Mashup or Crashup?

Posted on April 21, 2008 by Janine Lim

USDLA The Intersection of Real-time Learning Tools with Learning Management Systems by Alan Greenberg from Wainhouse Research. Snippets of ideas and wisdom.

What’s a mashup? Media types, code, data sources, etc. from different sources.

Which of these do you use? vc, web conferencing, whiteboards, wikis/collaborative tools, LMS/CMS, other…

“videoconferencing was the hot technology in the 90s”

A crashup can be the blue screen of death or cars crashing together.

Alan has a great chart with the learning activity down the left and the tool (LMS, VC, streaming, web conferencing, interaction enables). Then whether or not that learning activity is possible in that tool.

Technology creates latency – it’s between you and the learners. You want that to diminish.

The crashup/mashup is happening because you need all those learning activities whenever you need them, not just in this tool or that tool.

A unified collaboration environment has a nice mix of synchronous and asynchronous tools. IM / Web conferencing / interactive writing tools / recording / streaming / classroom vc / web vc / virtual worlds / collaboration portals / audio threads / LMS CMS etc. All these things come together in one environment with infrastructure services.

Interestingly, he asked the audience if they have tried GoogleDocs. 15 people raised their hands. Then he asked, who is using it still? Only 3 raised their hands. I wonder how many people actually seriously collaborate for their work on documents with other people. And of those, how many stayed with GoogleDocs?

How can you take your content and make it for mobile devices? All these tools will converge onto mobile devices. The iPhone broke down the display tech and usability barriers for using mobile devices.

Comments from the audience about Second Life “I don’t have time for my first life”

mlearning – mobile learning. Convergence of educational, consumer, prosumer, enterprise markets based on the Smartphone.

The barrier of broadband and devices is melting away. I wonder about rural areas that don’t have the services offered with the cell phone plans that the more urban areas have. Is that barrier also melting away?

A report referred to: The Distance Education and eLearning Landscape

The silos of videoconference vs. online tools are breaking down. The VC has to connect to the LMS. Greenberg’s prediction: LMS platforms will include IM, presence and VC as a matter of course by 2012. This is interesting because it’s the best of both worlds – VC for the human interactivity and online for the reflection.

Context sensitivity is going to be more important – moods, polls, ways to know the context of the learner.

Check out WRPlatinum as well.

From an audience member – in Afghanistan, everyone has a phone but they can’t afford food. They aren’t learning on a computer, they can learn on a mobile phone.

The session ended with Q&A and sharing from the audience.

Filed under: Techie Stuff, VC Community | 1 Comment »

Scalability of Distance Learning Initatives

Posted on April 21, 2008 by Janine Lim

USLDA Conference: Scalability of Distance Learning Initiatives within Current School Models Resistant to Change by Daryl Diamond, Assistant Director, Enterprise Change Implementation, Broward County Public Schools, FL

6th largest school district in the country; first franchise of Florida Virtual School

She started with a “distance learning program attribute checklist” with keys for implementation. It has five categories:

Some of these ideas come from Comprehensive School Reform.

Scaling isn’t just the number of people using a technology or tool. It’s not just pockets of educational reform.

Coburn’s (2003) Dimensions of Scale

  • Spread – increased numbers
  • Depth – changes in teachers beliefs and practice
  • Sustainability – how does it sustain after reform funding ends
  • Shift in Reform Ownership

Think about scaling up vs. going to scale. Going to scale means that it’s integrated into regular practice and becomes the norm.

There are some ways that distance learning is better than face to face – where the online learning model meets multiple intelligences and authentic assessment is used. And face to face is just the lock step workbook page that everyone has to be on the same page by the mideterm.

Do you ever feel like you’re building an airplane in the sky?

Does the distance learning program change the pedagogical principles? Is the project able to continue if funding is pulled?

Broward has videoconferencing systems in all the high schools, used mostly for full courses. They also have VC in the elementary and middle schools. In addition they have a middle & high school level virtual school.

“going to scale” includes changing basic pedagogical practices.

“researchers have been looking at the wrong thing” – only how many teachers are using it? how many students are using it? Instead we should look at how teaching has changed?

We need to move past “it’s innovative, it’s fun, it’s viable, it’s enjoyable”.

Interesting idea she has: use VC to mentor teachers. Both teachers hook up their classes – the mentor teacher teaches both classes while the other teacher learns/observes. It’s implemented in face to face classes to meet the needs of new teachers.

“How many of your programs started with a grant?” What happens when the grant funding dries up?

She sees distance learning as a critical tool to address the mandates for all students to have access to quality learning.

There’s a nice intro to their VC programs here. Their VC courses are supported by web resources.

Then we looked at the checklist again to consider how our programs are going to scale based on the checklist. The checklist isn’t online that I could find, but you can email Daryl – her contact information is on the link at the top.

Filed under: Implementation, VC Community | Comments Off

Ellen Wagner Opening Keynote

Posted on April 21, 2008 by Janine Lim

I’m at the USDLA Annual Conference listening to Ellen Wagner’s opening keynote. She’s the Senior Director of Worldwide E-Learning Solutions with Adobe Systems, Inc. Here are some snippets of wisdom and ideas.

“We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”
Albert Einstein

Shift Happens – watch the presentation if you have a moment. Check out the wiki and the follow-up questions.

“We are currently preparing students for jobs and technologies that don’t yet exist in order to solve problems we don’t even know are problem yet.” From the Shift Happens presentation.

Question: what are you doing to prepare yourself for life in the learning metaverse?

“If no one’s been there before, no one will know you’re wrong.”

How do you collaborate with someone 12.5 hours away? How do you work and collaborate with co-workers 12.5 hours away? Ellen experiences this. She accidentally scheduled a major event during a major holiday in India. Oops! I’ve been thinking it’s time to have a calendar with the holidays in the countries I want to collaborate with via VC.

Wayfinding – a method used by travelers to find relatively unmarked and often mislabeled routes. This is the metaphor she offers as a way to make sense of the rapid change and insane schedule of global learners and workers.

  • Prepare for the quest. Gamers prepare for the quest.
  • Stay the course… but keep an eye on where you’re going. The only way out is through.
  • Leave that extra baggage behind. old practices, old ways of doing things… “but we can’t do that”
  • Engage with your fellow wayfinders. Use your Facebook pages to find colleagues to help you. When confronted with an overload of information, we turn to our friends.
  • “Be excellent to each other” Allusions to patent disputes and issues with proprietary code.

Are you using the technologies for YOU? A thought provoking presentation to consider further….

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Pics from the MysteryQuest Classroom

Posted on April 21, 2008 by Janine Lim

If you aren’t subscribed to the comments on my blog, then you should check out the MysteryQuest USA pictures posted online by Pine River Elementary. They give a great flavor of what the research portion is like in the classroom.

I especially like the picture of this strategy of having a wall or whiteboard or place to write the guesses for all the schools. It gives a focal point to the research. See how the students are working there:

I still have a few spots left I want to fill. If you can’t pay the $50 for the remaining slots, sign up and put “free for blog readers” in the notes field when you register. Hope you can participate!

Filed under: MysteryQuests | Comments Off

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