The Future is Here- Here Comes Everything

The Future is Here

by Karen Hamilton - Monday, August 2, 2010, 12:35 PM

What I find most interesting in the discussion question this week is that most of what is mentioned –continuous access, contact with others, information sources with learnable customization- is already here. A lot of what we previously had to remember is no longer necessary. I can honestly say I only know about three phone numbers: my own, my college number and one friend’s number. If I search my memory bank I can remember all of my old home phone numbers and some phone numbers from long ago, but I couldn’t tell you the phone numbers of most of my current friends. Apparently, my mind has dumped the requirement for remembering them. Those numbers are stored in a cell phone that has pictures of people and names, and I don’t have to key in the digits, so I think of people in a non numerical way. By accessing one of the augmented reality apps on my iPhone like Layar or Wikitude or Foursquare, I can augment my real life with information that is continuously available. My Macbook is hooked up to my LCD screen so I can surf on the laptop or on the TV screen and switch to cable and watch an on demand channel.

In a world with all this and a future with even more, what do I need to know? I’d say a whole lot but not necessarily the same as what I may have needed to know yesterday. Maybe I don’t need as many details, but I’d say I’d need to know how to navigate and understand how to use what’s there to make sense. In a world of constant and exponentially increasing technology, we need to know how to change and adapt. We need to understand what is real, what is important. We need to be able to sift through everything, analyze, and evaluate. And we still need a lot of basic knowledge that is the foundation for understanding complex subjects.

As Burbules says in Meanings of Ubiquitous Learning, ubiquitous learning is more that anytime- anywhere, and the distinction between formal and informal education is blurred. Teachers are no longer just the source of learning; they should be and will be more guide, more broker and learning is not and will not be just in educational institutions during distinct time periods. Learning will be more and more in immersive environments.

Two courses ago, I created a wiki in Wiked on Augmented Reality in Education http://wik.ed.uiuc.edu/index.php/Augmented_Reality_in_Education  Now located here http://augmented-reality-in-education.wikispaces.com/ In the wiki, I talked about 5 applications of Augmented Reality in Education: AR in training, AR in Discovery Based learning, AR in Gaming, AR to Model Objects and Augmented Reality Books. Augmented reality is one way to provide opportunities for learning that is immersive. With many of these applications there is situated learning. Kids playing an augmented reality game that takes place in a real location interact with real and virtual characters to discover what really happened during a past event, or discover the source of an environmental problem. (see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBG0_jfXt7o )

A doctor using a augmented reality simulation is able to practice a real world operation in a no consequence world. A mechanic can learn a process with information overlaid on a real process so that he/she can follow the steps.

The emphasis in these types of AR apps is on learning skills but also on the critical skills necessary to solve a problem. Information from these processes also can be captured and replayed so that not only the person taking part can watch and learn again but also that someone else can assess the process through a back channel. Augmented reality books, offer not just a reading experience but also an interactive process with visuals that are off the page. (See AR Book http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=siOUOPh-7vM ) Augmented reality and virtual experience in the future will create opportunities for learners to experience and learn by doing not just on their own but collaboratively in teams.

Education in higher grades, from my point of view, will have less focus on just remembering information. Focus will be directed more to learning what information is relevant and how it can be used. Learning will be more authentic and situated. A year or two ago, I read of a teacher who allowed all the students in his class to use the Internet to complete their final exams. His thinking was that in the real world when employees have a task to complete, they have access to the Internet, so why shouldn’t students have that access during an exam in school. What that teacher was saying and what many others now are saying is that it is not just the information that is important. The search for the right information, the critical thinking skills to solve a problem is also very much a key.

We may talk about a “learned” person- one who has acquired much knowledge through study. Maybe in the past that was the goal. I’d say that the future is not so much in learned persons but more in “learning persons"-- ones who know how to continuously learn, change and evolve. As Burbules says, it is more than life-long learning; it’s not in a designated time or space and maybe it’s a changed world where, “to be is to learn.”


