down or becomes nonfunctional.
Here are the six key initiatives Prime Minister Brown outlined:
1. Fostering greater university student exchanges between the US and the UK (I just saw the bill for my son to go study in Seville, Spain in the fall and I agree with Mr. Brown that greater government support would be wonderful);
2. Greater cooperation on enterprise and fostering entrepreneurship of young people and the exchange of ideas among young business leaders;
3. Joint initiatives or consorted efforts by charities and foundations across the two nations;
4. Collaboration between the US and UK and other international partners on cancer research;
5. Cooperation on research and development related to global warming; and
6. Fostering ways for young people to do volunteer work and service in each other’s countries.
Wow. This is a highly bold plan. The prime minister hopes that these initiatives will bring the people of the UK and US together as “Winston Churchill met President Franklin Delano Roosevelt on the deck of the H.M.S. Prince of Wales in 1941.” But unlike our current administration, he recognizes and values the Web 2.0 and social networking possibilities. As evidence, Brown notes that these six items “reflect today's more connected society, in which thousands of people who communicate across multimedia channels will now be able to visit, meet face to face, and gain knowledge and understanding that will benefit them, and both our countries.” Ah, online collaboration, interaction, and exchange. He gets it!
So, why I am including all this in a blog post related to online language learning? Well, after detailing these six initiatives, he adds one more with the following statement though it is NOT labeled as #7: “In the last half-century the English language has become not only the language of Shakespeare and Twain, of J.K. Rowling and Cormac McCarthy, but of science, commerce, diplomacy, the Internet and travel.”
Ok, this is getting interesting. He adds that, “So, finally, I propose that together Britain and America strive to make the international language that happens to be our own far more freely available across the world. I am today asking the British Council to develop a new initiative with private-sector and NGO partners in America, to offer anyone in any part of the world help to learn English.”
That is a somewhat stunning way to end his Wall Street article. He situates his opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal right in the heart of the online language learning movement. In addition, he used the word “free,” and, in effect, could be perceived as pushing his agenda into the open educational resource (OER) movement. In his words, the learning of English should be “freely available across the world.” I guess he just needs to visit sites like Livemocha, Englishpod, Mixxer, and FriendsAbroad and witness the millions of people learning English and hundreds of other languages online today. And then he might stop over at MERLOT, Connexions, Careo, and Jorum and explore the free online resources that are now available for any discipline or content area. Perhaps he already has been there. Perhaps he is learning one of them now.
If interested, Mr. Brown also appeared on Good Morning America as part of a three day tour of the U.S. Some of this is covered by an article, “Special relationship will grow stronger, says Brown,” published yesterday in the Guardian (a UK newspaper). See:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/apr/16/foreignpolicy.gordonbrown?gusrc=rss&feed=networkfront
Now some will immediately say that this is Western imperialism all over again. That is certainly a point of view that can be taken here. I prefer a learning-related view. We all need opportunities to learn in order to work, live, grow, and feel good about ourselves in the twenty-first century. If learning English is a key part of success and self-satisfaction in this world, then help in learning English is a step forward. If what is needed to succeed or feel personally empowered is learning to speak Mandarin Chinese, Korean, Spanish, or Canadian (eh?), then that is possible too and we should push for new initiatives there.
Let’s not immediately highlight the perceived negatives in what Gordon Brown stated yesterday. Knee-jerk idea squelching and negativism typically do not help in the progress of humankind. Insightful criticism along with exciting counter measures are always welcome, and, in the long run, will lead to better solutions than what will be initially proposed. But to brush aside the possibilities based on the problems of the past, does not allow for the human race to nurture and support the learning of all learners housed here at the present time. Let’s see where his ideas go first. This is just an initial call to collaborate and exchange ideas more. The tools for doing have definitely accelerated since our last president left office at the turn of this century. It is now time to take advantage of them. Which candidate do you think has the awareness and leadership skills to do so? As is apparent, I think it is highly significant news that Prime Minister Brown has proposed innovative collaborative and cooperative efforts between the US and UK and all of Europe and the rest of the world that can improve research, education, philanthropy, science, business, and technology. Web 2.0 technologies will undoubtedly be a key part of those collaborative efforts. Mr. Brown sure seems hopeful. Perhaps our next president will be too.
Ok, Bonk is moving on to politics now. Not really. It is simply an interesting topic since the Indiana primary is May 6th and this state has become a battleground for the Democratic Party. I saw Bill Clinton speak in Bloomington two weeks ago on the IU campus at Assembly Hall. I saw him speak at an e-learning conference three weeks after 911 at the LA Convention Center. Once again, he gave a marvelous talk to an audience of perhaps 7,000 people, despite showing up 2-3 hours late. He is not the only one showing up here. My son, Alex, saw Barack Obama in downtown Bloomington last Friday coming out of our best pub—Nick’s English Hut. Ok, I wonder to myself, Obama at an English pub? Surely, he and Brown would have an immediate place they could meet to discuss world politics right here in little ol’ Bloomy. If not here in Bloomington, then I know a few places in London, Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Coventry, and Leicester they might meet up in and have a pint or two. Now, that would be newsworthy! Clank!
As indicated in my previous blog post, online language learning remains hot! And I mean sizzling hot! Just see the list of online language learning resources one of my research teams has compiled using our Wiki-RIKI site in Wikispaces in the past few months. Here is the linkto tons of Online Language Learning Resources: http://wiki-riki.wikispaces.com/Online+Language+Learning
There are so many resources, that they must be categorized and evaluated:
1. Free language exchange communities with instructional content (e.g., Livemocha, italki, Babbel, Soziety, Kantalk, ECpod, and many more; see above link!),
2. Free language exchange communities without instructional content (e.g., FriendsAbroad, Mixxer, Chinswing)
3. Free Self-Paced language learning web sites (e.g., Mango Languages, About.com from the NY Times, and lessons from the BBC)
4. Free Community-based Translation services (e.g., Cucumis, Mixxer again)
5. Podcast-based systems (e.g., Chinesepod, Englishpod, Spanishpod, Notes in Spanish)
6. Other resources: (e.g., Webheads)
So, it is clear that there are many ways to learn a language online. I am admittedly not an expert on learning languages online (hec, I do not even know my native language (i.e., English) that well…those of you sending me subtle (as well as not so subtle) emails of my blog post typos can attest to that). What I am interested in is emerging technologies for learning and opening up the world of learning to everyone on this little planet. I think that the above listed tools are a key part of reaching such a goal. At the Website noted above, my team has also listed potential areas for research, potential journals for publishing such research, related L2 acquisition theories that can ground such research, etc. There is a wealth of resources! Explore them!
Within just a few weeks of working in this area, the attention grew. As an example, read my previous post and all the article links and interviews within it. As another example, my team recently talked to consultants working with the Gates Foundation. These folks are searching for English language learning solutions at the community college level; in particular, online or technology-supported solutions. There is a dire need for supporting recent immigrants and others with English language deficiencies and needs. Do we recognize it at the federal level here in the U.S.? Not from what I can tell but this is not the area of my expertise. Over on the other side of the big pond they apparently do have political leadership and funding in this area (or will likely have funding, anyhow). In fact, UK Prime Minister, Gordon Brown wrote a piece, "Enlarging the Anglosphere," in the Wall Street Journal yesterday (April 16, 2008) which outlined areas wherein he seeks greater ties with the United States. See (same article--2 options):
1. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120830718371518015.html?mod=opinion_main_commentaries
2. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120830718371518015.html?mod=hpp_us_inside_today
Not sure why the Wall State Journal posted the same article twice but I list them both above in case one link comes down or becomes nonfunctional.
