What does it mean to learn? Is it the reception and storage of knowledge and information, or does learning encompass more than instruction and learning often exemplified in traditional classrooms?
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Instructional Technology
I stumbled across this interesting, informative in one of courses this semester at USU. The producer of the video covers a concept of transferability or the ability for knowledge to transfer from on activity to another. This is important in the world of gaming where lessons can be learned and where there may be potential for learners to transfer new knowledge to areas outside of games.
Here's the video:
Here's an interested video-short highlighting an MIT Media Lab project that was done in collaboration with M ss ng P eces. It highlights some innovative things individuals who work at phone manufacturing plants are doing with their own phones.
Robotic surgery and instructional design
James R. Porter, M.D., is the medical director of robotic surgery at Swedish Medical Center in Seattle. This video below shows how precise and advanced robotic surgery has become. Swedish's First Hall campus has developed a special operating room which has two surgery consoles where two surgeons can participate in the surgery. This structure allows for instructional apprenticeship in training surgeons in realtime on the proper use of the robotic equipment. The dual-console structure also allows surgeons to trade of operating duties and seamlessly take periodic breaks from the surgical procedure.
Get a look at Swedish's da Vinci Robotic Surgery Suite
See the da Vinci Surgical Robot sew a grape
The precision with which the da Vinci Surgical Robot operates is impressive. To get an idea of what is possible, take a look at how well a surgeon is able to stitch a grape back together. What does this mean for patients? Surgeries can become less invasive with less damage to tissue and improved recovery times.
I've been following reports from the 2015 Consumer Electronics Show. Two wearable pieces of technology caught my attention.
Sensoria Fitness
Runners can improve their efficiency by running with the right cadence and by attempting to land mid- to fore-foot. It often takes a surprising amount of concentration, time, and coaching to develop good running form. Sensoria Fitness seeks to aid runners in improving their form through the wearable smart socks that have built in sensors which send feedback on your running to an app that runners can download to their smart phones. Sensoria also builds heart-rate monitors to provide an even clearer picture for runners who want to monitor and potentially improve their activity.
Here's a look at Sensoria Fitness' technology in action
EPIC-id
What happens if someone needs information about you but you are unable to share it? It's good practice for runners, cyclists, and other outdoor enthusiasts to have a form of ID on their persons in the event that they are found in need of help and unresponsive. IDs often include the person's name, allergies, and emergency contact information. EPIC-id has released a wristband that includes basic identifying information on the band. As you can see in the video below, the band opens exposing a USB port respondents can use to access additional information about the person.
See more on the EPIC-id, here
The virtual world of Whyville
Whyville is an online community for children between the ages of 8-14. This 7-million-member community is a virtual world where kids have the ability to interact with each other with advanced identities and cultural complexities that are found in our physical world. Utah State University's Deborah Fields recently spoke at TEDxUSU on the interesting subject of tween activism that occurred in this virtual setting.
Tween activism in a virtual world
Here's Dr. Field's TEDxUSU speech:
Dr. Deborah Fields
Dr. Deborah Fields is a world-renowned authority in the unique area of tween life in online environments. She co-authored the book Connected Play: Tweens in a Virtual World.
Video games and learning
I stumbled across this video of David Lee unboxing Minecraft in the Classroom: Ideas, inspiration, and student projects for teachers. David mentioned that the book helps teach subjects including math, science, languages, and other subjects using Minecraft as a focal point. I've been aware that instructional technologist have used Minecraft in after-school makerspaces with great success for some time. PhD candidate Ty Hollett with Vanderbilt University has invested much of his research focus in this field and has seen a lot of success with his work. The introduction of this book by Pearson Education indicates that there may be expanding opportunities for students to participate in Minecraft learning opportunities within the course of a regular school day in a classroom setting.
The unboxing
Here's a look at the book. Thanks for the video, David.
Photo credit: "Minecraft Castle" by Mike Cooke is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
Quitting a million-dollar day job
There's a very highly paid professional who recently quit his $7.4 million-per-year day job. What's more, he quit his job to take up farming. Meet former NFL Center Jason Brown. Here's Jason's inspiring story of why he chose to make this major career change:
How did he learn his new skills?
You'll notice in the video that Jason said he has used YouTube as a resource of learning his news skills. Videos like this helped him build his basic knowledge in the area of farming:
“When I think about a life of greatness, I think about a life of service.”
In addition to his elective online learning, Jason looks like he's done a lot of learn-by-doing by making investment in equipment, land, and delivering his first harvest of 100,000 pounds of sweet potatoes. Jason also said he received advice from other farmers in his surrounding community.
Based on my observations from the video, it looks like Jason is well on his way to becoming highly skilled in his new career.
PhotoMath and scaffolding
PhotoMath has developed an outstanding application to help students find solutions to math problems. Although some individuals and groups have expressed concerns that students will use this app to cheat on tests (some inevitably will), there is a lot of potential utility in the use of this application as a form of scaffolding in math instruction and learning. Benefiting from this utility, of course, would take some discipline on the part of the student. A student would attempt to solve a math problem from beginning to end. She could then use PhotoMath to check her work and correct errors after making an honest, unassisted effort to solve each problem. In the event that the student becomes stumped on a problem after such an effort, she could then employee PhotoMath to find the correct solution, view the sequential steps required to solve the problem, and identify the specific area where she encountered difficult.
