Hmmmm, what is working in schools may be counter to “common” wisdom with this link on charter Indian schools.

Blooms Taxonomy for Thinking

Now, we’ve read several papers on design-based research now and I know in at least 2 of them I heard the same problems (wait, let me find them). Ok one is the Reeves et al. article on collaborative learning. The vision is that collaborative learning will yield this HOT but the reality is it doesn’t happen. Now, this occurs over and over and over. The guru of Blended Learning, Garrison, speaks like the Vision portion of Reeves in nearly all of his writings. He speaks glowingly of collaborations and HOT but the reality is that a lot of prodding, facilitating, scaffolding, “prior learning” and whatever else seem to be required to get the neo-marxist theories to yield any HOT at all.

HOT thinking

Now, I always come back to the article Jay had a read a year ago that actually seemed rational entitled: Why minimal guidance during instruction does not work: An analysis of the failure of constructivist, discovery, problem-based, experiential, and inquiry-based teaching. It was written by Kirschner, P. A., Sweller, J., & Clark, R. E. (2006) in the Educational Psychologist, 41(2), 75-86. My brief summary of this paper is that our minds have long term memory similar to a computer hard drive and that the area where problem solving occurs is similar to the working memory. Now, if there is nothing in the long term memory or hard drive for the working memory to draw upon for problem solving or discovery learning (constructivism) the brain just sort of freezes. This is what I think IS happening with the collaborative, problem-solving studies over and over again. Now, if there is enough in the memory bank (in the form of raw data and actually memorized facts in a rational manner) problem-solving can occur and HOT but, if instruction or “prior learning” does not occur first…paralysis and little HOT. My prediction is that Vygotvsky may be in fact the wrong approach, period for HOT to occur. Could it be that instruction is better than experience after all, at least at first?

On the Ball with HOT

And finally, I’m not sure I at all understand, really, the idea the definition for HOT. According to Vygotsvky it seems that HOT must change the basic assumption somehow of the person in order for HOT to have occurred. Now, basic assumptions or presuppositions are always going to be nearly impossible to change in a person IMHO if they are strongly held beliefs unless strong, yes, very strong evidence develops to overturn them. This would take a LOT of prodding, probing and general disruption and I can pretty safely guess or rather, hypothesize, that it will rarely occur in the real world despite what the great educational thinkers might posit, that is, if the accepted definition of HOT is transformation of basic assumptions. Anyway…ramblings are over…

People get paid for this "work"...???

Take, for instance, the homeless computer piece. I can see, I guess, the need for computers for the temporary homeless truly seeeking jobs, but, once again, not with my money. ALL of these groups should depend upon private contributions not federally or state money taken from hard working people, period. That is just thievery! It may be by law, but it is theft, nonetheless!

I noticed that some of the groups if not all were non-profit but it looked like most, if not all, were also getting “public” funds! And then, in the article they talk about democracy, something I’m getting quite weary of. I guess today’s post is a vent. If what they are talking about is democracy then I’m against it all the way.

Also, I can’t believe how these people can go on and on in their articles such as Moser’s 35 pagers of chatter. Moser also is not always necessarily logical she states on page 5 that the effects of technology may be underestimated while the data seems to indicate it might be overestimated. Moser is also surprised that there is a homeless hierarchy? I thought she was a zoologist? Hasn’t she heard of a pecking order?

I found her work to be interesting in that she did a lot of interviews and visited 3 places. She put a lot of work into her observations. Her quoting of “conservative” David Stoez was an interesting choice, first in that he was a making an inaccurate comment concerning market economics “generating” poverty and inequality, but that is another subject (i guess).

All in all I felt this was the worst group of readings for the semester as you can tell. I don’t see the point at all.