Here are the six key initiatives Prime Minister Brown outlined:
1. Fostering greater university student exchanges between the US and the UK (I just saw the bill for my son to go study in Seville, Spain in the fall and I agree with Mr. Brown that greater government support would be wonderful);
2. Greater cooperation on enterprise and fostering entrepreneurship of young people and the exchange of ideas among young business leaders;
3. Joint initiatives or consorted efforts by charities and foundations across the two nations;
4. Collaboration between the US and UK and other international partners on cancer research;
5. Cooperation on research and development related to global warming; and
6. Fostering ways for young people to do volunteer work and service in each other’s countries.
Wow. This is a highly bold plan. The prime minister hopes that these initiatives will bring the people of the UK and US together as “Winston Churchill met President Franklin Delano Roosevelt on the deck of the H.M.S. Prince of Wales in 1941.” But unlike our current administration, he recognizes and values the Web 2.0 and social networking possibilities. As evidence, Brown notes that these six items “reflect today's more connected society, in which thousands of people who communicate across multimedia channels will now be able to visit, meet face to face, and gain knowledge and understanding that will benefit them, and both our countries.” Ah, online collaboration, interaction, and exchange. He gets it!
So, why I am including all this in a blog post related to online language learning? Well, after detailing these six initiatives, he adds one more with the following statement though it is NOT labeled as #7: “In the last half-century the English language has become not only the language of Shakespeare and Twain, of J.K. Rowling and Cormac McCarthy, but of science, commerce, diplomacy, the Internet and travel.”
Ok, this is getting interesting. He adds that, “So, finally, I propose that together Britain and America strive to make the international language that happens to be our own far more freely available across the world. I am today asking the British Council to develop a new initiative with private-sector and NGO partners in America, to offer anyone in any part of the world help to learn English.”
That is a somewhat stunning way to end his Wall Street article. He situates his opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal right in the heart of the online language learning movement. In addition, he used the word “free,” and, in effect, could be perceived as pushing his agenda into the open educational resource (OER) movement. In his words, the learning of English should be “freely available across the world.” I guess he just needs to visit sites like Livemocha, Englishpod, Mixxer, and FriendsAbroad and witness the millions of people learning English and hundreds of other languages online today. And then he might stop over at MERLOT, Connexions, Careo, and Jorum and explore the free online resources that are now available for any discipline or content area. Perhaps he already has been there. Perhaps he is learning one of them now.
If interested, Mr. Brown also appeared on Good Morning America as part of a three day tour of the U.S. Some of this is covered by an article, “Special relationship will grow stronger, says Brown,” published yesterday in the Guardian (a UK newspaper). See:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/apr/16/foreignpolicy.gordonbrown?gusrc=rss&feed=networkfront
Now some will immediately say that this is Western imperialism all over again. That is certainly a point of view that can be taken here. I prefer a learning-related view. We all need opportunities to learn in order to work, live, grow, and feel good about ourselves in the twenty-first century. If learning English is a key part of success and self-satisfaction in this world, then help in learning English is a step forward. If what is needed to succeed or feel personally empowered is learning to speak Mandarin Chinese, Korean, Spanish, or Canadian (eh?), then that is possible too and we should push for new initiatives there.
Let’s not immediately highlight the perceived negatives in what Gordon Brown stated yesterday. Knee-jerk idea squelching and negativism typically do not help in the progress of humankind. Insightful criticism along with exciting counter measures are always welcome, and, in the long run, will lead to better solutions than what will be initially proposed. But to brush aside the possibilities based on the problems of the past, does not allow for the human race to nurture and support the learning of all learners housed here at the present time. Let’s see where his ideas go first. This is just an initial call to collaborate and exchange ideas more. The tools for doing have definitely accelerated since our last president left office at the turn of this century. It is now time to take advantage of them. Which candidate do you think has the awareness and leadership skills to do so? As is apparent, I think it is highly significant news that Prime Minister Brown has proposed innovative collaborative and cooperative efforts between the US and UK and all of Europe and the rest of the world that can improve research, education, philanthropy, science, business, and technology. Web 2.0 technologies will undoubtedly be a key part of those collaborative efforts. Mr. Brown sure seems hopeful. Perhaps our next president will be too.
Ok, Bonk is moving on to politics now. Not really. It is simply an interesting topic since the Indiana primary is May 6th and this state has become a battleground for the Democratic Party. I saw Bill Clinton speak in Bloomington two weeks ago on the IU campus at Assembly Hall. I saw him speak at an e-learning conference three weeks after 911 at the LA Convention Center. Once again, he gave a marvelous talk to an audience of perhaps 7,000 people, despite showing up 2-3 hours late. He is not the only one showing up here. My son, Alex, saw Barack Obama in downtown Bloomington last Friday coming out of our best pub—Nick’s English Hut. Ok, I wonder to myself, Obama at an English pub? Surely, he and Brown would have an immediate place they could meet to discuss world politics right here in little ol’ Bloomy. If not here in Bloomington, then I know a few places in London, Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Coventry, and Leicester they might meet up in and have a pint or two. Now, that would be newsworthy! Clank!
Online Language Learning Follow-Up Articles and Discount Coupon for my R2D2 (100+ Online Activities) Book
Two months ago I blogged on an article in the New York Times related to online language learning where I was quoted. Here is a reminder of it: “Learning from a native speaker, without leaving your home,” by Anne Eisenberg, February 17, 2008.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/17/business/17novel.html?_r=2&ref=business&oref=slogin&oref=slogin#
During the past two months, my blog post on online language learning (and that article) has gotten thousands of hits. In fact, it is perhaps my post popular blog post since I started blogging. Not sure. Here is the link to the that blog post:
http://travelinedman.blogspot.com/2008/02/new-york-times-article-on-online.html
This syndicated article reappeared in many places such as International Herald Tribune: “Language lessons could be just a click away,” http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/02/17/technology/novel.php
And the Deccan Herald in India, “Learning a language over a cup of mocha.”
http://www.deccanherald.com/Content/Mar202008/dheducation2008031958318.asp
I was then interviewed for two other follow-up stories that appeared on online language learning the following month (March):
First, I was interviewed for “The Review,” University of Delaware student paper, article called “Livemocha,” by Maddie Thomas, March 7, 2008,
http://media.www.udreview.com/media/storage/paper781/news/2008/03/07/News/Web-Site.Provides.Opportunity.To.Learn.Foreign.Languages.From.Native.Speakers-3257378.shtml
If you are interested in college views on language learning, read that piece. But it is short.
Next, a writer for Edutopia (from the George Lucas Education Foundation (GLEF)) got in touch with me, “Word up: Bringing the world’s languages to your classroom.” By Laila Weir, March 11, 2008, see http://www.edutopia.org/online-language-resources
If you are interested in K-12 views on language learning, read that piece. This article is much more elaborate and includes additional online language learning resources and other information. Laila Weier, a freelance writer from Santiago, Chile, starts with the article with the paragraph: “One of the biggest challenges for foreign language teachers is to expose their students to authentic speech by native speakers. Another is to immerse them in the culture of the language they're studying when that culture may be half a world away. But in our expanding digital age, it's increasingly easy to connect live with overseas students, find related videos and audio clips, and discover examples of living language online -- all free.”
Laila is right. The resources my research team and I have compiled (see next blog post) confirm that immersion in a language can now happen online. There are many pedagogical possibilities with these online language tools and resources. In fact, this past week I tried some out in Mixxer with a tutor from Taiwan who taught me a few words for my next trip to China or Taiwan. I wrote that up in a story for my next book. In fact, I have written extensively on the topic of online language learning in the book I am writing, “The World is Open: Now, WE-ALL-LEARN with Web Technology.” It is almost an entire chapter. I also have a few language learning ideas in the book I have coming out with Dr. Ke Zhang around July 4, 2008. Here is the book:
Bonk, C. J., & Zhang, K. (in press). Empowering Online Learning: 100+ Activities for Reading, Reflecting, Displaying, and Doing. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Preorders are here:
http://www.amazon.com/Empowering-Online-Learning-Activities-Reflecting/dp/0787988049/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1204843496&sr=8-1
R2D2 is more a problem solving wheel or process than a learning style method. It is a way to rethink your online teaching activities and how you are addressing diverse learner needs. You can see a visual of the R2D2 model here:
http://www.publicationshare.com/#b
Ke Zhang and I compiled a comprehensive list of Web resources in each of the chapters. Jossey Bass gave permission to post these to the Web. The Web resources discussed in the R2D2 book can be found at (they are organized by Phase of the R2D2 model, and, in effect, by chapter of the book):
http://www.trainingshare.com/resources/12Reference.htm
If you want to order through Jossey-Bass instead of Amazon, you can get a discount form for 20 percent off here:
http://www.publicationshare.com/Bonk_Empowering%20Online%20Learning.pdf
There are also discount forms off my homepage:
http://mypage.iu.edu/~cjbonk/
I will close with a book endorsement I just got via email from my good friend Thiagi:
"I have a library full of books on e-learning and most of them are vague, theoretical, and lengthy. I like Curt and Ke's book because it gives me freedom and flexibility. I can open to any page and discover something that is immediately applicable to the e-learning that I am designing." (from Dr. Sivasailam "Thiagi" Thiagarajan, president, Thiagi Group, and author, Design Your Own Games and Training Activities)
Thanks Thiagi! It is always a fun advenure to explore Thiagi's Website at: http://www.thiagi.com/. Lots of free stuff and ideas to be found stuff there.
