Timeliness and Blogs
As you can see, blogging requires time which I do not have.
posted by Bob Clougherty | 8:18 AM
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0 comments
Thinking and Learning
- Timeliness and Blogs
- Buddy Map
- What is a PLE?
- Product or Process? e-Learning
- Web Design: The Vowel Complex
- Welcome
Tuesday, March 03, 2009
Thursday, December 21, 2006
Saturday, August 19, 2006
What is a PLE?
PLE is an acronym for "Personalized Learning Environment"; while it may look like yet another edugeekspeak acronym, the fact is, it represents and requires a philosophical nad paradigmatic shift in our approach not simply to learning, but how Higher Education functions and relates to the individual learner. For too long, the focus has been on the institution and its needs instead of the needs of learners. Great ideas emerge in this field each year only to die into cliche as they morph to fit into traditional institutional practice; PLE's require that the paradigm change. DesCartes is dead, so is Humbolt--I am sure that it is safe to move on.
In the traditional model, the institution views itself as the sole provider of learning for one of its students (the flaw of this assumption is visible if one stops to consider what would happen if one walked about many institutions and asked people what learners got out of the institution and what they learned. You would hear lists of the curriculum, an ambituous school might even give you a list of syllabi, the PR departments would inundate you with tag lines full of non-direcctive pronouns, and savvy administrators would give you a lesson on assessment. It's a nice dancec, but the only people who know about the real learning are the learners themselves.
For those who teach in higher ed like myself, you have had those astounding moments, usually with students who have since departed from your class, when someone tells you what they've learned. It is usually shocking because it was not your intent to focus on that, but that learner found a need for it, contextualized it in their life and learning locker and developed their ideas from it. (There's an amusing scene at the opening of B. F. Skinner's Walden Two which relays a similar scene.) I once quoted a line from a work in the opening lecture of a literature class; four years later, a person came up to me and told me how that quote had changed their lives. The fact is, when we are in a learning mode, we are not passive, we are actively seeking.
PLE's build from the above ideas and apply them to the use of technology for learning. The beauty of the tangled web we call the internet is that space and time break down. Once upon a time, Higher Education--based on the fact that it had the faculty, the library, the ability to purchase the academic journals--had a geographic stranglehold as the cathedral to which one went for learning. As the institution possessed the content, the content ruled the learning process. We students who entered such, had our minds and our notebooks to hold that learning in. However, in the universe we currently live in; neither of those are necessary. The technology means that students can gain content from multiple sources and store it on devices which not only allow easy organization, but can actually search themselves. (I have the most disorganized hard drive in the history of the universe, but it is not a problem, I simply go to SpotLight and type the term.)
The way in which technology is currently used in Higher Education reflects the values of the traditional views which institutions have. (I love the traditions of Higher Education as much as anyone, it is a great collection of symbols with which to open discussion and share ideas, but that's all it is, a tradition is not a rule; the most basic logic courses hope that learners understand that arguing to tradition is a fallacy of relevance.) Let's consider the current status of e-Learning. Many who advocate PLE's focus their wrath on Course Management Systems as harmful to learning--I won't be shy with that myself, but I would add ERP systems into the cross-hairs as well.
Course Management Systems fail to renounce the metaphor in that they take the traditional room bound course (anyone ready to join me in running screaming from the building?) and recreate an electronic version. The opponents to such practices are horrified at the idea of people learning without their all wise presence before them. If it is not read in a room and from paper, then there's no way it's true intricacies can be grasped. While we're at it, let's ban poet's from the Republic and insist that heavier than air flight is impossible. The astounding part of the strength of this reaction is that it is based in the slightest change of modalities. If you want to debate whether Hamlet says sullied or solid flesh, you have a great topic and can probe some true intellectual vision--if you ignore the rest of the play, you've missed something wonderful.
In the traditional model, the institution views itself as the sole provider of learning for one of its students (the flaw of this assumption is visible if one stops to consider what would happen if one walked about many institutions and asked people what learners got out of the institution and what they learned. You would hear lists of the curriculum, an ambituous school might even give you a list of syllabi, the PR departments would inundate you with tag lines full of non-direcctive pronouns, and savvy administrators would give you a lesson on assessment. It's a nice dancec, but the only people who know about the real learning are the learners themselves.
For those who teach in higher ed like myself, you have had those astounding moments, usually with students who have since departed from your class, when someone tells you what they've learned. It is usually shocking because it was not your intent to focus on that, but that learner found a need for it, contextualized it in their life and learning locker and developed their ideas from it. (There's an amusing scene at the opening of B. F. Skinner's Walden Two which relays a similar scene.) I once quoted a line from a work in the opening lecture of a literature class; four years later, a person came up to me and told me how that quote had changed their lives. The fact is, when we are in a learning mode, we are not passive, we are actively seeking.
