Category Archives: UH ETEC Doc

Second Life Ruminations week 2

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Second Life, hype cycles, and reality

So,I’ve been thinking alot this week about what I might write about for this blog post about my current feelings about Second Life. Some of the activities we did this week included visiting interesting Second Life sights and rating them using the SaLamander wiki’s learner engagement rating like experiential, role-play, diagnostic, etc. more info here:http://www.eduisland.net/salamanderwiki/index.php?title=Main_Page

we also spent time learning more about creating objects in Second Life — working with prims, editing and creating scenery, wearing and designing clothes.

we also completed a project in groups of three where we chose a general theme, and then found 15 resources both in world and out of world and gave brief descriptions of these, to help novice and regular users of Second Life to navigate their world better.

So while all this was happening, in the back of my mind I’m thinking about where Second Life is in adoption. One of the articles we read in the first week (Jennings and Collins) used Everett Rogers’ Diffusion of Innovations research to map out technology use and contrasted Early Adopters to Early Majority. They quote an article from Moore that defines behavior differences between these two groups. A few examples:
early adopters favor of revolutionary change, early majority favor evolutionary change
early adopters are visionary, early majority are pragmatic
early adopters are willing to experiment, early majority want proven applications
and probably most importantly:
early adopters are generally self-sufficient, whereas early majority may need significant support

so for those that understand Gartner’s hype cycle, there is a problem inherent in the current place where Second Life is and its future. (original source here: http://www.gartner.com/it/products/research/methodologies/research_hype.jsp)

For those unfamiliar with the curve – a quick pic and summary:

2008 Gartner Hype Cycle

When technologies are first introduced, there is usually a period of inflated expectations: excitement around the new technology. This is where your early adopters would jump on board and get excited. Over some timeframe, there is a period of disillusionment where the process of getting it from a small percentage (5 or 10%) to a larger adoptance is hung up on a variety of factors: ease of interface, cost, flexibility, inflated expectations, applicability, etc.
As larger awareness and usability occurs, it becomes more adopted and it eventually becomes mainstream reaching the plateau of productivity. What is interesting about this curve is that it is not time-dependent. Technologies like augmented reality and mobile robots have been in the first phase of adopting for more than a decade. Other technologies like GPS climbed into fairly high adoptance in just a few years. So where is Second Life here? In this 2008 graphic, Public virtual worlds are in the trough of disillusionment. Some writing and thinking by Gartner indicate it may well be five or 10 more years before these become more mainstream.
…of course, the important question is why?
For a technology to move past disillusionment, there needs to be a crystallization of utility and need that begins to drive more use. We are still at the point in Second Life where a combination of factors keep the utility and need at a minimum.
As many of us have found in traveling virtual worlds, although there is an excitement and engagement in well-designed ones, this is still far from the universal experience. Just as importantly, the requirements to participate, both from a technology and usability standpoint, are still not nearly high enough engage more than a small percentage of technology users.
So what does that mean I think about Second Life at this point? This reminds me a lot of the early days of the World Wide Web. I remember coming back from a 1993 conference having seen the first version of NASA’s demonstration of the Dead Sea Scrolls via a web browser and told our school library and what a transformative experience it was to see artifacts through a graphical interface using the Mosaic web browser. Her response surprised me — I remember her saying that although viewing through a browser might be an interesting experience, users would still need to know protocols like telnet and FTP in order to use the Internet as a learning tool.
I guess that summarizes how I feel about Second Life at this point. I see the promise of an engaging and immersive environment, but realistically see more years (five?) before it begins to climb up slope of enlightenment.
Caveat: of course, when I started playing with Twitter a year ago, I could’ve never imagined it would evolve into the worldwide phenomena it has become in such a short time. Of course, Twitter had some things going for it that enable the quick adoptance. it has a platform that uses SMS, which had just become a mainstream tool, not just for adolescents, but for adults. The ease of use made it much quicker to be adopted as well.
So, maybe there is a seminal moment waiting for the immersive virtual worlds that will push it up the curve — uniform interface between environments? Easier entry point for beginners? Less traffic and bandwidth demand participation? Who knows? Time will tell…

second life ruminations #2

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This is a reflection on the assigned reading:

Handbook_Research_Edu_Comm_Tech_Chp17_VirtualReality
McLellan

“Virtual reality (VR) can be defined
as a class of computer-controlled multisensor y communication
technologies that allow more intuitive interactions with data
and involve human senses in new ways”

This article starts with an overview of definitions of virtual reality and some really thinking about what immersive virtual environments are about. It then walks through the history of virtual worlds from the 1980s. .

one of the drawbacks of this article, is that it was published before the emergence of real Second Life and MUVE developments in the early 2000s, therefore although it serves as a historical reference and an interesting discussion of the different ways that virtual worlds have been envisioned and developed, it doesn’t address current development issues. For example, the huge chasm between what gamers live on a daily basis and immersive virtual worlds, and the development of multiuser experiences, and watch was understood at the end of the last decade.

Thurman and Matoon – propose three dimensions which to view the development of virtual reality
1. Provocative idea about Verity dimension — does the virtual worlds make reality, or does it encompass abstract and novel ideas that don’t correspond to reality? Another way of thinking of the development of virtual worlds…

integration dimension — how well the human is brought into the environment
interface dimension — scale ranging from natural to artificial

“To summarize, we will be examining 10 types of virtual re-
ality: (1) Immersive first-person, (2) Augmented reality (a vari-
ation of immersive reality), (3) Through the window, (4) Mir-
ror world, (5) Waldo World (Virtual characters), (6) Chamber
world, (7) Cab simulator environment, (8) Cyberspace, (9) the
VisionDome, and (10) the Experience Learning System.”

aside from Mark — the recent release of the Microsoft gaming experience has potential to elevate the sense of immersion higher by making natural body movements correspond to what’s happening in the immersive world.

There was some discussion of blog mentioned reality, and a recent TED lecture that had a demonstration of a small device that projects information onto objects as it senses them was a powerful indication of how real-time sensory feedback will in the short future allow a human cloud computer interface that will be a new way of thinking of augmented reality. I’ll try to post the link for that lecture when I get back online

It’s interesting to read about their sports augmented reality stories here, as this article predates the release on the Nintendo Wii platforms, I think it would have been provocative to see how the authors would have addressed the development of that tool in the schema.

The authors also talk about Azuma’s research and medical applications of augmented reality refer to the link here-
http://www.cs.unc.edu/∼azuma/azuma-AR.html

interesting points being made when the author talks about in your worlds: first of all, the obvious interest in the gaming world example given is shooting hoops. But more importantly, and mentioned secondarily surprisingly, is the observation that players in the mirror worlds since they stand apart from the world itself can have social interaction and therefore an opportunity for a more interactive environment. This precluded the nature of multiuser virtual environments as the most notable example of the importance of social learning and the real draw for users of being in such a world. It is somewhat surprising that as late as 2001 that the nature of social interaction in immersive worlds would turn out to be such an important draw for users (for example Second Life is more about the social interaction that it is about just the information). Sometimes we focus so much on the technology, that we miss the implication in the human setting entirely.

An interesting aside about the cab environment is that in 1997 I had an opportunity to “land the space shuttle” in the virtual motion simulator at NASA Ames research Center. The simulator, which had 6° of freedom in a 10 story tall building gave one a truce sense of motion and interface, and was used as a high fidelity way to train astronauts on the conditions of landing the Space shuttle. it is amazing to me now 10 years later and more staff the simulators have become so common, that pilots of Jets never trained in real jets anymore, but use simulators. As is often quoted, the first time a pilot lands a actual 747, she has a full complement of passengers aboard – a little unnerving, for sure, but a testimony to the fidelity and veracity of these simulators

The Virtual Reality and Education Lab (VREL) East Carolina
University, in Greenville, North Carolina is one organization that
provides leadership in promoting education in the schools (Auld
& Pantelidis, 1994; Pantelidis, 1993, 1994). The Web site for
VREL is http://www.soe.ecu.edu/vr/vrel.htm

