Final week of class - Group work blog

I don’t really have too much to report this week. Luckily my group mate, Djorn, and I were on the ball last weekend and were able to complete the assignment before the start of this week. Therefore, I will take this opportunity to talk about the group experience with Group 6. We might have been as at a slight disadvantage because we only had a group of two people rather than the normal three person groups or maybe it was an advantage because it was easier to organize. Either way, Djorn and I worked very well together because we both had similar objectives and expectations. Both of us wanted to efficiently complete the assignments as we both are very busy professionals on top of being students. Because of this, we worked well together and didn’t take long to get organized. Once we were able to get on a group schedule and understand both of our available school work time, everything clicked and ran flawlessly. Overall, my group experience with group six was very good. Thanks again to my group-mate Djorn for all the collaboration!

My group experience continued...

After a crazy whirlwind weekend in San Antonio, I got back to Dallas today and got to chat with Djorn about our assignment. Working with him has been great as we are both very efficient with our assignments and meeting time. After hashing everything out and discussing our analysis together, we have sent copies of our answers back and forth for collaboration and editing. We have finished the assignment and are happy with the results. Hopefully the professor likes it as well!

My Group Experience….So far (July 29, 2010)

My group mate, Djorn, has a very hectic work schedule. Because of this, he is only available for working on school work over the weekends. The unfortunate thing about this weekend is that I will be out of town Friday night through Sunday afternoon and will not have access to a computer. I have sent an email to him and expect that we will be able to collaborate on Sunday when I get about our project. So far I feel pretty good about this assignment. I have completed my answers to the preliminary analysis questions, created a flow chart in power point, worked on the progress report and even created a new website for the assignment using HTML. I figured the best way to illustrate my suggestions for changes to the website was to just completely redesign it in a fashion that I believe would help the students and teacher. I’m pretty excited about it! I look forward to getting together with Djorn and figuring out the best way to fix the predicament that Georgina and her students are in!

Scott

Prezi Presentation for LTEC 3440 Week 7

Copy of Using what motivates me to learn: Interactive Mind Map on Prezi

Above is my Prezi presentation about what motivates my learning and an example assignment that is used as a demonstration. The example assignment was the interactive mind map assignment that allowed us to choose our own topic and create our own mind maps. I have also included a video introduction starring myself! Enjoy!

Listen Listen

I just listened to the IT conversations podcasts and I noticed that I was having a difficult time envisioning exactly what they were talking about. Most notably, during the podcast “A Conversational Approach to Search,” Mark Drummond, the CEO of Wowd, is trying to describe his layout and features of the search engine and real-time updated website Wowd.com. (Drummond, 2009) I found it difficult to exactly picture in my head what he was describing. Because of this, I went to the website, Wowd.com, and starting clicking around and trying some of the features. This led me to a much better understanding of what the website was about rather than listening to Mr. Drummond speak about Wowd on the podcast. Also, it was very helpful to go to the about Wowd link and read about the website. Because of this experience, I think I would much rather read or visually see the topic content rather than listening to it. I attribute this to the fact that I am a Kinesthetic learner first and likely a visual learner second with the auditory learning coming in last place. Therefore, I learn and understand ideas and topics much better when I can mess around with them to figure them out or visually see them.

If the lesson was provided by podcast, I would definitely sit down and listen the podcast very carefully without any distractions. Since auditory learning is my weakness, I would need full concentration on just listening. Also, I would likely do some additional research after listening to the audio. I would try to find visual items to look at to help aid me in learning about the topic.

While I am not an auditory learner, some people are. Because of that, I think that podcast should be used in conjunction with other teaching methods in order to try and cater to every type of learner. This would likely produce the best results as far as learning and teaching effectiveness.

Also, and somewhat off topic, Wowd.com is a pretty neat site. It is called a “real-time search engine for discovering what's popular on the web right now,” according to their website. (http://www.wowd.com/overview.jsp) Essentially, you can either use the traditional search option or select a category and see what most people are searching for right now. In other words, you can see what the popular hot topics are out there in that category. It is definitely worth checking out and messing around with.

