March 2008 Archives
During the poster session at the TLT Symposium this past Saturday, I had the chance to talk with Glenn Johnson, the Project Manager of Penn State's e-Portfolio Initiative. I had previously attended one of Mr. Johnson's training sessions last semester so I was familiar with the e-Portfolio Initiative. The initiative provides students with help in creating their own portfolio. Although there is no set template, students can model their portfolio off of other sample portfolios.
I have had previous experience in creating an e-Portfolio. As a Masters student at The College of New Jersey in 2005, I created an e-Portfolio for my expertise in Mathematics and Computer Science Education. I coded in html using Dreamweaver, Photoshop, and Flash to bring together images and video for an interactive page. I was very happy with the site but it was what we would call web 1.0 or 1.1 technologies.
At the poster session, I was interested in how e-Portfolios could be combined with web 2.0 technologies, so I engaged Mr. Johnson in conversation. Mr. Johnson suggested going away from the normal old e-portfolio and instead using blogs@psu.edu or similar technologies to form an electronic portfolio.
This brings me to my idea for further research. I would like to take Mr. Johnson's ideas of combining e-Portfolios and web 2.0 technologies and go one step further. In the near future, I would like to create an e-Portfolio system (SaaS) that serves as a Mash-Up of our Identity on the internet. Instead of just using a blog or other tool as an e-Portfolio, I would like to make a Mash-Up of all the communities, blogs, and technologies that we are involved in on the internet. In other words, I would like to create an application that is very similar to Pownce but with the specific goal of using it as an e-Portfolio. For those that do not know, Pownce puts links to users many accounts on one page. On my Pownce page, I have a link to my facebook, myspace, flickr, aim messenger, msn messenger, and twitter accounts.
My research question would be to find out if students (who use this new e-Portfolio Mash-Up) are less likely to post incriminating pictures and vulgar text or blog posts. I think this research would be significant because it could provide a start of responsible social networking and web 2.0 living. In this context, responsible = fun yet smart, appropriate, and professional.
I have had previous experience in creating an e-Portfolio. As a Masters student at The College of New Jersey in 2005, I created an e-Portfolio for my expertise in Mathematics and Computer Science Education. I coded in html using Dreamweaver, Photoshop, and Flash to bring together images and video for an interactive page. I was very happy with the site but it was what we would call web 1.0 or 1.1 technologies.
At the poster session, I was interested in how e-Portfolios could be combined with web 2.0 technologies, so I engaged Mr. Johnson in conversation. Mr. Johnson suggested going away from the normal old e-portfolio and instead using blogs@psu.edu or similar technologies to form an electronic portfolio.
This brings me to my idea for further research. I would like to take Mr. Johnson's ideas of combining e-Portfolios and web 2.0 technologies and go one step further. In the near future, I would like to create an e-Portfolio system (SaaS) that serves as a Mash-Up of our Identity on the internet. Instead of just using a blog or other tool as an e-Portfolio, I would like to make a Mash-Up of all the communities, blogs, and technologies that we are involved in on the internet. In other words, I would like to create an application that is very similar to Pownce but with the specific goal of using it as an e-Portfolio. For those that do not know, Pownce puts links to users many accounts on one page. On my Pownce page, I have a link to my facebook, myspace, flickr, aim messenger, msn messenger, and twitter accounts.
My research question would be to find out if students (who use this new e-Portfolio Mash-Up) are less likely to post incriminating pictures and vulgar text or blog posts. I think this research would be significant because it could provide a start of responsible social networking and web 2.0 living. In this context, responsible = fun yet smart, appropriate, and professional.
At the AERA conference in NYC last week, Dr. Roy Pea spoke as the Keynote speaker for the Technology as an Agent for Change in Teaching and Learning (TACTL) Special Interest Group. I was very interested in attending for a few reasons. First, we have already read Roy Pea's "Distributed Intelligence" in class and I wanted to meet the author. Also, the title of his presentation "Learning Environments Transformed" caught my attention and seemed very interesting. Although it was nice shaking his hand and introducing myself after his presentation, I enjoyed listening to his ideas the most.