Good idea from article:
It will be important to articulate a research agenda specif-
ically relating to virtual reality and education. Fennington and
Loge (1992) identify the following issues: (1) How is learning
in virtual reality different from that of a traditional educational
environment? (2) What do we know about multisensor y learn-
ing that will be of value in determining the effectiveness of this
technology? (3) How are learning styles enhanced or changed
by VR? and (4) What kinds of research will be needed to as-
sist instructional designers in developing effective VR learning
environments?

the authors talk a bit about “affordances” – in understanding the research of virtual worlds. good quote
Although a virtual world may differ from the real world, virtual objects and environments must provide some measure of the affordances of the objects and environments depicted (standing in for the real-world) in order to support natural vision (perceptualization) more fully.

interesting perspectives from a couple of authors about thinking our cyberspace as a theatrical medium — the notion that participants are playing out roles in creating stories in spaces. Authors include Brenda Laurel, and Randall Walser.

interesting perspective by McLellan one situated learning which I think is excellent perspective to draw on she defines it:
“Therefore,this knowledge must be learned
in context—in the actual work setting or a highly realistic or
“virtual” surrogate of the actual work environment. The situated learning model features apprenticeship, collaboration, reflection, coaching, multiple practice, and will articulation. It also emphasizes technology and stories.”

from that experience design perspective, there is a nice, simple model from Shedroff that talks about each experience needing attraction (something that draws us in) engagement (experiences that make us part of the world) and conclusion (some sort of resolution that let’s us know we’ve accomplished what is in front of us). This is a great place to think about maybe the learning activity we need to design, as we can build in I think good examples of these three views and experience in the virtual world.

there is a nice distinction made about services versus experiences as an economic perspective. For example they distinguish a service to a client versus experience for a guest (for example Disney) – interesting perspective

one of the articles quoted from 1993 Bricken and Byrne, had students construct objects in virtual worlds. Considering this was 16 years ago, the interface by nature was very rudimentary and clunky, which presented all kinds of problems. All the same new research indicates a powerful opportunities there. I’d be interested in seeing in the last four years what research if any exists on student learning with the same model and design. In particular, given the greater ease of graphic rendering, manipulation, and student facilities with 3-D worlds, I would think that the cognitive process and learning environment would be reduced which would improve the processing capability to think about implications of their design more.

It’s interesting in the conversation about attitudinal responses to virtual worlds, but research from 1992 (Heeter) indicated issues with the tension between creating a complex enough environment that is engaging, it is simple enough environment for easy entry point. The current crop of immersive games like World of Warcraft, indicate a way by which repetitive access to learning environments seem to trump some of the novice fear that used to exist almost 20 years ago. Also, it came out that playing against other humans was much more desired than against virtual opponents — something that seems to be playing out in social learning environments today. Wake up another interesting research finding was the difference in gender — boys much more likely to play the game battle tech – more gender-neutral activities in Second Life in World of Warcraft scene indicate that the gender differences are evaporating (Pew Center in Internet life data for example)

second life ruminations #1

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Readings from ETEC 648D – Computer Authoring – Virtual Reality

Virtual or Virtually U: Educational Institutions in Second Life
Nancy Jennings, Chris Collins

2007 study looked at an overview of how institutions are using Second Life. In particular it examined as many institutions that could find — about 170 and looked at Onhow they structured the environment, the types of spaces that were located there in the kinds of activities that were being held.

The lit review was okay, although I do appreciate the inclusion of both Gartner’s trend analysis and a definite effort to include Roger’s work in diffusion of innovations. This is probably the most provocative piece in the article, as the authors quote an article by Moore from 1991 that applies Rogers work with diffusion to technology adoption, in particular defines characteristics for each of the steps of technology adoptions innovators, early adopters, etc.
The research questions for the article were to look at what institutions are using Second Life, what are the characteristics of spaces, and how institutions are using Second Life.
The authors then go through and list the main characteristics that were found in a variety of institutions, and used two particular institutions as case studies: INSEAD and Ohio University. Interesting comparison between these indicated a different vision for each one. The authors define different visions of virtual learning institutions: the operative and reflective, the difference being that operative environments exhibit characteristics of vision and self sustenance that stands apart from any brick-and-mortar institution, whereas reflective institutions mimicked the design of space in their bricks and mortar operation of the institution, and appeared more concerned with being an extension of their existing footprint.

