Perceiving « explore. create. share.

07Sep

Deep Dive MAET Style 47 Hour QF

After watching the Deep Dive videos about the design group IDEO (part 1, part2, part3), two “design groups” were formed (7 students in each group) to embark on the longest QF in the history of MAET.

Assigned on Monday morning of the final week of the MAET overseas program, these groups were asked to created the following by Wednesday morning at 8:30:

- Eight Web based multimedia introductions to each of the sections developed on the companion site for our text Sparks of Genius: http://sparks.wiki.educ.msu.edu/
(that is, the introductions could be any technology that can be embedded in a Web page (video, prezi, audio, combinations, etc.))
- These eight sections related to Sparks chapters as follows: Thinking Differently (chapters 1 and 2); Perceiving (chapters 3 and 4); Patterning (chapters 6 and 7); Abstracting (chapters 5 and 8); Embodied Thinking (chapters 9 and 10); Modeling (chapters 11 and 12); Playing (chapters 13 and 14); and, Synthesizing (chapters 15 and 16).

Project specifications:

- Each individual introduction should be one minute or less

- Each set of eight videos for each group should follow the same genre, approach, style, theme, etc. (that is, team 1 was to design a cohesive set of eight videos, and team 2 their own cohesive set based on a different approach)

- Each introduction should be designed to entice, encourage, compel, or otherwise convince K-12 teachers to read that specific section (collection of two chapters) of Sparks and the companion wiki pages

- Ideas for this project were to be focus grouped with year 1 and year 2 cohort students

Team specifications:

- Each team needed to determine a “lead adult” to lean on when guidance and structure are needed

- Each team will had $25,000 to spend in developing their project. This money could be spent on consulting with course instructors, or on focus groups with year 1 or year 2 students. (Creative questions cost $1,000 per question – technical or content questions cost $500 per question. Each 15 minute focus group with year 1 or year 2 students costs $1,000).

Evaluation:

- On Wednesday morning, all sixteen videos will be shown to a panel of experts. They provided a rating for each set of videos based on the following:

1. Overall creativity of the project
2. Creative use of technology in the project
3. Content accuracy based on Sparks
4. “Quality” as defined (or not defined) by Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

- Students were told only one set of videos would be selected for integration with the wiki, and that they would be “rewarded accordingly”

Hints given to groups:

- Focus on creativity, technology, and teaching. Don’t forget about the technology piece in your project (both in use and message).

- Because eight sections will be similarly themed, the “idea” for how to present you arguments is critical. Don’t move forward until you think you have that nailed down. Use some of the strategies from Deep Dive to make sure it is a killer idea.

27Dec

Investigating new technologies

Abstract: In small groups, students develop a report on one of several Web 2.0 applications, their uses, and their potential for education. As individuals, they reflect and report on the application’s potential use they perceive personally for their teaching/work/professional website.

Description: This activity is designed to be done in two parts over a two-week period: the first with a small group during the first week, and the second part working individually during the second week. As will become clear, you could begin thinking of the individual part as you are involved in the group work.

In a different activity (“subverting presentation tools”), we explored how a pretty common software program (PowerPoint) could be used creatively. With this assignment we shall try to look at some emerging technologies. Each group will be assigned a particular technology (see below). Each of these technologies is part of the Web 2.0 phenomenon. Web 2.0 technologies refer to “a supposed second-generation of Internet-based services — such as social networking sites, wikis, communication tools, and folksonomies — that let people collaborate and share information online in previously unavailable ways” (source: Web 2.0 article on Wikipedia). Here’s a presentation specifically aimed at Web2.0 for Education.