References
Augmented Reality in Education. (2010). WikEd. Retrieved from http://wik.ed.uiuc.edu/index.php/Augmented_Reality_in_Education now at http://augmented-reality-in-education.wikispaces.com/

Nicholas C. Burbules, “Meanings of ubiquitous learning.” Ubiquitous Learning, Bill Cope and Mary Kalantzis, eds. (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2009), pp. 15-20.

Hoodwinked by Facts

 Is the Truth out There?

by Karen Hamilton - Monday, July 5, 2010, 07:06 PM

While it is true that the web allows anyone to be a knowledge provider and inevitably leads to more and more information that we as users must sift through, the technology or Web 2.0 is not necessarily the problem. Technology may serve to amplify the problem. For me it is wholly a question of critical thinking skills and that, hopefully, is one of the most important skills that should be gained from education.

Moon Hoax 1835

Humans have been hoodwinked, bamboozled by false facts from the beginning of time. Do we trust print or media? In 1835 Benjamin Day's New York Sun ran a series of six articles that captured the nation's attention. There was life on the moon and Sir John Herschel, well known astronomer said it was so. The moon was full of bison, goats, unicorns, and bat winged humanoids who built temples. People couldn't wait for the next edition. Using the grandiose scientific language of the time, the story was so popular that it was reprinted and circulated in both local and national papers. After the story had its desired effect, it was revealed as a hoax. The great Moon Hoax of 1835 had done its job: increased circulation. And in 1938 when Orson Wells on the day before Halloween broadcast his War of the Worlds drama on radio causing panic amongst listeners who believed aliens were invading, there was the inevitable outcry against the evil and dangerous broadcast industry. Here we go again.

Do we trust what we see in the news, when their driving force is often, “If it bleeds it leads?” Can we trust a textbook? Pick up a textbook from the 50s and check how much of the so-called facts still add up. If we look at a home economics textbook from back then, we would certainly know that a woman’s place is in the home baking cookies and having babies not worrying her pretty little head with matters such as these. Knowledge isn’t a static kind of thing. It’s subject to revision. An authority today may not be the authority tomorrow.


That’s not to say that there is not more to consider in light of user-generated content and knowledge that is collectivized. But to me what it says is that education is more important than ever and it’s a teachers job to provide students with the experience of sifting through the muck to find the good and trustworthy bits. The search is important.

Instead of banning the use of sites like Wikipedia, students should be taught how to get to the truth of what is posted. There is no putting the genie back. The students are on the net; it’s our job to harness the powers of it and help show them a critical eye. Constructivists believe that students should build their own knowledge. Web 2.0 gives that opportunity as students and teachers can deconstruct and recreate original content and share it. With contribution, also comes responsibility. Should we discourage the collective contribution? I think not, but teaching thinking is never easy. In college many times students come prepared to memorize facts and they haven’t always been encouraged to think. It’s our job to get them questioning things. From what I’ve heard in K-12 it is often about answers set in stone. But even so called educated people can have narrow thinking when they expose themselves to only one side of an issue.

Would our students become relativists believing that it’s all equally true and believe that there is no real truth because of all the information that they can’t weed through? Would they believe that it all depends on one’s point of view? In my experience of 20 years teaching college, I have to say I haven’t found a lack of opinion. A problem more often is belief in things just because they are on the net or in a book, or “so and so said”. The courses I teach all address the media, so if I can’t get across the importance of critically evaluating any evidence no matter the media, then I haven’t done my job. But with all of us a creators also comes responsibility. As potential authors, students and contributors should learn to evaluate the consequences of what they post. In this way, the learning opportunity expands even further.

To me, what the web offers is neither a wondrous vision of the collective unconscious nor the gates to Dantes Inferno; it’s a complicated place that needs careful examination. We must examine not only content but also the meanings of all these words: knowledge, authority, expert, trust, fact, independence, reality, truth, credibility, wisdom and how they relate to both old and new technologies. It’s all about thinking, critical thinking.

Maybe we need a course on Prankonomy..

