November 2008 Archives

... I was returning from my graduate school fieldwork in Papua New Guinea, just as Dr. Ottenheimer was retiring, and I was hired to replace him.  So there I was, back in that same room again, now on the other side of the podium.

Unfortunately, the questions I seemed to be inspiring were a bit more mundane than those inspired in me by Dr. Ottenheimer. "How many points is this worth?"  "How long does this need to be?"  "What do we need to know for this test?" Frustrated with these questions, I threw out the syllabus and asked my students to join me on a quest to answer real questions that perplexed me as much as them, and that had the enduring quality of relevance to all humanity - not "What do we need to know for this (multiple-choice) test?" but "What do we need to know for this test of our lives?"  Since then, I have found myself in the wonderful but sometimes awkward position of not knowing exactly what I am doing at any given moment, of walking with my students rather than talking at them, and blissfully learning all along the way.

What I really like about Wesch is that he doesn't just give lip service to these ideas.  He really puts himself out there and has designed some really interesting activities.  More importantly, he openly shares what he and his students are doing.

 

I got something cool in the mail today.  It was a few copies of an article that Haijun Kang and I wrote and published in "Open Learning", which is a British journal about distance education.  So I guess that makes me an official academic.  The article compares two different theories, Transactional Distance and Cultural Historical Activity Theory, and examines where they overlap, where they differ, and what we can learn by mashing them together.  [For the record, it is much easier to write about a concrete experience.  Theory is tough.]




Okay.  I doubt anyone really cares that I got this published, but it makes me happy.  What would make me happier is if other people read it and find it useful. 

I went to the Harrisburg campus with Cole and Brad yesterday to talk to the Harrisburg faculty about using wikis.  During part of our discussion, Cole mentioned that YouTube is the second most used educational tool in Penn State classrooms. (#1 is PowerPoint).  So true.  Andrew uses it all the time to show his class everything from the structure and lifecycle of viruses to public health campaigns from around the world (the South African commercials for Pronto Condoms are really cool).

Today, for one of my classes, my group did a presentation about green/environmental issues in relation to globalization and lifelong learning.  We used about a dozen videos from YouTube that demonstrated different kinds of green issues from around the world: Uganda, Kenya, China, Kiribati, Canada, Singapore, and a few from the U.S.  It was pretty rewarding to put all of that together because it is something that I care about and I got to learn a lot while working on the presentation.  We asked the class to break into small groups a couple of times to answer questions that were related to the videos to ensure that there would be a lot of discussion.  We also incorporated some props: some packaging material and some organic and Fair Trade chocolate.

At the end of the session, everyone wrote some feedback, which I just finished reading.  Overall, the other members of the class really liked what we did, especially using videos to breathe life into our presentation.  The class discussion was very lively.  We encouraged people to talk about green issues that they know about personally (nearly all members of the class have lived outside the U.S.). 

Based on the feedback, several people wrote that we could have made a stronger connection between our topics and lifelong learning.  I was hoping that the connection would have been obvious based on the examples we were showing.  One video from the U.S. and one from Canada were talking about teaching people to grow community gardens in urban neighborhoods.  Another two U.S. videos were public service announcements about environmental issues from the 70's.  The video from Kenya was about the Green Belt movement, in which women teach other women how to grow and plant trees (35 million of them!).  We also asked people to think and talk about how they learned about environmental issues from the first time they were aware of those issues to how they get their information now.  On the other hand, some of the other videos (China, Kiribati, another from Canada) didn't really talk about learning - but I think those videos were still important because they were addressing the globalization part of the focus of this course.

What would I do differently?  I'd probably cut down the small group discussion a bit and then have a very explicit conversation about how all of this fits in with the themes of the course.  I think that's important because a lot of the lifelong learning literature that I've been reading focuses on formal education and work-related training, but not education that is related to non-vocational purposes (citizenship, community cohesion, politics, religion, environment, etc...).  

