A post from Class

One technology that I find interesting but I believe will not take off is the Game Based learning. I don't believe this will take off in the direction that people think it has because we have had game based learning for a long period of time already. But I do believe that mobile devices and electronic books will provide to be very useful in the class room. Just like you would integrate study habits into your schedule if you implement the class work into the students mobile devices then it is much easier for them to assimilate the class and their life. How often to people check their phones? How often are they online? How often are they on facebook? If you tie the classroom to facebook via a group or class discussion you have an instant connection with the student. You have brought the class to their life. The gesture based hardware is a great addition but I don't know if we have seen the potential of it yet. Just the studies and experiements that people have been able to do with the kinect. An example is as follows; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWmVrfjDCyw . It will take someone really creative to break new ground and do something that we haven't even thought of yet. Also we have to keep in mind that our technology has been growing at a faster rate in the past 100 years, the amount of information available now is incredible. So in some ways we have become difficult to impress with the amount of information that we are subjected to on a daily basis. Most peoples phone's are smarter than the computer that I had when I grew up.

It is an exciting time in education and the world in general in regards to technology but we would have a hard time estimating on what people will come up with next.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5s5EvhHy7eQ here is another example of a wii remote that is hacked to turn into a very cheap multi-touch whiteboard.

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I posted this answer to a discussion question from my class because I think it embodies a bigger question or way of looking at technology in the classroom. What is next? I don't think anyone can answer that. But! I think we can ask, "what do we have available and how can we use it?" This, to me, is how we take the next step. Or "what do we want to accomplish?". Anything to think outside of the box and have distance education and traditional education take the next step.

-Matt

Week 5 some observations

I have been working on some of the material for week 5 after some setbacks in my course work and the thought of social interaction with distance education really started rolling around in my head. I was wondering not only the implications of social interaction within the classroom of online learning. But how our personal web 2.0 social media interact affects our learning patterns. We are all well aware of the implications of the immediate gratification but how does this affect our online classroom? Do things move too slow? Should we have a "tweet" like option to allow for more rapid fire discussion to speed things up? I think one way or another this will have to be integrated for online education may be  pooled together with traditional education due to its speed in comparison with social media.

Distance Ed Discussion

http://www.reddit.com/r/education/comments/10cfcx/what_is_your_opinion_of_online_learning/



With social websites such as reddit on the rise and information even more accessible than ever. I think it is imperative that we keep our eyes open for the new sources of information and learn how to use them to their advantage. For instance: I created a subreddit for distance education, submitted it in the forums to a previous class, and received no responses on the topic. But the people who would benefit the most from finding out about distance education may not be receiving it. We have to almost be better sales people and knock on doors. (not literally). I think this is something that more people need to get used to.


-Matt

http://www.reddit.com/r/distanceeducation

Technology and Distance Education

With the focus in distance education being steered towards pedagogy and the means more so than the end, it is important to steer thoughts on to what is truly critical for distance educators. The pedagogy is key but it is important to trim off the other unnecessary things as well. "...technology deployment is not a primary concern for distance education and should not be allowed to steer the learning processes." This quote out of Flexible Higher Education by Elizabeth J. Burge truly captures steering the point of direction for distance education. While I personally don't think that distance education is plagued by an over saturation of technology I do think the idea behind this quote still rings true. Things that are not essential for the current trends of distance education should not steer distance education. And students should not be viewed as numbers and statistics by those doing the reviews of distance education, the goals should be focusing on what the future of distance educations affects will be on the future. That is why we are seeing more things such as Khan academy and Coursera thriving and the idea that education should be free and almost a basic human right. There are many changes coming for education in general and I believe that distance education is at the forefront.

-Matt

Are we looking in the wrong places about distance ed?

http://www.openculture.com/2012/06/a_master_list_of_500_free_courses_from_great_universities.html


In education we are often worried about theories and pedagogues, things to tell us we are on the right path.To me there appears to be a new trend, forget about what we did, what are we going to do? Easy answer, we are going to do what works. But that is the hard part really, but not for everyone. I have included a link to free courses online. Which is becoming a huge trend lately, and the public seems to think its an awesome idea. But what I would like to look at is how are the creators of online environments like khan academy (http://www.khanacademy.org/) and wonder why does this help/work? It is breaking the mold, but on top of that it is helping the way we used to do things. Teachers are using online resources such as this to supplement in the classroom and as a result are more conservative with their time while getting better results. And in today's current trend getting bigger results with less is becoming the expectation.

Google+ and other things....

Google+ and other things.... It occurred to me this evening as I was thinking about distance education I felt as though something was missing. I have taken a few classes at this point and while I do enjoy it, I've found I miss the element of camaraderie. I do get to know some of my classmates and recognize them when I sign up for additional classes but it is entirely different than a face to face cohort of a program. Sure webtycho is partly to blame, but are the facilitators or the students to blame? I don't think so. Distance education is still growing and I think we are still learning about how to teach with online education and how to provide the best experience for all parties involved. This is where I think Google+ and other services might come in handy. What I feel is missing are the general conversations, "what did you think about that paper?", "was that test hard?", while we do have those conversations its as if you are in the classroom the whole time. There isn't any one on one time. In the institution I work at they have lots of mentor programs, I don't think this is a bad idea (and I think there is one, I should have taken advantage of that if I remember correctly). But how often do you get to ask your classmate the same things you would in a face to face environment? I think Google+ allows for enough privacy for students but allows them to interact with each other, have a more personal dialogue

maybe I'm crazy?

6/12.

Supporting Students

I'd like to think that in an educational environment everyone is maintaining the focus to support students. But we have to think, what is supporting students? Is this going above and beyond in every way to help them accomplish their goals? No. Is this bending to their every whim? No. What it is, is taking every single moment of everyday and seeing what is the best way to turn it in to a teachable moment. That, to me, is truly supporting students. Different generations are confronted with different environmental challenges. Baby boomers, gen x etc.... Currently we are serving the generation of everyone wins and everyone gets a trophy. Life doesn't work that way. Not everyone passes, just as not everyone fails. Some students have not been equipped with the ability to make constructive decisions in situations where they feel they have anything at stake. And where they don't have anything at stake they don't place themselves within the situation.

What to do? Turn every moment into a teachable moment. Because every moment is a teachable moment.