“Take and be taken. There's a skeptic born every minute. Every man a mountebank, every man a mark! These are your new commandments, O children of Barnum, Borat, and Blair Witch. The source of hoodwinkery has shifted from the all-powerful (ad agencies, governments, MTV) to the tweeting masses—and lo, charlatanism is democratized. …Still, it's sometimes hard to distinguish a prank from a scam, a sham from a fraud, a Nigerian prince from Prince Albert in a can.”
See Wired’s Guide to Hoaxes: The Official Prankonomy http://www.wired.com/culture/culturereviews/magazine/17-09/mf_hoax




References/Resources

Brown, S. (Aug 24, 2009).Wired's Guide to Hoaxes: How to Give — and Take — a Joke, Wired. Retrieved from http://www.wired.com/culture/culturereviews/magazine/17-09/mf_hoax

O’Reilly, T. (Sept 30, 2005). What is Web 2.O, Oreilly.com. Retrieved from http://oreilly.com/web2/archive/what-is-web-20.html

O’Reilly, T. & Battelle J. (2009). Web squared: Web 2.0 five years on, Web 2.0 Summit. Retrieved from http://www.web2summit.com/web2009/public/schedule/detail/10194

Wesch, M. (Jan 31, 2007). The machine is us/ing us. Mwesch:YouTube. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gmP4nk0EOE

What do Marks Mean?

The Problem or is that Opportunity of Huck Finn

by Karen Hamilton - Tuesday, June 22, 2010, 03:28 PM

The case study presented with the multiracial group of students who created a multimedia version of a final project on Huck Finn rather than the individual written report required is certainly complicated on many levels. In many respects, the case study, the subject matter and the writing in the novel reflect on many of the issues inherent in The New London Groups 1996 paper, A Pedagogy of Multiliteracies: Designing Social Futures.

In the novel it is evident that both Huck and Jim are intelligent but uneducated. The language they use is considered “unsivilised.” On the other hand, the so-called civilized characters act in less than civilized ways. The journey of the main characters represents an authentic education to the characters. The book both presents and creates a number of moral dilemmas. Because of the portrayal of its characters and its racially charged language, it has become a controversial book and its use in education has often been challenged.

Can an assignment that asks students to read the book and write a summary on their own reflect the complexity of the book? Are all of the students mature enough to deal with the multilevel racial issues on their own? I think not. This is my first dilemma with the assignment.

Perhaps how the students took on the project as a group and illustrated the ideas in Huck Finn speaks to the lack of forethought in the original assignment. Did the students feel a need to discuss and work together? As the New London Group states, “Our view of mind, society and learning is based on the assumption that the human mind is embodied, situated and social.” (A Pedagogy of Multiliteracies, 1996) To me, this book is not one to be taken on alone, and left to a book report. What the students who decided to create a multimedia project did was most real and authentic. Not only did they create an interesting multimedia project, but they were also critical and questioned Twain’s portrayal of race. A discussion of the portrayal of race is something that needs to happen with a controversial book like this. Their use of Hip Hop to illustrate the book is interesting especially since it, like the language in the book, is often controversial.

To me, what these students created was similar to what the London Group asks. “Multiliteracies also create a different kind of pedagogy, one in which language and other modes of meaning are dynamic representational resources, constantly being remade by their users as they work to achieve their various cultural purposes.” These students redesigned, to use the language of the New London Group, much like today’s students who create mash-ups to re-envision the then and the now. Their learning was authentic and meaningful.

Having defended the work of the group, I have to now ask what was the purpose of the assignment? In my college, our courses have clearly defined outcomes and assignments should link to outcomes. Was the outcome here for students to gain a deeper understanding of the book and to use critical thinking skills to analyze it? If this is the outcome, then the outcomes have been met. If, however, the outcomes of the assignment were the above plus also to demonstrate in writing using standard writing, grammar, spelling, punctuation and bibliographical format, then the writing portion has not been met. If this were the case, I would call the students in to discuss how valuable the project was and to ask them how they would meet the last outcome. In my experience, asking students what should happen usually leads to the best solution because they are the ones who decide on what exactly it should be. In this case, any written work submitted would be individual. Perhaps this written work would explain how their project led each of them to a deeper understanding of the book, the issues and how it is relevant to them today. This request should not be presented as a penalty but as a chance to get the highest mark that it sounds to me like they deserve.