Just this week we have found out that, like several of the papers we’ve read on human cognition have pointed out, our brains are changing. They are basically turning into mush. Here is some of the evidence to back up my earlier hypothesis:

1. Social websites harm children’s brains: Chilling warning to parents from top neuroscientist

   Experts are concerned children’s online social interactions can ‘rewire’ the brain

2. Too much PlayStation may cause painful lumps

I’m not sure how bad the brain changes from social networking are but the painful lumps sound bad to me. It appears that Twitter, Facebook, and Bebo are expecially eregious instances of brain drain and decay. These new communication devices are making it unable for kids (and I presume us) to communicate. Evidently, if we are not glued to our screens we just can NOT communicate. Even though the sites are extremely popular they, once again, evidently are “rewiring” our brains. The article did point out that we at least know now that we exist due to the above 3 programs. So, I guess we must be thinking enough to know that we now, at least, are??

The emminent Dr., Susan Greenfield is “concerned” the article points out. And, if any of you graduate students think this is NOT serious beware, some of the commenters will warn you of being an ignorant fool or worse. Which, if that is the case, makes my point that we are just getting stupider…

It is a scientifically proven fact that the brains of children (and that includes those of high school age) are neurologically “soft,” meaning they are still quite vulnerable to developmental disruptions due to environmental factors such as the presence or absence, or even the super-abundance, of selected stimuli. A large body of evidence (dating back to Maslow) shows that sensory disruptions such as a lack of touch, absence of of a mother or father (and the developmental sensory stimulation they provide for the developing brain) can and indeed do result in neurodevelopmental disorders such as ADD, ADHD, as well as personality disorders, antisocial and criminogenic behavior, and so on. These are not matters be ignored in a civilized society. Computer games train children to practice violence through a scientifically proven process called systematic desensitization, used to in video games to train soldiers to kill. Those who scoff at these issues are either ignorant fools or worse.

- Dr Max Hatchoat, Denver, CO, USA, 24/2/2009 08:12

Now I will have to say that Dr. Susan and others do actually lump in playstation and video games as well. So, maybe the second story is even more dangerous about lumps. At least second life is not one of the big 3, so maybe I am safe?

While English scientists talk about the dangers of stupidification by social networking, the Swiss one up them with the dangers of playstation which can give us painful skin disorders WHILE rotting the brain….eewwwww, or as Ernest would say POISON!

Swiss scientists said on Tuesday. Called “PlayStation palmar hidradentitis” by the scientists, the skin disorder can cause painful lesions on the palms similar to patches found on the soles of children’s feet after taking part in heavy physical activity, they said.

Now the great lesson here is that yes we are getting stupider, and our brains are changing…for the worse…but 1) second life is not on the list and 2) if you stay away from video games you will not get a painful new skin disorder only the brain drain!! Now, I don’t know about you but while I figure that my brain is too far gone I can still save myself from painful lumps!!

You can avoid them!

One question I have based upon Shirky’s insistence on the decreased to no cost of failure is if the internet can allow for far more breakdown without consequence to the negative as in times past. IOW, if we use the power of groups on the internet can we not “afford” more breakdown and failure than in the past????

Breakdowns or failures CAN, if cost not too high, lead toward emergence of new ideas and, thus, progress.

Punnett square

In this case one parent of the genetics table is the Individual and the other parent is the physical/social environment.

When they “breed” they produce progeny that fit into one of four quadrants mentioned above. The “parents” can either give stable traits or adaptable traits (I’m not sure which is dominant or recessive). Actually, the chart would make more sense to me if each “parent” listed adaptable first, therefore adaptable would be dominant or stable first. Anyway, the “pure” states sould be either adaptable-adaptable (mutual adaptation, Quadrant 4) and/or stable-stable (Quadrant 2, symbiotic tuning).

Oh, sorry, all the above is my mind wandering, and wondering about which is dominant or recessive. Needless to say I think the chart could have been made better!

So, mutual adaptation is what the authors concentrate on. This quadrant is not stable at all either for the individual or the environment BUT it is the place where changes can occur to both through time. The authors contend that this is the Quadrant or state which is very beneficial for transfer of knowledge and for PDL.

An interesting aspect of the experiment set up by these fellows is that teaching and then observing students is valuable enough that teachable agents might be of use for knowledge transfer???

Confused?

Confused?

So the formula is something like:

DC > MA > PDL > PFL = Confusion???

