Recently in Commentary Category

Something that caught my eye in the weekly W3C Newsletter was the release of EmotionML 1.0 XML schema (link corrected). The main purpose is to annotate emotional reaction within a recording (video/audio, but conceivably text as well), but the other is to define a framework for emotion recognition on video (Hmmmm).

There are some use cases listed on the site as well as the first draft of the markup, but it looks like a psychology degree would be helpful here. Interestingly, a lot of it has to do with concepts like "arousal", "friendliness", "dominance". At first glance, the values seem a little more related to body language (and inferring emotion from body language).

I can see some very legitimate uses for a markup schema like this, but I also have to confess being a little spooked. How accurate will an "automatic recognition" system be and will it hold up in court? Stay tuned, I guess.

Every now an again, I am involved in discussions about either defining the role in ETS or my role as an instructional designer - preferably in a short sentence. This has been remarkably difficult and subject to interpretation, but for me, the shortest answer is a graphic.

If you still want more explanation - I believe that my "space" is wherever educational issues and technology issues overlap. While I don't work with EVERY issue, there are lots of possibilities including supporting services such as ANGEL or blogs, developing online courses or online multimedia projects, consulting with instructors wishing to use new technology, working with the labs and researching issues such as accessibility, copyright for new media...and of course Unicode.

The text is much more clunky than the picture I think.

Too Much Technology?

A side issue for instructional designers is whether we are technologists or pedagogical specialists. I admit that pedagogy is important, but I do believe that technology is the more marketable skill, but I don't have a problem with labelling myself as a technologist.

Tell an instructor you want to improve his pedagogy and most will glare and comment that everything has been working quite well for them and does not need to change. One in fact told me that theory was nonsense in comparison with practical experience (those who can't do real teaching teach instructors?) We all know that's not true, but the battle to convince faculty that pedagogy theory is valid is as difficult as convincing people that speaking like an Texan does not mean you are stupid.

On the other hand, if you are available to help faculty improve their teaching life and help those pesky students learn more with the magic of technology...there seems to be more interest and more openess to change. It's the technology that's changing, not their pedagogy!

So I think I am one of many instructional designers who walk a delicate line of pretending to be a techie, but really suggesting ways that you can redesign assignments...so that the tech part works more smoothly. If I during a hands-on software training sessions on iDVD for faculty, we accidentally suggest ways that a video assignment might be tailored for a class (or learning objective), then all I can say is so be it.

I will admit there is a danger though - the tech part does come with the "tech support" challenge. I would say that the more interesting parts of my job are design and consulting, not say, testing audio links in a course or answering help desk questions. There is a valid point that in that ID's have to show that they offer something different from other technology professionals, and that does happen to be pedagogy (or experience with effective technology in educational settings).

I think the difference is that I am still happy to embrace technology, but at a higher level then just creating a Web page (we know many high schoolers who can do that). After all the most exciting thing about all of this is that technology can make us question our pedagogy, and at the end of the day, it is the improvement in teaching that makes this all worth it.

The New York Times has a fairly comprehensive article on the research showing that driving while phoning is pretty darn dangerous. How dangerous? It's as bad as driving drunk...literally. You're about 4 times more likely to cause an accident while talking on the phone - even if it's a hands-free device (bummer).

I like this article because it talks about WHY it's so bad. The upshot is that the brain can't multitask efficiently enough, but it's also a visual processing issue. You would think that you would be able to look at the road and talk on the phone at the same time, but in fact eye-tracking studies show that your eyes DO wander off the road while talking on the phone (eye movements can be related to processing linguistic data - fascinating...unless you're running a red light). As you can imagine, texting (where you DO consciously look) is even worse.

I admit that I am intrigued that talking to passengers isn't as distracting (or at least not that I've seen). I can't tell if it's because the audio is better (i.e. live vs over the wire) or if the other passenger is able to watch the road too.

The other aspect that is or isn't interesting according to your perspective is that some researchers feel that there's enough of a dopamine kick in using these devices to fuel the practice...even though most people realize it's a bad idea when others do it. Who knew being connected could give you such a buzz?

But believe or not, I don't want to take the cell phone away - I'm a user myself. I also don't want to disparage multitasking. I am writing this post with 8 applications open and iTunes playing classic pop in my headphones. No, I have nothing against multitasking in the proper context of an office cubicle. I just don't want to be the person you hit while you were talking on the cell phone...

In reference to the 2009 Symposium Quest (part 3)

This game has two options - one of which is a radical educational idea. Last week, I wrote about giving out mathematical formulas as rewards for completing a task (homework), and I don't think I can top that immediately.

But since I don't want to "self-plagiarize", I better give out the four Web site links indicating my personality. So...