Works Cited:

Drummond, Mark (2009). A Conversation Approach to Search." ItConversations. Podcast retrieved July 16, 2010 from:
http://itc.conversationsnetwork.org/shows/detail4409.html


Wowd (2010). "Wowd.com." Retrieved July 15, 2010 from:
http://www.wowd.com/overview.jsp

Video I found about Creativity

In order to promote and encourage creativity, we must understand what creativity is and how is is formed. The video above explores creativity and the father of creativity: inspiration. The video also injects some humor which makes it more enjoyable to watch. It asks about cunning ideas. What is a cunning idea? One person answers this posed question by stating that “cunning ideas are easy to understand, but difficult to forget.” Creativity has a flow: people must be inspired, then create or form an idea and develop the idea into an innovation.

Education: Today and the Future

Are our schools providing the education and skills to encourage the proper growth and development of students? Do they use the proper methods to provide students with the ability to succeed in life outside of school? The videos, Creativity: Design in the Making, A Vision of Students Today and Design 2.0, address these topics and how they relate to the current times we live and work in and the potential future. Are we designing the curriculum to meet these objectives? What should be changed?

In the video, A Vision of Students Today, a image of a student holding a scan-tron is shown followed by the asking when , outside of school, am I going to need to know how to use a scan-tron and how will this help solve the current problems of the world (such as war, poverty, disease, etc.) (mwesh, 2007). Are the teaching methods used traditionally obsolete? In the same video, an image of a chalkboard is shown and the message written on it states that chalkboards cannot provide videos or sounds. This type of teaching is doesn’t utilize all of the advantages that technology currently affords. It cannot allow you to interact live with others in the class like blogs and YouTube can. By posting blogs and videos on YouTube, a diverse group of people can interact and communicate through the use of comment areas (mwesch, 2007). This is shown in the video, Web 2.0. Websites like Flickr link people worldwide through pictures, much in the same way that YouTube does with videos and Blogs do with words and pictures and videos. Shouldn’t this modern technology be incorporated in traditional learning? Education and instruction should be about development of the students. The design of the instruction should have modern technology synergistically used to promote the growth of students in the environments that they will encounter outside of the classroom. Online videos, blogs and social interaction sites should be incorporated into education. These are powerful tools for the students to use after college and in their professional lives. Social networking provides the ability to professionally network outside of traditional methods. Blogs and videos can be used to market or advertise. Technology should be used as a tool to enhance education. Is it possible to break the stranglehold of tradition education methods in academia?

Sir Ken Robertson, in the video Creativity: Design in the Making, tackles the question of whether or not schools are killing creativity. He assesses that education just serves to mold students into professors. School is just working to enhance academic knowledge. He uses the example of a famous dancer who was suspected of having a learning disability because she could not sit still during lessons. Sir Robertson says that today she would have likely been told that she had ADHD and should learn to sit still or perhaps would have just been medicated (TEDtalksDirector, 2007). Sir Robertson also stated that around the world the hierarchy of educations has math and language at the top and arts at the bottom. You are always hearing people say, “don’t be an artist or musician, there is no money or future in that.” What if someone had convinced Mozart or Van Gogh of this? They would have deprived the entire world of their creativity and talents that have inspired and captivated so many people. Our curriculum should encourage creative thinking and talents not seek to smother them with conformity using the guise of structured, traditional education.

A Vision of Students Today’s video states that a person may be in a job that after college doesn’t even exist while they are attending college. Our education needs to be focused on developing creativity and teaching adaptation so that the students will be prepared to evolve to the needs and changes in the world and work environments. This starts by evolving education and the schools themselves. Schools should incorporate recent technology and focus on advancements. Instructional design should concentrate on the promotion of creativity and innovation. This will prepare the students and children to work towards solving the problems that face our world today and prepare them for the future.