Probably the thing that is most missing from this article in my mind, is the need to address the bridge between what early adopters have taken on in Second Life, who by Rogers analysis comprised 13% or so of the population and early majority who comprise 34%. The authors do a nice job of explaining that there are fundamental differences in the behaviors of these two groups, most notably that early adopters are risk takers and early majority are risk adverse, and early adopters are willing to experiment whereas early majority want proven applications. This is a very important lesson in Second Life adoption that I think is not being viewed as critically as it should. As an example, the Gartner article that the authors quote states the half by 2011 the early adopters, early majority, and late majority will have presence in Second Life (80%). I don’t see this as a remote possibility, given the behaviors of even the early majority, who need and want the technology they use to be invisible, by that I mean easy enough to use that it doesn’t require a few hours or more to understand. Immersive virtual worlds have incredible strengths and complex abilities to do things that are not possible face-to-face, but they are difficult to use, the requirement of high bandwidth and computing power, and a lack of added value are going to be main roadblocks to a higher adoption level in the immediate future (3 to 5 years). It could be that a common Gateway that allows all virtual worlds to become more powerfully enabled and interconnected may provide the opportunity, but it certainly doesn’t seem that this is going to be happening anytime in the near future (1 to 2 years). So for now, I believe we are looking at something on the order of 20% maybe 30% of technology users over the next 2 to 3 years. Another example of this, it is the number of students in my high school that I see who are Second Life users — relatively few. If this digital generation, comfortable with Facebook and virtual games does not yet see themselves as members of a community online in an immersive virtual world, I think Second Life for the time being will still be a novelty.

NECC Summary Saturday June 27

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NECC Summary

This document is the summary report for this year’s conference. Thinking about what’s most readable, I decided to do a little differently. I’ll summarize all five days in a paragraph or two here, and then if you wish you can look for the detailed notes, which are more “bullet style” but have specific tools and links as well as as many comments as I could cram in while I was typing with my laptop and tweeting. Caveat emptor!
After note — for the sake of readability, I broken down each post by day — that way the documents won’t be too far apart from the information that refers to them.

Saturday June 27

The morning was a session with Robert Craven from Orange County Florida with the title “Construction Paper for the 21st Century: Google and Free Tools”. great session with really good planning and resources listed. We spent a good part of the time using tools in Google — particular Google docs. For example we made a survey, and then were able to take it and collect data — including on mobile devices like my iPhone.
We spend time using the collaborative features, and talked about the way these can be used in the classroom.
We spent the second half of the session talking about other free and open tools he has a wonderful list of these on his website but a few of the ones in particular that he drew attention to were thinkature, Voicethread (probably the cool thing here that I learned was how easy it was to post a voice comment using a cell phone — this was very cool!), and more.
http://sites.google.com/site/digitalroberto/Home
One of the things you’ll find on his site, are screen cast videos of many of the tasks needed to accomplish the activities. This resource is a great one and I appreciate the work Robert took the This time to build a useful library for interested teachers.

The afternoon session was with Vicki Davis with the title “cell phones for classrooms, calendars, and life management”.
The best part of the session was our first hour or so was spent talking more about philosophy and policy — everything from legal precedent for students that do inappropriate things, to a conversation with the group attending about their current school philosophy and where we need to go. She showed us a video that the George Lucas foundation made about her and her students here:
http://www.edutopia.org/digital-generation-teachers-vicki-davis

nice idea — she had us role-play a few true court cases (student pulls down teachers pants, films and posts on you tube) it gave us a chance to get to know each other, weigh in on our thinking, and be active about this material. Nice modeling of her work.

great resource to help with policy — book by lisa guerin “smart policies for workplace technologies” definitely worth giving to help consider some of these devices and how we can correctly articulate expectations to staff students and parents.