In the presentation, Pea discussed the properties of emerging learning environments. They are 1. fast growing as part of a participatory culture, 2. created as Software as a Service (SaaS), 3. social networks, 4. search engines, 5. gaming worlds, and 6. pervasive (i.e. ubiquitous) and mobile. He also discussed an initiative that he helped put together for the National Science Foundation. The initiative entitled "Cyberinfrastructure for Education and Learning for the Future: A Vision and Research Agenda" (CELF) was created to find out where we need to be (as educators) in this new web 2.0 rich world.
You can find the CELF initiative at http://www.cra.org/reports/cyberinfrastructure.pdf. In the next few paragraphs, I want to discuss a few of the words in the Chapter entitled "Communities of Learning" and relate it to CI 597.
"Cyberinfrastructure will make it possible for students in school settings to be more directly engaged with life beyond the classroom, and to observe and interact with communities of professionals and others who develop products and results that matter, both within and outside of their communities."
This is already evident in our class' use of Twitter outside of the classroom walls. At the TLT Symposium, our class met with a community of professionals. Twitter will enable us to stay in touch with these professionals and learn more from them long after the symposium.
"Virtual communities of learning can help address many of the issues raised about the need to retain qualified and talented teachers and support them in their professional practice. They can provide personal support as well as access to professionally interesting conversations and resources; connections to practicing scientists and education researchers; and more opportunities for advancement than the local context often can offer."
Online communities are available that allow teachers to share resources. Along with social networks and blogs, these online communities also provide easy access to conversations with others in their field. Our class blogs and podcasts have created many conversations that would have never happened if we kept those conversations inside the classroom walls.
I am providing the end of the Chapter below in the hope that it will help foster future research questions for anyone reading this. I am interested in a few of the challenges and providing some research in the future to address them. Specifically, I am interested in providing research for the challenge of community and member feedback.
"CELF research challenges include:
• Managing the need for large-scale, robust production systems upon which practitioners can rely and researchers can do research, coupled with the ongoing need for innovative experiments.
• Developing shared standards and specifications to enable the collection and analysis of data about communities of learning.
• Understanding and planning for educating teacher practitioners to use Cyberinfrastructure for learning collaboratively and across groups.
• Understanding the affordances of the virtual context for individuals and groups to develop multiple competencies and various senses of belonging that they and others can manage to construct, and adapt the learning environments to their needs.
• Understanding how social capital influences the participation of different types of learners and, in turn, how various forms of participation impact learning.
• Identifying and learning to assess criteria for engagement and success within communities of learning. Integrating across different forms of assessment data, such as interviews and observation, discourse and conversation analysis, log analysis, and performance evaluations.
• Developing effective community feedback mechanisms for “reading” member engagement and perspectives and facilitating various forms of decision making.
• Understanding how access, availability, and ubiquity affect the development of Communities of Learners enabled by CELF.
• Understanding how pedagogical content knowledge and related principles should influence the design of infrastructures to support communities of learning.
• Understanding how to support cross-project collaboration and fertilization. Understanding how Cyberinfrastructure can bridge projects both within and across traditional disciplines. Understanding how projects move from pilots to large-scale efforts and from grant-funded to sustainable.
• Understanding the global nature of Cyberinfrastructure. Although the Internet and much of industry are already internationally oriented, education in the United States is remarkably parochial. Cyberinfrastructure can help bridge learners across countries (pilots, and small-scale individual efforts) and make it possible (time zones notwithstanding) for class projects to consist of team members worldwide, and to bring in experts from around the world."
In the presentation, Pea discussed the properties of emerging learning environments. They are 1. fast growing as part of a participatory culture, 2. created as Software as a Service (SaaS), 3. social networks, 4. search engines, 5. gaming worlds, and 6. pervasive (i.e. ubiquitous) and mobile. He also discussed an initiative that he helped put together for the National Science Foundation. The initiative entitled "Cyberinfrastructure for Education and Learning for the Future: A Vision and Research Agenda" (CELF) was created to find out where we need to be (as educators) in this new web 2.0 rich world.
