Technology Enhanced Learning: Leveraging the Power of Networks (EDOD692B)

The EDOD692B course of the OLPC program models and inspires technology enhanced learning.  Through this course, I not only learned how to blog which tapped into my passion for learning, sharing, and teaching.  This course increased my level of confidence to publicly share my journey - something I would have never done otherwise.  I found inspiration to create blog posts that would be interesting, inspiring, and informative.  What accompanied this blogging experience was the inspiration that came from the blog posts by my classmates who revealed such a diverse set of interests and skills that I would not have been exposed to if not for this course.

This course also prompted an opportunity to learn how to work with an authoring tool called Adobe Captivate 9.  While I appreciate the opportunity, I will say that I was disappointed by the software's functionality.  I work with Articulate Storyline 2 at my workplace and find that it is a much stronger tool than Captivate.  Storyline has a more logical interface and offers more flexibility in adjusting the content of slides imported from Microsoft PowerPoint.   That being said, the journey of learning how to technologically enhance our training material revealed other helpful resources that I have already begun to leverage to enhance my projects at work.  Such resources include YouTube's Audio Library for free music and Freepik.com for free images.

What I value most about having the opportunity to learn through technology is the increase in my overall confidence in navigating through all of the technical elements we need to stay current with for the sake of educating ourselves and others.  I value how this course has peaked my curiosity and taught me a new set of vocabulary that will has already proven to be invaluable in this tech-driven world.  The exciting and daunting thing about that is that we've only just begun scratching the surface!

Here's a brief training video that was designed to offer interactive components and audio to engage the learner.  

I want to thank our professor, Dr. Folkestad and my fellow classmates/personal learning network for enriching my learning experience this semester.  Congrats to everyone for completing Fall Semester!

Cheers!

Tips for Surviving and Conquering the Journey of an Online Grad School Program

I have a friend who just started her graduate program.  We have been having many conversations around the struggles of surviving through the new realities that being a grad school student brings into the picture.  And exactly 2 years ago when I was about to start my graduate program, I had the very same conversations with another friend who blazed the trail for me.  Exploring and troubleshooting with friends, passing on wisdom, being a supporter and cheerleader, and leading by example are all things that fuel my blog Life Linked to Learning.  Here is a video that shares some of the key practices I applied in my life to my journey of the online grad program.  My hope is that people find the tips in this video helpful and have an easier journey because of it. 

Cheers!

Connect & Engage then Analyze

As I was preparing to write this blog post, I realized I needed to set concrete goals for my blog.  This was somewhat of a challenging task for me considering I have not quite managed to clearly see the long-term potential of my blog.  That being said, I found it necessary to revisit the purpose of my blog (which may be ever-evolving).  But for now, the purpose of my blog is to highlight the ways in which life is linked to learning and learning is linked to life.  In doing so, my goal is to connect with others, enlighten others, while also being enlightened by others.  As I declared in a past discussion, “I have chosen to make learning my focus because it is important to reflect and internalize what you learn.  It's about embodying knowing better, doing better, sharing better.”  Sounds so cliché and dreamy doesn’t it?!  The focus on life and learning for this blog ties to my goals to be a life coach, a professional coach and an org change consultant for nonprofits.

For now I’m keeping my blog goal simple.  I will use Blogger Analytics to engage visitors/followers.  So, even if I have just one follower, I’d like them to keep following.  Blogger Analytics can help me see if that one follower is actively following or has become inactive and forgot all about the blog.  That may sound a bit cynical but it’s really coming from a hopeful place.  I found a quote by Andy Stanley, “Do for one what you wish you could do for everyone.”   

The article that provided some guidance with this goal is from ProBlogger.net and it was on 5 GoalsEvery Blogger Should Set Up in Google Analytics.  

Quote Image -  photo credit & creative commons licese: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/85608594@N00/16251736976">Pierre Teilhard de Chardin The most satisfying thing in life is to have been able to give a large part of one's self to others</a> via <a href="http://photopin.com">photopin</a> <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/">(license)</a>

Engage Image - photo credit & creative commons license: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45935639@N02/17004509400">VAF27114</a> via <a href="http://photopin.com">photopin</a> <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/">(license)</a>

Review of Mislevy,Behrens, Dicerbo, and Levy's "Design and discovery in educational assessment: Evidence-centered design, psychometrics, and educational data mining."

