Notes on Technology and Social Inclusion: Rethinking the Digital Divide (Warschauer, 2004)

Warschauer, M. (2004). Technology and Social Inclusion: Rethinking the Digital Divide (Vol. 75). doi:10.1086/428699

Chapter 1. Shifting Society, and the need for ICT

In this chapter we explore how new technologies can be used in five ways: • bringing exciting curricula based on real-world problems into the classroom; • providing scaffolds and tools to enhance learning; • giving students and teachers more opportunities for feedback, re- flection, and revision; • building local and global communities that include teachers, admin- istrators, students, parents, practicing scientists, and other interested people; and • expanding opportunities for teacher learning. (p.12)

In the Third Wave, informationalism dominates the society with science & technology, information processing, networked organization, and globalization. It’s not even about what the industry produces, but HOW those products are built with information basis. One of the unfavorable consequences is deepening economic stratification which is resulting in global inequality among individuals, countries, and within countries.

The rise of Computer-Mediated Communication and the Network Society gave birth to a fourth revolution in much faster written interactions, long distance many to many communication, which in comb a fourth revolution in human communication, cognition, and the means of production of knowledge, similar in impact to the three prior revolutions of language, writing, and print (Harnad 1991, 39): much faster written interactions, long distance many to many communication, a global hypertext, and rapid multimedia interactions.

Warhauler also asserts that communities that lack ICT access are the victims of digital apartheid, and the negative consequence of that would be a community easily manipulated by would-be terrorists due to lack of opportunities and information. The positive side of accessing ICT is presented in the following paragraph: “Whether in developed or developing countries, urban areas or rural, for economic purposes or sociopolitical ones, access to ICT is a necessary and key condition for overcoming social exclusion in the information society. It is certainly not the only condition that matters; good schools, decent government, and adequate health care are other critical factors for social inclusion. But ICT, if deployed well, can contribute toward improved education, government, and health care, too, and thus can be a multiplying factor for social inclusion” (p.30).

Chapter 2. Three models of Access: Devices, Conduits, Literacy

Devices: A model of access that consists of hardware distribution. It’s easy to measure and implement.

Flaws:
1) The cost of the device does not account for the total ownership cost.
2) Differential access to broadband will also determine digital equity.
3) difference in knowledge and skills, as well as attitudes
4) Inadequate online content, especially in diverse languages
5) Government controlled access in some countries

Conduits: A model of access consisting of electricity, cable, … and the Internet Service Provider. Pretty much the monthly payments.

Note about the Internet: the access to it is a bit diffent from radio, and tv, such that those two, you did not have to pay monthly payments. Cable, sure, but the content on the cable isn’t as necessary as the vast amount and the quality (for some) you get from the Internet are world apart. But you have to pay for the Internet, otherwise, there is no access. There is not over-the-air Internet.

Literacy: A proxy model for ICT Access as that of literacy (Table 2.1, p.39)

The literacy divide and the digital divide
The notion of literacy has always been something more than just individual ability to read and write. “From this brief historical sketch, we can conclude that literacy is not a context-free value-neutral skill; rather, being literate “has always referred to having mastery over the processes by means of which cul- turally significant information is coded” (de Castell and Luke 1986, 374)” (p.41)

Unsure if the literacy divide is caused by or causing inequity. But the access to literacies (plural because different social practices of literacy) themselves are not uniform, and highly socially contextualized.

And to only access, but the affordances of literates are highly contextualized as well.

However, the access to acquisition of literacies are very similar to that of ICT where the adoption and diffusion follow the pattern of ‘diffusion of innovation.’. And as such, literacies and ICT both contribute to development in cognition, culture, empowerment, and politics.

Six principles about literacy
Literacy and ICT Access A synthesis of the previous discussion yields six principal conclusions about literacy: • • • There is not just one type of literacy, but many types. The meaning and value of literacy varies in particular social contexts. Literacy capabilities exist in gradations rather than in a bipolar op- position of literate versus illiterate. Literacy alone brings no automatic benefit outside of its particular functions. • Literacy is a social practice, involving access to physical artifacts, content, skills, and social support. • Acquisition of literacy is a matter not only of education but also of power. •(p.46)

Four major resources that are both effects and contribution to effective use of ICT: physical, digital, human and social resources.

Chapter 3. Physical Resources: Computers and Telecommunication

Physical access to ICT is still very low for many part of the world including many parts of the developed countries. In developed countries, the access is highly stratified by race, income, and education. Racial stratification was even more pronounced than income difference, possibly due to lower assets, savings, lower literacy rates, fewer personal connections to people who have access to ICT.

The access is even further stratified between the non-disabled and the disabled, since most of the disabled are represented in the tail end of the ICT adoption. It is especially troubling to see this population in this category, as most physical access for the disabled takes such a long time to remedy.

In the developing countries, the majority in each society still lack access due to 1) unequal distribution of resources, 2) literacy and education, 3) English language, and 4) cost.

What technology companies can do is to invest in low-cost low-power devices in spite of the innovator’s dilemma, to match such invaluable work done to produce, distribute, and train people on Brazil’s People’s Computer, and India’s Simputer.