Here's how the app works
Mixed reviews
As you can see below, some users naturally enjoyed using PhotoMath more than others. One common complaint I found associated with the application was the lack of detailed explanations associated with the set of problem-solving steps PhotoMath provides for each problem. Others found that it provided adequate support in aiding learning.
Download PhotoMath
You can download PhotoMath for free for your apple device, here. The folks at PhotoMath are also currently working on developing an app with the same functionality for your Android device due to launch in the spring of 2015. To enter your name on their mailing list to be notified when the Android PhotoMath app is launched, click here.
The New York Times predicted that 2012 would be the year of the MOOCs. From 2012 until present, these MOOCs (massive open online courses) have popped up all over covering nearly any subject one might want to learn about. MOOCs, by definition, are open. I.e., anyone can join them without going through an admissions process. They are also free. Other online platforms have developed which charge students course fees in exchange to access to courses. Here's a review of five of the most popular platforms where these courses can be found:
Coursera
https://www.coursera.org/
Coursera is home to 800+ courses with a student population of 10,000,000+ Coursera has teamed up with many traditional and internationally respected universities to provide online courses on many subjects, most of which one could expect to encounter on a college campus. Coursera's U.S. universities include many Ivy League universities including Columbia, Brown, Princeton, and Yale. Major research universities including University of Washington, Johns Hopkins University, and University of Minnesota are home to instructors who are also contributing members. The best part about Coursera's courses is that they are free!
Craftsy
http://www.craftsy.com/
Craftsy's focus is centered around crafting as is evident in its name. Learners pay a small fee. Learners who pay the fee for the class have access to its materials for life. Subject areas that are covered on Craftsy include quilting, photography, gardening, home remodeling, and many other areas. Craftsy's video interface is very engaging. Students can make comments during instructional videos which are attached to the specific place in the video when the comment was made. Others are able to see these comments and instructors' responses which makes for a dynamic learning environment.
Udemy
https://www.udemy.com/
Udemy claims to have four million students and 20,000+ courses. It has taken the approach of providing a rewarding profit sharing structure with its instructors. This structure acts as an incentive for instructors to curate high-quality content and to market their courses to potential students. Students naturally also benefit from courses that Udemy's instructors have put a lot of time and effort into. Many of Udemy's courses are free, and fee-required courses are typically between $5 and $100 per course.
edX
https://www.edx.org/
edX focuses on providing high-quality education provided by instructors from some of the world's top universities including Harvard, MIT, and U.C. Berkeley. Courses are structured similar to university courses by university professors. Students can earn certificates for many of the courses they complete. edX courses are free.
Khan Academy
https://www.khanacademy.org/
The Khan Academy provides thousands of free instructional videos on specific skills and techniques that learners are developing. The Khan Academy hosts its videos on YouTube. Its YouTube channel is home to 1.9 million subscribers and more than 475 million YouTube video views. If you're trying to solidify your knowledge on any k-12 school or college subject, chances are, someone has produced an instructional video on it that can be found on the Khan Academy's website.
If you're looking to polish a skill you've been developing or to learn a new skill or subject, taking an online course on the skill or subject may be an excellent method to reach your goals.
Photo credit: "academic pursuit in the shadow of the catalpa" by pcgn7 is liscensed under CC BY 2.0.
The White House Student Film Festival asks students to produce videos addressing topics on education and technology. A committee selected 16 finalists from among 2,500 submissions whose videos were screened at the White House earlier this year. This video was one of three official selections under the category "World of Tomorrow." It's a fun concept of what learning might look in the near future.
Many college-aged students have likely experienced the panic of losing a USB flash drive or misplacing files they thought they saved on their computer. In addition to the negative setbacks associated with losing work, some students are faced with the relatively expensive costs associated data.
Google made some big strides in lowering this cost of data storage and helping students secure their files when it recently announced Drive for Education -- what Google defines as, "an infinitely large, ultra-secure and entirely free bookbag for the 21st century." Google is allowing for what is says is unlimited storage space for all college students who use Google Drive. Google even allows for monster-sized files of up to 5TB to be stored on Drive for Education. (Who owns a single file in the TB range?!) A 5 TB hard drive from Amazon will cost you more than $200 and Google is providing a storage space of this size and more for free.
The Drive for Education isn't the only thing Google is doing well in the education space. I know fellow students in the graduate school setting consistently default to use Google Docs for collaborative document work.
I anticipate that Google will continue to produce high-quality tools that learners will use as a part of its Google Drive for Education platform.
Photo credit: "Student Feet" by Theen Moy is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
I was surfing Reddit earlier this week and ran across this post in the /r/MildlyInteresting subreddit. As you can see, this child's teacher provided a QR code which will link her to online help in a quick, easily accessible way. What's better, most QR Code generators provide the submitter of a URL with backend data on how many times the code was scanned, what type of devices made the scans, etc.
The Institute of the Future "Future Work Skills 2020 Report."
