Natalie's Blog

John Harwood -

Disruptive tech - I think eye contact is still important in f2f - perhaps the lecture model is what is becoming antiquated? f2f one on one or in small groups as a way of teaching interpersonal interaction along with smart use of disruptive tech? Here's the key and Cole answered it: faculty no longer have sole control over the classroom, the learning environment is now a two way street. Also I find by my own participation via social media in this conference I actually stay more engaged. Hard to stay focused on just ppl talking but when I force myself to react and create content I remain engaged.

I am currently on my last day of vacation. It's been largely a "staycation" with a couple of quickie trips out of town thrown in for good measure. I've been using the time to get caught up on spring cleaning (I know it's late) and generally organizing my personal life and improving my mental health status.

My department has a small budget with which to purchase and evaluate new technologies, and recently I got the chance to evaluate the Livescribe Pulse pen. The pen uses special paper and a special pen which hides a camera and microphone inside. The camera records the pen's motions against a special dot pattern on the special paper. The pen has ink of course, but the ink is really only for the user; it is irrelevant to the technology. The microphone is available to record the pen user's voice, allowing for what Livescribe has dubbed "pencasting" - real time recording of writing or drawing along with an audio description of what is going on.

I am currently leading a team at my workplace that's evaluating our use of the project management software Quickbase. Quickbase is essentially an online database that manages data points such as (in our case) people, courses, programs and tasks. The tool was originally intended to facilitate collaboration and project management, enabling the use of templates to generate task lists and notifications for courses running on a repeat basis. It was also intended as a platform for designers to manage the development of new courses; pulling all their team members and resources together on one timeline. Managers have a stake too; using Quickbase they are able to easily assess at any time the status of courses or programs.

Wayfinding the Semantic Web

Blogging - I largely focused on the Penn State Blogs in this year's Symposium. I am looking at them in the context of their potential application in the iMBA program, and I see enormous potential for the platform, with many potential strengths and applications, including:

I've been rather quiet in the blogosphere of late. This is in no small part thanks to the class I've been taking, ADTED 532: Research in Distance Education. Yesterday was my last day of class, and I handed in my final paper entitled Becoming a Network Organization: An Extended Research Proposal. This paper is available on this blog, listed under Writings on the left-hand side of this page. I've also put up all the other writing I did for the class. I invite your perusal and comments. My intention is to eventually go back through ANGEL and retrieve all my class assignments for posting here. I want to share my work; I work really hard at it. And while the feedback and discussion I get from my classmates within the confines of ANGEL is absolutely invaluable, I'm interested in seeing what others might think. (I also feel more like I'm taking ownership of my work by collecting it here.)

By the way, ADTED 532 is the last graduate class I needed to earn the 18 credit Distance Education certificate. Hooray! Next I will be applying for formal admission into the Adult Education master's degree program. Wish me luck.

Tomorrow and Thursday I will be attending the 2009 NMC Symposium on New Media and Learning. It is a virtual conference, with all sessions taking place in Second Life. I like to go into a conference by reviewing the sessions offered and defining my objectives for participation. What do I hope to learn, discover or take away from the conference?

The conference actually begins tonight with a reception and poster session at the NMC conference center in Second Life. I like poster sessions - it provides a nice informal opportunity to interact with the poster creators. The theme of the conference is New Media and Learning so I will be paying particular attention to education professionals like myself that are using Web 2.0, learning management systems, Second Life, etc. in innovative ways to support learning. The poster creators will be there to chat with.

The full conference begins tomorrow and there are several sessions I will be paying attention to. I'll name a few, describe them briefly and give my reasons for being "all ears", defining my objectives in italics.

• Imagination Engine: Rapid Media Visualization and Storyboard Creation Process. Joe Tojek (or his avatar) from Capella University will be demonstrating the process and tools his intructional design team uses to brainstorm and plan new media projects and tools in support of learning. I'll be looking for cues and ideas for how our IT and media shop can work better with the instructional designers to provide input and support as we move to using new technologies in our courses.
  
• Digital Media Tools for Replacing Traditional Methods of Instruction. This session will look at Web 2.0 tools used in the support of collaborative learning, and will show how these tools enable us to go beyond traditional instruction. I'm assuming by "traditional instruction" the presenter intends to compare Web 2.0 - enhanced learning with both f2f and older distance learning models. I'll be focusing particularly on how we can better support and provide scaffolding for learning in new environments such as wikis and blogs, and what new learning outcomes we can expect.
• Going GaGa for Google: Using Google in Virtual Worlds. This session will show how Google tools such as Google Docs, Google Maps and YouTube can be "mashed up" with the virtual world experience to provide a highly textured learning experience (my words). My objective here is primarily for fun - there is an interactive component to this session and we'll actually be building something! I will be paying attention to the possibilities for learning, too, of course. :-)
• Dramatically Different: Strategies for Socially-Engaged Learning in Virtual
  Worlds. This session will describe the use of virtual worlds for role-playing and active learning in support of learning in the drama/theatre arts area. This session will support a meta-objective for attending this conference; since the conference is taking place entirely in Second Life, I will be experiencing first hand its power in supporting learning.

There are many other sessions too numerous to mention that have caught my interest. I'm sure I'll be refining my objectives and coming up with new ones as I meet new people and make new discoveries at the conference. I'll be blogging my discoveries so stay tuned.

I've taken the plunge and have officially declared pre-emptive e-mail bankruptcy for the holidays. What this means is that I've set up a vacation auto-reply informing recipients that I "will not be checking or accumulating any e-mail" until January 1st. I simply do not want to get back to a mountain of e-mail that I then have to spend a good deal of time manually filtering (I don't use any auto-filters, as I prefer to take time to reply to or file e-mails one by one). I enjoy the work I do quite a bit, and take pride in the fact that I do a quality job. Thus, the prospect of jumping right back into my projects right after break, as opposed to spending a lot of time filtering e-mail, is quite appealing to me.

The idea of declaring pre-emptive e-mail bankruptcy is not an original one of mine. It's been discussed around the blogosphere as one way of managing stress and information overload. Two of the blogs I follow - Tim Ferriss' and Danah Boyd's, advocate for different forms of e-mail bankruptcy. Declaring e-mail bankruptcy pre-emptively seems to me a way of handling things honestly and responsibly. Better to declare ahead of time that communications might be lost than to find oneself in the situation of coming back from a long absence, being overwhelmed with a bloated inbox, and accidentally deleting communications that might be important.

We'll see how this experiment goes. I hope no one gets upset with me. The real test will come, I suppose, when I try this experiment during vacation time. Folks might understand my doing this over the holidays, or will likely not even be aware of it, but on a personal vacation where others are actually working, there might be a possibility of stepping on some toes. In that case, it might be wise to inform stakeholders well ahead of time and make very clear what my intentions are. I'll still want to consider it, though, for the sake of my own sanity and productivity.

Best wishes for the holidays, everyone. Stay safe and I'll see you in the new year!