Research and report on the technology we assign to your group by due date (…)
-Cloud Computing (Writeboard, Google Apps, Zoho etc.): Group 1
-Social Bookmarking (such as del.icio.us, Furl, or StumbleUpon): Group 2
-Social Software (such as FaceBook & MySpace) : Group 3
-Social Libraries (such as LibraryThing & citeyoulike.org): Group 4
-Social media (such as the photo annotation tools on Flickr, Video annotation on Voice Thread etc.): Group 5

-other technologies (___________________): Group 6
First: Introduction to a specific Web 2.0 technology.
Your group should do some research to find out about the assigned Web 2.0 technology. Share and discuss as much useful and reliable info as you can, and then, as a group, develop a written report about it. This report should focus on the following:

1. What is the technology? i.e. what is it about? what does it do?

2. What is it being used for? i.e. what are the most common uses? what are some of the more creative and interesting uses? what are people saying about it?

3. Provide some concrete examples of this technology in use (links to sites, examples etc.), particularly in the area of education

Remember this is the web, so don’t feel like you have to create everything from scratch. Feel free to use quotes (with appropriate citations, of course), and links in an intelligent manner.

After you’ve put together this report, post a copy of it on your website. As you are doing only one report as a group, this can be posted on any or all of your group member’s web spaces, as you choose. A draft of this should be completed by the following due date (…).
Second (if applicable): How would you use this technology in your final project (here, the big Kahuna)?

The next step in this assignment is to consider the Web2.0 technology assigned to your group and think about how you could use it in your own teaching/work/website. How would you do it? Would it even work? Then write up your plan, format it as a webpage and post it to your work-space.

Note: Just in case the technology assigned to your group does not make any sense from the point of view of your topic please feel free to choose any one from the other groups. [You do have to stick to one of those we have listed.] Of course, you can get a quick refresher course in the other technologies by visiting the websites and draft reports created by the other groups.

Final versions of the group report and the individual reports should be posted to your websites by (…).

Examples of student work:

History of the assignment:

Suggestions for grading etc.:

27Dec

Good / Bad Design

Abstract: Equipped with some examples as a starting point, students identify and present examples of good and bad design in everyday life – from appliances to websites, in order to reflect on the essential features of good design.

Description: Over the course of the semester, or in a one-time-only brain reflection task, students are asked to identify examples of good and bad design. To illustrate what is meant by “good” and “bad” design, some examples are given in this PowerPoint file or through the Google Presentation document.

Some questions to think about – and to discuss in the presentation:

What does design do for us? I.e., why is design important?

What is common to all examples of bad design?

What was missing? What went wrong? Why?

What is common to examples of good design?

Examples of student work: You can also discuss this (and other issues related to good and bad design) in a virtual discussion group specifically created for this purpose, as in the original CEP 917 course. Go to the discussion forum...

History of the assignment:

27Dec

Key topics Wiki

Abstract: Students work in groups on an informative multi-tiered WIKI on a provided topic, working either in class or as a distributed work team.

Description: Students are assigned or chose groups of 3-4. Each of the groups will be assigned a topic (see sample topics for the courses CEP 800, 815, and 822 below). The task as a group is to develop a WIKI on this given topic. Students should think of themselves as being “experts” on this given topic who are introducing this topic to the other groups in the class via this WIKI. These topics provided will be relevant for the overall assignment (in the case of the original courses, CEP 800, 815, and 822 the development of a lesson plan) as well. The WIKI should consist of a series of pages, broadly described below:

A summary page on the front end of the WIKI that offers an introduction to the topic at hand. This page should address general issues of definition, categorization, broad themes etc.
This broad description should link to a set of sub-pages that offer an annotated list of key online resources about that topic. The goal is to not link willy-nilly to any resource out there but rather quality resources that could be useful to someone seeking to learn more about the topic (or sub-topics) brought up in the first page.

The topics (from CEP 800, 815, and 822) are:

Developing information literacy, technology skills (in students)
Meeting the diverse needs of your students, assistive technologies, particularly through the idea of Universal Designs for Learning (UDL)
Social and ethical uses of technology (particularly digital equity, intellectual property, and copyright) and healthy practices in the use of educational technology
Using Technology to Facilitate/Develop Creativity and Critical Thinking Skills in Students
Using Technology to Engage in Professional Development & Leadership

Examples of student work:

Assignment History:

22Dec

Weekly Reader: Social Bookmarking

Abstract: Using the social bookmarking application del.icio.us, students facilitate the flow of data, information, knowledge and wisdom in their area of interest by making a minimum or 4 targeted weekly referrals of sites and links from their RSS feeds.

