Mobile Learning Handbook

 This looks worthy of note! I haven't read it yet but thought it might interest others too!

Mobile Learning Handbook

Cooling Our Heels

How-Tuesday: How to Stay Cool from etsy

Summer: we long for it and then try to cope with it! In this video from etsy, many ways to keep cool are suggested that hopefully reduce electric energy consumption at the same time!

Fun With Water by Sel

I would add

• closing all the blinds and curtains and remaining oblivious to summer: this really works to cool the home. 
• lying totally sprawled on the floor and not moving one muscle: play dead
• filling the tub with cool water, and leaving it there for repeated dousing visits: do not share!
• do absolutely nothing that involves using any of your own energy supplies: this includes thinking
• when possible keep any skin parts from touching other skin parts: walk with legs wide apart and arms akimbo
• still pondering!

Playing With New Finds #1

Here is an Avatar I created for myself at FaceYourManga : http://faceyourmanga.com/

JayJay

At this site you can create a customizable avatar(s) and download for use. I think you can make a whole collection if you wish, and you can share with others if you so desire. It was quite fun to play with all of the different features especially the many types of glasses!

I plan on making a complete file of images that I can use for....who knows what?

For example, meet Natty...

Natty

Inquiry Into Digital Content: Jackbert Digital Production!

Robin and Jeannette's final project for the EDER 679.25 Educational Technology course is posted on our joint wiki at URL: http://eder67925finaljackbert.wikispaces.com/

The challenge originally given was to create a digital story and share the resulting artifact in an online setting together with a supporting explanation and reflection. We were able to choose any topic that pertained to the reasons we had for choosing this course as part of our ongoing studies. The final title for our digital project is Digital Content and Inquiry : A Jackbert Production. We had much fun and challenges during the planning and construction of our movie and hope you enjoy the results of our collaboration! Would love some feedback

Modern Times by Profound Whatever

I have included the video below to emphasize the idea that schools are places of collaborative-individual learning and that by embracing the potential of the continually emerging technologies both online and offline; both in the real and virtual; both the physical and the imaginative; we offer the best of educational landscapes for constructing and creating knowledge. In addition we must be willing and open to change and innovation , which means that, as Diane Laufenberg states in this presentation, "if we continue to look at education as if it's about coming to school to get the information and not about experiential learning, empowering student voice and embracing failure, we're missing the mark."  I would add that these same sentiments apply to teachers as much as to their own students and classrooms as we have tried to exemplify in the production and rationale for our digital artifact.

 

TEDx Talk: How to Learn? From Mistakes by Diana Laufenberg

Our digital creation contains brief examples of the following components we consider implicit for a social-constructivist inquiry context for Teaching and Learning. This was created using the following online applications: SimpleDiagrams, MindNode Pro, and stock.xchng. at http://www.sxc.hu/

Inquiry Into Digital Content #4b: Pondering on Participatory Culture and Digital Literacy

 


I tried a new opener tool here from Simple Diagrams...it's pretty awesome, especially as you can see the possibilities for collaboration using this application on and offline....you must try it!

My experimental diagram is an attempt to illustrate myself Pondering on Participatory Culture and Digital Literacy!

There's No Place Like Here: Brazenhead Books by Andrew David Watson & Etsy

After my previous post in which I mentioned my interest in Engeström's notion of hybrid worlds--simply put as an online-offline interplay--I went on a quest to find examples of digital content that might demonstrate some element of barrier-crossing phenomenon. I intentionally sought out media that illustrated aspects of the physical world whilst simultaneously interfacing or interacting in a digital space.  So far I have posted two that are quite fascinating samples of rich narrative around the lived physical world that have been constructed very artfully into digital content for sharing on the web.  I am thankful that there is such an online place or space where such delights can be shared with a large audience.  This is the way to let your story be told, heard, shown, and spread. (I hope to select more to link to as I continue my personal quest!)

The video above narrates the dedication and passion of Michael as he cares for his secret second-hand bookstore and the following video tells the art, craft, and fascinating story of Geahk as he designs and constructs marionettes. Both videos appear to be elements of what we may view as a dying culture from the physical world: both touch on an art-form for storytelling, treasuring real books and treasuring puppetry.  And yet, it is in the other world, the digital world, that their stories can be valued and honored.  Both digital artifacts are  artistic crafts in their own right: using the power of voice, silence, image, music, precise editing and story flow to serve the perspective desired.  Etsy appears to be a center of online webbed activity around promoting, showing, demonstrating, buying, and selling of home-made items or skills. From my initial lookings it is an online-offline culture all of its own! It represents much in the physical world but operates and thrives in the virtual. A hybrid indeed!

Process: Marionettes with Geahk Burchill by Eric Beug & Etsy

During this inquiry into digital content, we (my colleagues and I) mused over the question, "What do we need to be good at in order to communicate well in a digital habitat?" In other words, what does literacy look like in a digital place or habitat? I think these videos begin to give a glimpse of those very literacies and associated online and communicative skills necessary to add meaning and worth to digital content on and in a digital landscape.  Many of these same literacies and skills operate in the real world too! We quickly brainstormed what we considered the related key aspects of such components and represented our suggestions in the following Wordle:

  
We then began to experiment using this same Wordle application to play around with short phrases rather than single words: this is achieved by adding a hyphen between the words of the chosen phrase so that the thought remains connected in the word cloud.

Inquiry Into Digital Content #4a: What Is Meaningful Learning?

Why We Need Technology in School by Carl Anderson: YouTube
 

Carl Anderson is a technology integration specialist and consultant in Minnesota.  His movie above is another interesting example of digital narrative: using images, music and text, to express a particular perspective on education and technology use.  Anderson titles his website and blog, Techno Constructivist and has created a wiki to which teachers are invited to add ideas regarding success stories in integration of technology.  In addition he created the digital backpack, digital briefcase, and digital smartphone seen below, each of which contain links to resources, applications, etc. for teachers and students.  Click on each and follow related links: I think it is a very neat way to collate directories and the like.  Also, Anderson offers these items freely to anyone who visits and/or contributes to the wiki. 

I chose to include these disparate items and links as a way of demonstrating one person's attempt at collaboration, knowledge building, and sharing, using tools available online:  Carl Anderson is one of many who is defining his presence on the web!

And there are so many examples of tools and digital paraphernalia that are available to those fortunate enough to have access to, and live in a culture with freedom to use, a variety of technological gadgets for living, learning, communicating and connecting.  What is sometimes less obvious and less accessible is the mindset to use such amazing tools in a way that affords meaningful learning, especially for those of us involved with learning institutions, particularly K-12 schools, as in my own situation.  All tools, whether online or offline, can be used to support or enable any particular philosophy toward education, and therefore any pedagogy toward teaching and learning.  

http://www.tpck.org/

My understanding of TPACK (Technological, Pedagogical, and Content Knowledge) is that at the intersection of all three considerations lies true technological integration. An expert teacher is one who is able to consider and manipulate the relationships of the three forms of knowledge: disciplinary (e.g. scientist), technological ( e.g. computer expert), and pedagogical (e.g. educator) and by so doing can effectively integrate technology with particular subject content for meaningful learning using effective practice.  Whilst this appears sound and definitely of great practical use for teaching and learning, I wonder at a seeming neglect toward belief in a particular philosophical underpinning for pedagogy.  Possibly I just need to delve deeper into this popular approach toward technology infusion/integration in schools and learn more about its philosophical stance?


There are several ideas and theories, however, that support and enhance the philosophical outlook of constructivism. As Ackermann (2004) illustrates:

Playing "what if' or the ability to pretend (establishing a dialog between what is and what could be) is the means by which children as well as adults achieve the difficult balance between getting immersed and emerging from embeddedness. Play is an important aspect in human learning, from identity building to constructing knowledge about the world. (P. 31)

My recent investigations into social constructivism and supporting theories led me to the ideas of Yrgö Engeström. I am very taken and intrigued by how he explains the connections between Cultural/Historical Activity Theory and its relation to constructivism.  From a series of interviews conducted by CSALT, Lancaster University (2002),  Activity Theory basically stresses the impact of culture in its mediating effects on human functioning. People are always embedded in an activity that has its own tools, language, and community(ies): these activities may produce meaningful learning.  The learning that happens is distributed between people as individuals, as peer or interest groups, and the materials, artifacts, tools and the available language signs and symbols.  According to Engeström, we teachers should look at who learns in a different way: not to look at just the individual but to the whole activity system that is learning, including the distributed intelligence evidenced within and across groups; the learning objects created and used; and the historical intelligence and knowledge previously embedded and shared across activity systems or teaching/learning contextual moments. Interestingly, he sees great connections and a need to embrace the multiple literacies inherent in Communication and Education and its many related fields.

Engeström also explains his own extension to the above in his Theory of Expansive Learning: here when individuals find themselves in contradictory situations, those that are conflicting and causing intellectual discomfort for example, people will distance themselves from that context as they attempt to construct an expanded more encompassing one. This takes them beyond the information given and frees them from constraints so that they can learn something not yet there: learning by constructing a new activity or new setting for understanding. Thus, new learning is expanding horizons as you construct knowledge in different and interconnected activity systems.

Enthusiastically bringing and embracing the digital and technological world into these ideas, Engeström cautions against the tendency toward network learning and/or virtual learning becoming closed worlds. As he explains, there is a temptation to to envisage such worlds as complete, where we can assume identities, play any role, access information anytime, anywhere, and feel we can do almost anything. However, we should not forget that this is merely an interface into the other world. We have to return to the physical world, where we walk, work, and live with real people and it should not be excluded. We should maintain a mixed world phenomenon which allow for crossing and interweaving boundaries or hybrid worlds.

Engeström compares the closed world of Narnia envisaged by C.S. Lewis to the hybrid world of Harry Potter pictured by J. K. Rowling. To enter Narnia you pass through a closet or wardrobe into a bounded world: once you are there you remain there across a fixed boundary. In the different magical world of Harry Potter, the magician school, Hogworts, is placed within everyday society where students have to continually criss-cross boundaries.

Engeström concludes that we should not construct closed online Narnia worlds but hybrid Magician School worlds where we and our students have to continually cross boundaries to face real people in the real world.   Hence, we allow for everyday lived-hood and liveli-hood as well as dwelling on the web and embracing the many magical opportunities it proffers.

Sir Ken Robinson on the Purpose of School from Carl Anderson on Vimeo. 

For Sir Ken Robinson, as he states in the above snippet of an impromptu interview, there are three purposes of school. In his words these are:

1. "Ultimately it's personal: it's about helping people discover their personal talents and abilities and helping them become who they can be."
2. "It's cultural. Education is also about helping people to understand the world they're part of: its background; its history; their own communities and other people's communities; and the fact that they are part of a broader world that goes beyond them."
3. "It's economic. It's helping people develop the skills and attitudes which will help them to earn a living and contribute to the common good, the common welfare."

He concludes, "If we lose sight of them, we lose sight of education." 

 A challenge for ourselves in our summer session was to define knowledge! 

Here is one representation of that definition using Stixy

 

The key idea for me is that the nature of knowledge and the meaning of learning in a digital culture is not conveniently definable and actualized: as stated in the image above, "It's Complicated."  Thus, we continue to explore, collaborate, construct, and share our own complexity of educator knowledge about teaching and learning!  The conversations will be fruitful and endless!

 complex inquiry

narrative research

explore

delve

digital content!

continual discourse!

story

no ending

(Jeannette)

References:

Ackermann, E. K. (2004). Constructing Knowledge and Transforming the World. In M. Tokoro and L. Steels (Eds.), A Learning Zone of One's Own: Sharing representations and Flow in Collaborative Learning Environments. Burke, VA: IOS Press, Inc.

CSALT (2002)  A Video Interview with Yrgö Engeström, Online Issue v2. Centre for Studies in Advanced learning Technology, Lancaster University, UK.

Inquiry Into Digital Content #3b: Diversified Dynamic Devices

Get Digital Content Everywhere You Go On Any Device 

by TopTenReviews Accessed at YouTube

The digital landscape

somehow affords me the luxury

to follow particular winding knowledge threads

toward serendipitous discoveries

and larger webs of meaning

(Jeannette Jackson)

To watch the above video is to be overwhelmed with gadgetry fever and a sense of frenetic activity to create more things that can spread more stuff and to inch ever closer to immediacy of speed and transmission: it is a dizzying landscape.  Of course this speaks to the intention of the video in the first place: choices of material, voice-over, sounds, transitions, and locations all play into the intended perspective of the message that we-are-going-places-with-integrated-media! As they promote in the video, people "can enjoy everything everywhere, without going anywhere!"  Do they mean in body, spirit or in mind? This comment in itself provokes serious contemplation!

However, it is not the gadgetry itself that does and will create interconnections; knowledge sharing and creation; social activism; inter-cultural understanding; global community; and the like.  It is the ability of people to imagine, understand, and actualize the possibilities inherent in the ever increasing and changing digital technologies available to us that will provoke such positive use. As Marshall Mcluhan attested, our culture(s) is shaped by the nature of communication media rather then the content itself: still, someone has to decide on that content and that format and that purpose. Tom Wolf explains--as he narrates for the 100th birthday year (2011) commemoration of Mashall Mcluhan--that Mcluhan believed that electronic media changes humans' patterns of thought and behaviour and also alters human nature.  He explains that Mcluhen describes the post-print-media-man as:

more like primitive tribesmen, intimately involved with one another whether they liked it or not and captives of what they hear over the grapevine whether it's true or not. (Wolf for Mcluhan, 2011)

From a teachers perspective I hope to encourage students and colleagues to utilize such amazing media tools and online spaces for building or constructing knowledge that is applicable and of interest to them, as they seek, store, retrieve and share information and learn by so doing.  Also, I hope to enable collaborative work and conversation that is supported by the richness of available materials and not hampered by time, distance, or place.  However, students need to be assisted and guided in their use of such available technologies in order to ensure an ethical, empathetic, wise, intellectual or intelligent, and socially profitable online digital landscape.

 As Mcluhen emphasised, "We are responsible for our technologies and the effects of our technologies as we are responsible for tidying up our grammar." 

I am inspired by many online examples of the power of digital narratives to call people to thoughtful reflection and action. For example, as suggested to us during our summer session, PhotoVoice, Participatory Photography for Social Change is dedicated to providing all people with the chance to speak out and be heard. Their mission as stated on the website is to:

build skills within disadvantaged and marginalised communities using innovative participatory photography and digital storytelling methods so that they have the opportunity to represent themselves and create tools for advocacy and communications to achieve positive social change.

The following video details the process followed in the Photovoice youth program in Hamilton, Ontario (2008), and illustrates the hands-on-ness, community centered, call for action embedded in the process and production with the local youth.  It also is an excellent example of the production of knowledge and a constructivist approach to inquiry.

An interesting and useful guide prepared for those hoping to follow the Photovoice example and goals is provided by Carolyn Wang , from the University of Michigan School of Public Health at http://people.umass.edu/afeldman/Photovoice.htm