Position: Writer
Location: Anywhere

Description: Are you involved in the world of educational technology? Studying or teaching online? Developing elearning strategies for your institution and putting together blended learning curricula? Or perhaps you’re training people on how to make the most of a particular technology and writing up online learning materials? And don’t think I’ve forgotten about all you learning management system/virtual learning environment administrators! If you fall into any or all of these categories, (or one that I’ve missed) and you’re interested in writing about your colorful experiences, then you’ve come to the right place!

Virtually Scholastic is opening its digital doors to guest contributors who know how to wrap timely messages in witty packages. This is a perfect opportunity for writers interested in expanding their readership and amplifying their virtual voice. It’s also a wonderful chance for those of you who’ve been thinking about starting a blog but who aren’t really sure whether to make the investment just yet. Virtually Scholastic has been around since 2008 and has cultivated a loyal following from places around the world like the US, Canada, the UK, Australia, Italy, the Philippines, India, Spain, China and Russia.

If you know how to speak to a global community of practitioners (or aren’t exactly sure what that really means but would still like to have a go), then here are the steps to follow:

1. Read through some of the content at http://www.virtuallyscholastic.com to get a feel for the tone and the nature of the material.
2. Write what you propose to be the next post to be published on the site. Make it timely, fill it with interesting links, and remember to include a poignant message. Also remember to include one image along with source to accompany your writing.
3. Email your article to contact {at} virtuallyscholastic {dot} com along with a brief introduction to yourself and your work.

Guest contributors will be asked to write between one to two articles a month. Biographies of contributors will be featured on the site once three pieces have been published. Writers will also be expected to monitor discussions of their posts once comments start coming in, as well as to post occasional commentary to other VS posts.

I look forward to reading your work!

Mashable has been singing the praises of location-based apps spinning their case toward bottom-line hungry small business owners. Benefits like the ability to draw customers to your location and to create incentives that build a loyal following are being highlighted in the discussion as ways of helping entrepreneurs see the potentials of geolocation technology. I apologize if I’m pointing to the obvious, but my question is, ‘Have you lost your minds’?

Have we suddenly gotten over our hang-up of Big Brother watching us? You’re quite intent on keeping your browsing history private when you don’t want anyone knowing where you’re clicking. The notion of someone tracking your physical location bothers you less than someone knowing where you click? I understand how cell phone companies can justify providing services allowing account holders to ‘see’ where each one of their additional phones are at any given time as a way of enhancing parental controls, but are we sure we want to go down this road?

Loopt has been around for a while, so the concept of suping up our trendy, high-tech phones with the ability to tell us when we’re a few blocks away from our ex in an effort to avoid acting like a mature adult is no new thing. However, when the location-based technology market starts to bloom in all its invasive glory, one has to wonder where the demand is coming from for these developers to see enough lucrative opportunities to want to get in the game. Have you not reached the point yet where information overload is almost unmanageable and it’s come time to prune your way back to human interaction? Do you really want the general public to know where you are all the time? Evidently you do, because even Facebook is on board.

Are you happy now? Your dream of being able to notify everyone in your network of where you are has finally come true.  Your ‘network’ – that group of people you haven’t spoken to since you shared glue sticks in grade school but who you’ve perhaps nonetheless poked once or twice, or maybe, if you were feeling particularly generous, you may have even thrown a sheep his or her way.

You can even tag people who are with you!

Hold on, let me get this straight. Even when I’m having an actual face-to-face conversation with someone, you want me to pull out my ‘smart’ phone and make sure that my status and location are updated? Why? So as not to inconvenience all of my devoted followers? Come on! Aren’t we making the paparazzi’s lives a little too easy?

And what about the soon-to-be massive lists of external entities grabbing hold of your information (which may now also include satellite images of your backyard, what time you checked in at your gynecologist’s office and how cruel gravity was to you at your last Weight Watchers weigh-in)?

For right now, though, only a few apps have been selected to push information back into Places. Initially, Gowalla, Foursquare, Booyah (creators of MyTown and Nightclub City) and Yelp will integrate with Facebook Places. ~Source

From an educational perspective, there may be some ways to take advantage of this type of technology. For a multi-location based approach to teaching, such as the one adopted by THINK Global School, I suppose it might be interesting for parents, teachers and chaperons to know where students are throughout their years of studying abroad. I guess you could also try to make the case that it would be a good way for students to figure out how to read maps and learn some geography by getting used to seeing where all of their fellow classmates are munching their sandies and learning their Mandarin on any given day. But the question shouldn’t really be, ‘Can we think up a way to use this technology?’, should it?