In real life, this most likely wouldn’t have happened to me because all of my assignments have options for more creative delivery. The courses I teach relate to media, and today that necessitates more than a flat text driven assignment. The above teacher though, might want to reflect on the assignment and create an assignment that involves social discussion, reflection and a multi literacy approach.

I hadn’t really thought about Mark Twain and Huck Finn for a long time, so it sent me back to do a bit of re-reading and also to look into the controversy of the book. In my journey, I came across Peaches Henry’s 1992, 8200-word essay The Struggle for Tolerance: Race and Censorship in Huckleberry Finn detailing the controversy. In her thorough and thoughtful essay she brings out many sides to the controversy but she concludes:

“The insolubility of the race question as regards Huckleberry Finn functions as a model of the fundamental racial ambiguity of the American mind¬set. Active engagement with Twain's novel provides one method for students to confront their own deepest racial feelings and insecurities.”

For me, active engagement with Twain’s novel is precisely what occurred when the students created a multimedia view of Huck Finn. They deconstructed the novel and reconstructed it in a way that was meaningful and relevant. If my students do that, I am more than happy.

What is it that we share in common?

We share a common goal to communicate and to question, and to make and create meaning of this thing we call life.


References
Cazden, C., Cope, B. Fairclough, N., Gee, J. et al. (Spring 1996). A pedagogy of multiliteracies: Designing social futures, Harvard Educational Review; 66, 1 Research Library pg. 60.

Henry, Peaches. (1992). The Struggle for Tolerance: Race and Censorship in Huckleberry Finn, Satire and Evasion: Black Perspectives on Huckleberry Finn. Retrieved from http://homepages.wmich.edu/~acareywe/huck.html

Troubleshooting Reflection EPSY 457

by Karen Hamilton - Monday, 20 July 2009, 05:27 pm

When I began reading the Pool, Edwards and Jarvis article “The Home Network as a Socio-Technical System" article, I was immediately struck with the sentence, “Our analysis unpacks a number of these properties, including deep heterogeneity and multilayered nature of home networking and the character of networking as an infrastructure technology and the intertwining of the ephemeral, digital aspects of networking with the physical infrastructure of the home.” My immediate reaction to this sentence was, “Say what?”

Fortunately, the article does go on to explain what they are talking about. Interesting to me was that one of the points they make is that there is often a gap between the language of the expert who helps troubleshoot the problem and the person who needs assistance. They note that there is a need to find a common ground.

In any communication the words we choose are important to getting our message across. I’m sure most of us have come across the person who is so inside their topic that they no longer speak English as we know it. Academics and IT people can both be guilty of this. Their point about finding common ground is an important one. I’ve taken some courses in web design where the teacher was quite an expert in the subject, but was not terribly successful in imparting the knowledge to the student because he was unable to recall what it was like to know nothing or little about a particular topic. For me one of the key things when helping someone else troubleshoot is empathy and a recollection of a time when I knew as little as the person I’m trying to help.

On page 280 of the Pool, Edwards, and Jarvis article they say that studies have shown that, “technicians calibrate the advice they give based on how much technical expertise they perceive the caller to have.” This point stuck home to me. On the rare occasions I’ve had to call for technical assistance- usually Rogers –internet issues, I’ve very quickly dropped a few techie words and said I’ve done a few more complex troubleshooting things that let them know they don’t have to talk to me like I’m six! Again this is finding the common ground.

The biggest issue I experience with any systems and seeking help is that because I’m a Mac user, I always get the words, “We don’t support mac” whether it is on my college's website or the internet company I deal with. Luckily, mac users don’t usually need their support!!!

Reading the article about setting up a home network made me think about my own experience of setting up my own. I’ve set up a few; but if I think of the last one, the first key was finding a system that was mac friendly and one that promised to work with my operating system. There was a CD, but my mac recognized what was going on, so it wasn’t difficult to set it up. I’d say too that because it was something I’d done before and helped others set up-even PC friends it didn’t seem difficult.