In the next five years, employees will need to visibly provide value above and beyond the investment their employers are making in their compensation packages. This push for value-focused employment will drive instructional designers to address and promote the development of skills the marketplace rewards.
One of the first equations a business student learns is ROI – i.e., return on investment. ROI allows us to see what amount of value that we invest in an asset is returned to us. In cases where we gain more than we invest, our investment is perceived to be successful. Globalization will continue to be a growing source of competitive forces that shape the workforce. This competition requires companies to carefully consider the return on investment it receives from various individuals within its workforce.
ROI is calculated with the following equation:
((Gain – investment)/investment)
From an employer’s perspective, the investment in an employee -- her compensation package -- is relatively fixed. Given this fact, return on investment can be enhanced primarily by increasing the gain the company receives as a result of an employee’s efforts.
The Institute of the Future (IFTF) released a list of projected skills that the workforce of 2020 will need. These skills will help employees provide value and justify their existence within a company structure. The skills include:
- Sense-making - ability to determine the deeper meaning or significance of what is being expressed
- Social intelligence - ability to connect to others in a deep and direct way, to sense and stimulate reactions and desired interactions
- Novel & adaptive thinking - proficiency at thinking and coming up with solutions and responses beyond that which is rote or rule-based
- Cross-cultural competency - ability to operate in different cultural settings
- Computational thinking - ability to translate vast amounts of data into abstract concepts and to understand data-based reasoning
- New-media literacy - ability to critically assess and develop content that uses new media forms, and to leverage these media for persuasive communication
- Transdisciplinarity - literacy in and ability to understand concepts across multiple disciplines
- Design mindset - ability to represent and develop asks and work processes for desired outcomes
- Cognitive load management - ability to discriminate and filter information for importance, and to understand how to maximize cognitive functioning using a variety of tools and techniques
- Virtual collaboration - ability to work productively, drive engagement, and demonstrate presence as a member of a virtual team.
An effective instructional designer and leader can create curriculum to influence human performance in nearly all these areas to some degree. (Granted, these skills make take years to develop, but progress can be made over the course of thoughtful instruction and learning experiences.) Assuming IFTF is correct in its projections in that these skills will be valued in the future market, then enhancing employees’ abilities and efficiencies in these set of skills is a way to add instant value to organizations with which effective instructional designers are employed.
Benjamin Disraeli said, “There can be economy only where there is efficiency.” As designers structure their materials to enhance efficiencies in this future skill-set, value will be created in the economy, employers will benefit from better returns on investment, and employees will enjoyed added job security.
National Geographic did a bang-up job on the recent creation of an interactive learner interface where users can see what type of lifetime impact some of their consumptions have on their health and the environment.
The tool has different interfaces built for common good we consume including eggs, gas (shown above), potatoes, and newspapers. Once a user enters her daily or weekly consumption of an item, stats appear in animated prowess with the user's lifetime average compared to the lifetime average of a U.S. resident and residents from other countries. Give the free tool a try by clicking/tapping here.
Flipping the classroom, blended learning, and other approaches that incorporate interactive learning at home often call on video as a medium of content delivery. Getting learners to fully engage with the material is difficult, but I ran across an interesting tool that might be a bit of help in boosting learner engagement. It's called Zaption. This tool essentially allows an instructor of any subject to pull videos from the web and insert quiz questions throughout the video. The ability to quiz learners throughout a video keeps them engaged and gives you insight into what level of learning is taking place in unison with the viewing of videos.
Here's a short introduction to the tool. I'll be sure to give this a shot in future months.
Karen Swan, Ed.D.
Long before people and communities were connected through the internet, distance education existed to facilitate learning over large spans of geographic distance. Learning material in a pre-internet, pre-industrial setting was naturally rigid and student interaction was challenging if not non-existent. I recently read this chapter from Dr. Karen Swan's research in the book Understanding Distance Learning in the 21st Century: Teaching and Learning in a New Era. Dr. Swan writes about how the advent of online learning has changed the the model of learning from a materials-focused approach to a student-focused approach.
Community of Inquiry (CoI) model CC BY-SA 3.0
This model of online learning is called the Community of Inquiry (CoI) model. It's based on the notion that a learning community must be developed with a cognitive, social, and teaching presence.
What I found most interesting from Swan's writing was the reference to research that indicates a correlation between successful online learning and the individual student's ability to engage and connect with her or his peers in a learning setting. Certainly this connection is easier to obtain in a physical setting; considering the past difficulty students likely faced in pre-industrial/pre-internet distance learning settings, it's clear that the required framework element of social presence is becoming more attainable as our tools for connecting improve.
Here's a bit more on the CoI model as it applies to an academic setting:
I love Reddit. It's one of my favorite websites I use to learn new information about subjects of interest. There is a subreddit for nearly every category imaginable. As this video says, "if Google is where you go to search for things, then Reddit is where you go to see the things that people have found."
I got curious tonight to see what the top "instructional design" post made to Reddit is. Here's what I found:
Instructional design battlestation
I love this workspace layout. The designer has been careful to exclude everything but essential tools to complete her or his work. There's something about a clean, minimalist workspace that helps me focus, design, and deliver.