Ok, granted when an application of a technology is so novel that it necessitates a change in the way to communication/operate/connect, etc., then perhaps we do have to approach a review of its potential benefits from a slightly crazed ‘inventor’ mind-set in which we think outside of the outer perimeters of the outside of the conventional box.

I suppose you could always design a business marketing class assignment around geolocation technologies asking students to develop creative ways of generating sales in specific industries by using any one of the smart phone apps out there. Some ideas that come to mind are thinking of how the restaurant industry can benefit, or perhaps the travel sector, and questioning the relationship between location-based technologies and the ever-present community rating models like Yelp and Tripadvisor, and more recently Hunch.com. Then again, that might be construed as condoning this type of technology, and to be honest, it comforts me to convince myself that it’s only a fad.

I guess if we look at the bright side, at least playing this type of ‘video’ game gets you out of the house.

So it’s been a while. I have to admit that ulterior motives have propelled me back into the blogosphere. I’m returning to VS not because I’ve been particularly moved by an ed tech article or because I’ve come across a funky new technology I wanted to show you.  To be quite honest, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed my short stint away from anything and everything related to online learning. You see…

I finished my Masters in Online and Distance Education in December ’09, and from the moment I submitted my final piece of work, there was a part of me that knew I needed to take some time to recover. Perhaps that’s a common response felt by many a grad student, but the way in which I’ve been repelled from all things technology (even my shiny new iPhone at a certain point, or the untouched iPod shuffle that’s been sitting on my desk in its original box for over a month now) was quite surprising to me. After all, one thing I’ve learned about myself throughout this process has been that I have a natural tendency to seek out new technologies, determine in what ways they work within an educational context, experiment with new applications, and join emerging groups excited to share their common interests in the field.

Maybe it was a case of me just overdosing on technology, but funnily enough, I didn’t suffer from the often paired imbalance of information overload. In fact, I’ve been deliriously delighted diving into books – the real PAPER kind! – ever since I officially parted ways with my student self and reentered into the adult world. I’ve even succumbed to redecorating my workspace in an effort to reflect my internal desire to reconnect with the less virtual literary world with which I think I might remember briefly engaging back in high school for a day or two.

I’ve unapologetically started piling books onto my revamped workspace – not elearning books, not research books, not even learning and teaching books – but the kind of books that you want to fall asleep reading at night and reopen in the morning as you take your first sip of steaming caffeinated goodness. My home office is now adorned with candles propped up on rounded glass plates, next to a crystal hourglass that’s been sitting in its original gift box somewhere in the back of my closet for long enough that I can’t remember when I got it in the first place. The coffee mugs are still there (for what an empty cerebral world it would be without them!) but no more do I have to burrow myself in piles of file folders stuffed with printouts of assessment criteria for upcoming assignments.

So back to those ulterior motives. They relate to this adult world I speak of, so often associated with mountainous career paths to climb and saturated weekly calendars to survive. It’s time to enter into the working world again, and for many of us instructional designers, our blogs are our calling cards – even more important in many ways then our CVs. So, I welcome this New Year, albeit slightly late, with this first post of twenty ten. Getting back in the game as it were… But now that I think of it, perhaps I did read something recently that’s sparked this train of thought…

I received a mailing a few days ago from my Alma Mater inviting me to join its graduate association. The group’s slogan is “In my end is my beginning” – a sentiment that so brilliantly encompasses my current state. I suppose you could say that I feel accomplished, but coupled with a presumably organic sense of achievement is this bittersweet taste of being back at square one again, and no matter how many coffees I gulp down, the bitter taste doesn’t seem to be going away. Maybe it’s got something to do with the unemployment rate or with the economy, or with the general uncertainty of the times.

In any case, regardless of my recent momentary shun of all things technology or of my desire to temporarily disengage from the virtuality of so many of the worlds we live in these days, I have continued to do one very important thing through this whole process. I’ve been determined to remember that many of my experiences as a student in the world of educational technology are most probably also experiences that other online students have shared. And now I find myself holding these thick tomes of lessons learned and knowledge gained close to me as I begin to look around for a new place to put them down so that I can share them with others.

I think that in the end, the most cherished lesson I take away with me from graduate school is of how important it is to be as observant, tolerant and open minded as we can be when we are students because that is the best way to ensure that we are heard when it is our time to teach.