She then spent time developing a theoretical model for the types of activities that cell phones can support, and the point at which they become viable either because enough students have them, the cost is no longer prohibitive, and they take the place of another device more powerfully.

one of the cool things that we did at the end was take a list of cell phone technologies and use their mobile devices in small groups, then show them to the rest of the participants. For instance, myself and my partner Adam took pictures on our mobile devices (iPhone, Blackberry) and e-mailed it to our Ning site. this works as well with video! The power of this can’t be missed stated — students in the fields, could be taking pictures and posting directly from their phones to a community learning site to build a database of images, documentation.

in the “you heard it here first” category, she mentioned that one of the new trends we’ll should be looking at is QR codes. These have the ability to embed information that mobile devices can scan and playback. She feels (correctly so I believe) that we are going to see these become embedded in many objects soon.

She keeps an excellent set of resources here:
http://coolcatteacher.blogspot.com/

Her website for the presentation is:
http://celled.wikispaces.com/

I did grab the text version of the back channel and posted with this blog as well.

all the notes are located
http://sites.google.com/site/necc2009test/documents-from-necc2009
or here

Payton Dobbs June 5, 2009

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At the Honolulu Board of realtors meeting on June 5, we had the chance to hear Payton Dobbs, who leads Googles effort in e-commerce. he shared seven key ideas emerging for anyone involved in thinking about technology overlays with their development. There is nothing here that is terribly groundbreaking, but what is significant is someone as high up in Google really identifying the importance of these things — they are all relevant to our mission education and are worth taking to heart:

mobile Internet will explode — gave lots of relevant examples of how cell phones and smart phones are becoming the primary way by which people use and learn with the Internet. Good example — Apple iPhone 60% of the phone use is for not making phone calls. Lots of other examples of 3G growth, preponderance of mobile phones in populated areas like India, China, Japan, etc. Japanese teens spend two hours a day on their mobile phones — not talking. Examples of people authoring books entirely in the cell phone.

Maps are a key interface — again, give examples of how tools like Google Earth have changed the way people view the world. This is not a huge surprise to me (Mark) since my interest in tools like GIS have been around for a decade. What is interesting to me, is that we’ve skipped over GIFs as a tool and gone straight to rich intuitive tools like maps on the iPhone, Google Earth on the Internet to understand the world. A good example of this is the number of students we see in the Weinberg Tech Plaza that spend part of the day using Google Earth to look for surf spots, find their friends, and take tours of places they have not been. The new features in iPhoto for geo-tagging are another example of this becoming more prevalent.
The divide between the web and desktops will this appear. This is essentially the argument for cloud computing and there is no doubt that we are seeing the emergence of tools like smart phones and networks. He made the case that within a few years most people will ask that their data to be in the cloud, so they have access to contacts, documents, information matter where they are. Is the fact that our teachers cannot access their files from home another example of how we are disconnected from this movement?
Everything will connect — previously inanimate objects will now be connected. He gave us his example the significance of RFID as a technology. The fact that devices will become smart enough to know what they are how they are connected to other objects around them is an example of the way technology drives innovation. If our refrigerator knows that milk is spoiling, if our car knows conditions are unsafe, if objects in the supermarket know our likes and dislikes, it will greatly change the way you interact with the objects around us — and how they will interact with us!
The web will be more personal and social — his observation was that people were less and less distinguishing between online and face-to-face interaction. We are already seeing this with the school age generation who see talking to and using tools like text, avatars, as real conversation and relationship. Another example of this is using online interfaces for medical advice — something which used to be the purview of the doctor’s office has become a much more online experience and moving more that way. He advocated for all businesses (and schools?) To have a social area of this site to build a community that will bring conversation, creation, and commitment to those focused around that organization.
Internet will be the primary platform for media — we see lots of examples of this recently with releases of Hulu, YouTube, and Flickr, Picasa, etc. For me, personally, this begs the question of platform independence — when we are reaching the point that media including tools like Voicethread now, and potential video editing sites are just n the horizon, is the fact that right now the Macintosh is the weapon of choice for media development for most schools, a long-term reality for a short-term phenomena?
Going green is here to stay — he gave lots of examples of Google’s own efforts to be green — solar generation test projects that are fully online, electric car hybrids being developed, and just the nature of the need for us to all live within their means that the earth gives us. I think the example of Hawaii preparatory Academy’s new energy lab as a model in this venue — I am excited for what it will mean when it will become a model for schools to consider how to best utilize the resources around them.