Hope you find some ideas in the R2D2 book (Empowering Online Learning) for your teaching; especially language learning ones. There should be tons of ideas for K-12, higher education, and military, government, and corporate training.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/17/business/17novel.html?_r=2&ref=business&oref=slogin&oref=slogin#
During the past two months, my blog post on online language learning (and that article) has gotten thousands of hits. In fact, it is perhaps my post popular blog post since I started blogging. Not sure. Here is the link to the that blog post:
http://travelinedman.blogspot.com/2008/02/new-york-times-article-on-online.html
This syndicated article reappeared in many places such as International Herald Tribune: “Language lessons could be just a click away,” http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/02/17/technology/novel.php
And the Deccan Herald in India, “Learning a language over a cup of mocha.”
http://www.deccanherald.com/Content/Mar202008/dheducation2008031958318.asp
I was then interviewed for two other follow-up stories that appeared on online language learning the following month (March):
First, I was interviewed for “The Review,” University of Delaware student paper, article called “Livemocha,” by Maddie Thomas, March 7, 2008,
http://media.www.udreview.com/media/storage/paper781/news/2008/03/07/News/Web-Site.Provides.Opportunity.To.Learn.Foreign.Languages.From.Native.Speakers-3257378.shtml
If you are interested in college views on language learning, read that piece. But it is short.
Next, a writer for Edutopia (from the George Lucas Education Foundation (GLEF)) got in touch with me, “Word up: Bringing the world’s languages to your classroom.” By Laila Weir, March 11, 2008, see http://www.edutopia.org/online-language-resources
If you are interested in K-12 views on language learning, read that piece. This article is much more elaborate and includes additional online language learning resources and other information. Laila Weier, a freelance writer from Santiago, Chile, starts with the article with the paragraph: “One of the biggest challenges for foreign language teachers is to expose their students to authentic speech by native speakers. Another is to immerse them in the culture of the language they're studying when that culture may be half a world away. But in our expanding digital age, it's increasingly easy to connect live with overseas students, find related videos and audio clips, and discover examples of living language online -- all free.”
Laila is right. The resources my research team and I have compiled (see next blog post) confirm that immersion in a language can now happen online. There are many pedagogical possibilities with these online language tools and resources. In fact, this past week I tried some out in Mixxer with a tutor from Taiwan who taught me a few words for my next trip to China or Taiwan. I wrote that up in a story for my next book. In fact, I have written extensively on the topic of online language learning in the book I am writing, “The World is Open: Now, WE-ALL-LEARN with Web Technology.” It is almost an entire chapter. I also have a few language learning ideas in the book I have coming out with Dr. Ke Zhang around July 4, 2008. Here is the book:
Bonk, C. J., & Zhang, K. (in press). Empowering Online Learning: 100+ Activities for Reading, Reflecting, Displaying, and Doing. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Preorders are here:
http://www.amazon.com/Empowering-Online-Learning-Activities-Reflecting/dp/0787988049/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1204843496&sr=8-1
R2D2 is more a problem solving wheel or process than a learning style method. It is a way to rethink your online teaching activities and how you are addressing diverse learner needs. You can see a visual of the R2D2 model here:
http://www.publicationshare.com/#b
Ke Zhang and I compiled a comprehensive list of Web resources in each of the chapters. Jossey Bass gave permission to post these to the Web. The Web resources discussed in the R2D2 book can be found at (they are organized by Phase of the R2D2 model, and, in effect, by chapter of the book):
http://www.trainingshare.com/resources/12Reference.htm
If you want to order through Jossey-Bass instead of Amazon, you can get a discount form for 20 percent off here:
http://www.publicationshare.com/Bonk_Empowering%20Online%20Learning.pdf
There are also discount forms off my homepage:
http://mypage.iu.edu/~cjbonk/
I will close with a book endorsement I just got via email from my good friend Thiagi:
"I have a library full of books on e-learning and most of them are vague, theoretical, and lengthy. I like Curt and Ke's book because it gives me freedom and flexibility. I can open to any page and discover something that is immediately applicable to the e-learning that I am designing." (from Dr. Sivasailam "Thiagi" Thiagarajan, president, Thiagi Group, and author, Design Your Own Games and Training Activities)
Thanks Thiagi! It is always a fun advenure to explore Thiagi's Website at: http://www.thiagi.com/. Lots of free stuff and ideas to be found stuff there.
Hope you find some ideas in the R2D2 book (Empowering Online Learning) for your teaching; especially language learning ones. There should be tons of ideas for K-12, higher education, and military, government, and corporate training.
Friday, 4 April 2008
Job Searching in Educational Technology and Instructional Systems Technology?: Hold Your Head Up High!
This is "the time of the season" for finding jobs for next year. In fact, it may be too late already. I have been chatting with people from the UK, Taiwan, and USA lately about jobs and giving them some advice. Given that this question comes up all the time, I decided to spend 30 minutes searching the Web for job-related sites related to educational technology and instructional systems technology. Below is a list of Web sites that I stumbled upon. Perhaps one of them will help you. Of course, I start with one from my own department. Here you go:
1. Indiana University, Instructional Systems Technology (IST) Department jobs listserv: http://site.educ.indiana.edu/InstructionalTechnologyJobs/tabid/5340/Default.aspx
2. The Chronicle of Higher Education (USA) (see jobs): http://chronicle.com/
a. http://chronicle.com/jobs/search.php?today=2
b. http://chronicle.com/jobs/300/100/5500/
3. ISTE (International Society for Training in Education): http://www.iste.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Career_Center
a. http://career.iste.org/search/browse/
4. AECT (Associational for Educational Communication and Technology): http://www.aect.org/default.asp
a. http://www.jobtarget.com/home/index.cfm?site_id=136
5. Jobster: http://www.jobster.com/
6. EDUCAUSE job listing: http://www.educause.edu/JobOpportunities/38
a. http://www.educause.edu/BrowseJobs/1219
7. MySpace listing (many pages): http://jobs.myspace.com/a/ms-jobs/list/q-Educational+Technology+Assistant
8. AACE (Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education): http://www.aace.org/jobboard/
a. http://www.aace.org/jobboard/messageview.cfm?catid=12&threadid=992
9. San Diego State University: http://edtec.sdsu.edu/jobs.htm
a. http://coefm.sdsu.edu/jobs/FMPro?-db=Job%20Database&-lay=Job%20Layout&-format=search.htm&-view
10. Academic Keys: http://education.academickeys.com/
11. Jobs PHDs: http://www.phds.org/
12. Job Hunt: http://www.job-hunt.org/computers.shtml
13. Women in technology: http://www.witi.com/ (JOBS plus local chapters, conferences, career fairs, and more); Search jobs: http://jobs.witi4hire.com/c/search.cfm?site_id=273
14. The Guardian (the UK) (I love the Guardian!!!): http://www.guardian.co.uk/
