This roundtable session on Thursday led me to cross paths with Scott Adams who was wearing a t-shirt: I’m Blogging This. I thought that was a clever joke. And it was, considering the state of wireless access at the conference.

This was a great roundtable. It was rather coincidental that when Joanne got to the explanation of the importance of a moderator in online discussion based on the research of David Winograd, who should show up but David Winograd. Coincidence?

It was the first roundtable I have ever attended and the scheduling of this conference really helped to showcase roundtables and make them an option to attend since there weren’t 200 concurrent sessions at the same time. This was a great example of a well-prepared presentation, based on a research study and with engaging dialogue of the study and the issues it brought out. Because the study was about a discussion forum for a landscape architecture class, Joanne brought up the point that one of the challenges was the disconnect of what students were rewarded for (exploring natural space, rather than sitting on a computer) and what they were being asked to do (sit on a computer). I like that she referred to this as the rituals of the field, as I hadn’t been thinking of the discipline as a very specific culture—but it’s a great reminder that in every context, we need to be aware of the cultural context and potential disconnects of the behaviors of the culture and what we want people in the culture to be doing. And then, I think, we need to ask the question WHY we are asking them to do it? It seems that often these top-down initiatives to integrate technology into instruction even in places where it is not an appropriate match and there is instructor resistance does even more of a disservice (students are exposed to ineffective implementation of technology and are thus turned off to future experiences).

Technorati Tags: AECT

Sorry. Couldn’t resist the cheesy title. Trey Martindale and David Wiley presented about Blogs, Wikis and RSS feed at 2:15 pm on Thursday of the AECT Conference. I think I went thinking I would just see one of the two presentations in the 1 hour slot, since I already know about blogs and RSS and such, but it turns out they were really presenting jointly. Also, the style of the presentation was very engaging. I liked that they started out by having us introduce ourselves to one another. Somewhat like church, but that’s ok. Trey, after all is an “RSS evangelist.”

From my perspective, it was already going over a lot of information I more or less knew. But it was layered with ideas for practical use and hit a gamut of potential knowledge from beginner to intermediate. I do imagine that if one were completely unfamiliar with these tools, it might have been a bit overwhelming.

As I said to John DoE at the end, “I learned something.” He was surprised to hear that and later commented that while he knew it, he didn’t always use it. THAT’s what I MEANT to say. Although I hadn’t realized that one could share their de.li.cious bookmarks as an RSS feed…so I guess I did learn something new…

Other discussions about this session:
Rick’s Canadien Café
The EdTech Posse

Technorati Tags: AECT

I was just reading Mike’s comment about the division meetings being on Wednesday afternoon. I, too, was stymied by this arrangement. I had even checked the schedule (or so I thought…that online AECT schedule is nearly impossible to maneuver and find the information you need) and had thought that I would be at all the necessary meetings. I, too, take my position in the Management division seriously and was a little annoyed to find out I had missed an important meeting after the fact. Hopefully, some of that miscommunication will be straightened out by making Division elections in January, so elected board reps and officers will be both privy and readily attentive to the scheduling of required meetings more than a couple of weeks ahead of time.

Technorati Tags: AECT

Kudos to Mike Barbour and Drew Polly and anyone else who helped put the Graduate Student Lounge together. Putting hourly speakers in the lounge was a fantastic idea and the two sessions I went to were very well-attended. It was a completely packed room for Mike Spector and Stever Ross’ discussion on DeMystifying the Publication Process. A very cool thing came out of that discussion that hopefully can be followed up on…and that is the idea of having 4th shadow reviewer positions for graduate students wanting to get more involved with TechTrends and ETR&D.

Technorati Tags: AECT

Finally, I’m out of the hideous humidity of pre-hurricane Florida. Coronado Springs is just as Nate had described in July. I enjoyed the actual physical location less than I thought I would, which means that I expected to not like it, and I really hated it. It was really funny getting coffee with a colleague this morning who was very vocally expressing how much he hates Disney as the cashier at La Tienda looked at me skeptically. I have to agree, since the 12 oz coffee I was purchasing for $1.80 tasted like crap.

I actually only ate a couple of meals, surviving mostly on snacks from receptions. The reason was simple—the food was so overpriced and bland. The first night I was there, I skeptically (2nd time used, but appropriate for dealing with Disney–skepticism)…went to the Pepper Market which is humorously advertised as follows:

” Select the cuisine of your choice in this festive indoor food court. You’ll enjoy the street market atmosphere and tasty offerings from around the world.”

I really loved the concept—I pay 10% service charge (which goes back to the establishment…not the service), a 10% service charge which makes me wonder where the 10% markup for the cost of subpar food is going. Then I go to a station from “around the world” which is truly a joke and bastardization of any kind of ethnic cuisine. There is something wrong when the Mexican food tastes more or less the same as the Asian food. The Asian station doesn’t even get to be defined by which particular Asian cuisine it is—just Asian. Fantastic!

So I had a $12 chicken quesadilla (not even a whole one…half a quesadilla) and the next time I ate there I had the most bland cheeseburger imagineable. And it occurred to me when I asked if I could have bacon on my cheeseburger, and the guy at the grill looked at me blankly and had to search around before he could confirm I could choose a different kind of cheese…is that Disney has the best racket going ever—since they are offering the antithesis of choice, and marketing it as having an array of choices—and they are making a killing while serving the same piece of chicken up with a pair of mouse ears ten different ways.