Description: On a weekly basis, students are asked to dig into their RSS aggregators and to take a few minutes to reflect on an article/link that comes their way. An effective way to manage the incoming content is to open things that sound interesting in a new window, and keep scrolling until one has glanced at everything, and then, to read the 3 or 4 things that really caught one’s eye. These items should be bookmarked and tagged with del.icio.us. For this assignment, this tagging routine is taken one step further by requiring students to fill out the notes field in the del.icio.us site. The notes field allows users to type 255 characters – about 40-50 words. When filling out the notes field, students are asked to answer the following:

“why did you tag the site, why did it catch your eye, how did you find it, why is it useful to you?”

Weekly Assignment Requirements:

-tag a minimum of 4 “things” with del.icio.us

-use the tags – “CEP815″ and “weeklyreader” (so your instructor knows which ones to count towards the assignment)

-annotate the notes field

Steps for tackling the assignment:

Step 1: Make sure everyone in class is in your del.icio.us network. Here are directions on adding others to your network (most of you have already figured this out!): http://del.icio.us/help/network

Step 2: Tag a site “for” someone in class. If you installed the del.icio.us browser tools, you will see your network show up when you click on “tag”. As you are tagging a site, if you click “for:gravesle,” then Leigh Graves will see “Links for you (1)” highlighted in the navigation bar when she visits her del.icio.us page.

Step 3: PLAY!

Lots of outside developers have created websites that interact with del.icio.us to create visualizations of your content – there is A TON OF POTENTIAL to use these in educational settings!!! 3rd party tools can be found here: http://del.icio.us/help/thirdpartytools

Here’s how to get the del.icio.us feed to appear in MSU’s ANGEL system: http://feed2js.org/

Examples of Student Work:

History of the Assignment:

22Dec

Socially Sourced Feedback: The Experiment

Abstract: In this exercise, students are connected to experts in their field for feedback coming from another “expert” beyond the instructor. Using a combination of Jing + Screecast applications, the external reviewers comment on students’ online products (in the original case, modules for an online class).

Description: Ongoing thoughtful instructor feedback without question plays a large role in student learning. However, students tend to appreciate getting feedback from additional people in the field. If available, instructors can tap into their diverse Personal Learning Network (PLN) to match up students with a broader set of reviewers of their work. For example, in teaching “CEP 820: Teaching K12 Students Online” with the culminating project of creating a complete online course module, instructor Leigh Wolf was “lucky to have a large and diverse Personal Learning Network” consisting of “professors, MAET alumni, PhD students, practicing teachers, online learning experts,” and so on. By asking friends and colleagues to access a student course and use Jing + Screencast.com (both free tools) to record their reactions, feedback and suggestions for improvement, an instructor can provide students with an “extra set of eyes” on their work that might be somewhat different from his or her views and preferences. Ideally, one would specifically target people in one’s PLN who would match well with the students’ background or project at hand.

In the case of the student-created online-course modules of CEP 820,online modules were sent to reviewers who’s professional experience and interest matched the content at hand (see examples of such matches below).

Challenges regarding this exercise:

There is a risk in relying too heavily on one’s PLN to provide students with reviewers. At the end of the semester, something like this is the icing on the stress cake. It helps to time the submission of the final project 4 weeks before the official end of the semester to try and alleviate some of this stress.
The process is tedious to manage. Until someone develops a way of making the revier/reviewee process a little more automatic, it has to be done manually. This requires minute attention to detail, making sure the right hyperlinks were going to the right people and making sure no one fell through the cracks. With everyone using different course management systems, keeping track of all the access points can be a bit of a challenge.
Not everyone may turn their assignment in on time. Even understanding instructors who realize that things happen, especially with courses such as CEP 820 where students are working adults, many carrying 2 or more courses plus a full time job will realize that it is not fair to the external reviewers to send them late reviews (as they too have full plates.) In those cases, teaching assistants or gracious volunteers and the instructor may have to fill in for the late submission reviews.
It is unlikely to be able to match everyone up with the “perfect” person — in all likelihood one will have to stretch things a bit when it comes to content experts. This is fine as long as some other relevant expertise can be provided, as in CEP 820 where all reviewers were experts in online/hybrid course creation and pedagogy.