he finished with the quote below — recognizing that for many in businesses and schools that these changes will not be easy or comfortable. They are however, the reality we are looking into and we disregard any of these to our own peril.
. Catherine the great –
“there is a great wind blowing and will either cause imagination or a headache “

discuss…

Visit to Francis Parker Essential School

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Summary of my visit to Francis Parker Essential school in Devins, Mass
April 7, 2009

My point of contact was Rebecca Kane
when we first met, she explained some of the general philosophy of the school:
juniors and seniors spend 60 hours getting back to school (school service project work)
they also are required to do senior seminar at Spanish is their fifth class
they spend time in the community
their schedule has three divisions: 7-8, 9-10, 11-12. These are called division one, two, three
there is an academic Dean who works on the schedule for the kids — the academic Dean works extensively with Division III students this is where they have their senior project
students need a portfolio for graduation and need to fill this.
For their transcripts for college, they still don’t put grade point averages or grades — it is all narrative
their experience has been that colleges now have “traditional” and “nontraditional” piles
for the Division III class the students spend an hour six times a day
for the Division I and II classes, students spend two hours in interdisciplinary classes three times per day
it talked about gateways into division two research projects
learning habits and learning how to learn and creating independent work is if the goal here
not a focus on facts, but knowing how to apply knowledge is a universal conversation on campus
I observed a Division III class on Shakespeare with Josie
why do they allow this? It allows students to fill up their portfolios with more individualized/teacher choice courses, and also to get exposure to a more college like disciplinary experience.
The students were talking in the class about abject jealousy (MacBeth)
Josie’s class felt more like a seminar — 13 students in a roundtable format with heavily dogeared and annotated text of Shakespeare talking about themes within the text and the readings.
Marks note-what are teacher and student roles here? students are the ones who are requested to create, express, interpret the work
student makes a comment about a blog when students mentioned that weapon is a broadsword and not a dagger — it is clear the students have spent much outside of time working on building their knowledge for this conversation
students asking questions appears about rationale choices they’ve made in their descriptions
interesting point: for the hour that I observed percent of student talking 85% percent the teacher talking 15% in the process of 20 minutes each student has at least a few minutes to share and demonstrate their understanding in their ideas about the current reading – all students are engaged and involved – leaning forward
interesting: sign on the board — post your ideas on the blog!
yet still, paper here (text, original media, readers, etc.)