1. Wikipedia
2. Ban Dihydrogen Monoxide (read more at DHMO.org)
3. AMS Mathematical Imagery
4. I can't get the snack!　おやつ取れないよー、コーギー - Did I mention I have a Welsh corgi?

Note that the instructions do not specify that I had to explain all my choices ;).

The truth is that it would too long to explain all of them (it's a right brained thing), but I hope you find some of them enjoyable.

It's Friday afternoon, so it must be time for a blog entry. But what to write? It looks like it will be a general observation that life is complex.

This week was busy and "diverse". I attended two accessibility committee meetings, a BLI review meeting, three meetings with faculty, a videot recording of Ray Kurzweil, and a session with Graham Spanier. A lot to think about...

I think Ray Kurzweil was supposed to speak about accessibility tools, but really spoke about using logarithmic curves to predict future trends. This sounds really boring, but I like numbers so much, that I was actually quite impressed. I do worry about his notion of humans speeding towards "singularity" - it makes having another "Dark Age" sound much more appealing.

The presentation from Graham Spanier was also interesting, but what struck me most was that he said end users (i.e. students/faculty/non-tech staff) are mystified by edicts which have no explanation. In truth, I think most of ITS does try to explain why they do what they do, but often the explanation is very technical.

For instance, would you predict that a programmer would be handle French ç, but have problems with œ (did you ever care before)? Or that you're better off using a point scale in an Excel gradebook rather than percentages? How about that PNG images from Powerpoint are large and "bad", but those from Illustrator are small and "OK"? I can see your eyes glazing over already.

Part of accessibility and Unicode education is explaining why you have to insert what appear to be random snippets of code in certain places (then cursing that the WYSIWYG tool doesn't do it for you already). As you can imagine it's a challenge, because most users want to push a magic "Accessify" button (we haven't built that yet). As President Spanier said, it is a challenge to communicate to users that really their life would be simpler if they took a few minutes to click a few obscure settings and lock down some items for security purposes.

And speaking of accessibility, I noticed that even accessibility experts forget about accommodations for new technologies. When figuring out how to get information to faculty, a suggestion was to videotape a series of modules. I think this is a good idea, but we will be obligated to make sure all the videos are captioned! Maybe we could supplement with alternate presentations which are much easier to accessify?

On the other hand, I heard that the next version of Dragon Speak speech recognition will be 99% accurate even with minimal training. Will this be the tool that processes a complex acoustic signal into something humans recognize. That would be so awesome!

So this week I was reminded that life was complex. This is something we all complain about, but sometimes I wonder if we make it worse by trying to "simplify" things too much. I'm not saying I'm going to ditch concepts like usability, but I wonder if we give ourselves enough time to absorb or even appreciate what complexity we do have.

When I began here, a common complaint was that Penn State was operating on three platforms instead of selecting just one. But the fact that Penn State is open to Mac/Windows/Unix is something I loved. It shows that Penn State was willing to explore the best tool for the job be that accounting, digital art or high-end scientific computing.

Although building software adapted for multiple platforms is definitely a pain, I do think the overall quality is improved in the long run. Similarly I believe that building in accessibility makes the tool better for everyone and building in Unicode awareness makes your software portable to a global audience.

But it all takes time. Not that much time, but definitely an extra five minutes. I just wonder how willing we are to find those five minutes?

Recently a colleague challenged us to do a diagram or concept map of our own PLE in the Learning Design Hub. OK...but what is a PLE? It's a Personal Learning Environment, which I'm interpreting as what tools users are using to manage their own learning (thank you Google). This is an important topic, because as a keybote speaker recently pointed out, the goal of education at the university level isn't just learning a set of facts, but being able to develop a system for learning more AFTER you graduate.

I decided to diagram my system, but I realized that I don't usually conceptualize this as learning, but rather as research. So the diagram below is my Personal Research Environment or the tools I use to gather input or research different topics.

About the Diagram

As a mental stretching exercise, I decided to do a process-oreiented or task driven system. I decided to classify my learning/research into three type - Random Browsing or things I learn while cruising around my environment (e.g. the Web, TV or people watching), Experiments and Focused Learning - which normally leads to a formal process such as a paper, Web site or Powerpoint Presentation.

As you can see I use different tools for the different stages. I use "push" communication tools like e-Mail, RSS and television for the browsing, but combine search with "pull" communication tools when I am actively researching a focused topic. Experimentation is sort of a catch all - this is there I play around with different tools and see what happens. This is an important strategy for technologists and creative professionals. However, it's nice when some of those experiments are documented and published so other people can learn from them.

One Tool or Many?

Traditionally, a PLE is supposed to be a unified tool which integrates other tools together, but oddly enough I'm not sure this is what I would want. I'm happy to tweak with cutting and paste or export tools to get everything to play together.