a. http://jobs.guardian.co.uk/
Ok, there were more job links sent my way in the comments to this blog post. Here they are:
15. eLearning Guild Job Board (must be an associate member—which is free): http://www.elearningguild.com/job_board/jobs/index.cfm?action=viewcats
16. HigherEdJobs.com: http://www.higheredjobs.com/default.cfm
a. Instructional Technology and Design: http://www.higheredjobs.com/faculty/search.cfm?JobCat=69
17. ASTD (American Society for Training and Development) Job Bank: http://www.astd.org/
a. http://jobs.astd.org/search.cfm
b. http://jobs.astd.org/search/browse/
c. http://jobs.astd.org/search/results/
18. AERA (American Educational Research Association): http://www.aera.net/
a. Job Seekers: http://www.aera.net/employment/Default.aspx?id=56
b. Job Board: http://www.jobtarget.com/home/index.cfm?site_id=557
c. All Jobs: http://www.jobtarget.com/c/search_results.cfm?site_id=557
d. Educational Technology Jobs: http://www.jobtarget.com/c/search_results.cfm?site_id=557&max=25&keywords=educational+technology
19. Times Higher Education (UK): http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/
a. Jobs: http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/jobs_home.asp?navCode=84
b. Educational Technology: http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/jobs_searchresults.asp
20. Inside Higher Education: https://www.insidehighered.com/employment/dashboard/?event=showhome
I just got 4 more from one of my blog readers (keep em coming!:
21. Academic Employment Network: http://www.academploy.com/
22. Top Higher Education Jobs: http://www.tedjob.com/
Instructional and Curriculum Design: http://www.tedjob.com/result.php?c=10057
23. Academic 360: http://www.academic360.com/
24. Association for Communications Technology in Higher Education: http://www.acuta.org/Dynamic/Jobs/index.cfm
Two more from Canada:
25. Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada (Canada) http://www.aucc.ca/index_e.html
26. Canadian Association of University Teachers (Canada): http://www.academicwork.ca/
a. Job Seeker: http://www.academicwork.ca/en_signup_seeker1.asp
Still More to get to 30!!!:
27. Sloan-C JobLine (this one looks great): http://www.sloan-c.org/jobs/viewads.asp
28. Illinois Global Campus Career Center (job board): https://employ.global.uillinois.edu/public/UniversityOfIllinoisGlobal/default.cfm?page=jobboard
29. International Society of Performance Improvement (ISPI) (note: these tend to be more corporate training types of jobs but not all): http://www.jobtarget.com/c/search_results.cfm?site_id=2637
30. Society for Applied Learning Technology (SALT): http://www.salt.org/salt.asp?ss=l&pn=jobListAll
Alphabetic Summary List: I updated the above educational technology and instructional technology job links in an alphabetic list in the resources page at TrainingShare.com (http://www.trainingshare.com/; formerly, CourseShare.com):
http://www.trainingshare.com/resources/Job-search-Educational-Technology-and-Instructional-Technology.htm
Good luck with your job searching! Let me know if you find a bunch more that I am missing or if you there is a great site with additional job searching links. Don't give up during this process! Rejections come every day. Hec, when I got my Ph.D., I applied for 50 jobs and got 3 offers and one of those was for a temporary position. Stated another way, I got 47 rejections. If any of you approach 47 rejections, be sure to let me know and we will start a group in Facebook for those rejected more than 40 times. When I was at Wisconsin, one pub had "rejection letter night," where you could get a free drink with a copy of every rejection letter you brought with you. Let's just say I was able to buy a few rounds that night and made a lot of new friends. So my advice is that when those rejection letters get you down, be sure to hold your head up. Hold your head up high!
As I said above that it is the time of the season for finding jobs in academia. Did you know "Time of the Season" is an old Zombies song which is a group led by Rod Argent. Remember what Rod Argent and his group "Argent" said a few years later in the classic song "Hold Your Head Up":
And if it's bad
Don't let it get you down, you can take it
And if it hurts
Don't let them see you cry, you can take it
Hold your head up, hold your head up
Hold your head up, hold your head high
And if they stare
Just let them burn their eyes on you moving
And if they shout
Don't let them change a thing what you're doing
Hold your head up, hold your head up
Hold your head up, hold your head high
Musical Note: Anyone wanting to hear the Rod Argent and Colin Blunstone from the Zombies performing at Shepherds Bush Empire in London (West End) in "Legends Live" series in early March 2008 (March 6th-8th), can now watch them! So ironic. I did not know this until I did some more surfing as I was typing this blog post. Their lyrics had just popped into my head for some reason. Now I know why they had. The Zombies performance is less than a month ago and they have not played together for decades and never both "Time of the Season" and "Hold Your Head Up", two all time classics, in any performance previously. Watch "Time of the Season" about 12:30 minutes into the recording and "Hold Your Head Up" at 22:20 minutes with a special chanting to "hold your head up" at 26:50. Oh, by the way, for music junkies, the first song you will hear is the Zombies classic, "I love you."
Viewing Options:
mms://stream2.capitalinteractive.co.uk/gold/live/zombieshi.wmv (high band width)
mms://stream2.capitalinteractive.co.uk/gold/live/zombieslo.wmv (low band width)
Then at 37:10 you get a bonus of Alan Parsons Project song, "Old and Wise" sung by Colin (the original singer of it). It is quite a stirring rendition of what has been a song playing in my head repeatedly during the past year or two. So great to see it performed live. So much beauty and truth in this song, I must insert these lyrics as well. Being old and wise will get you a job, though preferably just wise.
Old and Wise, Alan Parsons Project, From the 1982 CD, Eye in the Sky
As far as my eyes can see
There are shadows approaching me
And to those I left behind
I wanted you to know
You've always shared my deepest thoughts
You follow where I go
And oh when I'm old and wise
Bitter words mean little to me
Autumn winds will blow right through me
And someday in the mist of time
When they asked me if I knew you
I'd smile and say you were a friend of mine
And the sadness would be lifted from my eyes
Oh when I'm old and wise
As far as my eyes can see
There are shadows surrounding me
And to those I leave behind
I want you all to know
You've always shared my darkest hours
I'll miss you when I go
And oh, when I'm old and wise
Heavy words that tossed and blew me
Like autumn winds that will blow right through me
And someday in the mist of time
When they ask you if you knew me
Remember that you were a friend of mine
As the final curtain falls before my eyes
Oh when I'm old and wise
As far as my eyes can see
YouTube Spins of Old and Wise: A elaborate, slick, and moving (though dubbed) performance of this song can be watched in YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gehERn5QiSQ
Someone else got creative with this pictures around this song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsvb8ueOODk
Final Note: Remember the above list of links (and song lyrics) just took 30 minutes of Web searching to find. I later got help from some of you to add to the list. Thanks! You can find dozens more such sites by spending 30-60 minutes of your own time searching. Have fun trying! It is the time of the season for Web browsing! Be sure to hold your head up high when you do.