A quick observation between a presentation in class last week and the paper I'm finishing on lifelong learning in the Netherlands.  Both the presentation and the documents I've been reading focus almost entirely on the work value of lifelong learning.  It is seen as a tool to make people employable and keep currently employed people up to date in our ever-changing knowledge economy.  I understand why that perspective may be reflected in government documents.  They are trying to make strategic decisions about remaining globally competitive.  They are trying to look at a cost-benefit analysis.  All other forms of lifelong learning are typically disregarded or put into the category of "hobby" or "passtime".

But lately, I've been thinking about the importance of lifelong learning for democracy, the environment, and health.  We need citizens who are going to make good choices based on a critical analysis of the information that is being pushed at them through a variety of media outlets.  This relates to information literacy.  We need people to think about the personal choices they are making and the impact that those choices are having on the environment.  We need people to think about food, exercise, smoking, stress, sex, addiction, and other aspects of their lives that affects their long-term health and the lives of their families.

Speaking of health, I need to get to sleep.

The thing that I really liked about the August 2008 one-post-a-day challenge is that it got me into the habit of writing.  Not that I kept writing once per day after the fact, but when I have had something to write about after that, it seemed much easier.  We've also been talking about having our staff create portfolios -- and to do that, they need to be used to writing.

So at the BS Breakfast this morning, we talked a little about starting a new one-post-a-day challenge during February, 2009.  Why then?

• First, the current semester is practically over.  Between now and Christmas, our minds will be either focused on finishing several project "before the holidays", office parties, Black Friday, decorations, etc...
  
• January is tough.  Everyone is back from the holidays, but with several things to do before classes start or shortly thereafter.  However, during January, the plan is to create awareness of the one-post-a-day challenge and get participants to write once per week to get warmed up.
• February is a short month, so it's not as daunting as one of those 31-day monsters. It's also far enough into the semester that things should be interesting, but settling down. 
  
• It's also better than March (Spring Break) or April (TLT Symposium and end-of-semester).

I think we'd run this one like the last one.  The posts would be during week days only.  Miss a day?  Catch up later instead of quitting all together.  The posts should be something a bit more substantial than "look at this" or a reposting.  A picutre, movie, or repost with comments is good though.  

So that's the plan.  Tell your friends. 

Oddly enough, the two major educational events of my week had to do with creating video. 

The first was a class session on participatory video that was taught by some of the other members of my globalization and lifelong learning course.  In that three-hour session, they showed some videos created when people from Uganda and India were trained to use video cameras and then create stories about local problems, which they could then share with the rest of the world.  Then we talked a bit about participatory video (called that because the people creating the video are also the people who are the subjects of the film) and discussed its place in relation to research and amplifying the voice of marginalized people.  In the second half of the class, they showed us how to use some video cameras and then put us into groups and asked us to create a short video.  So we created an 8-minute video about the culture shock that people (especially international students) can experience when moving to University Park.  Here is an example:



The second was a Digital Storytelling workshop that took place at today's Digital Commons Tailgate at the Schuylkill campus.  They threw us right into the mix, explaining that we would be getting into groups, coming up with an idea for a story, finding pictures in Flickr, shooting a video, and then editing it together in Final Cut Pro.  I got together with three other people (Robin, Bim, and Hannah) and we decided to talk about why we run, why we choose to run on an eliptical, trails, roads, and tracks, and then we talked about our running goals.  We talked about those topics in front of a green screen and then put ourselves in front of Flickr images that we selected through a Creative Commons search.

Both experiences were engaging. Both were hands-on. Both were more fun than I thought they would be.  The advantage of the first method is that the presenters talked a lot about the potential for participatory video to have a real impact on a global problem.  We understood why it should be used and saw some great examples.  The advantage of the second method is that we got to dig into a much more complete process of planning and putting together a more finished product.  I'm a technical guy, but this took me outside my comfort zone and gave me more confidence in using a professional video editing tool and multiple elements (still shots, soundtracks, green screen, titles, etc...)

I can't say that either method was superior to the other.  I'm just glad that I had both this week.  I also think that they would both benefit from overlapping a little.  My recommendations:

1. The students running the participatory video session could include the contact information for the Digital Commons facilities, so people can get technical help. 
   
2. The Digital Commons staff could provide a sample of digital storytelling up front and describe how it has the ability to ground an issue, illustrate a point, capture a perspective, or provide clarity in other ways.