next I visited a division to math/science class
this class was a little more traditional, and the teacher mentioned that they do something called in class content assessment (ICCA). in other words they do in class testing — although they do not post grades for the work students do externally. In this particular class that I observed, the science part were talking about simple machines, and the math were measuring heights using tools that they would later develop in the semester to look at scale
today’s lesson was really the “hook”-the teachers were
the activity was to find how tall objects were given some simple guidelines about measurement (cannot directly measure, must come up with a strategy, must be able to explain your method to class reasonably)
a few things I saw — students were allowed to bring in food and gum into the class and seemed respectful of this — clean up after themselves, etc.
it did seem that in the math and science integrated class the activities were much more teacher led, not student driven. There was on the other hand, a built-in expectation that students were going to try things potentially fail and compare what methods worked and what didn’t. The teacher did not give specific instructions on how to do the activities at hand.
The two advisers go between the groups discussing the methods to see what they did.
Students were given a challenge I asked a student as we are walking down the hall what do you think of this process of learning? His answer: “hard as hell!”
Talked to Nathan (teacher) about the school planning conditions for this I talked to both teachers about planning time and how they hand off curricula etc. They stressed how important the long planning time was to develop coherence in their curricula
class conversations on the differing ways they measured interesting process to draw how the students what they know and what they need to know to solve the problem better
Later, I was allowed to talk to a student — Paul I had met him earlier in the Shakespeare class
I found him confident, he was an artist who would’ve looked ordinary in our campus in the theater department.
The senior project he chose was on tribal mystics
some of the things that he observed he feels ready to learn anywhere and anyhow — not worried about what he might’ve missed in a universal curriculum, as he feels prepared to move forward
wishes they’d spent more money on arts, as that is not one of the main focuses of the school
he said from his experience 50% of the work they do on campus’s revision and reflection that this is part of their process and everything they do
he felt the feedback is part of their process that is significant — he has friends in college and in other schools and are frustrated by work that they submit and then they never get an opportunity to receive feedback on the status — a frustrating thought
College for the students at his school he feels that they don’t have problems because being an independent learner is something that they’ve been asked to do since they came to the school
I had lunch with one of the teachers-Laura she was a Division I well-being teacher and Nathan who I observed in the division to math class we talked a bit about the advisories, and how they are so powerful. It is often like our homeroom structure at mid-Pacific, where the students are with the teacher for the four years at the school meet with them every day at the beginning for 10 minutes and at the end for 10 minutes and once a week for an hour to do an extended activity. It was noticeable, that their culture for their homeroom students was much more involved than ours — they related stories of taking their students out to field trips, planning home visits where the cost or did arts and crafts, much more of a family feeling that I found most of our homes. Not sure if this is cultural and they just managed to convert what can be a mundane process into something much more social, but it was powerful to see that this really works for them
the essential structure of their school is in the documents that I have PDF, but in a nutshell:
grade 7 and eight — students attend a two-hour math science integrated lesson (22 students to team teachers), students then attended a two-hour social studies and language arts integrated lesson (the same structure), there is lunch, and then they have a two-hour Spanish and health and well-being integrated class
notice here, there is no differentiated groupings — all students take the exact same classes it is homogeneous — and purposely so
Grades nine and 10 — same as above
grades 11 and 12 – students now have six one-hour blocks in the same schedule, or they can take a more “elective” experience — Shakespeare, AP biology, etc.
moving from division to division is based on presentation of work — an exhibition
these are called gateways and they literally are what allow students to move from one to the other
one of the lines about their assessment — “students can gateway from one division to the next through successful completion of a Gateway portfolio. Students Gateway one domain at a time. It is entirely possible for students to be in different divisions for different domains.”
So what’s my general impressions of the school?
Still an amazing environment that is student centered, as easily identifiable rigor, relevance, and relationship. This is a school that most teachers would feel more comfortable in, as they still saw a traditional relationship and schedule, content, and day. What is very different are some notable things:
a teacher’s typical day is a two-hour block of team teaching 24 kids, another two hour block team teaching 24 kids, and a two-hour block for planning and curriculum development. This is a tremendous difference from our current way of working with teachers, students, and scheduled
the catch is what you need to give up in order to accomplish this — all students take the same contents for the first four years, there is only one language, there are no “specials” — art, theater, religion, technology…these things are all embedded in the 3 domains vast are defined in division one and two.
Highly recommend you take a look at the school documents in PDF format – they are posted on the following link
http://mpifuturefacing.wetpaint.com/page/Francis+Parker+Essential+School

Self-Forming Groups and Learning

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Self-forming groups and learning communities

I just watched the TED lecture by Sugata Mitra about his studies of how primary children teach themselves – what a wonderful study and what it says about learning. He looked at 6-13 year old kids in remote Indian villages. He set up a single computer and left it with no instructions, no monitoring, no specified outcomes. Within minutes, the kids were teaching themselves and each other english, how to access new information, applying their understanding to look at the world in new ways. His bottom line – primary education can happen in self-forming groups when educational technology is present. It does not have to happen top down.

He broke his findings down to 4 outcomes:

Remoteness affects the quality of education
Educational technology should be introduced into remote areas first, not wealthy areas for greatest impact
Values are acquired. Discipline and Dogma are imposed.
Learning is a self-organizing system.

This in itself is a powerful idea whether you are talking about primary ed, or trying to look at change in systems by using community. My area of interest is educational communities, and how technology can make powerful learning communities shape change. If Sugata is right (and I believe he is), than we need to continually find ways to build stronger educational communities in primary and secondary education. The nature of web 2.0 for most educators is still in its infancy – although our students have found the social nature of learning through the web, we still have not fully seen the same adoption in education. The challenge is how to get there.
How many teachers build and share knowledge about their passion (education) compared to their students?

