ENGAGING IN CONVERSATION WITH PROFESSOR BONK

Curtis J. Bonk, Professor, Indiana University

OVERVIEW:

This week we had a guest speaker via Teleconference. This was a fun session. I enjoyed the enthusiasm and surrounding the information that was being presented. I was great to hear and see how innovative people are being with educational topics of interest. I get the message that people are looking for means to make extreme impact and revolutionize the ways we obtain, process and utilize information for advancement within given fields. Spending time with Professor Bonk made for a very entertaining experience. He was eating dinner in another state (with a three hour time difference), while presenting to us in real-time and informing us of developments in e learning globally over the course of five years. So I had multiple experiences going on at once, which was very fun and sent home a powerful message; we are on the brink of transcending barriers to education.

ENGAGING IN CONVERSATION WITH PROFESSOR BONK:

After the first twenty minutes of listening to our guest speaker, I could see Professor Bonk and Professor Kim being friends; only because they have this enthusiasm surrounding the e learning revolution and both are admiate about promoting the cause. Professor Bonk has written prequels and sequels surrounding the topic and seeks to use these texts as a means of promoting society changes in how individuals are educated.

So what is Professor Bonk’s big idea? Capturing Technology and how it is “Changing the World”.

A Few Questions From the Austin Peanut Gallery That I Hope to Have Answered During This Presentation:

1. What has made information worth while sharing where we do not exclude the individual?

2. How do we hope to benefit as a nation, considering the fact that we are spearheading this evolution of educational technology?

3. Who are we really taking into consideration as we are doing this?

4. What amount of educational value are we placing on e-learning?

5. How much time and money is being invested?

6. What teaching methodologies are being incorporated and for what audience?

Things that have happened globally that have changed the world and learning.

UCLA Summer Digs Program (Meg Sullivan): Blog posting on their digs

Michael Perham and Zac Sunderland Summer 2009: youngest sailors to sail around the world solo and us the web to broadcast live. Learning from them online about their experiences.

David Thomas, Archeologist, La Trobe University, Australia (Discovery News). He has become one of the most famous archeologists.

Ten Forces that Opened the Learning World:

Web searching in the World of e-books

E-learning and Blended Learning

Availability of Open Source and Free Software

Leveraged Resources and Open Courseware

Learning Object Repositories and Portals

Learner Participation in Open Info Communities (You Tube)

Electronic Collaboration and Interaction

Alternate Reality Learning, Simulations and Virtual Worlds

Real-Time Mobility and Portability

Networks and personalized Learning

The World is Open.com (a book he wrote): maps out how we went from a culture that did not share information, to a culture that extends education, so as to make it accessible to all.

He is watching the progression of digitized knowledge and I get the impression that this is a race to conceptualize educational technology, do it, do it well and be a master in the field. Everyone wants real estate in this arena and there is a lot of room to be as innovative as you possibly can. Society as a whole is gravitating to it and is willing to invest mounds of money into the field. It was at one time that tech groups were not serving up enough educational technology and now that there is a huge demand, corporations are ready to supply this demand. It would appear to be an exciting time in technology (this is the feel that I get from Professor Bonk).

For those who are not buying in to these technological advancements. E learning is being mandated for completion of a credential, degree or diploma. The reason is because it has become evident as to wear we are going as a nation and hopefully, globally. Access to large masses of information in rich detail creating what may be close to an authentic experience. This is considered to be just as valuable and relevant as sitting in a classroom, if not more so.

Professor Bonk then posed a question to us with regard to online learning. First had we ever taken an on-line class and how was it? Ricardo shared that his entire undergrad was online and while he had one good class the others were poorly instructed, as he didn’t feel that the teachers knew what they were doing. Professor chimed in on supporting his belief that educators do need training and exposure so as to optimize the amount of information available to enhance the learning experience. And more and more teachers are now; more than ever; being required to take some technology class in order to complete their credential or degree. I personally can recall having to take a tech class before completing my multiple subject credential.

Lots of people use e learning as a means promoting their learning platform.

AN AMAZING STORY EXAMPLE!! A retired biology professor from Cal enters back into her field of research and by way of conducting a broadcast online; she is turned into a celebrity within hours. Phenomena’s like this are happening all over.

Okay I am going to stop now so I can further engage in the last 60min of the presentation.

Bye!!!

Week 8: Artifact 2 Presentations

Week 9: Class Presentations

Today is the dress rehearsal for the big day. Presentation day! Today we get to see how innovative we are with regard to using technology to support marginalized educational populations. I had been working on my assignment for weeks and it turned into a 24hour implementation. I was very satisfied with the results. It allowed the viewers to engage in roll play again and was progressive in its approach to the identity of a child with attention deficit disorder.

Late again, I walked in just having been able to partake in the last 5minutes of Paul’s presentation. He was the first speaker and I was disappointed having missed what appeared to be a really interesting take on literacy.

Up next was Ashley’s project, and she appeared to be promoting the improvement of English skills through the use of sharing stories globally (her current focus students in India). She envisions a website called “TuneItUp!” She foresees continued work with the NGO where she is employed working with high to low resource schools. Comics share stories and encouraging literacy and cultural awareness. She finds her stick designs to be sufficient enough to stay true to the authenticity of the written quality; so much that anyone can partake and feel empowered to share their experiences.