The article also points out that neither the caller nor technicians have a “holistic view of the network” and that this makes understanding and troubleshooting difficult. I’d say this is one of the biggest problems. I’ve tried to help friends over the phone with troubleshooting their various problems. One problem I’ve encountered is that people can be so obsessed with whatever they can’t do that they won’t just stop and take a deep breath and look at the big picture. I was recently trying to help a friend over the phone. She was creating a web page using Komposer. She was telling me that the page was now on the internet, but when I went to the website it was not there. I understood that the reason she thought her site was on the internet was that the links to her pages and images were relative to her computer so for her alone it looked OK. As I was trying to explain to her that her page was not on the internet, she was getting really angry with me. The problem was that she did not have the big picture of how links relate to each other. Finally I asked her to go to her daughter’s computer to bring up the page. When she saw that on her daughter’s computer her page wasn’t there, she realized that maybe I wasn’t making it up. So, I’d agree that both sides really do have to have an understanding of each one’s view. But also it's important to step back and look at the big picture.

The article also suggests that the user be provided some resources to provide basic and relevant information how things function so that a person can figure things out and not need to call. I’d say this is one of the key things we all have to think about when we are creating any online materials. First we should have a site user-tested to gain feedback. If possible have a survey but better is to watch how a person uses something. That way we can see what doesn’t work or is confusing or needs more information. Sometimes things have to be said twice or in multiple ways. If we look at the online orientation to CTER and the Help-seeking PowerPoint by Crystal and Jinhee, we can see that questions are addressed and answered every which way and if something is in question there are mechanisms set up so that the user can ask a question. What I thought was brilliant was that most of these technical issues can be worked through before even the first class begins. Reading through some of the examples in the Home Networking article, you have to laugh at some of the assumptions people make- like the person who assumed if you just take it out the box and plug it in, it will magically work or the people who managed to connect to their neighbours wireless! In the future the guy who takes the product out of the box, may in fact be correct that it sets itself up.

The first thing I thought of when I read the article on using stories and case-based reasoning by Jonassen and Hernandez-Serrano to support problem solving was-So that’s why we are blogging about our troubleshooting stories! When I think of how I wrote my own first troubleshooting blog post, I can say that although I saw the analytical outline, I choose to tell the story in my own voice and then afterward break it out analytically. But if I think of how I actually approach a troubleshooting situation it’s analytical and probably a lot like what Ross and Orr suggest. Largely I’d say I agree that stories are meaningful and helpful in understanding and problem solving. I might suggest some other reasons why stories are meaningful and are memorable. When we process a story, we are creating a mental picture, recreating a scene, constructing it in our own visual vocabulary and we are engaged. For me this causes a kind of different stickiness. We remember things that engage us and it’s not a stretch to say that we would remember troubleshooting tales and that we index these in our own memory bank. So I’d say stories and cases are useful, but I wouldn’t say the be all and end all, more a part of a tool kit. When I worked in advertising, I worked with a few recent MBA graduates. I’d been working in advertising for a few years in the trenches so I had a good idea about what happened in the real world. I would be in meetings with the young MBAs and they would invariably start seeing everything based on this case or that case. I wasn’t the only one who would have to explain to them that everything couldn’t be reduced to this case or that case and that what we were in was a dynamic evolving unique situation.

So although stories have a distinct appeal for me, I don’t like too much structure. Troubleshooting for me isn’t always linear. I wondered if I had something in common with Ross and Orr’s resistant group. I like a good story but my science side always reminds me that my story is an anecdote, and doesn’t necessarily mean my experience will translate to anyone else’s.

I found Ross and Orr’s “Teaching structured troubleshooting” interesting and relevant to not just troubleshooting but also to instructional design. Their 6 stages seem to be not unlike what I do when I approach problems. It was interesting that the group that had the most change appeared to be the ones who translated its use to everyday life situations. It’s interesting too that the group who would be considered most closely related to the novice category had the most gains and the ones who considered themselves to have the most effective troubleshooting skills, didn’t see the benefit of using the approach. This made me wonder about the nature of the groups being examined. Did they have different temperaments? Is a person who is drawn to a career that requires significant problem solving skills fundamentally different from one who is in a career that requires just a moderate level of problem solving?