1. Indiana University, Instructional Systems Technology (IST) Department jobs listserv: http://site.educ.indiana.edu/InstructionalTechnologyJobs/tabid/5340/Default.aspx
2. The Chronicle of Higher Education (USA) (see jobs): http://chronicle.com/
a. http://chronicle.com/jobs/search.php?today=2
b. http://chronicle.com/jobs/300/100/5500/
3. ISTE (International Society for Training in Education): http://www.iste.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Career_Center
a. http://career.iste.org/search/browse/
4. AECT (Associational for Educational Communication and Technology): http://www.aect.org/default.asp
a. http://www.jobtarget.com/home/index.cfm?site_id=136
5. Jobster: http://www.jobster.com/
6. EDUCAUSE job listing: http://www.educause.edu/JobOpportunities/38
a. http://www.educause.edu/BrowseJobs/1219
7. MySpace listing (many pages): http://jobs.myspace.com/a/ms-jobs/list/q-Educational+Technology+Assistant
8. AACE (Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education): http://www.aace.org/jobboard/
a. http://www.aace.org/jobboard/messageview.cfm?catid=12&threadid=992
9. San Diego State University: http://edtec.sdsu.edu/jobs.htm
a. http://coefm.sdsu.edu/jobs/FMPro?-db=Job%20Database&-lay=Job%20Layout&-format=search.htm&-view
10. Academic Keys: http://education.academickeys.com/
11. Jobs PHDs: http://www.phds.org/
12. Job Hunt: http://www.job-hunt.org/computers.shtml
13. Women in technology: http://www.witi.com/ (JOBS plus local chapters, conferences, career fairs, and more); Search jobs: http://jobs.witi4hire.com/c/search.cfm?site_id=273
14. The Guardian (the UK) (I love the Guardian!!!): http://www.guardian.co.uk/
a. http://jobs.guardian.co.uk/
Ok, there were more job links sent my way in the comments to this blog post. Here they are:
15. eLearning Guild Job Board (must be an associate member—which is free): http://www.elearningguild.com/job_board/jobs/index.cfm?action=viewcats
16. HigherEdJobs.com: http://www.higheredjobs.com/default.cfm
a. Instructional Technology and Design: http://www.higheredjobs.com/faculty/search.cfm?JobCat=69
17. ASTD (American Society for Training and Development) Job Bank: http://www.astd.org/
a. http://jobs.astd.org/search.cfm
b. http://jobs.astd.org/search/browse/
c. http://jobs.astd.org/search/results/
18. AERA (American Educational Research Association): http://www.aera.net/
a. Job Seekers: http://www.aera.net/employment/Default.aspx?id=56
b. Job Board: http://www.jobtarget.com/home/index.cfm?site_id=557
c. All Jobs: http://www.jobtarget.com/c/search_results.cfm?site_id=557
d. Educational Technology Jobs: http://www.jobtarget.com/c/search_results.cfm?site_id=557&max=25&keywords=educational+technology
19. Times Higher Education (UK): http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/
a. Jobs: http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/jobs_home.asp?navCode=84
b. Educational Technology: http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/jobs_searchresults.asp
20. Inside Higher Education: https://www.insidehighered.com/employment/dashboard/?event=showhome
I just got 4 more from one of my blog readers (keep em coming!:
21. Academic Employment Network: http://www.academploy.com/
22. Top Higher Education Jobs: http://www.tedjob.com/
Instructional and Curriculum Design: http://www.tedjob.com/result.php?c=10057
23. Academic 360: http://www.academic360.com/
24. Association for Communications Technology in Higher Education: http://www.acuta.org/Dynamic/Jobs/index.cfm
Two more from Canada:
25. Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada (Canada) http://www.aucc.ca/index_e.html
26. Canadian Association of University Teachers (Canada): http://www.academicwork.ca/
a. Job Seeker: http://www.academicwork.ca/en_signup_seeker1.asp
Still More to get to 30!!!:
27. Sloan-C JobLine (this one looks great): http://www.sloan-c.org/jobs/viewads.asp
28. Illinois Global Campus Career Center (job board): https://employ.global.uillinois.edu/public/UniversityOfIllinoisGlobal/default.cfm?page=jobboard
29. International Society of Performance Improvement (ISPI) (note: these tend to be more corporate training types of jobs but not all): http://www.jobtarget.com/c/search_results.cfm?site_id=2637
30. Society for Applied Learning Technology (SALT): http://www.salt.org/salt.asp?ss=l&pn=jobListAll
Alphabetic Summary List: I updated the above educational technology and instructional technology job links in an alphabetic list in the resources page at TrainingShare.com (http://www.trainingshare.com/; formerly, CourseShare.com):
http://www.trainingshare.com/resources/Job-search-Educational-Technology-and-Instructional-Technology.htm
Good luck with your job searching! Let me know if you find a bunch more that I am missing or if you there is a great site with additional job searching links. Don't give up during this process! Rejections come every day. Hec, when I got my Ph.D., I applied for 50 jobs and got 3 offers and one of those was for a temporary position. Stated another way, I got 47 rejections. If any of you approach 47 rejections, be sure to let me know and we will start a group in Facebook for those rejected more than 40 times. When I was at Wisconsin, one pub had "rejection letter night," where you could get a free drink with a copy of every rejection letter you brought with you. Let's just say I was able to buy a few rounds that night and made a lot of new friends. So my advice is that when those rejection letters get you down, be sure to hold your head up. Hold your head up high!
As I said above that it is the time of the season for finding jobs in academia. Did you know "Time of the Season" is an old Zombies song which is a group led by Rod Argent. Remember what Rod Argent and his group "Argent" said a few years later in the classic song "Hold Your Head Up":
And if it's bad
Don't let it get you down, you can take it
And if it hurts
Don't let them see you cry, you can take it
Hold your head up, hold your head up
Hold your head up, hold your head high
And if they stare
Just let them burn their eyes on you moving
And if they shout
Don't let them change a thing what you're doing
Hold your head up, hold your head up
Hold your head up, hold your head high
Musical Note: Anyone wanting to hear the Rod Argent and Colin Blunstone from the Zombies performing at Shepherds Bush Empire in London (West End) in "Legends Live" series in early March 2008 (March 6th-8th), can now watch them! So ironic. I did not know this until I did some more surfing as I was typing this blog post. Their lyrics had just popped into my head for some reason. Now I know why they had. The Zombies performance is less than a month ago and they have not played together for decades and never both "Time of the Season" and "Hold Your Head Up", two all time classics, in any performance previously. Watch "Time of the Season" about 12:30 minutes into the recording and "Hold Your Head Up" at 22:20 minutes with a special chanting to "hold your head up" at 26:50. Oh, by the way, for music junkies, the first song you will hear is the Zombies classic, "I love you."
Viewing Options:
mms://stream2.capitalinteractive.co.uk/gold/live/zombieshi.wmv (high band width)
mms://stream2.capitalinteractive.co.uk/gold/live/zombieslo.wmv (low band width)
Then at 37:10 you get a bonus of Alan Parsons Project song, "Old and Wise" sung by Colin (the original singer of it). It is quite a stirring rendition of what has been a song playing in my head repeatedly during the past year or two. So great to see it performed live. So much beauty and truth in this song, I must insert these lyrics as well. Being old and wise will get you a job, though preferably just wise.
Old and Wise, Alan Parsons Project, From the 1982 CD, Eye in the Sky
As far as my eyes can see
There are shadows approaching me
And to those I left behind
I wanted you to know
You've always shared my deepest thoughts
You follow where I go
And oh when I'm old and wise
Bitter words mean little to me
Autumn winds will blow right through me
And someday in the mist of time
When they asked me if I knew you
I'd smile and say you were a friend of mine
And the sadness would be lifted from my eyes
Oh when I'm old and wise
As far as my eyes can see
There are shadows surrounding me
And to those I leave behind
I want you all to know
You've always shared my darkest hours
I'll miss you when I go
And oh, when I'm old and wise
Heavy words that tossed and blew me
Like autumn winds that will blow right through me
And someday in the mist of time
When they ask you if you knew me
Remember that you were a friend of mine
As the final curtain falls before my eyes
Oh when I'm old and wise
As far as my eyes can see
YouTube Spins of Old and Wise: A elaborate, slick, and moving (though dubbed) performance of this song can be watched in YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gehERn5QiSQ
Someone else got creative with this pictures around this song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsvb8ueOODk
Final Note: Remember the above list of links (and song lyrics) just took 30 minutes of Web searching to find. I later got help from some of you to add to the list. Thanks! You can find dozens more such sites by spending 30-60 minutes of your own time searching. Have fun trying! It is the time of the season for Web browsing! Be sure to hold your head up high when you do.
Wednesday, 2 April 2008
WikiMedia and Scribd Visits and Interviews and AERA papers on Wikibooks, YouTube, and Blended Learning
Sorry for not updating this blog lately. It is not due to inaction--I have been traveling a fair bit. TravelinEdman was in San Fran, LA, and San Diego the second week of March for spring break. And last week I was in New York for the annual American Educational Research Association (AERA) conference. In between, I was a couple of papers for the AERA conference.
March 7th--my son, Alex and I fly to San Francisco on an early flight and we jumped in a taxi for downtown SF. Where were we going? To the WikiMedia Foundation (i.e., to see Wikipedia people)! I had written to Jimmy Wales, Founder of WikiMedia and Wikipedia, a few weeks earlier and told him of the research my team was doing. He said it looked very interesting and suggested I talk to their new director, Sue Gardner, and assistant director, Erik Moller. Erik is a friend so I quickly made some arrangements to be there. We also discussed the WikiMedia Foundation endorsing some of my research on Wikibookians and I am happy that they agreed! Data collection is ongoing at the moment.