The upsides regarding this exercise:

Students may potentially get connected to AMAZING people they would not otherwise “meet.”
The PLN reviewers are able to experience an alternative form of assessment (using Jing & Screencasts) in a “low-risk” setting, i.e., with students in a course such as CEP 820. In the past, external reviewers expressed appreciation in learning how to use screencasting as a form of assessment/evaluation.

Additional considerations/lessons learned:

It may pay off to be relatively explicit with reviewers regarding the technical side of the reviewing task and to give them some tips on microphone and recording techniques.
Only ask external reviewers to perform one review
Adjust the final project due date even earlier – 5 weeks before the end of the semester? - to avoid the end of semester crunch.

Examples of student work:

Troy’s review of Erin’s “6 Traits of Writing” on Weebly Unit
Jessica’s review of Emily’s “American History” Moodle Unit
Sean’s review of Marc’s “Jared Diamond unit for World History” in Blackboard

History of the assignment: 16 brave souls were willing to participate in the experiment of socially sourcing feedback for students in CEP 820 and graciously offered their precious time to assist in this experiment:

21Dec

Video Voicemails

Abstract: By producing and publishing short video clips on the class website, teachers can create a sense of presence and highlight important class concepts and activities from a distance.

Description: Video voicemails are a great, quick way to stay in touch with students in online or hybrid courses, or when traveling in face-to-face courses, ensuring that students know the instructor is still present in the course. Such brief (roughly 2 minute long) clips are easily created using a FlipCam or the PhotoBooth on Mac to record the video, but any digital camera with video capture will work. The video voicemails help create the connection between student and instructor and are also a nice outlet to reinforce important concepts/theories, address confusion, and create a class culture.

Just remember, keep them short! Anything beyond the 2 minute mark will move it beyond “voicemail” and turn it into a “regular” lecture.

As an assignment, students can be asked to create a fun-and-informative sample video voicemail for a class of their choosing, taking into account the background of their class, the time frame in which it would be sent to students, the topic of the course at the time, and making good choices about what to include and what to highlight given the tight timeframe.

Examples of Student Work: [INSERT THE TWO LEIGH VIDEOS]

Assignment History:

Grading Suggestions:

21Dec

“Playing Tag”

Abstract: This face-to-face activity replicates online social networking without the medium – by “tagging” oneself and fellow networkers in the room using sticky notes, enabling a new perspective on what usually happens online.

Description: Analog Social Networking

Basic steps of the exercise:

Participants in the room are invited to put business cards/ID cards on their chairs
They then tag themselves with keywords on sticky notes
Going around the room, they network by discussing their tags, words in common, and
They add more sticky notes to their own tags and tag each other as well
After everyone’s met a substantial amount of people, debrief

This exercise deliberately takes the technology out of networking in order to highlight different aspects of what occurs online. The National Writing Project Annual Meeting has used this activity originally, recreating a social networking experience by actually socially networking with the people – strangers with a shared interest area – in the room. By doing so, the cognitive tasks of what occurs in online environments became visible in new ways. In online social networking, our interactions may have become so commonplace as to become invisible, whereas taking the online-networking mechanisms (here the reliance on tags) back into the face-to-face world, we become aware of them again because they are now somewhat “strange.”

Thus, going around and discussing one’s tags, participants are able to make new connections and further our own learning, both about content as well as the networking process more generally.

Debriefing can be done with the lens of game[HK1] and play theory, highlighting the risk-taking that is necessary to really integrate something new. Failing[HK2] to master something, especially something challenging, should be encouraged, because it is through failure that we learn. When we learn through trial and error, we make that learning part of ourselves, those neural pathways become set, and we have a new piece of knowledge that also has meaning. Facts and how-to’s are immediately available from a quick Google search, but to integrate that learning into our psyche: that has stickiness. We won’t forget.