Works Cited:
TEDtalksDirector (2007). Sir Ken Robinson: Do schools kill creativity? [video]. Retrieved July 15, 2010 from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iG9CE55wbtY&feature=player_embedded

Mwescg (2007). Web 2.0 ... The Machine is Us/ing Us [video]. Retrieved July 15, 2010 from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gmP4nk0EOE&feature=player_embedded

mwesh. (2007). A Vision of Students Today. [video] Retrieved July 17, 2010 from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGCJ46vyR9o&feature=player_embedded

LTEC3440 Video I enjoyed the most!

Benefits of Mind Mapping

The mind mapping method of organizing and linking ideas was demonstrated by Tony Buzan. It is a common method of creating lists and hierarchies of ideas. There are many benefits to using a mind map. It is a useful tool that can be incorporated into many different tasks.
One possible benefit is that is a visual diagram that you can use to link ideas or thoughts. It is a very beneficial learning and teaching tool especially for visual learners. Actually drawing out the mind map is also helpful for kinesthetic learners. Another benefit to mind mapping is that it is quick to draw one. This can be very helpful for note taking because you are able to quickly organize information. Mind mapping can be a good tool for brainstorming sessions. It allows one to create a goal or objective in the center and then branch out with possible solutions from the center. I personally like mind mapping because you can easily show relationships and links between different ideas by drawing lines between them. Even if you have several different sub-sections/branches, one of the branches may be related to a branch all the way across the paper. In order to show that they are related, you can just draw a line between them. The mind map would also be a very good way to develop lesson plans by starting with your main topic of the day in the center and branching off in supporting ideas or events around it and ending with the details at the far end branches.
Instructional design is about incorporating all of the three learning styles into a lesson plan so that all students/trainees would be able to properly learn the materials. Mind mapping provides the ability to provide a visual element for the visual learner. If a kinesthetic student is taught now to mind map and incorporates mind mapping while taking notes, he can improve his learning also. Coupled with a spoken lecture of the mind map illustration you have now infused all three learning methods into a lesson plan.

Mind Mapping

I tried my hand at the Tony Buzan technique known as mind mapping. I chose a topic of interest to me: The Chicago Bears! For my mind map, I decided to illustrate the reasons that the Bears will make the playoffs in the 2010 season. This mostly lists the offseason improvements that the Bears made. I also included some of the issues that other teams in the Bears' division are having. Take a look at my two mind maps. One was completed using bubbl.com and the other was drawn by hand. Feel free to marvel at my artistic abilities and contact me to commission custom drawings! Now try to guess which one was hand drawn!

Designing for learners

It's important to take into account cultural background and gender when designing instruction. Socialization of the learner is essential in defining their learning style. With learners hailing from different cultural experiences there must be consideration towards their origin. It can become quite a challenge for an instructor when rolling out an effective instruction design and not taking into account the fact that not all learners maintain the same culture.

Gender falls within a similar realm. Students belonging to different gender groups may not necessarily react favorably towards the same instruction design. As an instructor one must comprehend the different learning styles and know which styles are most effective to which gender group.

Created by Group 6

A Bloom’s Model Look @ Twitter & Blogging ;)

Bloom’s taxonomy of learning domains classifies and describes the different methods of learning. It breaks everything up into three categories: cognitive, affective and psychomotor. This was all determined by Bloom around 1956; way before the invention of twitter and blogging. A modern look at twitter and blogging reveals that bloom’s classifications can be applied to these modern methods of communication.

Twitter is a social networking site that allows individuals to post 140 characters of text about their current activities, mood, or places that they are at. It provides a look into the life of someone else as well as allowing you to communicate your own thoughts and actions to the rest of the people that follow you. Twittering utilizes the remembering classification because it involves describing your state of mind, location or activities. Twittering also involves understanding as it is looking at where you are or what you are doing or even how you are doing. Twittering is similar to blogging but limits the amount of detail and creativity you can include because you are limited to 140 characters.

Blogging, while similar to tweeting, provides the possibility for a more elaborate and detailed access to your thoughts and ideas. Blogging involves analyzing because you are capable of joining in discussions about reading other people’s blogs in the comments sections. It also allows you creativity in modifying and designing your blog site and in the ability to write whatever you would like in your blogs. You are essentially serving the purpose of writing, editing and publishing your own written (and sometimes illustrated) work.