PLE's build from the above ideas and apply them to the use of technology for learning. The beauty of the tangled web we call the internet is that space and time break down. Once upon a time, Higher Education--based on the fact that it had the faculty, the library, the ability to purchase the academic journals--had a geographic stranglehold as the cathedral to which one went for learning. As the institution possessed the content, the content ruled the learning process. We students who entered such, had our minds and our notebooks to hold that learning in. However, in the universe we currently live in; neither of those are necessary. The technology means that students can gain content from multiple sources and store it on devices which not only allow easy organization, but can actually search themselves. (I have the most disorganized hard drive in the history of the universe, but it is not a problem, I simply go to SpotLight and type the term.)
The way in which technology is currently used in Higher Education reflects the values of the traditional views which institutions have. (I love the traditions of Higher Education as much as anyone, it is a great collection of symbols with which to open discussion and share ideas, but that's all it is, a tradition is not a rule; the most basic logic courses hope that learners understand that arguing to tradition is a fallacy of relevance.) Let's consider the current status of e-Learning. Many who advocate PLE's focus their wrath on Course Management Systems as harmful to learning--I won't be shy with that myself, but I would add ERP systems into the cross-hairs as well.
Course Management Systems fail to renounce the metaphor in that they take the traditional room bound course (anyone ready to join me in running screaming from the building?) and recreate an electronic version. The opponents to such practices are horrified at the idea of people learning without their all wise presence before them. If it is not read in a room and from paper, then there's no way it's true intricacies can be grasped. While we're at it, let's ban poet's from the Republic and insist that heavier than air flight is impossible. The astounding part of the strength of this reaction is that it is based in the slightest change of modalities. If you want to debate whether Hamlet says sullied or solid flesh, you have a great topic and can probe some true intellectual vision--if you ignore the rest of the play, you've missed something wonderful.
posted by Bob Clougherty | 2:43 PM
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0 comments
Wednesday, August 02, 2006
Product or Process? e-Learning
Blogs and listservs have been alive today with the news of BlackBoard receiving a patent for Course Management Systems and then suing D2L. I was in a network discussion with some colleagues today, and I found myself hit by a serious question about e-Learning: namely, is it a product, or is it a process? I don’t know that that question much implicates the practices of the U. S. Patent Office, but it is an important a priori question which we have to ask as we begin to look at the larger ramifications of this issue. Let me digress a bit…
When we buy a Course Management System, are we simply buying a product or committing ourselves to a practice? Those of you familiar with my mind-set know that I would argue that it is a homologous relationship—the two are so closely intertwined that to modify one is to modify the other. I began teaching online in 1994 (very secretively, and when I got caught, I got in trouble—big surprise). When the campus I teach at decided to adopt a CMS, my mind-set adjusted. I still had specific unique ideas about e-learning and how it should be done, but the CMS gave me not only a new platform, but a look at tools, ideas and practices I had not considered. Thus, when I began teaching with that tool, we had, in the Hegelian sense, a synthesis. It would be nice if that were the end point, but student performance, student suggestion, ideas from conferences, in short all of the learning I gained modified the e-learning which occurred. This has happened every semester I have taught. At the same time, individuals who created CMS’s were releasing new upgrades—hopefully from looking at the way in which people like myself delivered e-Learning, and their new versions, releases, and upgrades also changed the way I taught. There were other companies building additional tools, and new technologies, and they were shaping the course of e-learning. In short, the CMS was a very helpful addition. It was an addition, however, that got me to centralize my e-learning. I previously used multiple tools, and now looking back, I see that that may not have been the best way to move. Where the e-learning I engaged in previously was wide open and challenged the walls of classrooms and registration permits, the CMS was now restricted to a campus data-base. Makes for nice clean lines and good management from an administrative perspective, keeps workload down from a “faculty as labor” perspective, but doesn’t really contribute to the student on the learning perspective. The more contacts we build, the more people we can interact with, the more points of view we’re exposed to, the more we can learn. The CMS was a cyber version of a locked classroom.
If you know my work, you’ve heard me scream “RENOUNCE THE METAPHOR!” That statement does not mean renouncing the tenor or the vehicle, but renouncing the connection between the two. When we stop basing e-learning on brick and chalk dust, we can get to the learning that this new semiosphere is capable of. That being said, let me return to the original topic. Does Blackboard now own the teaching or learning process? (Did the prior art search neglect to find Heraclitus, Socrates, Peter Abelard, or assorted others????) If e-learning is the evolving ongoing process that I believe it is, then what point in the evolution does this patent cover? Does it only apply to late 90’s early products, is it the CMS as it stands today? (If it applies to all future discoveries, I need an episode of the Jetson’s and a patent attorney real quick! We’ll file for everything then launch a major suit against Spacely Sprockets!!!)