Having said that though, I do know that I want to be able to STORE everything in one location. So far that has been primarily Penn State PASS and other server space. Anything up on a service such as Flickr usually has a local backup somewhere. Isn't paranoia great?

Why "Research"?

I'm using the term "research" because I think it captures an important aspect of lifelong learning - namely that in most cases what you need to learn often has no instructor. Unlike school where almost all "required" learning is guided by an instructor or mentor, the percentage of mentorship will drop rapidly after school, especially as you need to learn more specialized topics.

At some point, you will have to be able to learn new information on your own. If you are the "designated" expert in your department, you may need to read updated information before it ever comes out in seminar form. Or...you may even need to design a seminar on the topic. And sometimes when the topic is really new, you get to be the person who experiments. Fun but scary.

I'm not saying that formal instruction completely disappears, but it definitely becomes more fuzzy over time. While you could generally trust what you were told in 100 level class as "established" fact, by the time you get to a 400 level class, you likely enter the realm of "interpretation" - either because the data is too new or it's not available at all and the scholars are speculating on what they already know. At this point, you have to learn to filter what is being said and form your own conclusion (hence the importance of multiple sources).

I still attend seminars, but they are no longer the primary way I learn. Often I can find a helpful tutorial online, but this is one-way. Colleagues are also helpful, but alas their time is not as open as my instructors (3 hours a week is still more than what a colleague usually has). In the end, it's up to me to filter my input and turn it into something helpful for me.

So what about our undergrads? I think most educators feel that this is the stage that educated adults must reach. The interesting question is how short we can make this process. The Internet is exposing students to more alternate points of view, but it looks like we still have to teach information literacy. Clearly the instructor still has a lot on his or her plate.

I think we all know that ANGEL had a minor meltdown during finals week. Although it was an unfortunate situation, I have to say I was impressed with the relative openness of how it was handled.

The ANGEL Help team was very diligent about e-mailing whatever updates they could (I'm pretty saw one at midnight). Soon afterwards, I saw that Kevin Morooney wrote a detailed blog entry about the ANGEL crisis and what steps would be taken with a sincere apology.

The idea of transparency is very important to our organization, but I'm not sure you can be truly transparent unless you can share your failures as well as your successes. Even though it was not pleasant for anyone to explain that ANGEL had crashed...again, I think the speed and detail was important to users. It told them that ITS was aware of the serious impact on the PSU community, and that they were committed to solving the problem.

The alternate would have been to say nothing or be vague, but then the faculty and students would legitimately wonder - "Don't they know how bad this is? Don't they care?" It is true that when you deliver bad news, you probably will hear complaints from users and that your reputation may be slightly besmirched, but I think we have to trust that users will be forgiving.

We all know computers die, but it's even worse when computers die and you get the runaround. I'm not saying we have to give ALL the ugly details out, but if something unexpectedly bad happens, I think it's better to inform the public when you can so help people can make backup plans.

I know a lot of faculty complain about ANGEL, but I think they do trust the ANGEL staff at the end of the day to do their best. I know I do.

Based on the last post on the Facebook Friends network diagram, someone asked if I had played with Spirograph.

The answer is yes of course - but now I'm grown up. So I stitch Jean Hilton designs instead.

It's amazing how a good visualization will suck me in though.

My current e-mail has semi-decent junk filtering, but alas sometimes it's TOO good. So now I have a new chore...checking the junk box once a week for real messages.

Today when I was checking it, I found at least two messages I needed reply to quickly and about 5-10 messages I did want to read. Ah the irony - a tool which is supposed to make my life easier is making it quirkier.

On the other hand, at least I'm only exposed to the really obnoxious spam only once a week, so there are benefits.

BTW, I urge everyone to check their Junk Mail at least once per week. I really think you may have been missing some very important e-mail sent by me...

Our senior director John Harwood pointed out that three top schools have had to expel multiple students for cheating on their final exams. He called this spring "the season of cheating".

The scandals at the Duke University Fuqua School of Business and the U.S. Air Force Academy are straightforward cases of sharing exam answers, but the case at the Indiana University Dental School involved students breaking into secure areas to view image files for the exam (it's interesting to see what students come up with...).

• Duke Business School (Baltimore Sun/McClatchy-Tribune)
• Air Force Academy (USA Today/AP)
• Indiana University School of Dentistry (WIBC Radio/AP)

Of course, I always know when the end of the semester is coming - this is when more Penn State faculty visit the Penn State Turnitin site and Penn State Cyberplagiarism site.

The good news is that instructors apparently send students to the Penn State Statement on Plagiarism and Academic Dishonesty in January and September. Hopefully the beginning of the semester is the "season to snip cheating in the bud."