Mislevy, Behrens, Dicerbo, and Levy’s (2012) article is highly technical and rather difficult to grasp if you are a novice to complex concepts around assessment and analysis such as myself.  So, this review will simply provide a rudimentary summary of overarching message Mislevy et al. (2012) attempt to convey to readers such as myself.  As it states in the title of the article, the focus is on educational assessment.

Mislevy et al. (2012) make it a point to compare evidence centered design (ECD) to assessment in the “standard assessment paradigm” (p. 14).  Mislevy et al. (2012) use the terms, “highly scripted” and “constrained” to describe assessments in the standard assessment paradigm (p. 14).  Comparatively, Mislevy et al. (2012) describe ECD as a flexible framework for describing a wide variety of methods and objective associated with educational assessments.  This is important because technology is diversifying the way content is being taught and therefor prompting a need to diversify how student proficiency is being assessed.  With the use of technology, there is an opportunity to generate more meaningful assessment data that is captured continuously throughout the learning process versus inconsistently and intermittently.

Psychometrics has been used in educational testing, however, Mislevy et al. (2012) take a stance that it has “focused on data produced in the standard assessment paradigm” so there is opportunity to leverage psychometrics differently within the ECD framework.  The same goes for educational data mining (EDM) methods.  Mislevy et al. (2012) emphasize the importance of eliminating the current limitations of how EDM is used to inform the design of assessments. Such limitations involve focusing only on specific outputs and inputs as it relates to scoring processes.   Rather, it is proposed that EDM is used to broaden how data is being analyzed.

Image Rights: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/,
Provided by: Kevin Whytock (https://www.flickr.com/photos/7815007@N07/)

In sum, this article encourages a limitless and creative approach to assessing student proficiency through the use of more flexible psychometrics and EDM methods.  Mislevy et al. (2012) offer a framework that fosters innovative approaches to using the tools and strategies that are already integrated in the assessment process making it seem like a doable task.

My dangerously simplified translation…use technology as a tool to obtain student proficiency measures throughout the learning process, integrate psychometric and EDM methods to organize the assessment data, analyze the data, use it to guide the design your assessment methods, embed those methods into your content, then repeat.  The importance of this process is to use technology to assess more accurately and maintain rigor and relevance.

Reference:

Mislevy, R. J., Behrens, J. T., Dicerbo, K. E., & Levy, R.  (2012).  Design and discovery in educational assessment: Evidence-centered design, psychometrics, and educational data mining.  Journal of Educational Data Mining (4)1 11-48.

Connectedness + Empowerment = Learning Achievement

https://flic.kr/p/ahecjJby Marc Smith https://www.flickr.com/photos/marc_smith/

 Review of Lin, Huan, and Chuang’s (2015) “The impacts of network centrality and self-regulation on an e-learning environment with the support of social network awareness.” 

This paper combines the effects of social connectedness and self-regulation to determine their influence on learner performance and achievement.  Lin, Huang, and Chuang (2015) acknowledge results of other studies that have already determined that, as independent factors, social network centrality and self-regulated learning (SRL) have positive effects on achievement.  Their study works to further explore how these two factors interact in an e-learning environment that fosters social network awareness. 

To help determine the interaction between self-regulation and network centrality, Lin, et.al (2015) uses “help seeking behavior” in the learners (Lin, Huang, Chuang, 2015, p. 42) an indicative measure of how the two factors interact. Meaning, the study looked at the number of times learners requested assistance from their peers. 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/jakerust/

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

The study demonstrates significant findings among the learner group who reported low levels of self-regulation.  Learning achievement among this particular group of learners is positively impacted by a highly-centralized social network.  In other words, learners who are less self-regulated are likely to achieve more when they are engaged in a learning environment with peers they trust and can reach out to for assistance.  With low-level centrality, low-level self-regulators had a lower number of requests for peer assistance.  The report shows no significant findings for learning achievement in the interaction of high-level self-regulation and network centralization for learners who are highly self-regulated.