You can find the CELF initiative at http://www.cra.org/reports/cyberinfrastructure.pdf. In the next few paragraphs, I want to discuss a few of the words in the Chapter entitled "Communities of Learning" and relate it to CI 597.
"Cyberinfrastructure will make it possible for students in school settings to be more directly engaged with life beyond the classroom, and to observe and interact with communities of professionals and others who develop products and results that matter, both within and outside of their communities."
This is already evident in our class' use of Twitter outside of the classroom walls. At the TLT Symposium, our class met with a community of professionals. Twitter will enable us to stay in touch with these professionals and learn more from them long after the symposium.
"Virtual communities of learning can help address many of the issues raised about the need to retain qualified and talented teachers and support them in their professional practice. They can provide personal support as well as access to professionally interesting conversations and resources; connections to practicing scientists and education researchers; and more opportunities for advancement than the local context often can offer."
Online communities are available that allow teachers to share resources. Along with social networks and blogs, these online communities also provide easy access to conversations with others in their field. Our class blogs and podcasts have created many conversations that would have never happened if we kept those conversations inside the classroom walls.
I am providing the end of the Chapter below in the hope that it will help foster future research questions for anyone reading this. I am interested in a few of the challenges and providing some research in the future to address them. Specifically, I am interested in providing research for the challenge of community and member feedback.
"CELF research challenges include:
• Managing the need for large-scale, robust production systems upon which practitioners can rely and researchers can do research, coupled with the ongoing need for innovative experiments.
• Developing shared standards and specifications to enable the collection and analysis of data about communities of learning.
• Understanding and planning for educating teacher practitioners to use Cyberinfrastructure for learning collaboratively and across groups.
• Understanding the affordances of the virtual context for individuals and groups to develop multiple competencies and various senses of belonging that they and others can manage to construct, and adapt the learning environments to their needs.
• Understanding how social capital influences the participation of different types of learners and, in turn, how various forms of participation impact learning.
• Identifying and learning to assess criteria for engagement and success within communities of learning. Integrating across different forms of assessment data, such as interviews and observation, discourse and conversation analysis, log analysis, and performance evaluations.
• Developing effective community feedback mechanisms for “reading” member engagement and perspectives and facilitating various forms of decision making.
• Understanding how access, availability, and ubiquity affect the development of Communities of Learners enabled by CELF.
• Understanding how pedagogical content knowledge and related principles should influence the design of infrastructures to support communities of learning.
• Understanding how to support cross-project collaboration and fertilization. Understanding how Cyberinfrastructure can bridge projects both within and across traditional disciplines. Understanding how projects move from pilots to large-scale efforts and from grant-funded to sustainable.
• Understanding the global nature of Cyberinfrastructure. Although the Internet and much of industry are already internationally oriented, education in the United States is remarkably parochial. Cyberinfrastructure can help bridge learners across countries (pilots, and small-scale individual efforts) and make it possible (time zones notwithstanding) for class projects to consist of team members worldwide, and to bring in experts from around the world."
Asking all Educators:
Have you ever felt like you did not want to write those lesson plans on Sunday night? Have you ever let procrastination get the best of you? Have you ever stopped to consider how nice it would be to leave work and not have to spend any more (mental and/or physical) time on your work?
You, my friends, are strategizing your non-participation. In Chapter 7 of "Communities of Practice," Etienne Wenger presents the Strategy of Non-Participation as a form of identity. He states that many individuals "see their identity mainly outside their job as 'I don't want it to be, like, my life is my job'" (Wenger 1998). These people don't want their work lives to invade their personal lives.
Is there a solution in education? Yes, if you consider the alternatives. In my opinion, teaching is one of the more enjoyable and rewarding jobs one can hold. In order to be a teacher, you constantly need to learn and stay up with the times and adequately prepare and plan your classes. With teaching comes the responsibility of planning and participation. What then is the solution? Well, have you ever considered a job that allows for non-participation? Have you worked at a job where the work becomes tedious and boring and you look forward to your days of non-participation? The solution is a change of strategy and ideology. Instead of strategizing your non-participation, start to strategize your participation. Value and treasure the participation that teaching requires because this participation keeps your work fresh and fun. Also, change your attitude about non-participation. Although non-participation looks good now (the grass is always greener on the other side), always remember that while you need to do lesson plans and study-up on the next new web 2.0. technology (in anticipation for your next day of work that you are looking forward to), your friends are dreading that job that they need to wake up at 6 a.m. for.
