Missing the Boat?

I just wonder if I'm wandering around in my own little boat, missing the big picture of the grad school experience.

I sent out an email to the 7 people who are taking the same two classes I'm taking a couple of weeks after school started. I suggested we might want to exchange contact information, in case we wanted to discuss things pertinent to one class or the other. I included my IM info, as well as email and Twitter. I guess I honestly thought we would create some kind of network since we are all distance students.

Of the seven, two replied. One said, "Great idea!" but didn't give any contact info. The other provided contact information, and we've exchanged a couple of emails. I'm so accustomed to engaging with others through the 'Net that I'm surprised at the lack of response. Maybe it's just that the others don't want to add anything else to their undoubtedly already full plates. Maybe they don't live online like I do. Maybe I'm just sailing around all by myself.

When I see the interaction going on in other distance ed classes, though, I'm envious. I would really like to have some kind of interaction with my classmates, even if it's just an informal introduction and the occasional session of commiseration. I would love to be able to chat with them (and the professors?) someplace like TappedIn, to be able to get a sense of where we are and where we are going with the instruction. I just feel a bit isolated right now: wading through the pages of the text, completing the prescribed exercises, me and my laptop ("Fred"), alone in the big world of Education.

One of the courses is listing "discussions" as an element of the assignments for upcoming lessons. Hopefully I'll feel a bit less lonely, less like the "new kid" in a school where everyone knows everyone else except for me.

Oh well, back to sorting out ISD models and Flash tutorials. Come on, Fred, we've got work to do.
(Photo from leighblackall's Flickr photostream, accessed via Creative Commons)

re-ASSURE-ing

This is fascinating! I've been out of the loop so long from education classes that I had no idea there were various "models" for designing your teaching. My biggest question at this point is, "How do I feel about all this, and how can I start to utilize it?"

While I'm still a bit intimidated by Dick & Carey, I feel like there might be a gestalt out there that I might be able to glimpse. Teaching Technology has caused me to move away from formal, structured planning because so much of what my students need is "just in time" learning. Especially in the Fall, when I have the slower readers, trying to anticipate their needs well ahead of time is difficult for me. Each year I write myself notes on my lesson plans: Slow down here, Use this app here, and so forth. And each year I not only need to incorporate the previous year's suggestion, but have tons more for myself. Would it help me be a better teacher if I tried to use one of the models to organize my teaching? Perhaps.

So how do I learn more? The Internet has many sites that demonstrate application of this week's models (Heinich, Molenda, Russell and Smaldino's ASSURE model, and Gerlach and Ely's model), and we're supposed to start thinking of lessons we can create using each of the models. I want this to be an authentic experience for me, so I'm going to dig a bit more and try to see ways in which I can actually use these models!
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And then there's the new Office 2007 work. Wow! At first I thought it was all just bells and whistles, but this week's assignment included formatting papers for APA and MLA, and Word 2007 rocks. How I wish this tool had been available when I was writing English papers!

Of course this call into question what we need to be focusing on in the classroom. It's just like the debate over teaching DOS - do the kids really need to know about the fundamental structures when the software takes care of doing all the labor for them? I think the answer is a resounding, "Yes!" How many times have I been able to sort out why some Windows app wasn't working properly because I knew "how the computer was thinking"? The same goes for teaching MLA in the classroom: just because the software will take care of the formatting for you, you still need to know if it's doing things the right way. How many professors are going to deduct points from a paper because the computer didn't handle the formatting correctly? And how will the student respond to the deduction? I can hear it now..."The computer made me do it!"

Memories of Instructional Design

What a surprise and shock it was to discover that the text we are using for ISD is a later edition of the same text my husband used 15 years ago when he was taking a course in Instructional Design! Guess it just goes to show that the model is a valid one and likely to be around for a while.

I'm new to all this, and more than a little befuddled by it all right now. Do I plan my instruction? Yes. Have I heard of "ADDIE" before? Nope. And yet the ADDIE model seems to fit so neatly with a writing model I learned in a Technical Writing course several years ago. Dr. Michael Gos taught a very simple model for writing: PRIO. Determine your Purpose, identify your Readers, gather your Information and then Organize your writing. Clear, direct, and an invaluable model for my style of writing.

PRIO fits well with ADDIE - Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation and Evaluation. I can almost grok that. Then I look at the Dick and Carey model, and I get nervous. I remember the long hours Husband spent, trying to align his instruction with the model. We labored together on his final project, in the days before rubrics were common, trying to make certain he had addressed each aspect of the model. I don't remember his grade, but I do know he passed the class.

Deep breath. I've recreated the graphic of the DCC model here, and I've printed it out and posted it above my desk. Just keep plugging, and this too shall make sense. (I hope!)

