Tag: #edic568

I had always thought tweeting was weird. And blogging, well, I’ve read a few blogs written by travelling friends but most of the blogs I go to are recipe blogs and I just want the good stuff – the recipe. It never occurred to me that tweeting could be a way to mine information or that blogs could actually be a source of educational inspiration. On top of that, it’s a way to connect with educators you don’t know yet. I didn’t understand that there was an educator/learner culture on social media. Kind of like Tinder for learners. And to belong, you have to tweet and blog to read others’ tweets and blogs because they are doing the same thing – looking for inspiration and connection with like-minded individuals. If you don’t tweet or blog, you will lose that connection.

Once you start, there is just SO much information coming through. Like reading a newspaper – you don’t have to read every little thing, but you need to scan to look for the ‘good bits’ for where you are right now. TweetDeck and Feedly were easy to set up and use as an organization system. Hootsuite will get consideration next week even though I am happy with my current two systems. I am starting to find a voice on Twitter, and I am working on my voice in blogging. If some future (or current) MEdTech student finds my blog helpful, great! If not, it doesn’t matter because I am finding it helpful. Putting my thoughts in writing has always been useful for me but blogging about it makes me consider my word choice a little more carefully and makes me be a little clearer. Something interesting is that the quote I retweeted from another educator (below), I decided to research today. Weirdly enough, it is an internet quote with no background! No one can track down the originator, so it has become somewhat of an internet urban myth. Another lesson in research and attribution. Should I have contributed to the confusion by retweeting and not attributing properly?

And of course, you need to make your blog pretty, so I spent about an hour making a gif I wanted for my last blog. I used the Creative Commons to find editable scrabble pieces (though there wasn’t a ‘C’), edited the ‘G’ and ‘M’ to a ‘C’ through Photoshop, made 32 images in InDesign, and then used an online gif maker, EZGif, to create my scrabble gif. I wanted to use the logos of the social media in a gif, but I checked the brand guidelines for Twitter and it states you cannot animate it. Actually, the brand guidelines for even the use of the Creative Commons were very restrictive, so I decided to err on the side of being too careful and did not include them on my blog. Too bad, so sad, but rules are rules. (And then, I couldn’t let this post aimed at my Social Media course be without a gif, so I spent half an hour making this one.)

My last (long) post was about all the connections I’ve been making based on our Research methods course. After a quick meeting with Valerie on Friday, I had another connection made. So much of my self-directed learning has been through experimentation and online tutorials and videos found primarily on YouTube and a school subscription to Lynda. I was really using those websites as a learning community but in the static, traditional lecture style where teaching and learning stay on their assigned separate sides. At school, our students are good networkers within our classrooms during class and through email and through google docs and classroom when outside of class. They also make use of online tutorials and sites they find or we direct them to. Could I curate and moderate (with help) an online learning platform where teachers AND students contribute? Create a learning community that would connect our students with incoming students (an area where I have concerns, particularly in mathematics), and perhaps students outside our school community? Our classes already have online teacher resources, but could we get the students to share their work, especially those with errors that would help others? Could I get teachers to share their work outside our organization? The site structure around concepts/content/skills would be complicated, and then there would need to be some specific diagnostic tools created as well as some motivational interactive learning tools, specifically made to develop mathematical inquiry skills and to use math in real-life problems. Altogether, that could potentially be a Masters Project. Hmmmm.

The amount of time to get through the assigned readings was more than what I expected, having forgotten the idea that each hour of class probably requires two hours of preparation. Plus, my ability to analyze and evaluate needs a substantial amount of actual ruminating as what I have read percolates through my accumulated knowledge. Therefore, it takes more time than anticipated – new skills for estimation of time to complete a job are required!

I appreciate that our first set of readings included a movie to set the questioning tone for our degree. Why technology and project-based learning and why now? Yes, the movie left much unsaid by focusing on just a few students, but it is a movie; when watching it as a documentary, you have to question what is behind the scenes that could be filmed to prove the totally opposite points. Similarly, the two readings presented opposing extremes of teaching methods while referencing the same study of medical students and interpreting the data to support their position. The truth likely lies somewhere in the middle.

The movie, Most Likely to Succeed, was presented in a way to convince the audience that project-based learning is the teaching method of the future. Some essential truths presented were:

Our two readings, Teaching for Meaningful Learning (Barron & Darling-Hammond) and Why Minimal Guidance During Instruction Does Not Work (Kirschner, Sweller & Clark). My primary disagreement with the Kirschner et al. article was its limited definition of learning “as a change in long term memory”. The Merriam Webster dictionary defines learning as

The Oxford Dictionary defines learning as

Both of these definitions reference behaviour and behaviour modifications as a part of learning and the Kirschner et al. article downplays the importance of this. Even when describing crossing the street, Kirschner et al. only alludes to the importance of “information in long-term memory (which) informs us how to avoid speeding traffic, a skill many other animals are unable to store in their long-term memories” and does not include the requirement of trying out that information multiple times in a real-life situation in which more information is gathered until you do not have to think about the information and your behaviour in most crossing-the-street situations is automatic. How successfully would a person cross a street if they only relied on memorized information? And I am not talking about crossing at lights, but at an uncontrolled area that was busy? There is a need for both gathering information as well as real-life opportunities to use that information.

Kirschner et al. also states that all information stored in working memory is lost in 30 seconds and only a few (2-3) new pieces can be retained, but items in long-term memory can be brought in over and over. According to the article, inquiry-based instruction does not support the limitations of working memory. Yet part of project-based learning is the requirement for students to communicate and make lists of ideas, information gathered and approaches tried, so they will be bringing in the information multiple times in order to get it stored in working memory. This is no different than bringing in the new bits of learning multiple times by having students hear it or practice it multiple times.

In my opinion, we need a happy medium; a balanced approach. Variety is good for students to be excited and not become stagnant. Some drill is helpful to speed up recall and develop behaviours that are automatics. Exploration is helpful to test basic knowledge and connect what you know with what you are learning. No one method is ‘the best’. Even Kirschner et al. quoted other studies while referring to the practice at medical school where students experience problem-based learning:

As Barron and Darling-Hammond’s chapter states:

Successful education of the students in front of you is never the same from group to group and therefore we should base our educational practice in a broad mix of instructional techniques. We should not underestimate what type of educational style will be the ‘proper’ one to reach our students.