Telecommunications In developed countries, broadband access presents inequality, vs. in developing countries, any access to the Internet presents that very same inequality. As long as the competition can be put in place, the prices will fall. Another necessary change is the regulatory reform. Much bureaucratic red tape are in the way of meaningful information revolution in developing countries. Also in these countries, the “last-mile” costs should be avoided by leapfrogging the technology to wireless. What all countries can do is to provide more public access centers with integrated community plans to solve local problems using the centers (planned integration.)

Chapter 4. Digital Resources: Content and Language

Due to the nascent Internet’s necessary dependency on English, now the “global English” flourishes, unfortunately for the non-English speakers. The current trend is encouraging, but it is still far from being equitable. This is one of the reasons why some people call the Web “the ultimate act of intellectual colonialism … (Cited in Crystal 1997, 68)” (p.96).

The content itself has been geared towards more affluent, and technology centric Internet users. However, this trend also has been changing to incorporate more diverse topics. Unfortunately, many low-income users still have difficulty finding relevant information for them. Cultural barriers between users and the content also effect this inequity.

Warschauer advocates more content for online education (p.87)

Four main content-related barriers that affected large numbers of Americans
1. Lack of locally relevant information
2. Basic literay level
3. Content for non-English speakers
4. More diverse cultural resources

And again, the disabled are poorly represented in content resources as well. It seems that whoever is already marginalized are likely to be most negatively affected by technology, just as it was for literacy.

As people identify themselves more and more through language, since globalization, “language can become ‘the trench of cultural resistance, the last bastion of self-control, the refuge of identifiable meaning’ (Castells 1997, 52)” (p.98).

Chapter 5. Human Resources: Literacy and Education

“[Tools] do not simply facilitate action that could have occurred wthout them, but rather, by being included in the process of behavior, alter the flow and structure of mental functions (Vygotsky 1981)” (p.110).

Electronic literacies
* Computer Literacy
* Information Literacy
* Multimedia Literacy
* Computer-Mediated Communication Literacy

Education
* Transmission Process (instructivism)
* Constructivist Process (constructivism)
* Social / Contextual / Situational Process (situated learning and communities of practice, cognitive apprenticeship, ZPD)

Today’s information-based society requires learning how more than learning about and learning how is a prerequisite step to learning to be. (factual knowledge < procedural / system knowledge Up] virtual community (poorly assumed virtual worlds separate from physical) vs. community informatics (augmented ICT). We can leverage community informatics in developing countries to build foundations for community-based ICT projects. Participatory rapid appraisal (PRA) can help with this. Examples of integrating with broader social and economic campaigns are Bresee Cyberhood (p.166), M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation (p.168), and ISIS for the Blind and Visually Impaired (p.169). These three organizations ally with the community organizations to develop social capital.
* Macro: [Direction: Top -> Down] How the large organizations such as governments develop social capital for individuals and societies. Already marginalized societies suffer from inequality in implementation and lack of well-designed use of ICT (e-Governance: transparency of information regarding land ownership, legal rights, increased effective communication between individuals and governments with incentive to respond quickly to complaints). The form of government itself also controls what kind of access individuals can have. China and Singapore exhibit two of many examples that are both restrictive and proliferating ironically. The cost of providing the ICT can be recovered only if the scale becomes somewhat massive. This is an interesting magnification and maybe somewhat different take from literacy.
A similar process takes place at the level of societies and governments.

To fully exploit the Internet for social and economic development, coun- tries need not only to extend physical access to computers and connec- tivity but also to informate their societies (p.184).
* Meso: The Power of Civil Society
The social capital brought on by a group of people in different forms (corporations, media, non-profit, academics, even lobbying groups, etc.) do, indeed, effect the discourse of civil society. They are advocates of the marginalized, they influence the direction of ICT adoption, they shape the public opinion through/as media (Tocqueville’s “newspaper and town halls” combined, p.186), and they support strangers met online through non-political and political associations. There is a detailed description of the rise of antiglobalization movement online as an augmentation to the print indie literature, but much of this has changed since 2004, and the majority of information does reside on the Web only. And this trend may again, increase the inequity for the marginalized who may have lower access to ICT to voice their concerns. Not only the contents themselves are stratified, but the behavior of online users of seeking out only relevant information can “narrowcast” against the good of the society (p.197).

Chapter 7. Conclusion: Social Embeddedness of Technology

How many times have we heard or seen a critic of video games or a particular technology piece lambast the effects of using such things? This is called determinism. Technology sits on the outside of society and when used, it exerts a particular effect: negative or positive. The other side of the coin is neutralism. The technology is just a blank piece of canvas, waiting to be used in any way.
Both, however, fails to account for the interwining nature of society and technology. Soft determinism “enables social change but does not in and of itself bring it about” (p.205).
With soft determinism, comes shaping of the society and the ICT within. It must incorporate both mindfully to truly develop social capital for all. Being aware that what technology means in societies in all aspects (the critical theory of technology, Feenberg 1991, Winner 1986), and knowing that a venue of new technology implementation is always “a scene of struggle,” we can carefully plan and implement the integration technology in context.
What We Can Do
1. Analyze the social structures, social problems, social organizations, and social relations for ICT.
2. A systemic approach to benefit the social structure and support in longevity
3. The process of ICT projects should be innovative and flexible.
4. Competitiveness must be guided through/with wise policies.
What We Can Further Research
* Graded measurements for granular analysis
* Study patterns and types of usage
* Real world outcome
** Methods
* Observational designs
* Analyses of user behavior
* Cross-national comparisons
* international surveys
* Political-economic research on regulatory issues
* Longitudinal ethnographic studies; social structure, technological innovation, human development

A Position Paper on Khan Academy

"Khan Academy" TrikeApps, 2012

I wrote a position paper on Khan Academy for a class.  It was a fun academic exercise.  Care to comment?

