For our group meeting we met at the Engineering Quad – besides being an absolutely impressive structure, there was an event happening there – “Future Day”
And here’s what we saw!!
Qualitative Research – Week 3 – Group Work
Met today with my group (James Leo & Ana Cuellar) to decide upon the technology setting we want to observe. Great conversation, easy going group, direct and efficient. We came up with the following for now…
How does the adoption of technology impact the learning experiences of students with disruptive tendencies and/or lower academic achievement?
To answer this question, we are interested either in A) observing the impact of a education technology specifically designed to improve student behavior or B) observing whether a learning technology changes student behavior despite not being created for that purpose.
We sent our Professor (Denise Clark Pope) and T.A. Petr Johanes an email with some questions and got responses from both in less than 3 hours! So good to work this way…
Our questions:
“We are hoping you can give us some feedback on this progress before we reach out to potential interviewees.
We are also curious about the order of the observation and interviews – can we interview a teacher pre-technology use, then observe the class upon tech adoption, then conduct the final interview after the observation? Or are we tied to the observation-interview-interview order?”
Their responses I will maintain to our group. The result of the feedback will come later 🙂 Can’t spill all the beans right?
After we met, we walked around the School of Engineering’s Future Day and ran into a company we were actually talking about during the meeting: Little Bits!! Talked to Joe, the local representative, teacher, enthusiast and parent about possibly taping into his school to observe the use of this technology in action! Awesome coincidence.
Intro Teaching – books have not arrived!
Another photographic expedition to the Cuberly Library! And off to some more reading!
Tech 4 Learners – Week 3 – Class Notes
Class Notes:
Notes Followup:
Did a fun exercise with Jesse Harris about getting to know your group… each member writes 2 things he find annoying about people when working in a team and then 2 personal qualities you have. Shuffle the card and pretend you are trying to decide upon the X impersonating the card you got.
Trellis Education Interview
Great interview with Trellis Education today after lunch. A lesson in the problems teachers have on a daily basis and the incredible certification program Trellis is creating.
Learning Environment – Week 3 – Observations/Interviews of a Tech Learning Environment
Assignment:
Describe the educational environment you’ve picked to observe and its background. What are key possibilities for employing technologies in the setting (physical or virtual)? Tell us how you will observe it.
Response:
EDUC 333A – Paper One
Observations/Interviews of a Tech Learning Environment
Lucas Longo
The technology setting I am interested in investigating is the relationship between educators and the digital course content publication tools they use. I intend to observe how they work with the variety of tools at hand. What are the onuses and bonuses of such tools? What is missing or could be done better?
Online courses, MOOCS, and several other initiatives have been offering content digitally and promising access to education for all. One of the reasons I believe that there has been limited success is that the course material is generally not planned and produced specifically for such a context. It is not enough to record the live lectures, publish the slides and assign reading materials. The content has to be created in a new form so that it can be delivered in an appealing and effective manner.
The potential of improving these tools is that you would be able to capture more knowledge with a higher quality from more educators. If the process of creating the online content is easy and fun to do, more educators would “take the plunge” and share what they know more often. Learners would have potentially higher quality content delivered in a manner that is interesting, engaging, exploratory and effective.
My personal interest in the subject matter is integrating media editing tools into LMSs to make it easier to edit and manage multiple source materials such as video, slides, photos, links, tweets and so on. I also think that an essential part of the process is to provide the educator with some level of guidance and coaching during the process of creating their courses. The platform could provide templates, step-by-step ‘wizards’, access to similar lesson plans, quizzes and activities for inspiration and finally providing human feedback once the course is submitted for review. The gamification of lesson preparation, course creation or sharing of knowledge.
To observe this in action I intend to observe a subject matter expert who is preparing his course, creating the digital content and publishing it on an online tool. I am in touch with Edmodo, with whom I might intern next quarter, to observe educators in this process. Ideally I would have access to the existing training material they already offer their incoming teachers and be able to talk to the team responsible for designing the tool from the educator’s perspective.
Some potential interview questions are:
- How does the platform aid in the process of creating the content for your course?
- Do you see a necessity for the content editing tools be integrated with an LMS?
- What is you preferred method of teaching?
- Do you believe the tools you use provide a better learning experience for learners?
Learning Environments – Week 3 – Class Notes
Class Notes
Notes Followup:
Half the class went outside to go and build things with some play material (my group). The other group stayed inside and watched videos about building things. We all came back, divided into 4 groups and had to create a air traffic control center that would withstand hurricanes, simulated by a blow drier 🙂 Fun. The groups that had gone outside seem to have gone right into the construction while the group who stayed inside conceptualized more before they started to build. As far as “who won” – hard to tell 🙂
Intro Teaching – Week 3 – Class Notes
Another great class – carefully structured and effective in illustrating the concepts and making sure everyone was on the same page… but a “no go” for Canvas – class is much more about the readings and class discussions that the tech tool 🙂
Class Notes
Note Followup:
Transfer (the ability to apply what you learned in one context into another) – the “holy grail” of teaching.
Tech 4 Learners – Homework Week 3 – Go out and Have Fun
Had the fortune of being assigned to a really great group – Soren Rosier and Alexandra Cristea – and our task for this week was to go out and have some fun:
“Get to know your group. Do something fun together. Create a group name. Submit a note about who your group is and what you did.”
Here’s the result:
What we did
Went to Ray’s and took turns telling our stories and drinking some beer. Stimulating conversation!
Group Name
S.A.L (our initials… also means salt in Portuguese)
What we do
- We research (Soren), plan (Alex) and implement (Lucas) education technology that causes impact
- We make a difference, one kid at a time
- We are an interdisciplinary team searching for solutions for real-world problems
Brazilian Education – Week 3 – Class Notes
Presentation by Prof. Martin Carnoy – interesting debate about how you cannot compare the US as a whole with other countries since each state and in some cases, municipalities have their own educational system and perform at very different rates.