Week 2 - Blog Posting #4 -21st Century Skills & Lifelong Learning

My aim in life is to contribute to the larger body owork that pertains to educational games and learning software. For a long time I have tried to find my purpose in life. And perhaps there really isn’t merely one isolated grand scheme. Perhaps, I suggest, there are a variety of potentials that can be realized by myself, and of course anyone else for that matter.

In the collaborative environments created by Web 2.0 technologies where we can share information and experiences, different people from various walks of life are now able to investigate what their own goals are and perhaps even see how their lives overlap with others.

The skills that need to be developed for the 21^st Century are those that will definitely need to address people who have grown up with Web 2.0 Technologies and ideologies, and those who are relatively new to it.

In searching for meaning in my life, I have come to realize that I have a profound interest in transferring knowledge to youngsters. And I’ve concluded that if I could get them to learn material, in fun and exciting ways, that there would be a level of relevance that is generated. This relevance would translate into interest on the part of the learner, and eventually result in learning which could conceivably open the students’ mind to related forms of learning and exploration…a part of the skill set that will be needed in the 21^st Century among others is a willingness to collaborate.

That being said, I’ve concluded that I need to be involved with the development of education learning games and software.

The Networked Student video could have been referring to me, the Networked Teacher, who because of the need to develop education games, becomes the networked learner. This concept is cyclical. Allow me to elaborate.

In last month’s course, each member of the team had 3 different types of media assets that needed to be developed for our group project. One of the assets was a Flash based game that quizzed the student on 12 common Jamaican vocabulary words. The quiz was the 2^nd component to a Power Point Reading Activity.

As a designer and illustrator it was easy for me to create and design graphics that supported the goal for this game. As an educator I enjoyed integrating the educative qualities of the game with the overall design. However, when it came onto the animation and scripting aspects, I wasn’t too knowledgeable.

Enter my Personal Learning Network, which by the way, I was thrilled that to learn that I already had! I have one friend, an animator whose entire life’s ambition has been to become an animator. He is a very talented individual who has worked for agencies and freelanced for a number of clients. A different friend was originally a student in college learning various programming languages, including Object-Oriented C and C++. These two individuals lived in two different locations, and by the way knew of each other, but did not really know each other personally. I used Email and Yahoo Messenger to relay the details of how I wanted the animation to work. When I finally got the version of the game completed to my satisfaction, I sent it on over to the programmer. But wait… he had man questions. As a programmer, he is concerned with the details in the HOW of things. I am concerned with the big picture. So, I could say that I need a game that quizzes people. The first question he’d ask is, “Would it be multiple choice?” “Will they be entering the answers in the keyboard?” “Are they clicking the answer with their mouse?” “How will they know the answer is correct?” (Validation & Confirmation). Because of these questions, I was able to further explain the details of the game to the programmer.

The sequence of the questions, the options, the location of elements. What made sense to him didn’t make sense to me at times and vice versa.

However, the point I am trying to convey is that without my willingness to be open minded, steps toward collaboration and eventual completion of the game could not be made.

Everything that the programmer asked about or raised a point on was taken into serious consideration. If the animator didn’t group objects correctly, he could not script it. This challenged the animator to take different approaches to solving a problem. In addition, the sequencing aspect was a detail that I took a keen interest in. It was important that the learner knew they got an answer correct, and if they got any wrong. The learner needed to get their final score, and if they misspelled a word how they could correct it, In addition, we needed to deal with words that had spaces. All these nuances facilitated a shared learning experience on the part of myself, the animator and programmer.

You can take a look at the final piece here:

Reading Assignment & Flash Based Quiz (Retrieved Monday, September 14, 2009)

As an educator, I cannot overlook the fact that I will need to be ever learning. And a part of this ever learning comes from being willing to access and grow my PLN.

In addition, I found the steps in Scott Young’s “15 Steps to cultivate Lifelong Learning” (Retrieved Monday, September 14, 2009) to be practical and straightforward approaches. Two of the steps, always reading a book and goal setting are steps that I have already employed in my personal and professional life.

I have found a very compelling application that I would like to investigate further at some point in the very near future. Goal Scape is a goal setting software that makes it comprehensive yet simple to create, manage and monitor your goals.

http://www.goalscape.com/?gclid=CIX13fm58JwCFado5Qod_grAsA (Retrieved Monday, September 14, 2009)

In the effort to be facilitators of children becoming Networked Learners, we, as the teachers/trainers need to be willing to collaborate with our peers as well.