The topic
Khan Academy, a nonprofit organization that has created more than 3,000 free educational video clips, is being considered for classroom use by many school districts. This position paper argues against using Khan Academy for classroom use unless certain conditions are met.

Background
Before discussing the potential impact of a new technological resource in schools, the definition of learning, especially in the early 21st century, needs to be revisited for the purpose of framing this analysis.  Learning as just “accretion of new information” has been superseded.  For the information-based economy, students must learn to think critically and solve complex problems using technology (CTGV, 2003, p.173; Scardamalia, 2001).  Meanwhile, with ever-increasing cost of education, districts across the country are looking for ways to efficiently deliver instruction using technology, which may or may not match the learning needs of the students (Wenglinsky, 2005, pp. 20 – 28), despite many ‘failed’ attempts at integrating technology over the century of public education in the United States (Reiser, 2012, p. 22).
In 2006, Salman Khan created a series of simple tutorial videos for his cousin on YouTube, and with the help from a little known billionaire, Bill Gates, Khan Academy has embarked on a “mission to provide a free world-class education for anyone anywhere” (Khan Academy, 2012). The 10 to 15 minute videos usually contain black background with colorful handwritten contents and Khan’s audio lectures.  Each video covers a different topic, and series of videos are grouped per subject in the order of increasing difficulty. There are practice questions that users can try.  The nonprofit organization also provides class websites that track students’ progress which can be accessed by teachers, students, parents, coaches, advisors, and administrators. For convenient nomenclature in this paper, the videos and the websites together  from here on out will be referred to as the system.  Advocates of the system have touted the “flipped class model” of instruction, where students watch lecture videos for homework and try out questions in classroom where teachers can help them.

The Position
Despite its noble intentions, technical know-how’s, and educational industry’s support, the success of using the system effectively in U.S. public schools is far out of reach without extensive training for teachers on how to implement its resources. Without the extensive training, and adequate compensation for shortcomings of the system’s current affordances, these resources should not be used in K-12 classroom.

Potentials of Khan Academy
There are many promising potentials, some self-claimed and some not, in resources provided by the system and here’s a few; 1) Kids will watch the videos for homework because they’re on YouTube and kids would rather watch a video than solve a bunch of math problems; 2) Videos are permanent and free repositories of broken-down knowledge units; 3) Videos and online practice problems are optimally sequenced for mastery learning; 4) Lessons are “differentiated” for individual ability; and 5) Frequent formative assessments inform students and teachers of students’ progress.

Supporting These Claims
Some claims may have basis on aspects of learning theories; 1) Students are highly engaged when learning with a multimedia format such as video (CTGV, 2003, p.182); 2) Affordances of archival media that is moderately navigable allow relatively cheap distribution, at least in the U.S. (Collins et al. 2000, pp.151-152); 3) Skills within the intellectual skill domain have a hierarchical relationship to each other and learners need to master prerequisite skills in appropriate sequence (Ertmer & Newby, 1993; Reiser, 2012, p.25); 4) These videos contain instructional material that are accessible multiple times at different instances which could mean lessons can be considered learner-centered (and individualized) as described in constructivism (Ertmer & Newby, 1993, p.65); and 5) Frequent formative assessments could provide much needed feedback (Ertmer & Newby, 1993, p.56 and p.60), respectively.

Refuting These Claims
Many of these claims are refutable either because there are better strategies based on alternate learning theories or only parts of theories support these claims; 1) A research has shown that students would not maintain attention throughout videos if they encounter a point of confusion. Comprehensibility determines attention, not vice-versa (Clark and Salomon, 1996, p.467); 2) and 4) True differentiation for learner-centered instructional design must consider more than just allowing multiple access to the same explanation of the content (Ertmer & Newby, 1993, p.65).  Moreover, individualization of lessons without structuring a community of learners prevents from forming collaborative distributed expertise using media (CTGV, 2003, p.181); 3) Videos are lectures of decontextualized sub-skills of more complex skills, and fragmenting the whole task this way tend to prevent students from integrating various parts to actually solve complex problems (Branch & Merrill, 2012, p.12); and 5) Current feedback system employed by the system only provides reinforcement described in behaviorism, as opposed to corrective feedback described in cognitivism (Ertmer & Newby, 1993, p.56 and p.60), respectively.