Recent technological advances have created the opportunity for others to communicate and learn through mediums such as Twitter.com and blogging. These advances may not have been available during Bloom’s time, but his classifications are still applicable. Twittering relates to both remembering and understanding and blogging relates to both analyzing and creating. They provide information into the thoughts, actions and state of mind of other individuals that are posting and a connection to people that would normally be completely out of reach.

Myths about Online Learning

There are many “myths” or preconceived notions about online learning. I have found many people that equate online learning with getting a degree from a diploma mill. Many people do not realize the amount of work and studying required in online learning. I believe my biggest myth that I thought was that online learning and education was easier than in classroom learning. I have done both in class and online classes and I can say that, in my assessment, online classes tend to be more difficult. They require you to learn and practice on your own much more than classroom work. Many of the tests and papers require you to critically think and formulate your own ideas and opinions based on the information presented to you. A lot of my in-class classes required you to repeat what the instructor has said during their lectures. Another myth was that there is no interaction between students in online classes. I have found that the opposite is true. I actually interact and participate in more discussions in online classes than I do in the traditional classrooms where you normally show up, listen to a lecture, ask questions to the professor and leave. In online classes, we are normally required to interact in discussions on a public forum with our peers. This promotes learning and interaction. So, for everyone that hasn’t ever tried an online class, I suggest that you try one and see what it is all about for yourself. It may just change your mind about them.

Copyright Issues - ASMP vs Google Books

This article describes a current legal suit that is being filed against Google by visual artists. The America Society of Media Photographers (ASMP) is seeking a class-action lawsuit against Google for copyright infringement with their Google Books endeavor. Google books is a database of books that have been scanned and put through an optical character recognition (OCR) to digitize the book and have it available online. The article goes on to state that in 2005 a lawsuit was filed by book authors about copyright infringement by Google when they were providing previews of book texts without consent or compensation to the authors. The ASMP was not able to join in on the same lawsuit that the book authors had established. The article claims that the book authors versus Google lawsuit “is expected to be settled soon.” (Sutter 2010) The lawsuit filed by the ASMP is very similar to the claims made by the 2005 lawsuit. The artists claim that they want financial compensation for the artwork that appears in the books that are present in Google Books. Google is sticking to its guns and claiming that they are completely compliant with all copyright laws when Gabriel Stricker, a Google spokesman, released this statement: “We are confident that Google Books is fully compliant with U.S. and international copyright law," (Sutter 2010)

I found this article particularly interesting because of how recent and relevant it is to our current times. Obviously there must be some major grey areas in copyright laws for both of these parties to believe that they are correct and justified in their business or legal actions. This matter will ultimately be settled either in court by a judge or outside of court with a settlement. I believe that the graphic artists and illustrators have as much legal right to their illustrations as the book authors do to the text written in the book. Therefore, the outcome of the book author lawsuit versus Google will be vital to the success for the ASMP’s lawsuit. Whatever the outcome of both of these lawsuits, if this goes before a judge (and most likely later appealed to higher courts), this could be changing the laws and rules regarding copyrights as we speak. It is common that previous court rulings (especially Supreme Court rulings) be used as arguments and examples in future similar cases. This modern legal battle could result in a change in the way that copyright rules are enforced the conversion of traditional copyright material and it’s conversion to digital, online information. It will be interesting to follow the outcome of these cases and how it will affect the future of copyright laws.

Sutter, John (April 7, 2010). “Visual Artists Sue Google over Copyright Issues.” Retrieved June 18, 2010 from the World Wide Web: http://scitech.blogs.cnn.com/2010/04/07/visual-artists-sue-google-over-copyright-issues/

GO USA! WORLD CUP!

I was just watching the World Cup: England Vs. USA. What an exciting match-up! It will be interesting to see who wins. It definitely looks like the United States is the major underdog and England is a much better team. 1-1 going into the half. The D really needs to step up on the USA team. Hopefully the goal was a confidence booster and we will come out aggressive in the second half!

Go USA!

STANLEY CUP!!!!

Woohooo! Go Blackhawks! Way to bring home the cup to Chicago! Now for the Bears to win the bowl!