Above is a picture from our visit. This was very special to us. Alex and I were among the first to see the new WikiMedia Foundation headquarters in the SOMA (South of Market) area of San Fran. After reading a press release (http://in.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idINIndia-29959220071011), I found out that they had recently moved from St. Petersburg, Florida to San Fran. My spring was coming up and I knew my son, Alex, would like to be in San Fran for part of it so I contacted Erik to see if an interview was possible. Unfortunately, he was headed out of town, but I got to chat with Sue Gardner as well as Mike Godwin, their General Council, about the company for my "World is Open" book. Was fascinating! Not the office space--it is like most other small technology companies. What was interesting was the history, growth, and philosophy of this company and just being there. Yes, being there--this is one of the roots of the open educational movement and I had my feet firmly planted there for an hour or two. Before we left, they gave us the book "Wikipedia: The Missing Manual." According the manual, wiki-related projects are complicated and there are many things one should know when coordinating one. The book is thick and barely fit in my luggage but I am glad it did.
March 24-28th: I wish I would have known about the difficulties of Wiki-work when designing a few wikibooks the past few years (and Wikibooks are much more difficult to coordinate than Wikipedia pages; especially when they involve students and instructors from many countries). You can read about our successes and failures as well as the twenty tensions my research team (from IU and the University of Houston) encountered in developing wikibooks (see top paper posted at http://wiki-riki.wikispaces.com/Research+Papers+and+Reports). We presented this paper at the American Educational Research Association (AERA) meeting/conference in New York city last week. This is a conference of thousands of papers and perhaps 15,000 people. What a zoo it is sometimes! But I have been going since 1987 in Washington, DC when I just 6 or 7 years old.
1. Bonk, C. J., Lee. M., Kim, N., & Lin, G. (2008, March). The tensions of transformation in cross-institutional wikibook creation, critique, and collaboration: Looking back twenty years to today. Paper presented at the American Educational Research Association (AERA) 2008 Annual Meeting, New York, NY. (see top paper posted at http://wiki-riki.wikispaces.com/Research+Papers+and+Reports).
It is a long paper that will likely need to be cut into two parts for later publication. In some ways, the above paper is a tribute to the work of John Seely Brown who I heard was at AERA for a panel related to technology and learning sponsored by the MacArthur Foundation (see http://www.macfound.org/site/c.lkLXJ8MQKrH/b.3599935/). I was presenting at the same time, so I missed it. If you were at AERA two decades ago or read Brown et al.'s work on situated cognition in 1988 or 1989, you will perhaps resonate with our AERA paper above on Wikibooks.
You can also find this quick paper I wrote on the use of YouTube videos in instruction. If you remember ideas related to anchored instruction and macrocontexts from John Bransford and his colleagues at Vanderbilt twenty years back, you might appreciate this paper on the use of YouTube to start and end classroom instruction.
2. Bonk, C. J. (2008, March). YouTube anchors and enders: The use of shared online video content as a macrocontext for learning. Paper presented at the American Educational Research Association (AERA) 2008 Annual Meeting, New York, NY. (see 2nd paper posted at http://wiki-riki.wikispaces.com/Research+Papers+and+Reports).
By the way, for a short time, you can also find this paper on blended learning in corporate training in five countries (Korea, China, Taiwan, USA, and the UK). Four of us on this team presented in 15 minutes. Perhaps a record! It was great to see my former students and colleagues on this one.
3. Kim, K.-J., Teng, Y.-T., Son, S., E.-J., Oh, & Bonk, C. J. (2008, March). Blended learning trends in workplace learning settings: A multi-national study. Paper presented at the American Educational Research Association (AERA) 2008 Annual Meeting, New York, NY. (see third paper posted at http://wiki-riki.wikispaces.com/Research+Papers+and+Reports).
I will need to delete paper #3 on blended learning soon since it is in review for publication in a journal. We have other papers from this project in review, in press, or published. Let me know if you want to read them. Some of my other papers and chapters on blended learning are at my Website at PublicationShare.com (see http://www.publicationshare.com/).
New York was great but a whirlwind. And I got a cold! Still cannot talk well--sore throat.
Back to March 7th: By the way, back to the start of this story...when in San Francisco, I got to interview Trip Adler, the founder of Scribd.com (see http://www.scribd.com/). This was also an exhilarating visit. Scribd is on the edge of Chinatown and was located a mere 3 blocks from my hotel room at the Sir Francis Drake. Since I had not received a reply to my email request for an interview, I popped in unannounced for this interview and was told it would be possible if I returned in 45 minutes.
So after a brief exploration of Chinatown, I got to interview Trip.
Trip developed many of the ideas for Scribd when a student at Harvard a couple of years earlier. He wanted a place to put many of the papers he had written that only his professors had previously read and graded. Cool! I like it! In effect, Scribd is like YouTube only for text or documents. They become a top 1,500 web site within their first week of launching a year back and have attacted much attention and venture capital. This is a place for all those old love letters, musical compositions, course papers, and poems you have never published or had read. If you want so share your thoughts and ideas, Scribd.com may be for you. It may be the ideal place for academics who are rejected by journal article reviewers time and again since they are not part of the click or in group. If you want to publish a series of your work, you can create your own account or group to share. And life today is about sharing! No longer just Flickr pictures, blog posts, or YouTube videos. Today we have Scribd! We can share well thought out thoughts as well as those less refined. Importantly, they have a unique viewing system called iPaper. What is iPaper?--well, it is a document format for the Web!
And what then is Scribd?
"Scribd is a free, web-based, document sharing community and self-publishing platform that enables anyone to easily publish, distribute, share, and discover documents of all kinds. E-books, presentations, essays, academic papers, newsletters, photo albums, school work, and sheet music are just a few of the different kinds of documents you can publish and share on Scribd. "
My friend, Jay Cross, has put much of his work up in Scribd--I think more than 20 documents or papers. He has created a group called the "Internet Time Group" (see http://www.scribd.com/groups/view/5620-internet-time-group). Equally important, he has blogged on the importance of Scribd..not just once, but three times!
http://internettime.com/2008/03/11/scribd-3/
http://internettime.com/2008/03/09/scribd-2/
http://internettime.com/2008/03/09/scribd/
Enjoy Scribd!!! Also enjoy my AERA papers from last week on YouTube, Wikibooks, and Blended Learning. Feedback certainly is welcome.
By the way, during these trips the past two months, I have seen 6 dear friends from graduate school days at the University of Wisconsin in the late 1980s. Two are educational psychology friends, Dr. Cecil Smith, now Professor at Northern Illinois University and Dr. Jim Middleton, now Department Chair of Curriculum and Instruction at Instruction at Arizona State University. I stayed with Jimbo at the Marriott Marquis in Times Square when at AERA in NY. I also saw my educational technology colleagues in San Fran (I minored in this at Wisconsin), including Dr. Kim Forman from San Francisco State University and Dr. Miheon Lee (now working in Korea but on sabbatical in San Francisco.
Former students, Dr. Wen Hao Chuang and Dr. Brian Beatty also joined us for dinner at a great restaurant on the Pacific Ocean side of San Fran. Brian arranged. Took Alex and I about an hour to get a taxi to stop and take us there.
I later saw Dr. Veronica Acosta from Cal State Long Beach and Dr. Tom Reynolds from National University when traveling to southern California. Tom placed the largest teacher education program in the USA on the Web a few years ago and it nearly killed him. It was great to jog with him each day when at his house near La Jolla (in San Diego) and get his perspective on e-learning. Tom has a quick and calm 3 mile drive to work each day (much of it along the beach). Am I jealous? Yes! Running the beach each day when there felt wonderful!
Tom has a beautiful house where Alex and I chilled out each day after exploring a different beach. I also got to see Veronica's gorgeous house and view up the road near Newport Beach. I miss all these friends already! As Jim said, it was the golden age at Wisconsin back then--so many huge grants, great professors, and brilliant graduate student peers. They are all great and successful people!