Grounds for Further Analysis
Arguments used for refuting these claims provide grounds for further discussion on the approach to instructional design using the system’s rich resources and their advocates. It seems that assumptions about learning that they make are based on an outdated definition of learning, and they ignore advances in the field of learning sciences regarding constructivism, role of context, community-centric learning, and the whole-task approach to instructional design. Cognitivists and constructivists advocate accounting for learners’ cognitive models, learning in context, cognitive load, and collaborative learning (Ertmer & Newby, 1993). Furthermore, without the extensive professional development opportunities for teachers, these videos would likely be used as substitute lessons by classroom teachers who still employ didactic pedagogy, which has shown to be not only ineffective, but harmful to students (Wenglinsky, 2005).

Leaners as Interpreters, not Just Information Processors
Constructivists consider epistemological roots of truths to be internal where learners undergo construction of meaning from experiences as opposed to absorption of external truths (Ertmer & Newby, 1993; Wilson, 2012). In that way, learning is fundamentally learner-centric. The system may seem learner-centric, in that students can start at their own levels and progress at their own pace. However, the system does not actively engage and correct prior knowledge, and this lack of recognizing individual mental models represent only a partial attempt at being learner-centric.
Because giving no opportunity for students to relate their experiences to lesson leads to likelihood of students maintaining the incorrect mental model, meaningful diagnostic and engagement of prior knowledge is a must (Bransford et al., 2000, pp.14-15; CTGV, 2003, p.180). The system leaves much of this up to instructors, with or without much training, in choosing a specific combination of instructional strategy and task for different learners’ abilities and predispositions.
Khan Academy should create diagnostic tools to determine erroneous mental models,  multiple lesson approaches for each content for learners with different dispositions, and an informative feedback system that not only provides reinforcement but also corrective information.

Role of Context
Instruction should provide authentic and relevant experience to increase probability of successful knowledge transfer (Hoadley and Van Haneghan, 2012, pp.54-55; Ertmer & Newby, 1993; Tessmer & Richey, 1997).  This requires training of teachers in designing goal-based scenarios (Schank et al., 1993), situated learning (Anderson et al., 2007; Driscoll, 2012, pp.38-39) or what’s more commonly known as project based learning.  Project based learning do not necessarily refer to authentic context for student-relevant experiences, but teachers should always try to design projects that are as authentic as possible.

Community-Centric Learning
Based on Vygotsky’s work on zone of proximal development, exchanging multiple perspectives of varying levels of understanding provides opportunities to learn collaboratively (Ertmer & Newby, 1993, p.66; CTGV, 2003, p.181).  However, the system does not exhibit a built-in collaboration scheme.  Teachers must structure collaborative problem-solving sessions after each viewing of lectures to foster distributed expert approach by creating a community norm which would look more like a problem-solving workshop than regular classroom (Bransford et al., 2000, p.25).

Whole Task Approach
To promote development of complex problem solving, reasoning, and critical thinking, an integrated approach to teaching complex skills is required.  One of those approaches is called the Pebble-in-the-Pond approach where instructors teach the whole task in increasing complexity as opposed to fragmenting the task into sub-skills (Branch & Merrill, 2012).  The system allows learning of these broken-down topics individually, but it also needs to provide learners with overall task for later integration of sub-skills.

Conclusion
Despite positive potentials of the system’s resources that include numerous short video clips and formative assessments, successful use of those resources in a classroom setting requires additional major features—diagnostic of both learner’s levels and predisposition, differentiated lessons for the same topic, and informative/corrective feedback— and extensive teacher professional development in designing authentic experience for learners, in forming a community-centric learning environment with Khan Academy system, and in whole-task approach to instructional design.  Otherwise, Khan Academy’s resources should not be used in a classroom setting.

