Hype Cycle!

February 3rd, 2010 No Comments

Alan Levine is circulating a 2-minute survey recently about Virtual Worlds (i.e., what’s happening with them?) – you should fill it out.  In it, he references Gartner’s Hype Cycle:

With respect to Virtual Worlds (in fairness, my only experience is Second Life), I’m in the Trough of Disillusionment, and don’t expect to see the Slope or the Plateau. I’m just not interested – neither for fun, nor learning.

However, I find it interesting to think of other technologies in terms of this Hype Cycle. For example:

Synchronous/Web Conferencing: Peak to Plateau?

At my institution, we recently got Elluminate.  It’s awesome!  My hope is, that with great support, training and modelling (for instructors/moderators, in particular…and we do have this in place), we’ll skip the sad Trough of Disillusionment altogether, and just go from the Peak of Inflated Expectations to the Plateau of Productivity.

Why I think this: Elluminate is obviously and immediately useful to people in our context.  It’s exciting technology, fun technology, it’s technology that brings people together. It’s not difficult to log in/participate or to moderate.  There are a lot of options, but you can start out small/simple.  It gets transparent pretty quick (ie., instructors can get on with designing useful/active sessions and stop worrying about buttons)

Google Wave: Perfect Example of Hype Cycle

Hey Kids! Remember Google Wave? Right. I forgot too, until someone mentioned it the other day.  So here’s a great example of the Hype Cycle:  Peak of Inflated Expectations? CHECK! Followed by the Trough of Disillusionment? Checkety Check.  Waiting (optimistically) for the Slope….Check.

Mobile Learning: TDB

I’ve got a toe in the Trough right now with respect to mobile leeeeearning. My research project is in its very early stages (TCB: Ethics Review, Lit Review…i.e.,  haven’t torn into the fun part yet).  This is probably a GOOD place to be starting a research project, actually (open-minded skepticism).

However, here’s what I notice in my own recent shift between being a Smart Phone “have not” to a “have”:   I love it.  Really. It’s fantastic for  productivity/keeping in touch. Love the apps.  But that’s personal/professional use…not learning/course use.  I find I generally/naturally avoid text heavy pages (i.e., lots of content, discussion forums…you know, typical course stuff). I don’t  “surf” or “read” much on my phone. That may just be me, we’ll see. Anyway, it raises questions about design for m-learning – it may not be enough to simply ENABLE m-access on your LMS (which is cool, and the point of the research). So, a toe  in the Trough for typical courses NOW. Still more in the Peak of Inflated Expectations in considering about what could be.

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And so it begins…going “m”

December 17th, 2009 2 Comments

I’ll admit, I’m extremely, unfashionably late to the smart phone party. I’ve made do with my talk-and-text phones, plus laptop for the last several years.  Telecommuting (for me, anyway) has meant being much less mobile (more at home=work) than I was in my regular commuting days. But sometimes I wonder: would I get out more if I was smart-phoned?  I guess we’ll find out! Meet the new love of my life….

we barely know each other, but I love it....

we've only known each other for 4 hours, but I love it....

So this came about due to an awesome initiative at Royal Roads University (for whom I work). There are tech grants available that are designed to get instructional designers and faculty working together on new/innovative uses of technology. Sure, we do this anyway (it’s our job), but the grants helped to nudge people into directions they may not have been able to pull off before. It’s been really effective – there are lots of neat projects in the works, with support from these grants for books, equipment, conference attendance, whatever.  So there’s a fun researchy buzz going on, and we’ll all get to learn about each other’s projects in the end.

So one of mine relates to m-learning. We are going to explore how courses can be accessed  on mobile devices. Years ago, when I first heard of the idea, I thought it was crazy. Who would want to read pages of course content on their phone?  I still think that, but my thinking has broadened somewhat. We’re going to start by looking at communication and content in an undergrad business course.  And I’m interested to see what kinds of mobile learning activities might emerge from this.

So for the next while, you can expect to hear about me becoming blackberry savvy, and how that project is coming along.