At the same time, that night, I thought—how different is it really, from how we experience most locations of conferences? (And after 3 days trapped at the Coronado, it IS different, it’s the worst case scenario!!!!)…But to some extent, this homogenized culture, this commodified urban culture (shirts with the city symbol: crabs in Maryland, lobster in Boston, chili peppers in Phoenix and dinners out at the Ponderosa, Ruby Tuesdays, Olive Garden, TGIFridays in every city). Disney just happens to have removed every last shred of authenticity and with their fictional city. And people save all their pennies to bring their kids (or even just themselves) to this überhomogenized environment because it is a safe, pleasant, predictable, and moderately entertaining experience.

They go there because it offers itself as the un-experience. Though it is a fallacy, people travel there expecting safety, service with a smile, a seamless worry-free experience…without the mess of homeless people, garbage, bugs (although i did see one beetle outside), poor people, working people (the staff at disney are in fact not staff but “cast members”). (And better yet, at the Coronado, many of the cast members are of latino/a ethnicity, speaking to guests in English, while their culture has been inappropriately appropriated and so we buy food at La Tienda and a (presumably) white dude with a southern accent leaves me a voice mail greeting on the final night of my stay that begins with “buenos noches”…hope you enjoyed your stay…). Disney is our brave new world.

I thought I was just imagining it, but there are a suspicious number of educational technology (generally speaking) conferences in Orlando this year. I thought I was just imagining that everyone is trying to get us to Orlando, until the pile of evidence had gathered in my in-box enough to make it obvious…

So far I have counted Educause and AECT this week (October), SITE (March), Ed-Media (June)…am I missing any?

The Chronicle of Higher Education article The Net Generation Goes to College commences:

Change your teaching style. Make blogs, iPods, and video games part of your pedagogy. And learn to accept divided attention spans. A new generation of students has arrived — and sorry, but they might not want to hear you lecture for an hour.

Obviously the article is not intended to encourage educators who are hesitant to adopt new tools in the classroom. I want to emphasize TOOLS here. The blogs, iPods, and video games may encourage the application of new theoretical approaches, in some cases even necessitate them–but the tools themselves are merely that—supportive materials to enable the student to reach the learning objectives.

In a conversation with John DoE the other evening, something he said resonated when I read this article. He pointed out that if it weren’t for the introduction of tools such as computers in the classroom, we never would have critically examined teaching practices in the traditional (lecture-based) classroom. There has been a shift in education where there have been new strategies and approaches–a fact which is alluded to in the article because it may be driving the observed differences in students’ expectations of the learning experience.:

“In grade school, they [the Millenials] were pushed to collaboration,” which explains the popularity of group study in college today, Mr. Sweeney says. “The collaboration,” he adds, “is both in-person and virtual.”

There’s other causes for concern in the article. It sounds like universities are being pressured to entertain rather than EDUCATE students. And the premise is that the only way to grab the attention of these kids who are mentally synced with their PDAs is to add gadgetry to the classroom. However, using these tools just to use them rather than for sound pedagogical reasons could potentially be destructive to the education process. There are countless ways to integrate interactive, collaborative and “minds on” strategies in instruction without necessarily using these tools. In fact, it seems the technology the article is forgetting to emphasize is, in fact, pedagogy. Additionally, as any Instructional Technologist is aware, when the technology works, it is WONDERFUL. When it doesn’t, it can waste tremendous amounts of time.

Finally, not all students born in a certain time have been exposed to the same experiences. Not all students may feel comfortable multi-tasking, and could be turned off by classroom interactions that require that (such as simulataneous lecture with enabled text chat—and incidentally, it has been demonstrated that humans are physically incapable of paying equal attention to multiple streams of information, ie, text and audio that are not complementary). Not all students are “plugged in” all the time. Not all students enjoy gaming or IM or group collaboration. Furthermore, many universities still have many students who are “non-traditional” students, who are not of the Net Generation and may or may not have the same interests. It is essential to provide learning experiences that address these issues by being rooted in cognitive psychology and that don’t alienate students who are not motivated by using new technologies.

I went to Chicago with a goal of meeting five new people that I would be working with after Chicago was over.

What struck me about Nate’s comment is that he was seeking people to collaborate with…not necessarily on research, but as members of AECT. Given the SPTF discussions over the past year, it would be a great strategy for all of us to head to Orlando with this goal in mind.

So I have a TagCloud sitting over there on the side bar. I had seen it on a couple of other sites (such as Iterating T()ward ()penness and Joi Ito’s Blog ). I know what you’re thinking…COPY CAT. But the quickest way to figure out what the TagCloud is–is to set one up for yourself. It’s a very cool concept, another way to do blogrolling, really. There are two major disadvantages as I see them, but maybe the are easily remedied. The first is that sometimes the keywords like people’s first names are not what I had in mind. I imagine I can either block them, or that as more blogs are added to my blogroll, that will be remedied.
The second is very superficial…but I can’t find anyway to change the color schemes.

My final questions are…when someone comes upon this kind of tag cloud—how useful is it? how often would you use it?