I’m involved in a great initiative that I wanted to share with VS readers. Core4Women is a collaborative online community hosted in Ning that brings together women who are open to sharing their experiences with online and distance learning with other women who might be considering jumping into the elearning pool themselves. As a mentor, I share my experiences and expertise with this community in order to broaden awareness of the nature and potential benefits of online learning.

One of the ways that mentors can support women in this community is by engaging in email exchanges and live text chats with community members, as well as contributing to discussions we have on the site. We also host informative web conferences via Elluminate during which mentors introduce topics of interest to the group and both mentors and the members seeking advice can come, watch, learn and contribute.

In the spirit of exploring creative ways of using technology to further engage us in our efforts to develop this community, I’ve created a couple VoiceThreads. If you’re interested in becoming part of this great initiative (with members now spanning the globe!), you’re welcome to sign up. And, if you’re really feeling adventurous, you’re more than welcome to add a thread to either of the discussions below!

I’ve been working on reinterpreting my PLE in order to get a deeper understanding of its nature. My initial approach was to group both formal and informal learning together. This time I’m going into a bit more detail.

I’ve derived three sub-PLEs from my core map. The base categorisation is dependent upon context: the three sub-PLEs represent maps of my MA ODE PLE, my Professional PLE, and my Blog PLE. Strictly speaking, I suppose one could argue that the first represents a formal learning context, while the other two are much more self-imposed learning scenarios. Here they are below:

My MA ODE PLE (Click on the image to view full size)

My Professional PLE (Click on the image to view full size)

My Blog PLE (Click on the image to view full size)

I’ve found that reinterpreting my initial PLE has allowed me to identify components that I had originally missed. For example, I had forgotten that podcasts were made available within my course materials. I think I forgot to consider this technology in the initial map because, as an overall concept, podcasts were interesting to me a couple of years ago but I quickly became overwhelmed by the amount of information available and eventually unsubscribed from the feeds. I think that the fact that I don’t like listening to the radio also has something to do with my disengagement from the podcasting community. And finally, and probably the most important reason why I don’t listen to podcasts, is because I’m not an auditory learner. I process information better when I can read it. I think that’s probably the most important lesson that podcasting technology has taught me. Some other components I forgot to include the first time around are MS Word and Google Scholar, along with a number of creative tools that I’ve added to my Blog PLE.

This PLE drill-down also gave me a clearer picture of my dominant learning tools, namely, Firefox, which in turn means the Internet which then leads me to my laptop. The nodes that are connected by a green line are the only ones that can be accessed without the Internet.

I’m not sure whether the real value of this activity is going to be in comparing my own reinterpretations, or eventually comparing my analyses with others’ reinterpretations…

Is learning a series of transactions that combine to pave an evolutionary road of progress? If so, how is the road paved? What materials are used? Is learning the process of aligning bricks over a defined area or pouring gravel in a general direction? Is the purpose of learning to fill in all the holes, or just create enough contact between the solid points to be able to make the next step? Or perhaps, does all of this depend on what we are learning? Is the metaphor of the acquisition of knowledge more applicable to the study of mathematics then it is to the study of educational technology, for example?

This week, one of the foci of my formal studies is to reflect upon Sfard’s (1998) concept of “the metaphor of learning as acquisition and the metaphor of learning as participation” in an attempt to gain a better grasp of what the intangible process of ‘learning’ means to me. I think that these two metaphors were able to encompass the breadth of the learning experience up until a few years ago, or maybe even up to a decade ago in some cases, but the nature of our information ecology has morphed into something so complex, so intricate and approaching an unanticipated level of artificial intelligence that makes ‘learning as acquisition’ a thing of the past.

Perhaps learning as participation mixed with learning as connection is a more accurate representation of the modern-day version of learning. Although I sense that the definition of ‘participation’ must also be re-evaluated because what was engagement ten years ago has ballooned into so much more now. Affordances change the nature of everything they impact. In our case, technology has changed learning far beyond just making it more accessible. It’s opened up a great big cupboard of neatly aligned cans of worms.

When information didn’t sprout as dynamically or as quickly as it does today, it was easier to justify the metaphor of learning as acquisition. We had access to a manageable amount of information and communities could readily interact/engage with that information because it didn’t change very quickly. We talked about skills like shorthand and speed reading that helped us keep up with new information. Today, we talk about power browsing strategies and the transmission of information via video link and other forms of rich media and that just brings a whole new meaning to the truth that a picture tells a thousand words.

Why don’t I try to use a picture to describe what I mean? Below is a visual representation of Information Streams – the ways in which we connect to information in the current age. If the image below doesn’t load, just go to this link.