Putting the sarcasm aside, there are many who agree with me that the CMS and its limitations is becoming obsolete. It does a nice job in a mass production, up and running quick idea, but its course has run. We are beyond the age of the CMS and into the age of the PLE (Personalized Learning Environment). Faculty need to kick down the walls that inhibit their teaching as students need to kick down the walls that inhibit their learning, and when that happens, we will see that they kicked down the same wall, and it is the same one that separates them. Faculty should develop an e-Learning tool box; students should develop an e-Learning tool box, and what we call a course should be a community of learners driven to share ideas and common points. A true learning experience does not last 15 weeks, but continues throughout a life-time. The best courses I had as a student are still with me, not only in what I learned then, but in the questions they raised and my continuing struggle to seek answers to those questions.
In short, let them have their patent. Let them have their product. If someone patents the stoa as a place of learning, we’ll move to the plaza. I made a list of available tools on my white board. I look at it now with over 50 available tools we can support our faculty and students on. The CMS is only one. We’re already moving on, let them patent the rock we were sitting on.
When we buy a Course Management System, are we simply buying a product or committing ourselves to a practice? Those of you familiar with my mind-set know that I would argue that it is a homologous relationship—the two are so closely intertwined that to modify one is to modify the other. I began teaching online in 1994 (very secretively, and when I got caught, I got in trouble—big surprise). When the campus I teach at decided to adopt a CMS, my mind-set adjusted. I still had specific unique ideas about e-learning and how it should be done, but the CMS gave me not only a new platform, but a look at tools, ideas and practices I had not considered. Thus, when I began teaching with that tool, we had, in the Hegelian sense, a synthesis. It would be nice if that were the end point, but student performance, student suggestion, ideas from conferences, in short all of the learning I gained modified the e-learning which occurred. This has happened every semester I have taught. At the same time, individuals who created CMS’s were releasing new upgrades—hopefully from looking at the way in which people like myself delivered e-Learning, and their new versions, releases, and upgrades also changed the way I taught. There were other companies building additional tools, and new technologies, and they were shaping the course of e-learning. In short, the CMS was a very helpful addition. It was an addition, however, that got me to centralize my e-learning. I previously used multiple tools, and now looking back, I see that that may not have been the best way to move. Where the e-learning I engaged in previously was wide open and challenged the walls of classrooms and registration permits, the CMS was now restricted to a campus data-base. Makes for nice clean lines and good management from an administrative perspective, keeps workload down from a “faculty as labor” perspective, but doesn’t really contribute to the student on the learning perspective. The more contacts we build, the more people we can interact with, the more points of view we’re exposed to, the more we can learn. The CMS was a cyber version of a locked classroom.
If you know my work, you’ve heard me scream “RENOUNCE THE METAPHOR!” That statement does not mean renouncing the tenor or the vehicle, but renouncing the connection between the two. When we stop basing e-learning on brick and chalk dust, we can get to the learning that this new semiosphere is capable of. That being said, let me return to the original topic. Does Blackboard now own the teaching or learning process? (Did the prior art search neglect to find Heraclitus, Socrates, Peter Abelard, or assorted others????) If e-learning is the evolving ongoing process that I believe it is, then what point in the evolution does this patent cover? Does it only apply to late 90’s early products, is it the CMS as it stands today? (If it applies to all future discoveries, I need an episode of the Jetson’s and a patent attorney real quick! We’ll file for everything then launch a major suit against Spacely Sprockets!!!)
Putting the sarcasm aside, there are many who agree with me that the CMS and its limitations is becoming obsolete. It does a nice job in a mass production, up and running quick idea, but its course has run. We are beyond the age of the CMS and into the age of the PLE (Personalized Learning Environment). Faculty need to kick down the walls that inhibit their teaching as students need to kick down the walls that inhibit their learning, and when that happens, we will see that they kicked down the same wall, and it is the same one that separates them. Faculty should develop an e-Learning tool box; students should develop an e-Learning tool box, and what we call a course should be a community of learners driven to share ideas and common points. A true learning experience does not last 15 weeks, but continues throughout a life-time. The best courses I had as a student are still with me, not only in what I learned then, but in the questions they raised and my continuing struggle to seek answers to those questions.