This study highlights the importance of learners being self-regulators and having access to social networks.  To self-regulate is a quality that can be an innate characteristic or something that is learned.  Either way, being proactive is really the key for learning achievement.  Everyone has an element of responsibility to nurture and strengthen this self-regulating quality in themselves and in others so that learners are contributing to and gaining from social networks in a positive way.  Otherwise, the value of that social network diminishes.  While Lin, et.al (2015) manage to bring attention to this interaction between social network awareness, network centralization, and self-regulation, there seems to be more opportunity to consider other indicators beyond help seeking behavior. 

In the end, this article serves as a good reminder that learners must feel safe to ask for help, know when and where to get help, and empowered to be proactive and own their learning.  We as lifelong learners, parents, teachers, mentors, educators, friends, and leaders must recognize that we all play a part in this learning network we call life.

Reference:

Lin, J. W., Huang, H. H. & Chuang, Y. S. (2015).  The impacts of network centrality and self-regulation on an e-learning environment with the support of social network awareness.  British Journal of Educational Technology, 46(1), 32-44

"Creative Commons"...I like the sound of that!

By Deb Nystrom on Flickr

For Creative Commons License Click Here

I’m taking a second course this semester (EDOD677) that requires group work.  This photo is a great caption for what it feels like when you first get started on a group project and everyone is doing the “new group dance.”  It’s a beautifully messy dance, really.  You can guess that most folks are crossing their fingers that they end up with a positive and collaborative group, you can sense that everyone is working hard to coordinate the workload while being considerate of each other’s feelings and opinions, everyone’s feeling each other out through the digital world  -  no faces, no expressions, just text on a screen laced with happy face emojis, lots of thank you’s with exclamations marks, and the hope that the work we build together is going to be great!  As I chip away at the last two semesters of the OLPC program, I am thankful for the messy dances and look forward to the great project I have the opportunity to build with my new EDOD677 Group.  Shout out to Group 3!  :)

Now, about creative commons, or cc...I've learned that Flickr is a cool way to access and filter through images and videos that can technologically enhance the work we produce in a legal fashion.  Meaning, it equips us with the source and license information we need in order to give proper and more importantly, legal credit to the originator.  What I like about my first experience using creative commons is that simply by searching for the term "teamwork" and selecting a license type I gained access to countless photos and found one that was inspiring enough to write a blog post about.  

Fun stuff...

There's some learnin' goin' on!

This is my very first post on my first ever blog and I am so excited to share the learnin' that's goin' on!

The first thing I want to share is about how surprised I am to find myself feeling excited and inspired by starting this blog.  I'm surprised by these feelings because of the initial thoughts that crossed my mind as I was watching the Seth Godin and Tom Peters' discussion on blogging.  My first thought was, I wonder if I'm ever going to get good at blogging.  Then, as I was listening to Tom Peter's say,

"no single thing in the last fifteen years professionally 

has been more important in my life than blogging. 

It has changed my life.  It has changed my perspective. It has changed my intellectual outlook.  It's changed my emotional outlook" (2009, 1:02).  

I thought, Wow! Could blogging possibly have the same affect on me?  Well, in the short hour I've spent watching Dr. Folkestad's lecture on Blogging, watching Common Craft's video on Blogs in Plain English, and creating my own blog, my outlook on blogging has already transformed from being apprehensive to gung-ho!

Will Richardson's (2011) TED Talk is thought provoking.  Richardson (2011) makes the claim that "schools, in the form that they were constructed are no longer relevant" (11:02).   Richardson (2011) goes on to describe that what we need from teachers is "life prep," not "test prep" (11:57).  The more I am exposed to discussions around the current state of our education system, I walk away with more questions than answers.  This shift in teaching and learning is so extremely complex.  If we want to prepare our children for life, how will we measure that?  Is computer-based testing really the best way to assess knowledge?  I don't think so, but I know there are better ways out there to explore.  What level of academic and life impact do we expect teachers to make and who decides which areas of impact are most important?  How will education funding shift to better develop our teachers in the same way we need to develop our students?  

Well, I surely hope this post contributed to other people's learning!

Cheers...Danae...


References:Richardson, W. (2011)  TEDxNYED - Will Richardson - 03/05/2011. [Video file].  Retrieved from https://youtu.be/Ni75vIE4vdk  

Godin, S. & Peters, T. (2009)  Seth Godin & Tom Peters on blogging.  [Video file]. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/livzJTIWlmY