(Note:
You can click and drag the image to move it around.
Clicking on the magnifying glasses on the bottom left of the mind map screen enables you to zoom in and out making the font bigger or smaller.
Clicking on the plus signs next to the nodes will expand the information streams.)

I purposefully included all of these streams into one visual burp because it more closely reflects our current reality then if I were to separate each flow. For example, who can relate to this image:

I open my laptop in the morning and Firefox is still active from the day before. I have 12 tabs open in 5 windows (so that my ideas are groups in clusters). I have 4 TextEdit files open with ideas jotted down but not yet ready for publishing. I have two Scrivener files open in which I’m organising my thoughts and preparing answers to this week’s course activities. I also have a Finder window open (MAC user here) in the background that reminds me that I have to clean up some files and expand my file structure to accommodate a couple new projects on which I’m working. After a couple sips of coffee and a practiced attempt at ignoring all the information gushing out at me from my screen, I open Thunderbird to check my mail (for some reason I sleep better knowing I quit my email client before going to bed). I always have my volume set low so that when the alarm notifies me that I have new mail, I don’t get more freaked out than I normally do! After Thunderbird checks my three email accounts, it starts working on all my RSS feeds. I am comforted when I see an email from Continental Airlines or Bank of America because I know that all I have to do is click delete. If I’m brave, I’ll take a look at a new blog entry but that usually results in five or 6 more clicks and usually a new item on my TO DO List ( as per the visual above), so I have to be prepared to spend some time on that tangent if I want to follow it through.

So, if that’s what a typical day looks like for me, I don’t see how learning can be about acquisition anymore. Our mental pockets aren’t deep enough to acquire information at the rate that it becomes available. Today…I think…it’s more about…connecting the dots…

If you’ve read through my information streams, you will probably have noticed that none of them ‘end’. They all trickle off into the unknown. Whether I return to those specific streams to continue my research or I pick up somewhere else and new research leads me back to them is to be determined as I continue exploring.

Adding your information stream

Now, I invite all of you – veteran Power Browsers and Newbies alike – to help paint a more detailed picture of what information streams look like in our current reality. Think about a recent bit of research you just did, or some casual browsing you did on your lunch break, or even the stream that brought you to this blog entry. Then, add it to this mind map.

To add your information stream: Click on the mindmeister logo on the bottom right of the mind map. This will open a new window bringing you to the editable version of the map. Click on ‘Edit’ found on the bottom left of the new window to begin adding your stream. Once you’re done, you can just close the window (your changes are automatically saved).

—
Sfard, A. (1998) ‘On two metaphors for learning and the dangers of choosing just one’, Educational Researcher, vol.27, no.2, pp.4–13.

As I’ve just started studying (online) again, my mind is tuning back into things it normally only focuses on when I’m in hard-core academic mode. This morning, for example, (well, actually, for the last two mornings) I’ve been reading through the introductory materials on both of my course websites, and I ended up going through a lot of information related to library resources and referencing tools. The most common bibliographic and bookmarking tools that we’re being recommended are RefWorks and Furl, respectively.

RefWorks is only available to us while we’re registered students. After that, unless we’re affiliated with an organization that pays for access OR unless we want to pay for an annual subscription ourselves, we loose all of our research collections at the end of the academic term. Basic translation: if you want to be able to access the information you collect and store using RefWorks over then next 6-8 months, this might not be your best choice.

Furl, on the other hand, is a social bookmarking service with many features, accessible from anywhere and free to all. Although they’re not direct substitutes, if I hadn’t already been hooked on Zotero when I first learned about Furl, I probably would have given Furl more of a chance.

Now we get to the reason for this post! I wanted to share a bibliographic management tool with you that I have found to be invaluable during my courses of study (and tangential resource endeavors). Zotero is a free, open source Firefox plugin that allows you to capture resources as you come across them and organise them into neat research collections. I find it thoroughly enjoyable and intuitive to use

Zotero allows me to make sense of the piles of information I collect each time I brave the plethora of resources available within just a few clicks of a mouse. To help bring my point home, imagine that if all the files and links I collected were stacks of random pieces of paper covering every square inch of my inevitably invisible imaginary desk, then Zotero would be like the magical fairy that instantly organises all the information into a beautifully systematic filing system that I structure and that is completely aligned with my thought processes. Essentially, it allows me to know where to find stuff when I need it – whether I’m on or off line.

It also lets me summarise reference collections almost instantly. Let me show you… I’ll share a report I generated from a collection of resources I built relating to online language learning. It generates the report in html format, so I just saved that page as a pdf file which is now available to you simply by clicking here.