My biggest question or rather, concern, is if Jay’s group can just stop at one point and take a deep breath for just a second?? The rest of us, and maybe they, need to gather their wits from wherever they’ve been distributed and maybe, just rest!!

Let me catch my breath!

I will say that this bunch from CTGV sort of wear me out mentally! I know a lot of it has to do with the field of cognitive psychology (whatever that is), but I get the feeling that as soon as a target has finally been set, that these guys move it before any of us can take aim. Is that the idea?

It just seems like these guys move the cognition target!!

Last week with the Google article and cockpit article I could make some sense of distributed cognition and then this!!! OK, I will go on after this sitting down to rest in this blog to try and pick at each blog in my further Week 6.0 but folks I had to rest just a sec!!

Maybe you all have more wits about you all than me but I have to find where my brain has been distributed and gather a few pieces back (at least long enough to try to blog semi-intelligently).

John Cummins

Then, I thought what he said about people memorizing much larger chunks of information before books were prevalent with Gutenberg’s invention. It really does seem that as inventions that help our cognition are developed that we sort of drop that part of our minds onto the machines. Now, I know my grandmother had enormous chunks of poetry memorized, as did my parents and uncle that today seem like impossible feats. They did not have the TV and radio was new. With less distractions they were able to both entertain themselves and learn in different ways. However, maybe the printing press had already dumbed them down to the stupid level?

It reminds me of the movie Dumb and Dumber, and the sequel Dumb and Dumberer (or something like that). Or, it is as I say during the final election process when the primaries have weeded OUT the viable candidates (as happened once again in 2008), the choices become tweedledumber versus tweedledumbest. No thanks!

Anyway, then after learning that our brains may be changing, and certainly our environments and our distributed cognition circumstances, I read Glenberg. Glenberg is fixated on the theory of evolution for some reason (it is only a theory, BTW). After a lot of rambling and some incomprehensible jargon (he is from Madison, after all), he determines that evolution is too slow for technology to make a difference to our brains, (it’s too slow [not radical, like Stephen Eliot Gould said it had to be with his Punctuated Equilibrium]), we are not computers but actors (brains act?), and a third reason I don’t understand.

So, according to Glenberg Google doesn’t have enough time to make us stupid? I think Glenberg is wrong and Carr is wrong. I think we are already stupid since the Gutenberg invention and Google is just making us stupider.

john cummins

Well I finally finished Shirky and I have to say there were several reasons I enjoyed this book immensely.

1. As Jason said to me during a class break, Shirky had no agenda. At least if he did he kept it pretty much to himself and just informed us about the power of organizing.
2. He relegated Keen to one paragraph on page 209 with an example of Keen complaining about big time professional ad agencies losing money.
3. He explained the Power law. This is different from Pareto’s 80/20 law that says, for instance that 20% of the people do 80% of the work. It is more like, in Wikipedia, or another social network, maybe 3 people do 1000 or 10,000 times the other contributors, and yet it all works out. Most people do a below average amount in contributions whilst a few do a huge amount…but all are needed to make social online groups work. I think many studies could look at this power law.
4. The cost of organizing groups has dropped to nil with the tools on the net
5. I like how he explains that the price of failure has dropped to nil as well. It’s the fact that you can afford to fail that groups can form, or even try to form. Groups like the picture-sharing group from NYC would have had no audience in the past, but now can be seen around the world.
6. I love the amount of time he spent with meet-up and the fact that meet-up (and groups like it) can actually allow people to connect around common interests (often extremely nichy), geographically in real-life. Hence, the internet can bring virtual groups into actual real-life groups. I experienced this myself locally in the primary election cycle. I actually met up with some folks online and participated in a political parade in Knoxville with people that I met for the first time in real life that day. So, contrary to doomers and gloomers, the internet can foster local geographical community in ways that would have been imposible before the new tools for organization on the net got cheap and attractive.
7. Shirky is realistic in seeing that the genie is out of the bottle for good and bad and that both good and bad will occur and must be dealt with accordingly.
8. In the final chapter, Shirky explains the three main components needed to make a group work: the promise, the tool, and the bargain and how these tools must be lined up perfectly in order for an organization or group to “work”. It is just good to know!
9. Oh and also, I don’t know if Shirky ever said Web 2.0… and that is a positive at this point, IMNSHO.