And it was great to spend time with Alex in California!!!!!!!! Even his friend from high school, Jennifer (now at USC), popped in for a day.
Thursday, 6 March 2008
Good to have friends and Amazon preorders possible for Empowering Online Learning (R2D2--100 online activities) book.
Interesting week!!!
Saturday-Sunday-Monday: I finished teaching my alternative instructional strategies class on Saturday. Did grading Sunday and Monday. I do not teach again until Sepetember. I hope to finish my WE-ALL-LEARN book in April and May. And write a book on online motivation and retenton during the summer.
Tuesday: Tuesday was packed with meetings. Had a guy from the information science dept at Addis Ababa University in Ethiopia to see me on Tuesday about the delivery of online learning. His name is Mesfin Getachew. Seems they are experimenting with Moodle. Was an interesting discusson. Friends from the University of Illinois sent him my way, He is now in DC and arranged to have him meet some folks there.
Wednesday-Thursday: The past two days I did a final proofing of my new book. It will be out the end of June or early July. Here is the title:
Bonk, C. J., & Zhang, K. (in press). Empowering Online Learning: 100+ Activities for Reading, Reflecting, Displaying, and Doing. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
This is the famous R2D2 book for my online learning model; Read, Reflect, Display, and Do or R2D2. The book has 25 activities for each of the four phases (explanation of each activity, advice, how-to's, skills and objectives addressed, etc.). The Web resources and references for this book are extensive. And the model--R2D2--is a way of thinking about learning and instruction. It is a problem solving wheel with many entry points. Preorders are now possible at Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Empowering-Online-Learning-Activities-Reflecting/dp/0787988049/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1204843496&sr=8-1
Friday-Saturday-Sunday and Beyond: The weeks is not done. Tomorrow morning (Friday) my son Alex and I are off to San Fran at 5 am. We meet Wikipedia people for lunch and see their new offices as they recently moved from Tampa to San Fran. I hope to talk about that in my book. For dinner on Friday, we meet with some friends of mine from grad school days at Wisconsin (both Koreans now professors--Miheon Lee and Kim Foreman--Miheon is on sabbatical and spending much of it I think with Kim at San Fran State) and 2 former students now at San Fran State (Brian Beatty and Wen Hao Chuang) as well as Paul Kim from Stanford. Great people. I look forward to this! Saturday we get to spend some time in Berkeley with the infamous Internettime e-learning guru, Jay Cross, and then we explore San Fran with doc student, YaTing Teng who I helped get an internship with Adobe out there right now. And Sunday we head to San Diego and stay with my other best friend from grad school, Tom Reynolds, of National University for the rest of the week. Good to have friends!
More on this adventure later. I gotta get some sleep.
Saturday-Sunday-Monday: I finished teaching my alternative instructional strategies class on Saturday. Did grading Sunday and Monday. I do not teach again until Sepetember. I hope to finish my WE-ALL-LEARN book in April and May. And write a book on online motivation and retenton during the summer.
Tuesday: Tuesday was packed with meetings. Had a guy from the information science dept at Addis Ababa University in Ethiopia to see me on Tuesday about the delivery of online learning. His name is Mesfin Getachew. Seems they are experimenting with Moodle. Was an interesting discusson. Friends from the University of Illinois sent him my way, He is now in DC and arranged to have him meet some folks there.
Wednesday-Thursday: The past two days I did a final proofing of my new book. It will be out the end of June or early July. Here is the title:
Bonk, C. J., & Zhang, K. (in press). Empowering Online Learning: 100+ Activities for Reading, Reflecting, Displaying, and Doing. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
This is the famous R2D2 book for my online learning model; Read, Reflect, Display, and Do or R2D2. The book has 25 activities for each of the four phases (explanation of each activity, advice, how-to's, skills and objectives addressed, etc.). The Web resources and references for this book are extensive. And the model--R2D2--is a way of thinking about learning and instruction. It is a problem solving wheel with many entry points. Preorders are now possible at Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Empowering-Online-Learning-Activities-Reflecting/dp/0787988049/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1204843496&sr=8-1
Friday-Saturday-Sunday and Beyond: The weeks is not done. Tomorrow morning (Friday) my son Alex and I are off to San Fran at 5 am. We meet Wikipedia people for lunch and see their new offices as they recently moved from Tampa to San Fran. I hope to talk about that in my book. For dinner on Friday, we meet with some friends of mine from grad school days at Wisconsin (both Koreans now professors--Miheon Lee and Kim Foreman--Miheon is on sabbatical and spending much of it I think with Kim at San Fran State) and 2 former students now at San Fran State (Brian Beatty and Wen Hao Chuang) as well as Paul Kim from Stanford. Great people. I look forward to this! Saturday we get to spend some time in Berkeley with the infamous Internettime e-learning guru, Jay Cross, and then we explore San Fran with doc student, YaTing Teng who I helped get an internship with Adobe out there right now. And Sunday we head to San Diego and stay with my other best friend from grad school, Tom Reynolds, of National University for the rest of the week. Good to have friends!
More on this adventure later. I gotta get some sleep.
Monday, 25 February 2008
Blackboard the Pirate Returns and Wins Bounty and Other News Today
Some quick news from today:
1. Blackboard awarded $3.1 million from Desire2Learn in its lawsuit (http://chronicle.com/free/2008/02/1828n.htm?utm_source=pm&utm_medium=en) I find this a ridiculous ruling which will initially have a negative impact on the learning of learners of this planet. But for the long-term, it will foster innovation to build something better. On the positive side of all this, at least now people will be searching for ways to push personalized learning environments (PLEs), ecological models of learning, and really effective and motivational learning tools, since Blackboard has shown no interest in that. They say nothing here about their interest in fostering thinking, reflection, debate, discussion, idea sharing, knowledge representation, critical thinking, juxtaposing ideas, etc. No, they take a patent out on the log-in process. I never saw any learning or creativity happen from log-in. Perhaps PLE-related research, books, conferences, and ideas will be more pervasive now!
Per the article:
“Mr. Small said Blackboard never claimed to have invented the course-management system. What the company did invent, he said, is "a course-management system where a single user with a single log-on could have multiple roles across multiple classes." For instance, a person who was a student in one course and a teaching assistant in another could log on once and access all of his course materials.
"It really was transformative for the industry," Mr. Small said. "We knew we were the first doing it at the time, and that's why we applied for the patent. People look at the technology now and say that's obvious, but at the time, we were the first, and we're very proud of it."
This is transformative? Really. Transformative? Must be an awfully boring place to work. Sure glad I no longer am a boring accountant/CPA. If I was, I might enjoy lunch with these guys. If this is the most transformative they can be, they will not be around for much longer. No creativity shown here. In fact, their lawsuit is a simple exhibition of their lack of creativity and imagination. When one has no new ideas, one sues on old stuff. Their work parties must be deadly!
Simply put, they are concerned with patenting boring stuff. They are patenting student or user log-in to a course management system. Are they crazy? Pretty soon they will try to patent logging into the Web since they spent a countless years developing that login bar and icon. Not. Anyway this is an interesting development.
Let's hope in the coming years that companies like Blackboard open up their products to learning, innovation, creativity, etc.! We, the humans of this planet, have freedom to learn. We have freedom to teach with whatever tools we want to seek out. We have freedom to picket our administrators who might choose your silly products. We have freedom to pick our vendors, especially, when they are free. The Moodle and Sakai people must be laughing hysterically at the outcome. This is not like Pepsi patenting the color of its soda or aspects of its production process. This is about the education of the citizens of this planet. People will remember this day, not for a week, not for a year, and not just for this decade, but for decades and decades to come. And creative educators (and, yes, there are many) will remember this day. Arrrr!!!!