Typical Day in an Online Class

My typical day in an online class consists of me looking at my planner to determine what is due and when it is due. The first thing I do every semester is sit down and write down all the due dates of every assignment, quiz, test and paper for each class in a planner. I use to the planner to make sure that I check off each assignment as I turn it in. I seem to forget things when I get disorganized. Then I select the class that I am going to work on for the day based upon the due dates. The class with the closest due date goes first. I, most of the time, only focus on one class at a time and try to complete all the assignments that I can for that class. I look at the assignments and then read the chapters so I can analyze the readings as they relate to the assignments while I am reading. Then I perform or write the assignment.

This is different from typical classroom style learning because you are responsible for learning the material through reading rather than lecture. It requires dedication and organization to complete the tasks accurately and on-time. You really have to stay self-motivated to keep up with the pace of online class.

Learning Styles!

I just researched several articles and completed questionnaires regarding the Index of Learning Styles (ILS) Questionnaire , Kolb’s Learning Style Inventory , and Myer-Briggs Type Indicator. It was very interesting to learn about my different learning styles, tendencies and preferences. In the index of learning styles, I scored a reflective 3, a sense 1, a visual 11 and a sequential 5. That means that I am pretty balanced between sensing and intuitive learning, but very heavily dependent on visual as opposed to auditory learning. I moderately performed reflection and sequential learning over active and global learning. I think this is a fairly accurate assessment, but I was surprised at how visually dominant I was. I will have to work on my auditory learning skills to try and become more balanced. My Kolb’s learning style inventory revealed that I am predominately watching and thinking. This is referred to as assimilating. This means I prefer logical reasoning and sequential learning to understand the whole general concept. The MBTI revealed that I am INTJ. That is introverted, intuitive, thinking and judging. However, based on my scores I am only slightly introverted and slightly thinking inclined. I am moderately intuitive and moderately judging inclined. Very interesting reading and assessments!

Expectations for LTEC3440

I am currently taking a class at the University of North Texas about instructional technology. It will cover the use of online and offline media for instructional and teaching applications. I have already learned how to create a blog and twitter account! The class is divided into several groups and we have been told that we will have group projects. I am excited to get the opportunity to work with my group and I hope that I have some very driven group members and that, through our cooperation, we are able to be successful in our projects. I expect to learn more about different online programs and mediums for use in instruction and training in the workplace. Hopefully I will be able to learn more about online meeting programs and different ways of communicating with others in the process of working on our group projects. I am looking forward to this class improving my skills in online research and screening out which sources to use and which to avoid. I can’t wait to get started!

1st blog posting

Hello everyone! I am new to blogging and a little anxious about my first posting. I started this blog as a requirement for a class that I am taking at the University of North Texas. It should be very interesting!

I figured for my first blog post, I should tell the story behind the name of my blog. It was given to me by a coworker of mine after a very unique situation. For those that are not familiar with motorcycle/sports-bike terminology, a 12 o' clock is a wheelie on a motorcycle where the motorcycle is almost completely perpendicular to the ground. It is an advanced motorcycle stunt and can result in the motorcycle flipping completely over if performed incorrectly. I and my coworker were practicing performing wheelies in my parking garage at my condo. Probably not the brightest idea looking back. I decided that I would try one last wheelie. I was determined to make this one a good one. So, I at a slow speed, pulled in the clutch, rev'd up the bike and quickly released the clutch. Almost immediately the front of the bike went straight up in the air and my feet were completely off the ground and dangling. I kept a grip of the handles and released the throttle abruptly. I could have fell over backwards, to either side, come down too hard on the front tire and blow out the front shocks or return the front wheel to the ground safely. I lucked out and the bike came back to rest on the front tire safety with no damage to the bike or myself. My coworker came by to congratulate me on the amazing wheelie when he realized that it was not intentional. Since then he called me 12 o' clock spot. The spot comes from sounding similar to my first name, Scott. It serves as a constant reminder that the even the simplest, stupid mistakes on a motorcycle can be disastrous.

Be safe out there everyone!

Scott