Fostering play and risk-taking is important especially for adult learners. Most of us teachers were really good at school and loathe getting “Fs.” But with technology, there are no grades, only the ability to puzzle through a tricky problem and come to a solution. And so we play, we fail, and we try again.’

Examples of Student Work:

Tags picture

Assignment History: Adapted from Paul Allison, Bud Hunt, and Chris Sloan (original session at the National Writing Project Annual Meeting, 2010)

[HK1]Is there a “game and play theory” – don’t game theory and play theory make pretty different claims if taken individually?

[HK2]Does this relate to either of the theories mentioned? Clarification may help.

01Nov

Seeing Differently (Veja Du with Video)

Abstract: This is another exercise in looking at the world differently – of making the familiar strange and the strange familiar. This assignment is the moving-pictures version of the “Véjà du” assignment also listed on this page.

Description: There are many ways of creating a Véjà du-Video that makes the familiar strange and the strange familiar. For example, by taking a picture of an object at extended intervals (e.g. hourly, daily, weekly, depending on the rate of change in the depicted object) and editing these images together using[H1] …….., the object or scene can be brought to life in unexpected ways. For an illustration, see the “breathing apple” linked below. Conversely, slowing a scene down can bring out qualities that are usually outside of our awareness (the slow-motion view of a rain drop hitting the surface of a glass of puddle of water is an example). Other ways to go about this assignment are capturing the organic features of non-living things, such as the unfolding packaging materials in the “Packaging Life” video below, or drawing out stable patterns from moving scenes (as when a busy traffic intersection at night turns into a stream of bright lines when shown in quick motion).

Examples of Student Work: See these very interesting video examples of this on the site LikeCOOL. This site has everything from after-office neckties, to inflatable boxing gloves… but in between these crazy things are some cool videos. Here are three (in increasing order of coolness[H2] ):

Specific software?

Insert video links

Slow Moscow (ART) from Andrey Stvolinsky on Vimeo.

Ecological apple (experimental short) from Andreas Soderberg on Vimeo.

“Packaging’s Life” from Silvio Giordano on Vimeo.

29Oct

Storyboarding Challenge

Abstract: Using film-production story boards, students record and communicate their ideas for scenes on an educational topic.

Description: For this quickfire we will be looking at the usefulness of storyboarding. The storybaording process is a very important step in creating any type of planned video shoot. Storyboarding allows for the ideas about your video project to be expressed verbally and then put onto a visual board so everyone involved can see the tentative layout and flow of the video project. The storyboard allows for the identification of all the scenes or parts of the video, these can then be handled individually in smaller chunks and then put together to create the final video. Storyboarding will also allow for the ease of adjusting and modifying the video as you progress through the project.

A more detailed definition of storyboards… Storyboard Resources/Templates: AFI Storyboard Process

Step 1: I will put you in groups and hand your group a secret topic. (The secret topic can be ANYTHING, a math problem, case study, foreign language scenario, be creative, you can do this with any discipline!) – Alternatively, Chose Topic (change, creativity, design, leadership, learning, technology)

Step 2: On storyboard paper, draft the scenes of your planned presentation. Each scene should run 10 seconds. (Here is a storyboard you can use - http://bit.ly/1uKliQ – you can change the number of scenes and length depending on how much time you have.) You have 10 minutes to complete this task.

Step 3: Take your group storyboard and pass it to the group on your left. (This “surprising twist” in the assignment highlights the importance of communication and storyboarding!!)

Step 4: Now, you must execute the storyboard you were given. Record each scene (in sequence). You have 10 minutes to complete this task.

Step 5: If you have laptops, stitch the 3 scenes together – if not, turn the Flip in to the instructor.

Step 6: Watch the creations!

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Deep Dive MAET Style 47 Hour QF

Good / Bad Design

“Playing Tag”

Seeing Differently (Veja Du with Video)

Storyboarding Challenge

LESSON ARCHIVE

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