Darren's "Mind Control"

Darren Kuropatwa got my attention with this video and I'm not sure what I think about it. Neurosky is only one company developing this type of human/machine interface - gracious me oh my!




CyberLearning Technology is already marketing systems for home use, targeting among others, those who have trouble focusing. Will this "game controller" help my students learn to concentrate in a world that is so full of 30-second sound bytes?

Just as we train our bodies by focus and repetition, doesn't it make sense that we can train our minds by focus and repetition? Will this "mind control" lead to solutions for students who have great difficulty keeping their minds on the task at hand? Just because the kids might be using the device to play a game doesn't mean they aren't learning to stay on track.

As always, in the Art of Teaching we must help our students transfer the skills they have learned in one area to another. How many times has the Math teacher heard, in response to a request to read a particular article, "But this isn't Reading class!" And when the Reading teacher suggests that students calculate their current grade averages by themselves, the cry rises up, "What do you mean? This isn't Math class!" Perhaps we are moving from an era of using sports analogies to inspire our students to an era of using gaming analogies? I can hear them now... "Miss! You're too old to be a gamer!"

I don't know what impact this technology is going to have in the next five years, but this is what our students will be living. How do I prepare them for a world I have trouble imagining? I'll have to think about it while I maneuver my dwarven mage to his next level in Last-Outpost!

Champing at the bit

The official start date for classes is Monday, the 27th, but one class has some lessons posted and I'm already at work. Well, my computer is at work...it took over an hour to install Adobe's CS3 Web Standard, and now I'm playing around while hoping my textbook arrives soon so I can really get started.

While I've got a minute to reflect, before the deluge of teaching and learning and living all hits on Monday, I'm trying not to feel frustration that two out of two courses are application specific. I guess I've gotten so accustomed to using 2.whatever and FOSS applications that I'm startled by professors insisting on grad students purchasing expensive mass-market software. At least I don't have to purchase MS Office 2007 (but that's only because the text has a limited trial version included).

The degree I am seeking is in Instructional Design with an emphasis in Education. Is it realistic, in today's tightly-budgeted schools, for teachers to expect to teach web design using high-end software when NVU would serve the same purpose? Is it essential that my students know the specific application, or should they learn the principles which underlie the application?

I'm not advocating a return to DOS, don't get me wrong. I'm just wondering ... am I as a student being asked to learn what my teachers are familiar with? Do I make that same mistake decision with my own students as a teacher? Am I teaching from my world rather than to their world?

Then, too, I was startled that both courses will require me to keep a physical notebook and mail it to the professors at the end of the semester. My first reaction was, "What?!?!?! In this era of instant communication, twittering, blogs, wikis, podcasts, you want me to keep a notebook?"

I'm still trying to puzzle my way through this notebook requirement, as I create a wiki for my students to use as their major class resource. They will work collaboratively, true, but they will also have responsibilities to discuss what they are working on, I can track who has contributed what, and we will have an organic work which we can share with others. They will have a resource which they can access again and again as they move on in their education, and continue to contribute to it for the benefit of other students who will follow them. I guess the oddest part for me is that I will spend time creating a resource for myself which I will then send off, perhaps never to be seen again. It just feels odd, that's all.

Have I been a teacher too long, and forgotten how to be a student?

Let's Get Going!

The tension is killing me! Well, of course not literally, but I've done all the registration, looked at the books (not all are listed yet...it's a bit early) and I'm ready to start!

Problem is, the semester won't start until 27 Aug. Come on, come on! This is online learning, no? Can't we go ahead and get started on our own time/pace? Duh! University courses have specific timelines. How would I feel if my 7th grade students were bugging me right now for their projects/assignments for the coming semester?

Patience, fool, patience. Soon enough you'll have your hands full and be counting the days to the end of the semester.

So instead, I'll occupy my time with updating blogs, working on Learning Modules for my district, and taking a course on "Blogging Across the Curriculum" through Knowplace. That should give me enough to keep me from dealing with the never-ending housework that awaits me .

Words of Wisdom

Periodically, take stock of what you have learned....how far you have come. When you look behind you, you should be surprised how far back you started and how steep this path may have been. In that sense, the trail in front of you, looks only half as steep and not near so far. -Elderbob in a Webheads post

Such a timely bit of advice. I'm feeling so nervous about going back to school. Just dealing with getting registered was enough to add to my already gray hair. Then there's the price of text books...they were expensive back when my dinosaur and I were working on a B.A., but goodness gracious!

I need to keep Elderbob's words in mind as I move through this whole process. Perhaps I'll print them out and post them on my desk at home.

Thanks, Bob!

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