Knowing the benefits of participation and the negative side to the strategy of non-participation, I feel I am more likely to encourage my students to follow careers of participation.
Have you ever felt like you did not want to write those lesson plans on Sunday night? Have you ever let procrastination get the best of you? Have you ever stopped to consider how nice it would be to leave work and not have to spend any more (mental and/or physical) time on your work?
You, my friends, are strategizing your non-participation. In Chapter 7 of "Communities of Practice," Etienne Wenger presents the Strategy of Non-Participation as a form of identity. He states that many individuals "see their identity mainly outside their job as 'I don't want it to be, like, my life is my job'" (Wenger 1998). These people don't want their work lives to invade their personal lives.
Is there a solution in education? Yes, if you consider the alternatives. In my opinion, teaching is one of the more enjoyable and rewarding jobs one can hold. In order to be a teacher, you constantly need to learn and stay up with the times and adequately prepare and plan your classes. With teaching comes the responsibility of planning and participation. What then is the solution? Well, have you ever considered a job that allows for non-participation? Have you worked at a job where the work becomes tedious and boring and you look forward to your days of non-participation? The solution is a change of strategy and ideology. Instead of strategizing your non-participation, start to strategize your participation. Value and treasure the participation that teaching requires because this participation keeps your work fresh and fun. Also, change your attitude about non-participation. Although non-participation looks good now (the grass is always greener on the other side), always remember that while you need to do lesson plans and study-up on the next new web 2.0. technology (in anticipation for your next day of work that you are looking forward to), your friends are dreading that job that they need to wake up at 6 a.m. for.
Knowing the benefits of participation and the negative side to the strategy of non-participation, I feel I am more likely to encourage my students to follow careers of participation.
According to Wenger's "Communities of Practice," identity in practice can be described using the following six characteristics: 1. lived 2. negotiated 3. social 4. a learning process 5. nexus and 6. local-global interplay (Wenger 1998). In the following post, I will analyze each characteristic with respect to our current vs. (my idea of our) future classroom.
First, I will need to define current and future classrooms. Current classrooms are classrooms that are in the current standards movement. The classroom walls serve as the community space. Social networks and instant messaging tools are prevalent among students but not used in the classroom or if they are, not to their full potential. The internet allows for much research and knowledge but is not the first place to find knowledge. Teachers are the leaders of the classroom and engage their students in activities. Also, in the K-12 curriculum, many but not all classroom teachers teach to the (high-stake) test. Future classrooms are classrooms that may still be in the standards movement, but allow for more authentic and alternative assessment. Social networks and instant messaging tools are used to engage students in the classroom and beyond. There are no classroom walls. The classroom space exists as a meeting place. The teachers are guides and motivators. The internet is the main source of knowledge and thus, students are trained at a much earlier age to evaluate internet sources and information.
1. Lived = an experience that involves both participation and reification.
In the current classroom, identity is formed through experience within the school walls. In the future classroom, identity is now also formed through experience in class chat rooms, discussion boards, blogs, and other web 2.0. technologies outside the classroom walls. Through the internet, students interact with and learn from other students and teachers around the world instead of just students in their local communities. These other students and teachers can be considered periphery members of the class.
2. Negotiated = identity is ongoing and pervasive.
Identity is ongoing within both the current classroom and future classroom. The only difference here is that identity is negotiated among members of the classroom in the current system. In the future system, identity is negotiated also among periphery members only accessible through the internet.
3. Social = identity a fundamentally social character.
Identity is shaped by the familiar social experiences within the community. Similar to 2, here the only difference is in the periphery members that also contribute to identity.
4. a Learning Process = incorporates both past and future into the meaning of the present.