References
Anderson, J. R., Reder, L. M., Simon, H. A., Researcher, E., & May, N. (2007). Situated Learning and Education. Educational Researcher, 25(4), 5-11.
Branch, R. M., & Merrill, M. D. (2012). Characteristics of Instructional Design Models. In R. A. Reiser & J. V. Dempsey (Eds.), Trends and issues in Instructional Design and Technology (3rd ed., pp. 8-16).
Bransford, J. D., Brown, A. L., Anderson, J. R., Gelman, R., Glaser, R., Greenough, W. T., Ladson-Billings, G., et al. (2000). How People Learn. (J. D. Bransford, A. L. Brown, R. R. Cocking, M. S. Donovan, & J. W. Pellegrino, Eds.) How People Learn (Expanded ed., p. 385). National Academy Press. Retrieved from www.nap.edu/catalog/9853.html
Clark, R. E., & Salomon, G. (1983). Media in Teaching. Media in Teaching (pp. 464-478).
Collins, A., Neville, P., & Bielaczyc, K. (2000). The role of different media in designing learning environments. International Journal of Artificial Intelligence in Education, 11, 144-162.
Cognition and Technology Group at Vanderbilt (2003). Connecting Learning Theory and Instructional Practice: Leveraging Some Powerful Affordances of Technology (Vol. 11, pp. 173-209).
Driscoll, M. P. (2012). Psychological Foundations of Instructional Design. In R. A. Reiser & J. V. Dempsey (Eds.), Trends and Issues in Instructional Design and Technology (3rd ed., pp. 35-44).
Ertmer, P. A., & Newby, T. J. (1993). Behaviorism, Cognitivism, Constructivism: Comparing Critical Features from an Instructional Design Perspective. Performance Improvement Quarterly, 6(4), 50-72.
Hoadley, C., & Van Haneghan, J. P. (2012). The Learning Sciences: Where They Came From and What It Means for Instructional Designers. In R. A. Reiser & J. V. Dempsey (Eds.), Trends and Issues in Instructional Design and Technology (3rd ed., pp. 53-63).
Reiser, R. A. (2012). A History of Instructional Design and Technology. In R. A. Reiser & J. V. Dempsey (Eds.), Trends and Issues in Instructional Design and Technology (3rd ed., pp. 17-34).
Scardamalia, M. (2001). Getting real about 21st century education. The Journal of Educational Change. Retrieved from http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&btnG=Search&q=intitle:Getting+Real+About+21st+Century+Education#0
Schank, R. C., Fano, A., Bell, B., & Jona, M. (1993). The design of goal-based scenarios. The Journal of the Learning Sciences, 305–345. JSTOR. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/1466619
Tessmer, M. (1997). The role of context in learning and instructional design. Educational Technology Research and Development, 45(2), 85-115. Retrieved from http://www.springerlink.com/index/7LW260N449223814.pdf
Wenglinsky, H. (2005). Using Technology Wisely: The Keys To Success In Schools (Technology, Education-Connection) (p. 112). Teachers College Press. Retrieved from http://www.amazon.com/Using-Technology-Wisely-Success-Education-Connection/dp/0807745839
Wilson, B. G. (2012). Constructivism in Practical and Historical Context. In R. A. Reiser & J. V. Dempsey (Eds.), Trends and Issues in Instructional Design and Technology (3rd ed., pp. 45-54).
“About | Khan Academy” khanacademy. Khan Academy, n.d. Web. 18 Mar. 2012.
“Khan Academy” – TrikeApps. (n.d.). Retrieved March 17, 2012, from http://trikeapps.com/projects/sharing-the-love/khan-academy

Disconnected Online Classes

This semester started on January 17th.  It’s been 3 weeks or so, but even in this short period, it’s obvious that asynchronous online classes (I’m taking an online Stats class) have a huge disadvantage over face-to-face or even synchronous online classes.

You can’t ask questions and expect to get immediate answers.

Especially when there are mistakes in lecture materials; I was not sure if I was just not understanding  or that 3 was supposed to be 2.  You know what I mean?  Gaarrr.

My other classes are much better as far as interactions are concerned.  But there’s a lot of reading and for some reason, I feel like I have a lot less time.  I am already falling a bit behind.  So this weekend is just for that.  Catching up on reading.

Hope you guys are doing awesome.

Signing off.

17th week starts

I could say, “Happy New Year!” and I should. It’s just that I missed writing down Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and now it’s been so long since my last post that I seem a bit disconnected here.

Let’s see. Recap:

Finally got my PunkinChunkin’ Java game to work. It’s pretty crude, but the flying pumpkins made me smile.

The 3 minute documentary became a 3 minute propaganda. Oops.

The fake case study I wrote for Technology and School Change gave me a chance to write a boring fiction about an effective Bronx high school that successfully integrated technology so cleverly, ho hum.

And the cognition final paper took forever but surprisingly made sense. To me.

And now the second semester is starting. I’m taking:

Instructional Design and Educational Technology

Equity, Ethics and Social Issues in Educational Technology

Object Oriented Programming 2

Probability & Statistical Inference, and

Doctoral Colloquium

A classmate asked if I was ready to start up again.

Yes, in a sense that I am anxious to finish the program, but, no, in that I haven’t figured out an optimized weekly schedule.

This is something that I’m guessing a lot of people struggle with. It’s so easy in my head though.

Hyeah, nobody has said that before.

Not everything connects to everything

Each and every concept, story, skill, or a thought for that matter is different.

We educators tend to force our students to make connections for everything. It sometimes can detract the kids from the core. No?

Maybe’s: Each math lesson must have a goal of teaching with a mental model. Each assessment should include performance. Each unit should be designed backwards. Each story can and should be assessed with multimedia literacy. Each person should know how to program and how not to be programmed (Rushkoff). Each school should be expeditionary in its own right. Each teacher should be a leader. Each student should be in charge of one’s own learning.

How do they all connect? Not being rhetorical. Just wondering.

10 1/2 weeks at TC: Occupy Everything

About 2 months ago, a group of people decided that they were going to be the ones to stand up to the Corporations’ greed. Occupy Wall Street has inspired people to take their cause and provide a physical space to connect with one another. Then their books, computers, gray-water recycling system, tents, bikes, and, well, everything got ripped out of the park and thrown into dump trucks. The press was kept out while this 1am raid endangered the movement.

And it snowed in October. In New York City.

Meanwhile, in my own corner of life, this sleep-deprived grad student kept trying to learn new things (to me) about Java programming, cognitive educational psychology, cultural multimedia education, and technology integration issues in schools. I also ran the always-fun NYC Marathon for the third time, but true to this year’s theme (more about that on the next post), I made a rookie mistake and started way too fast. It was much better than the last time I ran while I was in grad school, in terms of sleeping, but my time was much slower… To be fair, it was 11 years ago, and I was in a better shape, even though I was more sleep-deprived than I am now.