I thought this book was extremely well written and I will look for more Shirky.  Will you?

John Cummins

Some things I’ve thought about:

• Analysis of comments on educational threads in VoiceThreads
• Analysis of YouTube comments: educational or otherwise
• Analysis of shiftspace entries (what is happening with this extra layer of web?) Is there any education or subversion taking place? If so, how much and how?
• Analysis of blogger comments and commenters’ comments. Does education take place?
• What types of comments occur around various types of photos in flickr, picassa and other types of online albums?

Studies I’ve run across:

• Analysis of editorial changes within Wikipedia entries
• Integrating web-delivered problem-based learning scenarios to the curriculum
• News on the Web: Usage Trends of an On-line Newspaper
• Some second life actual studies in process: (some are obviously too long)

1. A comparison of voice and text communication in sl
2. A study of collaboration around objects
3. Comparison of learning while sitting and watching a screen vs. walking around while viewing the same things
4. Legal consciousness and dispute resolution within SL (sounds like Debbie)!
5. Teaching real science in a virtual world
6. Beyond the classroom. Asynchronous instruction in persistent worlds
7. What can we do there that we can’t do elsewhere?
8. How to get beyond 2d content in 3d worlds?
9. Design of virtual world environments to support persistent learning
10. Pedagogical frameworks to support social network knowledge construction
    in and around vw
11. How* *does 3D-mediation influence teaching and learning in a problem based blended practice within distance education?
12. The presence of ten facets present in virtual worlds

I don’t know what I will do yet for my short study but these serve as starters for me. I really think I will analyze comments of some sort. I want to see if any “learning” takes place in comments. Do people change their basic beliefs ever based upon commenting?

Oh and finally from class:

• The online survey blast (Jason and Olivia)
• 3 month study on blogs, ethnographic case study, printed blog posts (Lila and Jeff)
• Observation, log diaries, telephone interviews on how people use health websites (John and Leslie)
• Undergraduate students surveyed recruited from campus, done in person, incentive given, paper survey, 1/2 hour, focus group used to build survey (Abdul and Jolyon)
• Why online used by undergrads? Interviews, grounded theory (Alison)
• Study of text messaging , street surveys, 2 page survey, demographics, scenarios given [how they would communicate for a given scenario] women and younger text more, Also diary study (n=24)(Kelly, YiYang)
• 20 question, likert scale, sent out to undergrads (n=109) Singapore U., 7 classes, used tech. acceptance model, canned model (Jason)
• Qualitative, IM and social identities (Reading Research Quarterly), How teens instruct Identities by IMng, Interviews with 7 teens, interviewed in teams that knew each other to get them talk more, 1/2 to 1 hour and observed messaging, asked them to think aloud, analyzed texts, grounded theory analysis, social network and design, over 2 years (Olivia)
• People in pairs vs. alone, British Journal of Educational Technology, Pairs chosen by themselves, Search tasks captured by screen capture, search strategies (Alison)
• Chat, normal class taken and done 2 hours in virtual class on Blackboard (John)

The good the bad and the wiki, British Journal of Ed Tech., Research the Wiki, share it, do research on how to use the wiki, (n=35) Undergrad Education students, 1 year(Lila)

Integration by teachers (BJEd Tech), observed 5 months, interviews, narratives, focus groups (Jeff)

How students evaluate websites (n=23), 9th grade, mean=14 yrs, info. prb., 4th level test questions, selection of the 12 questions, 30 minutes to solve 1 question, videotaped, came back in groups of 4, evaluated tapes and transcripts, participants looked at tapes and transcripts, asked why used or not used sites for each question, coded, etc. (Kelly)

Improving lab, case study, engineering, microcontroller, traditional vs. SMS [text message] to control microcontroller (Yiyan Fang)