In short, let them have their patent. Let them have their product. If someone patents the stoa as a place of learning, we’ll move to the plaza. I made a list of available tools on my white board. I look at it now with over 50 available tools we can support our faculty and students on. The CMS is only one. We’re already moving on, let them patent the rock we were sitting on.
posted by Bob Clougherty | 7:00 PM
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1 comments
Thursday, July 06, 2006
Web Design: The Vowel Complex
In the discipline of Web Design, there are many thoughts about important elements of sites that are found in many diverse locations. The Vowel Complex is a paradigm which I put together for the TTU Web Design program. In the program, this paradigm represents our core values as well as the primary evaluation criteria for student work including portfolios.
Each vowel represents a key value. No one element is more important than any other, and, in fact, it could be argued that they are all inter-related and inseparable. This paradigm simply represents an organizational structure through which page quality can be examined.
Before, listing out the specific elements, I must, of course, begin with a caveat that there are many ways in which web sites and web pages can be analyzed, this is one which I find most useful. The Vowels are:
Accessibility. In this instance, accessibility does not refer simply to compliance with section 508 standards. While those standards are critical, they are but one aspect of the larger accessibility concept. Accessibility expands out into two additional areas. First, accessibility also includes access across the digital divide. This means that an effective site recognizes effective use of bandwidth and accommodates multiple browsers, platforms and connection speeds. A potential user should not be denied access to a site because of their hardware or connectivity. That does not mean that everything should move back to plain text; it means that the requirements for the site to function appropriately are dependent on its target audience. Some sites do have higher requirements—to state otherwise would be to inhibit innovation, but a visitor who needs a given site should not be denied it. In a secondary manner, accessibility, as it has come to be associated with section 508, also refers to compliance with legal, social, and ethical standards as well.
Excellence of Content. One constantly hears complaints about sites being pure “eye candy” (on a positive note, such complaints are becoming rarer). Such mis-direction of sites is usually caused by site designers forgetting that the web itself is simply a vehicle for communicating. In order for a web site to be successful it must employ all of the best communication principles.
Innovation. A web site must be innovative and unique to be successful. A generic site with stock images or clip-art does not entice the site viewer. However, innovation is not simply about appearance, but refers also to the structure and the content.
Organization. Not much needs to be said here as the web is itself a structure to be navigated, and without organization, navigation becomes impossible.
Usability. The site must be there to allow the reader to perform the tasks they need to on the page and fulfill their objectives in visiting the page. While there are some who surf randomly, visitors to a web site come to perform a task (even if that task is to get information for a specific reason)—and everything about the page must facilitate that task, and the designer of the page should be aware of what those tasks are.
Each vowel represents a key value. No one element is more important than any other, and, in fact, it could be argued that they are all inter-related and inseparable. This paradigm simply represents an organizational structure through which page quality can be examined.
Before, listing out the specific elements, I must, of course, begin with a caveat that there are many ways in which web sites and web pages can be analyzed, this is one which I find most useful. The Vowels are:
Accessibility. In this instance, accessibility does not refer simply to compliance with section 508 standards. While those standards are critical, they are but one aspect of the larger accessibility concept. Accessibility expands out into two additional areas. First, accessibility also includes access across the digital divide. This means that an effective site recognizes effective use of bandwidth and accommodates multiple browsers, platforms and connection speeds. A potential user should not be denied access to a site because of their hardware or connectivity. That does not mean that everything should move back to plain text; it means that the requirements for the site to function appropriately are dependent on its target audience. Some sites do have higher requirements—to state otherwise would be to inhibit innovation, but a visitor who needs a given site should not be denied it. In a secondary manner, accessibility, as it has come to be associated with section 508, also refers to compliance with legal, social, and ethical standards as well.
Excellence of Content. One constantly hears complaints about sites being pure “eye candy” (on a positive note, such complaints are becoming rarer). Such mis-direction of sites is usually caused by site designers forgetting that the web itself is simply a vehicle for communicating. In order for a web site to be successful it must employ all of the best communication principles.
Innovation. A web site must be innovative and unique to be successful. A generic site with stock images or clip-art does not entice the site viewer. However, innovation is not simply about appearance, but refers also to the structure and the content.
Organization. Not much needs to be said here as the web is itself a structure to be navigated, and without organization, navigation becomes impossible.
Usability. The site must be there to allow the reader to perform the tasks they need to on the page and fulfill their objectives in visiting the page. While there are some who surf randomly, visitors to a web site come to perform a task (even if that task is to get information for a specific reason)—and everything about the page must facilitate that task, and the designer of the page should be aware of what those tasks are.
posted by Bob Clougherty | 5:56 PM
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0 comments
Wednesday, July 05, 2006
Welcome
I am now creeping into the blogosphere...
I make no promises on this blog as to how often I will post, or how good it will be. Like all things online, this will be a work in progress.
I make no promises on this blog as to how often I will post, or how good it will be. Like all things online, this will be a work in progress.
posted by Bob Clougherty | 3:17 PM
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0 comments