2. USA Today Today Article #1: Two good articles in the USA Today. One on a creative teacher, Gregory Fisher, who uses PBL in teaching economics classes in a high school in California (the California Academy of Math and Science). Fisher displays a sense of humor, high expectations, embed recent news in his classes, does not dumb down content, mixes up his teaching, uses a wide array of projects, and never takes himself too seriously. He also embeds methods for student participation, uses project-based learning, takes risks, and simply tries new stuff out. Finally, he brings in experts, uses student-centered learning, creates tutoring and counseling programs for his students, and, to avoid stress, he jogs and plays basketball with his students. Very similar ideas to those in my R546 class this semester on alternative instructional strategies for critical and creative thinking, motivation, and cooperative learning (see http://mypage.iu.edu/~cjbonk/Instructional-Strats-R546-2008.htm and http://www.indiana.edu/~bobweb/. The title of the article is: “He puts His money on creative, practical work:” http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2008-02-24-teacher-fisher_N.htm. I bet Mr. Fisher never worries about patents from Blackboard limiting his creativity and nor should any of you. Way to go Mr. Fisher! 3. USA Today Today Article #2: The second article today in the USA Today is on a new book related to the big switch coming from computers being a box in front of us to being a switch like electricity. In fact, the book is called “Big Switch.” According to the author, Nicholas Carr, the Internet itself is becoming a giant computer. Soon it will exhibit artificially intelligent behaviors. Are you ready for the big switch? Humm. The article is titled “World Wide Computer is on horizon”: http://www.usatoday.com/money/books/reviews/2008-02-24-big-switch_N.htm
4. Randy Pausch/Last Lectures from the Chronicle of Higher Education: There is also an article in the Wired or online Chronicle of Higher Education on Randy Pausch, a professor of computer science at Carnegie Mellon University and co-founder of its Entertainment Technology Center, who was given a few months to live 6 months back and has so far beaten the odds. He has done a lot in the meantime writing books, appearing in a Star Trek film, and helping persuade congress to pass legislation related to pancreatic cancer.
http://chronicle.com/news/index.php?id=4029&utm_source=pm&utm_medium=en. This is great news. I blogged on his last lecture back in September (see http://travelinedman.blogspot.com/2007/09/l-with-it-last-lectures-listing.html). Much media has surrounded him the past few months.
YouTube Survey Final Final Final Notice: As a final final final reminder, I am doing a survey on motivational and instructional design aspects of YouTube Videos. Since August or September, I have collected 994 respondents. When I get to my goal of 1,000, I will have a raffle for an iPod and iPhone. You could win one. This research project expires on Sunday March 2nd. The raffle will be Thursday or Friday or perhaps Saturday this week. If you have yet to participate, please do. If you already have participated, please share it with a friend. If you want to participate in this survey, go to: http://trainingshare.com/video/.
Note also that I have a group in Facebook related to YouTube research with over 320 members called “Bonkian YouTubian Researchian”—you can join this at: http://indiana.facebook.com/group.php?gid=6703696942.
1. Blackboard awarded $3.1 million from Desire2Learn in its lawsuit (http://chronicle.com/free/2008/02/1828n.htm?utm_source=pm&utm_medium=en) I find this a ridiculous ruling which will initially have a negative impact on the learning of learners of this planet. But for the long-term, it will foster innovation to build something better. On the positive side of all this, at least now people will be searching for ways to push personalized learning environments (PLEs), ecological models of learning, and really effective and motivational learning tools, since Blackboard has shown no interest in that. They say nothing here about their interest in fostering thinking, reflection, debate, discussion, idea sharing, knowledge representation, critical thinking, juxtaposing ideas, etc. No, they take a patent out on the log-in process. I never saw any learning or creativity happen from log-in. Perhaps PLE-related research, books, conferences, and ideas will be more pervasive now!
Per the article:
“Mr. Small said Blackboard never claimed to have invented the course-management system. What the company did invent, he said, is "a course-management system where a single user with a single log-on could have multiple roles across multiple classes." For instance, a person who was a student in one course and a teaching assistant in another could log on once and access all of his course materials.
"It really was transformative for the industry," Mr. Small said. "We knew we were the first doing it at the time, and that's why we applied for the patent. People look at the technology now and say that's obvious, but at the time, we were the first, and we're very proud of it."
This is transformative? Really. Transformative? Must be an awfully boring place to work. Sure glad I no longer am a boring accountant/CPA. If I was, I might enjoy lunch with these guys. If this is the most transformative they can be, they will not be around for much longer. No creativity shown here. In fact, their lawsuit is a simple exhibition of their lack of creativity and imagination. When one has no new ideas, one sues on old stuff. Their work parties must be deadly!
Simply put, they are concerned with patenting boring stuff. They are patenting student or user log-in to a course management system. Are they crazy? Pretty soon they will try to patent logging into the Web since they spent a countless years developing that login bar and icon. Not. Anyway this is an interesting development.
Let's hope in the coming years that companies like Blackboard open up their products to learning, innovation, creativity, etc.! We, the humans of this planet, have freedom to learn. We have freedom to teach with whatever tools we want to seek out. We have freedom to picket our administrators who might choose your silly products. We have freedom to pick our vendors, especially, when they are free. The Moodle and Sakai people must be laughing hysterically at the outcome. This is not like Pepsi patenting the color of its soda or aspects of its production process. This is about the education of the citizens of this planet. People will remember this day, not for a week, not for a year, and not just for this decade, but for decades and decades to come. And creative educators (and, yes, there are many) will remember this day. Arrrr!!!!
2. USA Today Today Article #1: Two good articles in the USA Today. One on a creative teacher, Gregory Fisher, who uses PBL in teaching economics classes in a high school in California (the California Academy of Math and Science). Fisher displays a sense of humor, high expectations, embed recent news in his classes, does not dumb down content, mixes up his teaching, uses a wide array of projects, and never takes himself too seriously. He also embeds methods for student participation, uses project-based learning, takes risks, and simply tries new stuff out. Finally, he brings in experts, uses student-centered learning, creates tutoring and counseling programs for his students, and, to avoid stress, he jogs and plays basketball with his students. Very similar ideas to those in my R546 class this semester on alternative instructional strategies for critical and creative thinking, motivation, and cooperative learning (see http://mypage.iu.edu/~cjbonk/Instructional-Strats-R546-2008.htm and http://www.indiana.edu/~bobweb/. The title of the article is: “He puts His money on creative, practical work:” http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2008-02-24-teacher-fisher_N.htm. I bet Mr. Fisher never worries about patents from Blackboard limiting his creativity and nor should any of you. Way to go Mr. Fisher! 3. USA Today Today Article #2: The second article today in the USA Today is on a new book related to the big switch coming from computers being a box in front of us to being a switch like electricity. In fact, the book is called “Big Switch.” According to the author, Nicholas Carr, the Internet itself is becoming a giant computer. Soon it will exhibit artificially intelligent behaviors. Are you ready for the big switch? Humm. The article is titled “World Wide Computer is on horizon”: http://www.usatoday.com/money/books/reviews/2008-02-24-big-switch_N.htm
4. Randy Pausch/Last Lectures from the Chronicle of Higher Education: There is also an article in the Wired or online Chronicle of Higher Education on Randy Pausch, a professor of computer science at Carnegie Mellon University and co-founder of its Entertainment Technology Center, who was given a few months to live 6 months back and has so far beaten the odds. He has done a lot in the meantime writing books, appearing in a Star Trek film, and helping persuade congress to pass legislation related to pancreatic cancer.
http://chronicle.com/news/index.php?id=4029&utm_source=pm&utm_medium=en. This is great news. I blogged on his last lecture back in September (see http://travelinedman.blogspot.com/2007/09/l-with-it-last-lectures-listing.html). Much media has surrounded him the past few months.
YouTube Survey Final Final Final Notice: As a final final final reminder, I am doing a survey on motivational and instructional design aspects of YouTube Videos. Since August or September, I have collected 994 respondents. When I get to my goal of 1,000, I will have a raffle for an iPod and iPhone. You could win one. This research project expires on Sunday March 2nd. The raffle will be Thursday or Friday or perhaps Saturday this week. If you have yet to participate, please do. If you already have participated, please share it with a friend. If you want to participate in this survey, go to: http://trainingshare.com/video/.
Note also that I have a group in Facebook related to YouTube research with over 320 members called “Bonkian YouTubian Researchian”—you can join this at: http://indiana.facebook.com/group.php?gid=6703696942.
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