So far, I’ve got to say, the thing is wicked easy to set up. I just about fell over when the multiple email setup just worked and how you can delete messages from the phone AND your inbox.  I know, I’m an executive member of the Centre for the Easily Impressed…

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CCK09: Elluminating

November 25th, 2009 1 Comment

Today folks in the network self-organized an Elluminate session where we got together and shared thoughts and responses about connectivism.

A few things that worked really well about this:

  • there was organization/facilitation, and a plan. Thanks Ulop O’Taat and Frances Bell
  • sharing personal responses and experiences were encouraged (in fact, they were the point)
  • student-led presentations designed to engage everyone – they were short and invited everyone to contribute to the whiteboard in addition to text and audio
  • it was highly relevant and responsive to what’s been going on (lots of discussion around the topic of, “hey where did everybody go?”)

One thing (of many) we discussed was constraints and borders in Networks. It is easy to reject those on principle in striving to be open and free in a network. But one reason this session happened, I think, is because it was so needed - we benefited so much from this type of constraint (a scheduled time, a plan, facilitation). Networks typically have a large degree of freedom and lots of stuff going on in them. I find myself sometimes lost in the content (trying to scan the environment, catch up, whatever). Today I was reminded about how valuable it is to stop doing that and connect with people. As we have heard throughout the course, the learning is in the connections. Today was a good example of that, for sure. Thanks again, you guys!

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Should everything be Open?

November 23rd, 2009 2 Comments

I am lucky to be involved with the steering committee for ETUG - it’s a fantastic team of 15 diverse, dedicated, fun ed tech professionals who volunteer loads of time to do great work to advance, share and celebrate ed tech in BC and the people who do it.  We all work at different post-sec institutions across the province (i.e., that’s a key/intentional feature of the group, and it means we’re not on a common institutional system of any kind). So, we organize our stuff (lots of projects and plans and meetings and dates and stuff to keep track of) in a wiki.

Right now, we are deciding if our steering committee wiki should be open or closed.

Shouldnt some things stay closed?

Shouldn't some things stay closed?

  • If open, we are practicing what many of us preach enthusiastically (open = good), and maybe (?) someone in the broader community of ed tech folks  in BC (e.g., the people who attend our events, read our news, etc) would be interested in seeing all the stuff that goes on behind the scenes to plan and deliver the stuff we do. Maybe seeing how we work would make them want to get involved with ETUG. Or maybe just seeing how we use a wiki would be of interest or use to someone.
  • If closed,  we protect our privacy in ways that seem to matter (e.g., we write notes to each other like, “hey guys I am staying at X hotel during the upcoming conference, my cel number is ######, call me when you get into town and we can meet up at Y location at Z time to plan the bla bla”). Yes we could do this by email, but the point is to avoid that and do it all in the wiki: one stop shop. Another thing a colleague raised was the “reveal factor” – if it’s all open and we’ve planned this neato activity or experience for people at an event, we may diminish that by having it all out there (kind of like posting the punchline to a joke you’re going to tell later).

I guess if we go open, some questions are, do we leave it open but employ “security by obscurity”? Or do we PROMOTE it? and how/in what way? and will this change how we do things in a negative way? (there is a big part of me that can’t believe anyone cares to paw through our stuff, frankly)

I am all for open philosophically, but I guess I’m unsure there is value for it in this case. If it doesn’t matter, maybe keeping it closed makes more sense for the privacy reasons/to allow free sharing among our 15. But I feel like I’m betraying my commitment to openness somehow. And maybe missing an opportunity to explore this more, to experience unexpected benefits, and to walk the talk (lots of people thought MIT was mad, if you recall)

I find this question interesting because it’s not obvious to me that it’s good, and it hasn’t come up before. It’s not like the usual suspects of sharing completed things that someone might want to use (courses, code, texts, training materials, presentations, research, lesson plans, etc). It’s being open about planning and process.  Messy stuff.  I don’t have anything to hide (except my cel number), I just don’t know if there’s more value in sharing in this case than not.

We’ll see what the group decides.

What’s Up?

