• The Ultimate New Reusable Learning Object

    18May
    Author: Katherine Pisana Categories: Education, Technology Comments: 1

    18-May-postWe all know how much students depend on Google to link them to information from all over the web. But what would happen if the search engine actually turned into the resource? Case in Point: the Wolfram computation knowledge engine. Sounds a bit more fancy then Google already! But Wolfram, the bringer of all things Mathematica, is shying away from media pressure to label his knowledge engine ‘the thing that killed Google’, and I can see why. Both serve different purposes.

    Changing our approaches

    Could this change the composition of our information streams? Could it impact upon the way we use learning objects in education and the rate at which we feel the need to keep reinventing the wheel? And how about the nature of instruction? Does it have the potential to change the way we teach and assess? For example, could you see yourself directing your students to Wolfram to help them test their understanding of the Darcy–Weisbach equation? How about a course in nutrition using Wolfram to provide students with information on the nutritional value of foods (e.g. cheeseburger). Or what about economics students using Wolfram to quickly compare the GDP of Brazil and Ecuador or astronomy students checking how far the Milky Way Galaxy is from the Earth today?

    Reliability of Information

    If you’re worried about the reliability of the information, why not get your students to do some research on it? One activity that comes to mind is:

    Phase 1: Have students look up a collection of statistics or historical facts on your subjects of choice using Wolfram.

    Phase 2: Instruct them to cross reference the results with those published in other sources to see how the information compares.

    Phase 3: Ask them to discuss the implications of the discrepancies in the information generated from this and other popular search tools, and consider why they think inconsistencies exist.

    It could be a great activity to develop information literacy and research skills that incorporates a mixture of the old and some of the newest ‘bleeding edge’ technologies around today.

    The Challenges

    The challenge here is in the way we use our minds to conceptualize the information we want to generate from this type of tool. It’s not just about finding information about ‘a topic’. It’s about the relationship of the information you’re looking for right now. And if this tool really does enable us to access information that’s only a few seconds old, maybe we have to reconsider the way we understand ‘accuracy’ of information? The relationship of information that was ‘accurate’ two hours ago may look different now.

    Does this also imply a need to change the way we reference our sources? Until now, it’s been sufficient to note the date on which you accessed a specific article or webpage. Are we now going to have to note the time as well?

    Media Response

    Today the BBC discussed the recent alpha launch of the project. Public reaction includes comments on the engine’s ‘ability to do calculations, conversions, translations and other comparisons with linguistic data’ and on the way it has given information seekers ‘new ways to find and compute data‘. Let’s see what we can do with it in education! Consider that a challenge 😉

  • Power Browsing

    14May
    Author: Katherine Pisana Categories: Technology Comments Off on Power Browsing

    Post-14_May_09
    To me, power browsing is a process of learning that involves drilling deeply into a subject while concurrently exploring information through connected research tangents. It often if not always involved the use of the Internet and other complementary technologies. It’s a really intense process in which one cycle of browsing can often take days if not weeks to complete. The end of one cycle often smears into the beginning of a new one and can sometimes lead to a feeling of information overload.

    I’m writing about this topic today because we’ve been talking about it online in one of my course forums and I’m realizing that power browsing is rather broadly interpreted. Where one person may understand it to be an intensive ‘information web’ building exercise where nodes are connected and layers of inter-related content are stacked on each other, another person may understand it to be a skimming process in which the power browser speedily scans information to just get the general idea.

    What do you think power browsing means? …and do you do it?

  • The economy and me

    05May
    Author: Katherine Pisana Categories: Education, Educational Technology Comments: 5

    RSS Job SearchI’ve started looking for a job this week, so I can tell you that the economy is much more of interest to me now than ever, particularly how it’s affecting higher education. I subscribe to a number of job search engines and associations that also syndicate new openings, so I’ve been observing the job market in California for a couple of months now. I’ve noticed very few instructional designer roles opening up, and even those that are published directly on university websites come with a disclaimer that although you can apply, they are currently under a hiring freeze so you might never hear back from them.

    I’ve also noticed some phenomenal roles – policy makers, strategists and managers of institution-wide educational technology initiatives. These are generally posted by higher education institutions that have newly established ‘elearning units’ – hubs or centers of excellence with remits to expand hybrid and fully online course offerings for their universities. These jobs sound great, not only because of the stimulating challenges that lie waiting for the people who land the roles, but also because they show signs of greater understanding and openness on the side of the institutions who are ready, willing and eager to invest in educational technology initiatives.

    So, now back to some thoughts on the economy…

    Alan Tait wrote an interesting post on the EDEN President’s Blog about Scotland’s economy and how, through direct engagement with employers, higher education in the UK is able to design custom training for the workforce to ensure that the teaching is relevant, and that the industries feel the benefits. I wanted to include below a snippet of his impressions of the ways in which the oil and gas sectors view the relevance of education:

    I was surprised by the almost total focus on the recruitment of the brightest and best of new graduates, and on coping with the difficulty in persuading new graduates that the Oil and Gas industries are attractive places to build a career. There was almost no focus from the industry representatives on the development of people in their existing workforce. My only contribution was to point out that if the competition for the brightest and best new graduates was already fierce this would only get worse because of the demographic down turn, in many developed countries at least, of this age cohort. This would mean development of the current workforce would become even more important than it was already, and that the emphasis on non-campus based forms of study that supported learning in and around the workplace rather just the campus would become all the more important.

    Some industry giants must have heard Tait’s call because they’re already starting to do their part. Microsoft announced the launch of a new program in February designed to ‘provide up to 2 million people over the next three years with the technology training needed to succeed in the 21st-century economy’. A very important step considering that our focus can’t just be on current college students struggling to get heard in the blogosphere, and kids in K-12 who we’re trying to teach about technology at as early an age as we can. How about the current workforce – those still in it that is? Companies are not likely in the position to invest in on-the-job training, and employees are probably juggling with the new responsibilities faced by so many families who have had to transition from 2- to 1-income households. These types of new training initiatives only require time and determination from the life-long student…and the payoffs of self-empowerment would be priceless.

    So, as the sun spills onto my carpet as I sit on my sofa (a change of pace from being proverbially chained to my desk – the magic of laptops!) and I can still take advantage of the quiet while the commuters are still on the roads returning home, I’ll post this message and get back to work. First point on the agenda: finish watching a webinar entitled ‘The Economy’s Impact on Higher Education’ – part of Educause’s monthly series discussing how the economic climate is impacting upon the education sector. Let’s hope they have some good news…