In our current classrooms, students are initially set on an inbound trajectory (of identity) in order to attain full membership in the learning community. However, the overarching trajectory for a student is an outbound trajectory. Students are constantly set to move on to the next stage of their schooling. From Pre-K to grammar school to high school to college to graduate school or professional work. Throughout this process, students are given paradigmatic trajectories or models to follow. For instance, a student that wants to be a college professor will have a very different trajectory than one that wants to be an auto mechanic. In our future classrooms, students can more easily interact and follow actual college professors and auto mechanics. There is no longer a sense of reading about trajectories in a book. Students can actually talk to professionals and learn from their successes and failures on a personal level.
5. Nexus = combines multiple forms of membership through a process of reconciliation across boundaries of practice.
The nexus in the current classroom system revolves around a student's many different classes, extracurricular activities, jobs, friendships, relationships, and family life. In the future classroom, the nexus also revolves around a student's online identity.
6. Local-Global Interplay = neither narrowly local to activities nor abstractly global.
The current classroom system enables a local-global interplay that is skewed to the local end. Students learn how to exist in their local school and how their classroom fits into the broader scheme of things. In the future classroom system, students will exist in their local school and also in their online system. They will become brokers of knowledge between students half-way across the world. The future classroom system will enable a local-global interplay that is more skewed to the global end.
First, I will need to define current and future classrooms. Current classrooms are classrooms that are in the current standards movement. The classroom walls serve as the community space. Social networks and instant messaging tools are prevalent among students but not used in the classroom or if they are, not to their full potential. The internet allows for much research and knowledge but is not the first place to find knowledge. Teachers are the leaders of the classroom and engage their students in activities. Also, in the K-12 curriculum, many but not all classroom teachers teach to the (high-stake) test. Future classrooms are classrooms that may still be in the standards movement, but allow for more authentic and alternative assessment. Social networks and instant messaging tools are used to engage students in the classroom and beyond. There are no classroom walls. The classroom space exists as a meeting place. The teachers are guides and motivators. The internet is the main source of knowledge and thus, students are trained at a much earlier age to evaluate internet sources and information.
1. Lived = an experience that involves both participation and reification.
In the current classroom, identity is formed through experience within the school walls. In the future classroom, identity is now also formed through experience in class chat rooms, discussion boards, blogs, and other web 2.0. technologies outside the classroom walls. Through the internet, students interact with and learn from other students and teachers around the world instead of just students in their local communities. These other students and teachers can be considered periphery members of the class.
2. Negotiated = identity is ongoing and pervasive.
Identity is ongoing within both the current classroom and future classroom. The only difference here is that identity is negotiated among members of the classroom in the current system. In the future system, identity is negotiated also among periphery members only accessible through the internet.
3. Social = identity a fundamentally social character.
Identity is shaped by the familiar social experiences within the community. Similar to 2, here the only difference is in the periphery members that also contribute to identity.
4. a Learning Process = incorporates both past and future into the meaning of the present.
In our current classrooms, students are initially set on an inbound trajectory (of identity) in order to attain full membership in the learning community. However, the overarching trajectory for a student is an outbound trajectory. Students are constantly set to move on to the next stage of their schooling. From Pre-K to grammar school to high school to college to graduate school or professional work. Throughout this process, students are given paradigmatic trajectories or models to follow. For instance, a student that wants to be a college professor will have a very different trajectory than one that wants to be an auto mechanic. In our future classrooms, students can more easily interact and follow actual college professors and auto mechanics. There is no longer a sense of reading about trajectories in a book. Students can actually talk to professionals and learn from their successes and failures on a personal level.
5. Nexus = combines multiple forms of membership through a process of reconciliation across boundaries of practice.
The nexus in the current classroom system revolves around a student's many different classes, extracurricular activities, jobs, friendships, relationships, and family life. In the future classroom, the nexus also revolves around a student's online identity.
6. Local-Global Interplay = neither narrowly local to activities nor abstractly global.
The current classroom system enables a local-global interplay that is skewed to the local end. Students learn how to exist in their local school and how their classroom fits into the broader scheme of things. In the future classroom system, students will exist in their local school and also in their online system. They will become brokers of knowledge between students half-way across the world. The future classroom system will enable a local-global interplay that is more skewed to the global end.