Actually, in a tangential note, as I’m writing this now, three of my good friends are going to be running the Philadelphia Marathon at 7am. They are going to have so much fun. Good luck, Adam, Kathryn, and Matt!

So, let’s see. I sort of stopped going through each course of my education but I think I stopped writing either because I started forgetting things or I started forgetting because I stopped writing about them. Either way, I’m reviving the short-lived tradition.

Java program just got real. We are, for some reason, developing an interactive game. For the past four weeks, the material became increasingly complex, with less and less time to seek help because other class assignments started piling up. My idea was to create a game similar to Worms: Armageddon, which involves a projectile motion. Apparently, it’s not that easy to shoot something and make it follow a parabola while learning an introductory computer programming class. But do I change my idea? No…. but not for any sort of cleverness or even bull-headedness. With Occupy Everything going on and people getting hurt and/or arrested, working hard on a game but not being able to make it work just doesn’t seem that risky. Kind of seeing the big picture here… This midterm project is due on Monday.

But speaking of big picture, I learned that I will be taking the Certification Exam much earlier than I anticipated: as in June 2012 because I was able to transfer a whole bunch of credits from my previous degrees. The exam is pretty much like a writing a voluminous high-quality paper in 3 hours on a topic related to instructional technology & media with a special lens through my own research area meanwhile covering the basis of all four parts: cognition, social aspect, cultural aspect, and educational practice aspect of technology in education. Hyeah… I actually don’t think taking one class in each part is enough to get ready for this exam. Especially now that my research area is vacillating between cognition and educational practice. Well, that’s not actually true. What I envision my research area to be is an equal-part combination of those two parts. I want to be informed by cognitive science then teach preservice teachers to use technology appropriately. But I don’t know if that’s possible and I haven’t had time to talk to any of the professors, let alone get much help for more pressing assignments.

A factual knowledge representation of a 1-variable linear equation

In cognition class, though, I feel better after writing a paper that required us to do a ‘cognitive task analysis (knowledge representation in a factual network, imagery, procedural rules, and mechanism)’ and ‘knowledge-based instructional design.’ I wish we had more guidance and/or feedback, though. I’ve heard that we don’t get our grades for this class until next semester because the professor and even the TA are too busy. I mean, it’s a rumor for now, but my sources are fairly credible (former students). Hmm.

In contrast to this laid-back attitude, my Wednesday class – Culture, Media and Education – required me to decide on a final project idea and start interviewing for a 3-minute multimedia piece 5 weeks in advance of due date. So far, I’ve conducted 7 interviews in 3 different locations, and I have a few more in 3 days, just so I can pour over them and scrutinize each and every word over Thanksgiving break. Rough cut is due in 10 days but I feel like I have 10 minutes: kind of insanely exciting but nervous 10 minutes, drawn out for 10 days.

The most practical class (again, for me) for teaching is done in my Thursday class: Technology & School Change. I just finished my second critique of a case study. We’ve learned about different aspects to analyze for technology integration so far: perspectives and mechanics of school change, state and common core standards, course and unit design with Understanding by Design, standardized tests and performance based assessments, teacher PDs, and leadership. Now we’re learning about organizational change. These are very practical stuff that I wish I knew. Cognitive psychology is the stuff that I wish I knew when I was coming up with details for activities and discussions… hence my affinity for both. I’m pretty sure someone knows how to do what I want to do, but maybe I’ll just talk to everyone and end up creating my own program.

But until then, I will still be working at EdLab. I’m liking working there more and more as a video team member. I’m learning a lot that I can apply to the multimedia class, as well as honing my Final Cut skills. These guys (Ariel, Mark, Melanie, Phil, and Yana) are really good at what they are doing and I learn a lot from them. I feel like the fifth man in a cross country team where I know they’re counting on me, and I’m doing my best, but I am also the slowest.

Just gotta get faster, I guess.

6 1/2 weeks at TC: Return of 2-hour sleep days

I missed last week’s blog.  Understandably, this is due to me having actual assignments to do for classes in addition to readings.  Things are getting really hectic.  In fact, I feel like all of the assignments from different classes are, in a way, pulling me into one direction of a giant amalgam of a sort: arrays and array lists, dualities and shifts, split-screen videos and identities, echoes, a case study critique without multidimensional changes, etc.

All this is telling me is that I have done assignments that all require multiple factors and perspectives.  I’m not left with much energy to get into it but the theme is there.  It’s definitely alive and well, recently burrowing deep inside my consciousness.  Just hope it stays afloat to remind me.  Otherwise, it’ll just get buried in my subconscious, and then who knows what it’ll do there?

Now I have a Cognition & Computers paper to write.  A lot of people think this is going to deliver a crushing blow to our egos.  Good thing I can distract myself quite easily.  For the past two weeks, every time my head started getting fuzzy, I worked on learning steps to solve Rubik’s Cube.  I’m already in school for a doctoral degree… might as well geek out.