Problems are my business
If I think about myself, I might suggest that a love for problem solving is part of my temperament. Maybe environment has an effect too. My family background was challenging and nothing was ever easy. Perhaps that helps make a person a natural to problem solving. I love a good challenge; asking for help isn’t something that comes naturally. I want to conquer whatever it is that comes up. So when the question is asked, “Who do I go to for troubleshooting?” The answer is, “ mostly me.” And if somebody else has a technology problem, I can’t wait to try to help solve it. For me what helps is a level of confidence. Lots of encountered problems builds the database, but also helps see things in different ways. Being around the people who fix things is always something I’ve loved. But also taking things apart and seeing how they work, sometimes is helpful- not computers..but maybe toasters and things! If something is beyond my scope, I’ll ask. In general doing a lot of different things and reading about a lot of things helps.

Where do I go for help? Google- a well worded concise phrase almost always gets me what I’m looking for in a minute or two. If the problem is from a specific area, and I have an expert in my community of practice, I will make a call, but more often I’m the one helping out my friends with setting up their computers, networks HD TV systems, fixing their software problems.

How can troubleshooting be improved in my workplace?
There are several ways troubleshooting could be improved at my college. The first would be to consider all users. Having a statement like, “So and So College does not support Macintosh.” excludes a significant group of our learners and that’s not a good thing from many perspectives. We live in an age where the help desk is outsourced, and we aren’t allowed to approach people we work with. We have to call some outside agency to get a ticket. I’m not going to get anywhere fighting that battle; we did however, manage to intimidate the school to get the help desk back in Canada at least! I think things could be improved if sometimes we didn’t have to go through that ticket process and could just get help directly. What would help students taking completely online courses would be some 24/7 help where a real person could troubleshoot or at least promise a response within a short period of time. If there were better communications between departments, and a better understanding of the effects of different things then troubleshooting might be less necessary. Some departments don’t take into consideration when key events are taking place during the semester. Having all computer systems or course management systems like WebCT shut down on the weekend before final exams, might not be a good idea!

What all of the articles this week do is speak to the complexity of troubleshooting. I’d say that they generally talk about the subject but not necessarily from the same perspective. What that suggests to me is that it’s good to consider any idea from multiple perspectives. Look at things from inside, from outside, upside down and backwards. There isn’t always going to be one way. If we are the producers of content that will be manipulated by users of technology we have to consider the language we use, the ways we make our information and tasks clear, the differences of the learners as well as the differences of the technology they use and their levels of expertise. That’s a lot to consider. But if we can provide answers to potential problems before the materials and technologies are used then perhaps we can eliminate the need for our users to troubleshoot needlessly.

Another thing to consider when troubleshooting is emerging technologies that can help us show what our technology problems are in a real way. Most of us have seen and used screen captures to show the exact problem we are experiencing, but now we can do more than just share a static image we can capture full motion audio and video and send it in an instant. The app I'm taking about is called ScreenJelly. It's not only free, but it works on any computer and you don't have to download anything!

Troubleshooting Project

A project on how to Troubleshoot

  July 17, 2009

Smarty Pants

It all started with a Confession- My Memorable Troubleshooting Story

I'm the kind of person who often finds myself under a desk or on one trying to fix things and usually I'm a pretty good tech. Here's a lesson I learned.

I also pride myself in doing things that women aren't supposed to be able to do. One day I decided I needed a hose hooked up to my upper deck in my house so I could just turn on a hose up there rather than fill a watering can.

So off I went to home depot -bought the dual tap attachment and the hose, came home hooked up the dual attachment and hose, turned it on to check that both hoses were working. Bravo, me says..what a woman...now how do I get the hose upstairs? After some careful planning that involved a rope and a coat hanger that would never hang again, I managed to manipulate the hose up onto the upper deck. How clever am I, says I, all proud!

A friend comes to visit and I'm telling her how I hooked it all up myself and how difficult it was to get the hose up to the second level. She looks at me and says, "Why didn't you just bring the hose up here and then throw the end down?"
Doh!

The moral:
Sometimes when you try to be so clever and find a brilliant solution, maybe you don't need a wild creative solution. Take a look at the problem from the other end!

...............this has been a Karen Confession

And my video on My trip to Orientation