MOOC or die? Really?

Having spent a few days reflecting about the 2013 eLearn conference, I've come away with some further insights on my own instructional practice, my blooming research skills, and some general observations. Let's start with the first, shall we?

1. Pedagogy over technology was a sentiment voiced by many folks at the conference, and which certainly resonated with me.  I found myself questioning further my own uses of technology in teaching, and thinking of ways I might better engage my students.  For example, would it serve to better connect, in a human-contact sort of way (not that way, you sickomonkey) if I gave audio comments to students on papers?  I may try this, as I have a round of papers I'm giving feedback on right now.

2. I need to rework some PowerPoints.  My god, a lot of people tried to ppt me to death.  Make the hurting stop, folks...make. the. hurting. stop.

3. The academy is ridiculously stuffy.  I heard two keynotes by greybeards that drove me nuts.  The one about the Victorianweb was a joke in terms of design, engagement in and of itself...and the presentation was an hour of my life I won't ever get back.  Again, let the hurting stop.

4. Perhaps most importantly, I was reminded how far ahead of so many people the LT program is, and even my limited skillset is capable of building things like 26ers, which is consistently blowing people away.  Remember how good that feels, when the crunch time hits, ok?

5. MOOCs are being seen as a panacea, and few of them have any effective pedagogy behind them.  The concer was voiced that MOOCs are around because they'll make money for the people hosting and maintaining them, which I agree with.  Further, I think the danger in data mining them is very real, and somthing we educators shouldn't take lightly.

Ok, as a researcher:  There is a real need to build good graphics out of data, through infoviz.  Too many times, I saw data that conveyed little information, and certainly didn't help me build up knowledge or wisdom.  Ick.

Every way of seeing is a way of not seeing

That title comes from Edmund Husserl in his initial discussions about Phenomenology, a qualitative research method focused on the authentic, lived experiences of research subjects.  The idea of the statement is that any way of going about doing research automatically then also constrains what sorts of conclusions one can find in the data.  This is a bit heady to me, but I drew a comparison that resonated for me: lens choice in photography.

I'm in the middle of a web-based augmented reality/virtual experience project for a nature center in the Twin Cities.  One piece of this project is the idea to install a QR code station at a certain locations, and when you go to the webpage/site the code directs you to, you are presented with an opportunity to see the surroundings fro you same point of view, but be able to scroll through seasonal changes right there on your mobile device.  Cool, hmm?

However, in order to do this in an authentic fashion, there's no way to get around the need for many photographic assets to have on hand to build the environment, and so I've been trying to get there frequently to get shots for us to use on the project.  In order to build this right, I'm using everything from ultra wide angle glass (16mm focal equivalent) to telephoto (320mm focal equivalent).  As I was reviewing photos today, it occurred to me that:

the nature center area = lived experiences
the lens/camera choice = research framework
the photo that get used in the project = research data
the user's experience of interacting with the online environment = interpreted results, or maybe the meta-interpretation of the data (since the team will have interpreted the images, then the user will do so again in a fashion meaningful for themselves).

I'm still struggling with this analogy a bit, but it was still interesting to have it bloom in my stream of consciousness.