  • Check out the new Draft ETUG News page – a great new way to make it easy to contribute tidbits (thanks whoever(s) did such an awesome job setting this up!).
  • Our next SCETUG online/elluminate meeting is….Dec. 16th (3rd wed in Dec)
  • Hey Groups! If you’re meeting amongst yourselves…
    • please feel free (but not obligated) to invite Leva/Tracy – we’ll come if we can
    • remember you have access to the SCETUG elluminate room
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cck09: Net Pedagogy, Teacher Role, teacher/student centeredness

November 11th, 2009 2 Comments

Alternative Title: Net Pedagogy, Teacher Role,  teacher/student centeredness & whether or not I’ve become a hard-@$$

Attended Elluminate session facilitated by Frances Bell:  Transparent Teaching and Learning: what remains when the teacher disappears?

Struck by a couple things:

  1. the skillful way Frances created interactive opportunities for participants (which she attributes to Dave Cormier in the session blurb). This is kind of an aside, but awesome for me. One thing I’m working on right now is developing training for Elluminate moderators at my institution to do exactly this – consider ways of going beyond ppt+lecturing (which the s/w begs you to do) in these types of online sessions.  A couple effective strategies:  1. setting up “my talk”/”you talk” parts at the beginning, and getting us to throw ideas on the white board vs. in the text chat. So kudos and thanks there.
  2. how much my views about the teacher role and the classroom community have apparently changed…and i’m not sure when or how that happened!  I think I’ve become kind of a hard-ass! Hmph. Ah well, I’ll get back to that…

Anyway, I think we agree that the teacher doesn’t disappear, but perhaps adapts in the “net” environment where there is SO much info and opportunity for learner expression. Frances notes that Network Teachers should make their own learning transparent; they should model their own technology-enabled learning. And she notes that a key skill is knowing when (and perhaps, how/in what ways) to disappear and re-appear in the network.

I agree. In cck09, we see George and Stephen (The Teachers) blogging, tweeting, Elluminating, being at conferences and generally “out there”, both showing us how they do it, and drawing our attention to issues and resources. And I like that. Appreciate that. Learn from it.  And we all (The Students) do it too. And we learn from each other.

But…this underlying idea of Net Pedagogy + Teacher Role feels familiar…it feels like we’re discussing teacher-centered vs. student-centered approaches. This idea (being student-centered) was “revolutionary” at one point, but has become part of the standard vocabulary/things we assume are “good”.

How’s that going for us?

Maybe here we have another instance where technology throws a mirror up and forces us to re/examine our practice and underlying assumptions.  Maybe revisiting this idea by way of considering “Net Pedagogy”, we can explore what/more can be done about “being student-centered”.  Can we come up with new (perhaps technology-supported) ways to go further than things like “letting” students choose their own topics or groups, doing their own research, inviting students to make learning personal, or to participate in assessment, and so on.  Could they be even more “in charge” of their own learning (and assessment)? How?

Professionally, I grew up in the belly of the beast, spending several years studying, teaching and working in a Faculty of Education and in its Teacher Education Program. There were lots of hugs and warm fuzzies and concern about community-building and “teaching people not curriculum” and honouring individual differences, and well, you get the idea. I’m not saying it was fluff and no substance – far from it. I’m saying that the culture was generally one (lead by teachers) of caring a lot about people and their human/social needs (first?). It had attributes of the “group” as Downes has described it.

Fast forward a decade plus, and I find myself now more relating – and wanting – to be part of a “network” than a “group” in my professional life (recall: Groups meet our need to belong and to survive, while networks meet our need to connect and learn and to know). If I’m involved in a working or learning thing (project, course, whatever), I want to, ya know, work and learn. Get stuff done. I see the other stuff as a means to and end, not so much the end in itself. (*crickets*)

When/did I become a hard-ass?

I guess it’s always somewhere in the middle (this is me hoping I’ve not become a Machiavellian cyborg).  We’ve discussed this earlier in cck09.  We need and want to be kind, respectful and encouraging of each other. Genuinely. So we can take risks (share).  And have fun.  But the end-goal is the learning/knowing, isn’t it?  Making friends along the way is a bonus. Did I just say that? But, but…I’m a people person!

In a practical sense, I have noticed, for example, in (smaller group) Elluminate sessions I moderate lately, that it pays off greatly to invest the first 15 minutes (even on an hour session) to get everyone in the room sharing (talking about) something that humanizes us at the other end of the mic. But that’s done in service of the connecting/learning/knowing.  Not especially for its own sake.

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