Now that I’ve got you hooked ( ), let’s watch the video intro together (the video below opens in a new tab/window):

Zotero even has a social feature called Zotz that allows you to share your reference collections with communities. More info below:

Here’s an exhibit I just generated. The Zotz add-on still needs a little ironing out, but it’s an exciting new development of an already exceptionally functional information management tool.

There’s even a WordPress plugin available that helps Zotero better recognise the information in your blog entries which makes for more seamless referencing of this type of information as well. From the screenshot below, you can see the little additional icon that is displayed in your address bar once this plugin is activated. When you’re viewing a WordPress blog, once you click on this icon, a window pops up (as seen below) asking you which of the entries available on the page you’re on you would like to add to your Zotero collections.

Lots of other screencast tutorials are available for those interested in exploring the tool further.

I’m not sure how much longer I’ll have access to my Sprouts, and as a result, I’m not sure how much longer the Sprouts that I’ve published on this blog will be accessible. Unfortunately, I don’t have enough resources to recreate all of my Sprouts in alternative formats, but there is one in particular that I would like transfer here into this post so that the information can continue to help those interested. This way, we can also build upon it as a community and let it grow.

On 02 Jan 2009, I published a collection of links to various reusable learning object repositories that provide access to free electronic learning tools covering a broad scope of disciplines. I’ve transferred them below (listed in alphabetical order) in case that Sprout becomes inaccessible in the near future.

I wholeheartedly encourage teachers, tutors, teaching assistants, instructional designers, learning technologists, librarians, students (both formal and informal) and anyone else who’s interested to take a look at what’s out there. These are resources for all levels of learning (K-12 through to higher and continuing education) and the list even includes some resources for the mobile learner. They can help you create blended/e-learning lesson plans, stimulate discussion among peers about how to begin integrating technology into your curricula and support your students in the development of connected learning strategies. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel. There are accessible resources out there, produced by people with subject expertise and a genuine intention to share information with the world. Take advantage!

Please note, all links below will open in new windows/tabs.

There is so much educational content freely available on the web that it can certainly seem challenging to know where to find the high quality materials from the reputable sources. Very often, when I work on the development of courses, module, programs, workshops, etc. that integrate some level of eLearning into the mix, I inevitably see teachers reach the point at which they realize how many more tools technology could enable them to provide to their students, but at the same time, how much time and energy and effort and know-how it would take to develop their learning resources. That’s my cue to start talking about reusable learning object (RLO) repositories!

Learning objects are quite tricky to define. I attempted to clarify the definition by creating my own learning object about learning objects. Have a look at it below:

In order for teachers to be able to ‘start off running’ when they initiate the development of a new eLearning initiative, I recommend browsing through the plethora of learning resources readily available online. It’s a much more empowering approach than reinventing the wheel. Besides, why don’t we focus on what we’re good at?! Why should an accounting professor be expected to learn the skills required to develop an online module teaching his or her students about the magic that is the balance sheet? Why not just tap into the global educational community and share with one another?

To help make the process of sharing a bit easier, I’ve put together a collection of learning object repositories that provide access to free materials. Have a look at the collection below and see if any of these digital libraries could help make your life a little easier!

Before I end this post, I just wanted to share the learning resource that I came across today while browsing. It’s a video entitled ‘Focus on Educational innovation‘ – part of the MIT World video library. It’s well worth watching.

Particularly Dick Yue’s presentation starting at 34 min 36 sec as he discusses the evolution and impact of MIT OpenCourseWare.

Or Shigeru Miyagawa as he talks about Star Festival – an initiative that injects support, resources and hope into urban schools in American to create the perfect tasting STEW of acceptance and integration! His talk starts at 55 min 29 sec.

And then there’s Henry Jenkins who talks to us about computer games and the extent to which their ubiquity has enabled them (or the gamers that play them!) to infiltrate into the classroom. Are video games trivial? Are they time wasters? Or, is there some pedagogic value to them? Have a look at what Henry has to say starting at 1 hr 12 min 10 sec. In particular, I found his statistics very revealing. For example, did you know that one third of MIT students surveyed admitted playing games that were not part of the instructional activities during classes!!

The question and answer session that starts at 1 hr 36 min 09 sec also broaches some interesting topics like, for example, what the difference is between the online resources for a course actually being taught to MIT students and the resources available through MIT OpenCourseWare for that same course.

Here’s the video below:

From: Virtually Scholastic