About a Month In: Juggling Starts

My first day at EdLab was this past Monday.  I filled out the necessary paperwork and met a whole bunch of nice people (too nice?) at this airy gigantic room filled with awesome equipment for creating multimedia content.  It’s refreshing, coming from a public high school, and engineering companies.  The place imbues a sort of quiet intensity.  I am glad to be a part of the place, but at the same time, I’m a bit anxious about changing.  Believe you me, I need this part-time stipend job.  But it was incredibly nice to just get up, walk Mookie, run, eat a big breakfast with a Black Chai tea, then read for a few hours before going to an evening class before working at EdLab. 

This is one of the times that I must remind myself how lucky I am.  (Too lucky?)

The one class that I thought was going well became way too hard all of sudden: Object-Oriented Programming.  There was a pop quiz that I screwed up because I failed to review the PowerPoint slides.  But I did learn immediately and put “Review lectures and notes” on my weekly list.  Let’s see how that works.  Also, there was a bit of misunderstanding about using the same Scanner with two different types.  Apparently, we can’t just use the same Scanner if the first input is an integer but the second input is a String.  Jessica the TA helped out big time, though.  We have to clear the Scanner before the String input with “myScanner.nextLine();”  A piece of cake… Actually I just had the same problem again in my homework (imagine that… I’m doing homework these days and it’s not even that strange,) and I had to use two different Scanners because of do-while loop + switch statement with multiple input types.  Aarrrg.

On Tuesday, it was my first video team meeting at EdLab.  It was scheduled for 10am, but because Ariel had to meet with her principal, it actually happened at 12.  I could only work 2 1/2 hours since I am now attending Research Practicum for the first time at 1.  But before I headed over, I made sure I filled myself with some good free coffee.  Yes, free coffee at EdLab.  I, the caffeine addict, am in big trouble.  I think I gulped down two big mugs of Midnight Magic as fast as I could and I was buzzing for the rest of the day and night.  Maybe that’s why I was so jittery but still focused in C&C (Cognition and Computers.)  As I reviewed my notes today, I can’t really seem to make out too many words.  There are lot of drawings.  But that coffee maker is awesome. 

And speaking of awesome, EdLab had a rehearsal for Trustees’ Design Day.  I learned that Trustees of Teachers College come to EdLab once a year and think up some interesting ideas to innovate education.  But what I was really impressed about EdLab was how the rehearsal was done.  It was  almost a perfect workshop/lesson model.  Two facilitators had about 24 of us in groups of 5, gave us clear directions for an activity, we had fun with it, there was another direction for the second activity, we had some more fun with it, then there was a “gallery” discussion, and then we reflected on the whole rehearsal.  If I had a lesson like that (granted it took two hours,) everyone would’ve been so impressed. 

Research Practicum was also somewhat of an eye-opener, but in a harsher tone.  It seemed like a savage practice for an oral defense.  I saw Doug – he’s the TA for C&C class – get verbally pummeled in his presentation.  I think I felt worse for him than he did.  I guess he knew what he was walking into.  He did get lots of constructive criticism, but in varying degrees of brutality.

The Wonderful Life of Long Tack Sam, or whatever it’s called, which is a graphic novel memoir of Ann Marie Fleming’s great grandfather by Ann Marie Fleming, gave me a break from too many educational technology theories on Wednesday.  I am really enjoying that class (Culture, Media, and Education.)  It’s a fun class.  Discussions are interesting, people are interesting, and the first assignment is going to be a flexible multi-modal piece based on the poem, Where I’m From, by George Ella Lyon.  I’ve been thinking about what I’m going to do in the back of my head for about a week or two already and I can’t wait to see what it’ll become.  Only thing that I have to watch out for is that I give it enough time to be a good one… which is hard but as I’m getting used to this new schedule, I’m hoping it’ll get easier.

Unfortunately Thursday didn’t quite work out the way I planned, timing-wise.  I barely finished reading for the class, and I’ve never skimmed a book that fast in my life.  Phew, it’s good thing I’ve been paying attention about all these high-stakes standardized tests while I was teaching for the past 9 years.  Otherwise, The Truth About Testing: An Educator’s Call to Action would’ve been totally lost to me.  I guess I would’ve liked to see more concrete examples of “good” tests, since the split-and-switch model seems to be one of the only examples that Popham actually discussed.

Classes for this week ended with Core Seminar which Dr. Kinzer was the guest speaker.  I couldn’t quite grasp how many projects and work he is currently involved with.  I was rushed until this class.

In fact, even Friday was rushed.  Got up, ran with Mookie for less than 2 miles, then I had to go to EdLab.  I’m a bit worried how much time I’m ‘losing’ to EdLab, and I’m a bit sad that I need my commute time for reading instead of biking.  I guess two hours a day is a big chunk of time since I’m so crammed for every bit of reading time as I can get.

Sangu calls this a first-world problem (as opposed to a third-world problem.)  She is right.  I know she is right.  That doesn’t mean I’m ready to accept it yet.  Maybe next week.