Doing this enables us to relate to the student on a personal level, being that we too as teachers have been in their shoes. We can then tailor learning experiences and prompts that are genuine and not contrived merely for the sake of instruction.

Unless we ourselves learn to become more like students, our students cannot learn to become more like teachers. This reciprocal relationship is pivotal to effective communication, inventive thinking and digital literacy; skills desperately needed in this evolving age.

Week 2 - Blog Posting #3 - Media Literacy

Brain Rules
The Brain Rules site (www.brainrules.net) reminded me so much of what I learned from Eric Jensen’s Brain based Learning book in my month two course Multiple Learning Intelligences. The concepts purported in the Brain Rules site corroborated with the concepts of the stressed brain and the effect that exercise and rest have on the brain.

Teaching Different Brains

From reviewing the site and indeed upon reflecting on what was brought up in Brain based Learning, and the different times of day for brain alertness, I realize that perhaps I could be more flexible with my students in terms of instruction. I think that I were to spend more time with the children, I'd get a chance to see how each student responds to learning at different times of day. Perhaps the lesson could be modeled around that, so that each child gets a chance to learn in their own way.


Multitasking
My perception of multitasking was challenged when I reviewed the Brain Rules site.
Perhaps this very post is a good example of how multitasking really isn’t beneficial at all. I started out to post this quite early this morning. But due to construction/remodeling of my home, and of course the children not in school, I was “multi-tasking”. And a post which could easily have been completed in 2-3 hours was drawn out over the course of most of the daylight hours.

I was so intrigued by this multitasking myth that I just had to include a reference from a book I own in this post. (C How to Program 2nd Edition: H.M. Deitel/P.J. Deitel ) A few years ago, I become interested in C, an object–oriented programming language. In this book, there was an interesting fact that was raised.
Computers initially were capable of executing merely one job/task at a time. This is referred to as single-user batch processing.
Over time, as computers transformed into even more powerful machines, this process of single user batch processing didn’t make use of the computer’s resources efficiently. As such, eventually computers were developed into machines that multi-programmed. Multi-programming is when many jobs or tasks share a computer’s resources, in order to get better results. Enter timesharing. Time sharing is a particular instance of multiprogramming where users interact with a computer through terminals. This system enables many users to access a computer all at the same time. The access appears to be simultaneous, but what the computer is really doing is running a small segment of one user’s job and then moving onto another one, several times per second. The computer does this so quickly that it appears that things are simultaneous.

This caused me to wonder if the way we programmed computers was telling of the way we viewed how the brain works when different tasks are presented at the same time. Are we referencing our own knowledge of this process and transferring t to computers? Are we trying to perfect this concept of multitasking in computers where we have people have failed? Are we trying to be more like our perfected machine when in reality as the studies have shown from Brain Rules, that it is impossible? I wouldn’t be surprised if that were the case at all. We are expected to work all day with only a one hour break, if that in some cases. Most of us wouldn’t think to leave our car engines running at night. The car wouldn’t run effectively or efficiently. We try to multitask and it really does us no good. This revelation has seriously challenged me to view multitasking differently.

Performace and Simulation: Haptic / Mind Reading Technology
This section of my post is a response to the Performance and Simulation sections of the assignment. These are areas of interest to me because I will be studying more into these topics as they relate to my Action Research. Here is a link that my friend passed on to me, where haptic technology has taken a broad step… Instead of using your body to physically touch a screen or interface, the mind gathers data from your body movements and transfers it to a video game or operate a wheelchair.
Essentially, as each movement is made, there are different areas of the brain that fires electrical impulses at varying frequencies and length. And as the third video, Total Communication conveys, the way we relate to machines is the central focus of this exercise.

Emotive Stonehedge Demo:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxMux4uEkLI&feature=player_embedded

Retrieved Sunday, September 3, 2009

Wheel Chair Control:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0at3NzNRySg&feature=player_embedded

Retrieved Sunday, September 3, 2009

Mind Control: Human / Machine Interactions (Total Communication)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40L3SGmcPDQ&feature=player_embedded

Retrieved Sunday, September 3, 2009

We’ve seen this technology implemented to a degree in the Nintendo Wii. But from an educational and training perspective this sort of immersive environment lends itself to a plethora of education ideas in knowledge delivery and acquisition. Children can use specialized gloves in order to manipulate dough in a home economics lesson, which would also help to save money on materials. We’ve seen such steps toward immersion in Augmented Reality, (former FSO graduate, Camaal Moten’s History Lesson site: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDnKzfEVEHM) Virtual Reality and Second Life.
In this presentation for Dr. Wyly’s Month 1 MLR course, my group and I discuss our findings on how Science Education is being used in Second Life, and what we believe the implications and applications are and could be in a real life setting.
http://media2point0.comxa.com/

Playful Learning
One of the concepts that was brought out in the Gever Tully video was that of exploration through independent and collaborative playful learning.
In an ID Model that my former group was assigned last month in Dr. Deason’s Education Design & Evaluation course, the concept of playful learning was brought to the forefront. The article entitled, Computer as Paintbrush: Technology, Play, and the Creative Society by Mitchel Resnick highlighted the various ways in which Lego robots were used to accomplish varied tasks.
Children used crickets, which are small electronic components that communicate with the brick of a Lego robot. This brick then executes the commands run by the cricket script in order for the robots to perform goals such as sense light, react to movement, gather data and navigate a course. The article explained that it was because of the playful explorative nature of the method the children employed to accomplish goals that these goals were actually accomplished.
These investigative steps were explorative in that they employed the use of the trial and error process central to the Gever Tully video.
I would tend to agree with the points that both the Resnick article and Tully video raised. I had the privilege of working with fourth and fifth graders a few years ago in a similar setting. The children had Lego components, software, a mapped course and of course plenty of enthusiasm. One day we all had a warm time trying to code the script for the cricket. This was because each time we ran the script, the timing would change. We wanted our rover to proceed forward for a specified number of seconds, moving up a ramp to pick up an artifact. The problem was that again, each time we practiced, the amount of energy that the robot needed to use from the battery depleted, so after we had our numbers recorded, and tried to proceed with the rest of the mapped course, the robot would stop short of the artifact, each time farther and farther away. From this explorative process the children were able to learn about time and energy relations, and also about value. We used two sets of batteries in three different ways. Generic brand, brand name, and both, Our conclusions told us that when we purchased brand name batteries (Duracell) they actually lasted longer than Energizer batteries, and worked more efficiently than when we combined the batteries, which is something that each brand always labeled that we don’t do anyway. Were it not for this explorative, playful process, the information would not have been retained in quite the same way. These methods employed relevance, which is an important component of the learning process. It also brought up the issue of advertising. One of the girls brought up a point that the “Energizer bunny is fraudulent. Because it doesn’t keep going and going. They just want your money.”

On a related note, our team in Dr. Deason’s course had to create a collaborative learning environment where the concept of playful learning was realized, where the computer is used as a creative implement that aided to “paint” new learning experiences instead of simply a passive tool. This project was our month 3 final group project that was based on the Mitch Resnick paper. This link maybe found here: http://fullsailboas.ning.com/

Teaching Application

Having children become literate in various media takes the willingness for teachers and administrators to work together. It's my hope that as I proceed toward working on my AR project, that I can get the information that I would need in order to work the right channels to be able to integrate my AR project idea of a virtual classroom into a real world setting.

I'd have no problem developing training modules for principals and faculty to how this could effectively work. Kristen, one of my critical friends remarked that keeping perhaps taking disruptive students from out of the school and putting them all in one separate location may be facilitating the negative behavior further. Maybe if I channeled my efforts down the right paths, I'd be able to see where the technology could be best put to use. It is my ultimate hope that the classroom addresses a real safety in the classroom issue, but also addresses the much needed media literacy that the kids need to acquire. Teachers can benefit as well, because they too need to be aware of the technology and how it plays out in the classroom.

In the meanwhile, I think that I can definitely allow for more explorative options in the classroom.

I see where in my school, the computer is seen as a privilege or a reward. If I could find a way to get the computer to be embraced more as part of the in -class curriculum, perhaps that could be a step in the right direction. Right now, there is a computer class given once a week in a separate classroom. The children are not being taught the skills they need such as keyboarding by the computer teacher.

Anytime I've been in there, I see the kids left to play games for 45 minutes. Not that the games are themselves bad or that he couldn't be instructing them when I'm not around, but I've heard complaints from several teachers as to the instructor's attitude, competence and general apathy toward being actually involved. I think that the computer teacher needs to be less of a facilitator and more of a participator. This way, perhaps the computer classes could not only become more frequent, but more engaging too.

There are computers in most classrooms, and I think that by "sneaking" in computer related activitites would be a perfect way to begin to wean the children from off the perception that the computer is a privilege.