One other thought – Negroponte’s OLPC program has more merit than ever when you look at what Sugata’s research shows happens when kids are given access to technology. It is a shame that there was so much energy put into why it wouldn’t work when studies like this show how powerful well designed rugged educational technology can be in the hands of any learners.

Here is his video:

NECC Day 2 Ian Jukes Workshop

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Day 2 – Ian Jukes

Biggest, most important idea
Think the continuum – from where we are to where we will be in 10 years – need to set a small step goal for moving towards where you need to go…

websites and boks he showed here:

http://del.icio.us/mehines/jukes

One of the important ideas Ian kept stressing was that it is critical to understand the power of exponential thinking – we have tendency to treat where we are today as what we should implement, but like a quarterback that needs to throw where a receiver is going, we need to plan for where things are going and consider this rapid change in our thinking

awesome idea – book search feature in google. Many books (including the ones I bookmarked in delicious) have previews in books.google.com. Worth looking at.

For instance the one book that Ian recommended more than any was teaching for tomorrow (Ted McCain):
http://books.google.com/books?id=oDsvkqgj_NgC&pg=PR5&dq=teach+for+tomorrow&sig=ACfU3U1i9Hg38FeUIkAP-dhcCXmct1w9Cg

The Morning:
Ian went over the 4 major exponential trends that we need to consider as we think about preparing for planning:

Moore’s Law – the trend will contune for the foreseeable future – faster, small, cheaper
Photonics – the trend will continue to increase – bandwidth triple almost yearly for the foreseeable future

Internet – its tremendous growth will continue (he didn’t particularly talk about web 3.0, but I think this should matter – the evolution of intelligent agents will be a powerful new use of the web)

Ian made the point that most teachers have never left education – they have been in the system since they were 6 years old – they have paradigm paralysis – too close to the institution to see its needs through new eyes.

He talked about the TTWADI (That’s the way we’ve always done it) mentality – used a story of conditioning monkeys in a cage (shooting them down with a water hose if they tried to grab bananas – they stop trying and will actively prevent any new ones – even if they are new to the cage – it becomes accepted practice).

Story of railroad tracks – why? Roman Chariots – why are SRBs the width they are – had to fit in the tunnels built to accommodate tracks

We talked about what are our accepted practices which are part of the TTWADI mind set – school day, textbooks, class size, teacher training, school year, grouping by age, subjects to study, etc

He made the case that in 1937 the US had the longest school year in the world, in 2008 we are at or near the bottom – longest is singapore

“When the going gets tough, the tough get traditional”

Based on trends in Moores Law, In 2019, the typical computer specs:

Memory: 208,000 GB
Hard Drive: 40 TB
Processor Speed: 1.2 THz
Price: $1.37

What does that mean? ubiquitous computing

he quoted Marc Prensky quite a bit in the presentation (in delicious link above)
Makes the case that although most of us reember before the exponetial curve took off, our kids have always lived it – they expect it

Quoted Kurzweil quite a bit (just googled – he has a ted talk here:

The book the singularity is here – recommended in delicious inks above

What will kids need to know? In answer to question about how much is too much, he kept revisiting the idea of BALANCE – need to honor botht he things that we know plus include new ways to thinking.

Mentioned a book he is planning on reading : turn it off (delicious link above)

Another BIG idea – too many things happening – whether you are an experienced tech user of a beginner – take baby steps – just pick one thing and start incorporating it – don’t over immerse (just like training – if you go too hard, you will hurt yourself and not come back).

on the topic of Photonics: Gilder: Telecosm: The world after Bandwidth abundance (delicious link above)

Talked about the emergence of wimax and wibro in the next few years

gotta go to more sessions – will add to summary later…

Time to get to business

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Well – it is time to start keeping a real blog here. One of the things that drives this is the Doctoral Program I am in at University of Hawaii and the need to be more “out there” writing and sharing what is going on.

Here is my tool of the day: Jing (which I found on this web site). Easy to use screen capture software. Crossplatform. Free. Comes with free screencast.com storage and easy upload interface. Easy to embed videos. Example here:

2008-05-26_2313

Ok I am not why it would not embed properly ( I suspect it was too large) but at least the link is active.

Aloha for now!