3 1/2 weeks at TC: Just getting started

A good news is that I got the maximum transfer credit allowed: 45. That means I have 45 credits (points, as they’re known at TC) to go. Another good news is that I got a stipend position. I always wonder why TC just didn’t pay for the whole tuition + living expenses but yeah yeah, I know it’s in New York City and it’s expensive and the buildings are falling apart because it was founded in 1887. On a side note, I had to look that up since that was one of my five questions that I made up for the Java class.

Honestly, I’d wish Thomas would show us more examples in class instead of just going through his prepared Powerpoint slides. Usually, that’s how it goes. He goes through the slides, then he tells us to just try whatever we’ve seen. There haven’t been any specific examples or guidelines so far, but I really hope he knows exactly how to teach this. I’ve gotten a lot out of iTunes U lectures on learning Java and I think I’ll just keep watching them as well.  I should also probably just get over the little anxiety that arises every time we’re not given a direct instruction. I did email Thomas and Jessica the TA on Saturday morning, and I still haven’t gotten any response 36 hours later. What, no writing back to students on weekends? (I never used to email students back on weekends either.)  I guess I’d better get things done before Wednesday for Thomas’ Thursday office hours.

Cognition and Computers, on the other hand, somehow escapes my flummoxed gaze even though Dr. Black just goes through his slides as well. I think it’s because I am reading and learning such a new way of looking at how “learning” can be represented. It’s fascinating but the writings on these papers are, shall I say, not very reader friendly. I’m sure these researchers are brilliant, but I have a feeling that they’re organizing their thoughts for themselves, rather than trying to state their research clearly for a broader audience. I sort of wish I could take that Cognition and Computers lab, which is supposed to help with hands-on experiences with some of these research items, but my schedule doesn’t allow me. I guess I’ll just have to be ready to go to the office hours. Oh, this reminds me that I have to sign up for Saadia Khan’s research as a participant. Who knew we had to participate as research subjects for 3 hours?

On Tuesday before Cognition and Computers class, I had an interesting conversation with Dr. Susan Lowes, the assistant director (not assistant to the director) of Institute of Learning Technologies (ILT.) Ever since Dr. Black mentioned ILT and Dr. Lowes came to our Core Seminar to discuss projects at ILT, I was intrigued to find more about projects involving mobile devices. Unfortunately, there were only three and they were either finished with research or they were geared towards younger students. My mobile platform idea of curriculum and assessment in project based learning isn’t quite there yet. Then when I went to see Dr. Black, he joked that they will need to come up with a project for me. Ha ha? He did invite me to research practicum weekly meetings on Tuesdays, so I’ll need to start doing that on Tuesdays.

In Culture, Media and Education class, I had fun making an Animoto video with Alex, Cyrille, and Dao. We didn’t know the limitations and quirks of Animoto, so we ended up having to say a disclaimer that we meant to exclude any music to our video. Unfortunately, the default theme impregnated a song and our important and poignant water cooler conversation couldn’t be heard. It was fun, though. I think Animoto would be most effective when used just with words and still images. Videos become to disconnected with inflexible transitions.

Technology and School Change, I feel, is shaping up to be the class that I expected what a Teachers College class to be. Dr. Meier is a highly regarded education professor, and she runs a tight ship. Her TA, Rita, is very helpful… although I’m not sure about the example of her UBD lesson to be anything but a fluff math. Sure, it was for 7th graders and identity is a big ticket item at that age, and yes, the desired result was one of the standard items (or was it a performance indicator?) from Common Core Standards, but I did not really see the benefit of that lesson to students. Especially now that we’re discussing more and more about standards and how we need to stop this “inch deep and mile wide” way of thinking, we cannot afford to cover everything in the standards list. Even before this little tiff I have about the class, I couldn’t quite grasp the scope of this class, but I’m beginning to connect what Dr. Meier’s been saying (that we’re going to be educational leaders when we graduate) and what the readings have been discussing (organizational change, standards, etc.) I need to start thinking broadly to include the scope of not only one school, but districts, regions, and the whole nation. Unfortunately, as soon as I realized this, the class’ conversation went way in the depths of unit and lesson planning with UBD (Understanding by Design.) So maybe I just need to be keeping an eye out for the bigger scope while thinking about this.

The GA position at EdLab is going to be a good one. I’m a little worried about my time management, but as I’m writing this at 1 in the morning, I’m sure it’s already too late to start worrying. Just going to have to deal with it. I am expecting good times, though.

Connecting the ‘participatory culture’ to this editorial about ‘critical thinking in our lives online’

A reputable researcher described the social network phenomenon this way; The current generation is living in a participatory culture.  And I think most of us agree with what this researcher says.

A participatory culture is a culture with relatively low barriers to artistic expression and civic engagement, strong support for creating and sharing one’s creations, and some type of informal mentorship whereby what is known by the most experienced is passed along to novices.A participatory culture is also one in which members believe their contributions matter, and feel some degree of social connection with one another (at the least they care what other people think about what they have created). (Jenkins, 2009)

However, this notion of participatory culture is getting a bit confused by multitudes of participants:  Not everyone cares about “instantaneous nostalgia,” as described in this editorial.  I especially liked learning about Jeremy Bentham’s panopticon and realizing how scary that we ‘have to’ have video cameras in most schools.

(Thanks to Joshua Topolsky for tweeting about it.)