Jacob I noticed has taken a great interest in video games as a teaching aid. When I asked him weeks back, he said that he wasn’t much of a gamer growing up so I find he current interest to be intriguing. He seems to be working off of a perception that video gaming is a motivational aid. He draws correlation with the way that the body works and the possibility in demonstrating the rigor in the curriculum associated within the subject matter demonstratable through games. He discusses how gaming is very common in homes and transferable in use within schools and home. I like that he uses symbolic and metaphoric representation of anatomy tin inanimate objects and how they function. He spoke on the genre of mystery and how it works with science and how media can support a rich learning experience that can draw on sensory and psychomotor skills. He has really done his research on society depicts science in the media and what makes it exciting. He brings up good things to consider in the area of teaching science such as bringing in integrating the scientific methodological practices in meaningful ways. This is something he will continue to explore. He is definitely a filmmaker.

Yaa was next up and is someone I know spent a great deal of time and effort working on her presentation. Her topic addresses the issue of loss of language and the need to archive this information for future generations. The program will train the people of the country on how to use technology in ways that are relevant to their lives, so as to educate outside populations. She draws on her wealth of experience working with the nationals (of which she is one), inferring that the nationals will gravitate towards this project out of a desire to keep their history alive. She maneuvers around common methods of supporting, financing and sustaining by gravitating towards partnering with NGO’s, selling packaged lectures and seminars to educational institutions. There is great interest in seeing this archive draw public interest so as to keep dying languages alive.

Man I am tired of writing…

Mike is up next. Mike has put together a You Tube video that promotes the use of flashcards as a means of promoting letter recognition, which is pivotal in the diagnosis of dyslexia. Parents or practioners are encouraged to use and score their child’s progress in the usage of the flashcards. He has found literature that discusses an algorithm by which to score a child’s response, which is translated in the use of a five-point rubric. Mike wants parents to feel empowered to invest in the skill sets that promote cognitive shaping and literacy over time. His system keeps the usage simple enough for any parent to use. He is going to great efforts to make sure the parent and user is comfortable and will maintain continuous use of the program. This project employs the usage of sensory and cognitive learning modalities. As it repetitive and offers minimal variation or I see it possibly loosing steam overtime. However I do foresee the mass usage of this program for initial diagnosis’ I like Amrita’s suggestion of building upon mastered skill levels (moving towards phonetics- which is the learner’s goal). It was awesome to have a person with dyslexia in the room to offer other interface suggestions dealing with audio and color scale (with regard to distractibility).

Okay I am going to stop now…

Week 7: Brainstorming with Guest Speakers

EDUC 391X Week 7

Today in 391X we had two guest speakers and we participated in a brainstorming session geared toward checking the ABCD’s of their product. The first guest speakers: PhD candidate in Engineering and MBA student (names not recorded). They were pitching an idea for our consideration and feedback.

Their site was called ViewExtreme, which serves up video onto the web in a richer format.

After doing some research in the area of video web servers, they found traditional video viewing to be problematic. They decided that they needed to explore how to make the video viewing experience vivid and spoke on finding a way for video viewing to match the classroom experience. They felt that this would allow students to focus in on parts of the lecture that were important to them.

Their attempt to solve the problem:

In order to allow the user to effectively navigate the scene, they made it so that the viewer could maneuver and zoom in to specific visual points of the lecture by using high-resolution photography. A fixed camera would capture the whole scene and the user would select relevant aspects of the classrooms by using their mouse. It is also configured so that the camera tracks the professors or slide changes. Slides will also be listed on the site so that you may use the slides to navigate through the video. These video clips will be streamed to the web and while the current videos that are up are prerecorded they hope to have a live-feed up in the future.

Class evaluation:

When asked how they would record student questions or statements, they informed us that this could be problematic, but can be remedied by having multiple drop-down mics or seat mics. This however could be costly.

When asked how they might take notes on the computer while they are watching the video, they agreed that this might also be another issue. But they could foresee the use of implementing a writing tablet. As a side note to this question they brought to our attention the use of screen shots from board clips that can be labeled and shared with other participants creating a shared learning experience. (Questions and comments)

Benefits:

When going into the benefits of the ViewXtreme Suite, they shared some comments from their teacher feedback. The teachers they spoke with said they had some difficulty with the aspect of teaching to a camera. They spoke on how this process was seamless as teachers could teach class as normal and still make use of the video functionality available to them on campus.

Brainstorming with 391X class

Students were given the floor to make suggestions.

Thoughts on the table were:

-Interaction between online users.

-Options with regard intense users and laid back users: audio, video, quiz, and chat rooms.

-Highlighting and marking clips for storage.

Summary:

I find that much of what we are discussing deals with study habits and learning modalities. There is much room for scaffolding video lectures for student use. The technology has an innovative start but is need of much more functional classroom environment exposure. Students manipulate their classroom environment in a variety of ways to enhance their learning experience in ways that are relevant to them. They will find that many options are needed.

2^nd Speaker from Chicago (Veronica Anderson)

Platform: Urban and Racial consideration/ Focus on the activist community

Background:

She works with a magazine that writes stories about lack of support for marginalized children and their efforts to make it in public education system. (Specifically getting into the network of schools.)

Her Question: How might we aid people in getting comprehensive information about schools; with parent and student feedback, school resources, rankings, deadlines for application, exam dates, and what schools are still available.

Current Sources of Information: realtors, family and friends

Problem: How can she bridge this information gap for parents and students?

Interest in: The usage of mobile technology.

Summary:

I personally find her idea to be highly resourceful. The only potential problems are the early access to this time sensitive information and the legal matters surrounding the ranking of teachers on an organized website. Within the open realm of the public this is fathomable but if facilitated by an organization there could be a potential lawsuit as it infringes on individual constitutional rights.

My hope is that the federal government will make such a site possible so that families participating in the public education system can make well informed decisions as to where to send their children.