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.

1. as a photography nerd, I find this very intriguing.  
2. as a tech nerd, I find this very intriguing.  
3. as an instructional designer, I find this mind blowing: indeed, learners continue their narratives long after any interaction with an experience I've designed. So, how then, might we go about designing learning experiences that both honor what learners bring to the community, and that they continue to find useful or, ideally, transformative going forward?

Thick descriptive, narrative practice

Harsh fluorescent lighting above, the math tutor continued talking at the student, who alternated between looking away, closing his eyes with a look of frustration, and staring at the paper.  The body language of the math tutor showed he understood what was going on, and could see he wasn't reaching the student - but, rather than altering tactics, taking a different approach, he just did what he was doing "more" with additional emphasis on particular words, more scribbling on paper, and leaning closer to the student, more (and bigger!) head nods.

• I wonder if the student is paying this guy?
• What sort of training has the tutor had?
• Does the student think this is the best way for him to learn?
• Is all the effort of two hours' worth of tutoring going to go right down the drain once the upcoming test is over?

So what?

This experience helped illustrate two things for me:

1. It seems the model described above is accepted as commonplace, even comfortable, for many learners, educational stakeholders, and instructional professionals.  Why?  I see some of Lortie's "Apprenticeship of Observation" at work - in that the tutor (or more broadly, the folks mentioned above" are examples of success within a given model.  So, from an egocentric perspective, why should they change?  That's powerful anti-innovation work right there.  I also imagine there could be a training issue too...I bet the tutor hasn't had significant pedagogical development training, or reflected deeply among a group of his educational peers about how he might best reach a student in this situation.

2. I am prompted to consider how often I do this in my own practice.  I try to partially redesign material each course - to look at what is working and what isn't - then to improve both of those for the better.  But just how am I going about that?  It's entirely possible that my Constructivist, Multiple Intelligence biases color my view to a point that I am not reaching those students who are more comfortable absorbing an answer delivered didactically, then looking for ways to reapply it later.  In an age of information saturation, what tools are out there to help a mere mortal who also has to nurture relationships outside of those with students, sleep, eat, and be human in his own right?

Haptics

You read it here first: HTML 6 is going to have to integrate haptics standards.  Hopefully, I'm wrong it haptics will hit by HTML5.x -I think the next big frontiers in opening up what technology can do for education might well be, literally, in our hands.  Not only are 20-60% of people self-identified as haptic learners, but look around at how often people have a handheld device in use: smartphones, tablets, and more, oh my!

So what's the hold up?  Well, a major piece is fidelity - the average smartphone has one "actuator" or "effector" to allow the phone to buzz.  That's not very useful in communicating in depth information, and could well be a distraction to most learners.  Some folks have used smartphones, connected to a haptic "suit" to create augmented reality experiences, grounded in the "real world" but guided by GPS.  The phone talks to the actuators in the suit, rather than having its own - a great compromise, but potentially also farrr too expensive to be widespread in education (yes, with 3 R's...).  Maybe we'll see a day when everyone has embedded datajacks to physically connect with their "smart" device, and we'll really see science fiction come to life...but until then, having an open standard for web development to leverage haptic coding is the next step. 

I'd be remiss if I didn't include my recent prezi on the topic.

...but, the kids already know the technology!

I hear some version of that statement frequently, either from the people I'm teaching, or from professional colleagues.  And, I think it's doing us a huge disservice.  My "lowercase-t" truth is, a majority of people are comfortable in a couple of technological media, environments, or applications...and have to be pushed to go beyond that. 

Whoopty ding...what am I gonna do about that?

I need to stop showing a couple of videos in my class, particularly about Jalen (see below).  I think it's too intimidating to those folks who view themselves as technologically illiterate - despite that the point I try to make with the video is that, as teachers, we'll never know more than the students we teach about technology in and of itself.  But, maybe that's the wrong point?  Maybe the real point here, the one that I've been skirting too far afield of, is that we, as teachers, need to be able to model critical analysis skills on the fly so that when a student comes to us and says they want to do "X", that we have some place to direct them that meets their skill level with technology, will grab their interest and hook them, and provide a way for the learning process to fade into the background rather than having the technology get in the way...

Infoviz FTW

As a researcher, I am often inundated with dense, unapproachable language that requires so much background knowledge, context, and overall patience that I reach cognitive load levels quickly and have to reread or take a break.  It's much worse when trying to communicate research to a general public who probably has much less background knowledge and context than I do.  Why do we insist on doing things this way? It's small wonder the populace at large considers academics to be of limited value.

One possible solution is the notion of information visualization, or infoviz, as a way to better communicate data and information (per Bellinger, 2006) through graphics or other sensory input.  Although, it's important to remember that infoviz is typically not standalone, and the best examples are used to help tell a story, not being the story alone.

Some recent examples I came across:
Nathalie Miebach and her exploration of weather data as sculpture and music


Although, I found that I liked Aaron Koblin's visualizations better, and certainly found his longer (18 minutes) timeframe more conducive to greater detail and really understanding what the hell is going on: