All posts by @geonz

Open Participants, Syndicated

well lit rabbit holes

Noon I ducked down to our local “Maker Space,” which has open hours ’til 1:00.   I’ve been going there for years whenever something’s weird with whatever version of my dynamo hub light I’m trying to get rolling.

Long story short:   the person who knows how to take gadgets apart & put ’em together was coming for the 1:00 thing, which seems to be an open Python and things like that session.   Facilitator is a person who teaches Python to people in Information Science grad students who are “non-STEM,” and, she says, often phobic about math as soon as it turns into “x=” something so she has found other ways.   It was interesting to hear conversations among people in the University community.

It also took ’til 4:00 to figure it all out and get it back together and get it charged and… now I have to find the right thingy to put it on the bike, and no I didn’t so much as *touch* the tech project.

This a.m. I discover a tweet talking about David Wiley of Lumen Learning’s latest blog which talks about people using “open” in ways that aren’t open enough…we need those 5Rs…  oh, and the comments are closed. Nothing ironic there, is there?  The comments and tweets on blogs about that blog make me realize again what a tight-knit group these guys are (lots of insider references).  (My opinion:  if you’re going to want a certain definition for a term, then don’t give the term a name like “open.”   Hello?   It already has a ton of meanings and interpretations. Name it after somebody, maybe… )

It’s time to do some courage-seeking …

 

 

Open Participants, Syndicated

Podcasts R Us

https://www.insidehighered.com/audio/2017/03/22/pulse-app-algebra  is 24 minutes about a guy and an algebra app that he says is the first on the planet like it — you get to drag and drop things to solve algebra equations.  (Start at 18:30 and you can be spared the l-a-b-o-r-i-o-u-s background… )    I share his mystification about the underuse of the media (like me, he thinks Khan Academy is a dronefest) but … actually, doesn’t the “Dragon” algebra software pretty much do that?

I also share his appreciation for the visual-kinesthetic fluency aspect of algebra, and his disdain for teaching students the whole “add 3 to both sides of the equation” — and then stopping there, when they’re doing everything by hand, one step at a time.   I do wonder how much understanding gets lost if people just jump to “move it over and change the sign” too quickly — but it’s a wonder, not an assumption.   Could be that it really does cut the cognitive load without cutting the understanding… or it could be that it turns into a process like changing a mixed number into an improper fraction — motor memory, but often without a *clue* as to what the numbers mean.  I wonder if it helps with understanding the importance of that equals sign thing…

Wonder if he’s ever stumbled on the OER community and the idea that sharing the code, etc. could mean better things could evolve…

Time to get out of rabbit holes and back to Camtasia.

Open Participants, Syndicated

Endorphin-induced thoughts…

29 degrees and not much wind at all … and I got out a little early.   I could hear talk and laughter from one early-party group this “Unofficial Saint Patrick’s Day.”

Imagining having funding. Imagining organizing (!yes, I think crazy thoughts on bike rides) the Urbana-Champaign node of OER innovations.  The technology and its development have reached a tipping point of accessibility and affordability.   We don’t have to wait at the doors of the Big Publishers for well-honed interactive resources.   (We *do* have to resist the urge to focus on the early adopters and neglect that honing part in pursuit of What’s The Latest and Greatest.)

I’m imagining teaming up with Pixo and/or our own folks.   Our App Development course started with educational apps for our faculty as the ‘recommended projects’ — can we take them to the next level?   The folks at Landmark School and The NEw Community School — we could cooperate to design mobile apps that included visual-kinesthetic engagement all the way through college math.

Doors have been opened to innovative approaches to make math requirements less of a barrier.   Many schools have re-designed their math courses entirely (think the Carnegie Pathways   and — trying to build concepts rather than procedures, and tackling some of the formidable affective issues students face.   THey’re using online learning… but they don’t really understand the actual, cognitive learning issues that many of the students who come in significantly under ‘college level’ face… and they don’t understand just how many of these folks are out there, underachieving. Let’s get a team together to make math accessible…and OPEN…  and now, back to my regularly scheduled program.  What with this online stuff, students want to be DONE on Friday, so it’s not a ‘dead’ day… *Eight* industrious souls here, before 9:00 a.m….full of questions…

Open Participants, Syndicated

Professional Development Day!

Wherein I have watched the “Open Pedagogy” webinar from OpenOregon.org, wherein the participants discuss having students *create* “open” content in courses.   (First off is the caveat that no! this isn’t appropriate for everything! and there’s much discussion of the need for careful planning and leaving room for privacy and diverse student needs.)

I’d love to hear some Universal Design for Learning people get in on that conversation.   Imagine applying Universal Design for Learning guidelines to these assignments.  Imagine planning to reach the “Learners in the Margins” from the get-go.

Meeting to brainstorm about using quizzes and visuals to make our course adaptive.   Be still my heart – no, don’t 🙂   We’ll start with the ones we have… then embellish using multimedia.

 

Open Participants, Syndicated

More open in the press…

… My ed tech buddy at the U of I sent this to me:  Top Fears Shutting the Door on Open Education  from campustechnology.com  .

Surprise 1:   In this context, concerns about “accessibility” have nothing to do with ADA and everything to do with “if it’s on the web, that website might go bell up or delete that file!” kinds of fears.   (If it’s *open* you can retain… make it open!)  … and faculty are more worried about this than students (though IMHO … faculty are wise).

SUrprise 2:   This statement about the overglorification of “failure ” from a Rolin Moe whose session I missed at the Open Ed conference:

“‘When we think about the failure ethos, it’s almost entirely perpetuated by successful white males, who can look back on their personal struggles, quote-unquote ‘struggles,’ and think about the triumphs they had,’ said Moe.

…  Forcing students who may already be marginalized to fail publicly in some way — as in publishing their writing on a public blog where they can be trolled — may simply be cruel.”

I really appreciated the honest discussion of the ups and downs of “have the students put their writing online,”  especially since so much discussion of OER stops at “free textbooks.”

… but I’ve set today as deadline for Getting The Application Ready.   Now, I had six students here by 8:30 — unusual for a Thursday — but the folks who are here early w/ no classes … are a little more independent, hence the time to type this up between questions and mouse cords taking students down… no injuries….

Open Participants, Syndicated

Online courses

So!   IN between applying for a job to help enhance and create math courses… I’m trying to … build a math course!   For our folks who need to prep for the test … or already took the test and need to learn stuff…

We’ve got Modumath, but its online presence is — well, it’s *not* open, but it would be typical of an open effort.   Really great videos have been uploaded and you can go through the videos and answer questions as they play and get instant feedback.

There’s a printable PDF that has the same information in text form, and a self-test with answers.

There’s no adaptability at all.   There isn’t even individual … anything.   All users from a single license go to the same pages.

So!   Our job is to make this more individual.   THe tutorial videos are outstanding, albeit low-tech.   Our plan is to put the videos into modules, and then add our own quizzes.   Here’s where we can be … ADAPTABLE!   and USE BADGES 🙂   And … if it’s to prepare for a test that’s proctored ^3   then … cheating will, as my teachers always said, “only cheat yourself.”  (And there would be stuff for getting you motivated like you find here from MIT about getting you to write a little about your values before you do the stuff).

We can have a plain old “did you get it?” quiz… and then a Thing To Do If You Didn’t Get It that you have to do to take it again, and then … you don’t move on until you pass (though there Always Needs To Be An Alternative because sometimes you do need to move on).

… then, when we’ve built enough things around it, we can make our own modern videos and not have to have a subscription to another product.

Of course, if I do it here, it might be a challenge to make it open… but if I can stay a step ahead on my own — gee, I just *happen* to know about this OER video that will fit, because I already made it! — then…

… so tomorrow in the early hour the plan is to learn what the ‘grunt work’ part is, where we plop the video into the module… happily that’s the kind of task that I can do around working w/ students, unlike programming, which reading up on Lumen Learning made me recognize the potential value of learning.

I did a pretty good job with that Java stuff with the basics, and honestly I think the basics could work for making adaptable activities.   I did the silly integer app , right?   What if I really, honestly *had* focused hours each day for it?   LOL I’d probably get past 60 on my StackOverflow rep!!!   (I’m over 1100 on Canvas..)   I can dream, can’t I?

Open Participants, Syndicated

A new idea

LOL  the two minutes ’til end of work day and I DROVE THE CAR THING so I can’t even think about it well on the way home.

Here’s my next magic grant request.   Hey.   I really should figure it out and at least plop it on a few other blogs. 

So I’m doing all this totally tedious CRAP in Canvas — I want a quiz with images and a quiz without. (Sigh, I broke my lurk promise and posted a blog onto “Math Ed” about the tediosity.)

Well, I want a quiz with number bars and a quiz with domino icons and.

Wait… repeat activities should be done by computers.

Object oriented programming.

There will be lots of lessons that will want an “image” version.   (I’ll actually want a “drag and drop and manipulate” version but I can’t make that yet.)

There should be a program to walk me through that design so I can just input the questions and the images and the progression and … it should generate the interactive experiences.

Can I get a grant? Can I make it open?

Open Participants, Syndicated

#openlearning

Watched a video interview with the ‘connectedness coach’ or something like that for the course.

Truth be told, if I hadn’t had 15 hits on my little equity post, I’d have forgotten about #openlearning.   The semester has started so my job is actually serving students.  (Yesterday was a day I wished I had a way to keep track of what I did all day.   I was regaling it to my friend and kept having to say “Wait! Wait! There’s more!”)  There’s also the stuff of death and taxes that has eaten much of my focus.

Still, the “first week” of that cMOOC (‘connectivist’  so “learn from each other” rather than ‘here’s some lectures from MIT guys, aren’t you lucky?’)   doesn’t start ’til tomorrow — I suppose there are things in their LMS that will “open” then because right now it just claims (falsely) that each week listed on the syllabus will link to its details.

So far (right, xious… it hasn’t even **started** yet ~ )  it still feels like a whole lot of academic talk about the academic world and ‘openness.’

We are having some of those issues out on the front lines.   Friday’s anecdote #7 was a kiddo not being able to find courses to enroll in (starting at midterm since it’s too late for Spring)… I told him about our new online independent skill-building options and he said that well, he needed a course.   He knew that he just didn’t get things done independently.

(OTOH, anecdote #3 was the Brazilian who listened to a chunk of Modumath and said, “It’s perfect!  He talks slowly and explains things!” — and we’re trying to make that more open)

Lots of us on the edge of open — we’re the ones who *do.*   So … it’s easy for us to project that onto the rest of the world… a world of people who benefit from a lot more structure.   I actually remembered to ask people coming in for that independent stuff (it can be done on the internet anywhere but — guess what!! — they want to *go to school.*)  about making a folder and logging time and progress.   (I have qualms.   I cannot remember things like folders.   So far, though, *they have.*   All of ’em…. I really should get that other guy a folder…)

Why does that belong in this #openlearning blog post?   Because “open” should be better than “okay! open for swimming!” on the open seas.

We don’t have a “course” because … then we’d need students to be “in the system.”  They’d need the right kind of email address. Even if it’s open to everybody, they have to do a mess of paperwork and … some of the folks in some of hte groups who’d use it are undocumented.  I’d like to see us set up “houses” like Hogwarts and … you can pick your character.   (Didn’t Second Life do something like that?)

Then *if you so choose* you can find ways to connect with your identity and get credentials.

If “open” is open to people with the right tech equipment, the right tech skills, and even then there are hoops to navigate…  per the section in Fifty Shades of Open  about “open means use,”  that’s not really open.

How to provide the structure so many people need for good learning … without that structure turning into insurmountable hurdles?   Let’s explore…

 

Open Participants, Syndicated

OER and equity

or, too verbose for Twitter R Us.

So I read on twitter that “Open educational resources () and open source software are the single best way to ensure for all students.”

Ensure?

Let’s talk about ‘equity’ and the adult ed folks in need of basic literacy and numeracy.

Ensure?

OER are starting to serve some people well.   IT’s an awesome adventure.

However, when I talk about adult ed and literacy and numeracy, I’m referred to OpenStax and OpenEd and… no, those materials are not designed for these folks.   The designers for learning MOOC is a single example of a real effort to get OER  materials designed and delivered to adult ed providers who need it, but it only chips at a few ice flakes on part of the iceberg.

 

I’ve been encouraged to give the #openlearning cMOOC a chance because it might not be as dry as I fear… but then I read statements like that.

It’s analogous to having an amazing library that’s “open to everybody” — well, except it’s in the nicest part of town, with no infrastructure for access and — erm, you don’t even want to be walking down that street if you don’t look like you live there and don’t know the hidden social rules. (And of course you have to have time to get there between shifts, and…)  Still, it’s OPEN!!!

It is open.  IT’s wonderful.   However, it isn’t equity. (Sorry, that’s my mathiness showing.)  And y’all wonder why only folks with graduate educations do MOOCs.

WHen I ask about adult ed and equity, and the answers are all about LTI and sharing protocols — again, I need time and training to even know what that means.   And frankly, based on my experience w/ Canvas…  knowing what they mean doesn’t help.  They’re utterly inadequate.     Getting units after an amount is asking too much. Logging in? THat’s our first weedout of the unworthy.  (The first of *many.* )

Only Canvas is the venue that *is* more open.   MOst “open” stuff that I learned about at the OER conference?  Oh, it’s open … to … faculty.   To major efforts at institutions. Oops.   Equity.  Right.

THen there’s UDL, and all the preaching that it’s best not to apply it retroactively.   This is a golden opportunity, people…. if you really mean that stuff about equity.   LEt’s do!

(And sigh, I did go back and do a note to self on Canvas.  YEs, I was told that ‘don’t assume people who insult and belittle you mean to be negative!’   and I do understand that that’s the culture… but I also know that nobody’s going to so much as notice whether I lurk or not… it’s so much like cycling communities, where people will drop you in a heartbeat and then wonder why no beginners ever go on the rides… they don’t *mean* to put you down but you’re such a Fred!)

Open Participants, Syndicated

#openlearning

Seems there will be a “cMOOC” about this.   cMOOC being an open course that’s focused on ‘connectivity,’ somehow.  We’ll see.  The syllabus is pretty dry and academic, going through the history of ‘open.’   Guess my main beef with the ‘open’ community is that it’s so imbued with academic culture, as in “let me pontificate about equity and open” in theory. http://openlearninghub.net/  is the door and it’s out of Virginia and … am I destined to return there?   It’s so *in the grid.*

I’m also wading through the convoluted directions for how I should tag my blog posts for it.  I did hte best I could… thought about using ds4oer so I could be “the whole blog is about this thing” but … that’s my blog to my self.   So

TAG openlearning 🙂   (It feels like one more dead end distraction but … let’s see right now about finding that wretched flash drive and getting my ‘five things on the course’ started…)