Some things I am learning about...

Article published in First Monday

2009-09-07T12:48:00.001-07:00

Hopefully you got the word to switch your RSS feed over to my new blog, http://johnhiltoniii.org, feed: http://www.johnhiltoniii.org/feed/

But just in case you didn't...

I'm pleased to link to a First Monday article I wrote that focuses on motivations for creating derivative works. The article grew out of an earlier post I made (or maybe it was vice -versa). Special thanks to David Wiley for his advice and encouragement and to BYU's department of Instructional Psychology and Technology for giving me a position as a researcher.

For me the most exciting part of this derivative works idea is the translation aspect. Recently, I was contacted by a woman who wanted to translate a book I had written into Russian. I have no desire to try to profit from such an arrangement -- if she is willing to freely translate my book into Russian, great! I would love for Russian speakers to benefit from those ideas and download a free copy of the book in Russian.

I look forward to watching the ways that the Internet allows deriviative works to be made and spread.

I believe that spreading derivatives will create more amazing stories of openness.

It's all over -- updating to new blog -- update links

2009-05-05T12:10:00.000-07:00

Friends -- It's time for me to switch blog locations and focus.

I'll be focusing much more tightly on open access issues, particularly open book publishing.

New blog: http://johnhiltoniii.org

New feed: http://www.johnhiltoniii.org/feed/

I've already posted there, so come on over...

Book Review: The Courage to Teach

2009-04-17T15:20:00.000-07:00

Charles Swift recommended I read The Courage to Teach by Parker J. Palmer. I did and enjoyed the book. I have had it on my "write a review" list for a few days waiting for when I had more time to write about it. I have determined I am not going to have any free time for awhile (hence no "Friday Review," I'll try a "Wednesday Review" after finals) but still wanted to write a short review, or rather share what for me was the key insight from the book. Palmer writes, "This book builds on a simple premise: good teaching cannot be reduced to technique; good teaching comes from the identity and integrity of the teacher" (10).

As he develops this point he shared something that will be obvious to many, but surprising to me. He states that there isn't a "right" way to teach, that some "techniques" aren't better than others. He says, "Thought I need to sometimes to lecture, and may even enjoy doing it, lecturing all the time simply bores me: I usually know what i'm going to say and I've heard it all before. But dialogical methods of teaching help keep me alive. Forced to listen, respond, and improvise, I am more likely to hear something unexpected and insightful from myself as well as others.

"That does not mean that lecturing is the wrong way to teachi. It simply means that my identity, unlike my mentor [who lectured brilliantly] is more fulfilled in dialogue...

"Here, I believe, is the proper and powerful role of technique: as we learn more about who we are, we can learn techniques that reveal rather than conceal the personhood from which good teaching comes" (24).

So for some teachers to lecture may truly be the best technique.

Friday Review

2009-04-10T13:24:00.000-07:00

Greetings friends for the second-to-last Friday Review.

First, allow me to congratulate my friend and colleague SaraJoy Pond on her first place win in BYU's Social Venture Competition. Way to go SaraJoy!

It's been a good week. Here's the recap:

Research

I got to present about how authors perceive the implications of free digital book distribution. That was good. Also continued to work on the FWK paper and got to attend a scholarly communications meeting. That is where I heard that the University of Michigan Press is going purely digital.

Distance

Chugging away on the research paper. I feel pretty good about where it is heading. There is still more work to do. One of the interesting questions to wrestle with (and I don't think I'll solve it this semester) is "For the "average" user of OER, how much is content-learner interaction valued versus learner-learner and teacher-learner interactions?

Open

Together with Jared Stein and Aaron Johnson we're working on a paper to articulate the 4 Rs and ALMS analyses. I'm excited about it!

Stats and Research

After several hours I finally pulled together the research paper I've been working on. I'll give the report on it next week. The short version is that the grading metrics of religion classes at BYU do affect the quantity and motvations of students scripture study, but do not affect how they perceive the spiritual strength they gain from the study.

Assessment

I critiqued an interesting article about rejection and self-regulation. All assignments are in, and it's onto the final!

Second Life

2009-04-10T13:16:00.000-07:00

This past week in my distance education class we learned in and about Second Life. I first heard the buzz about Second Life when a branch president in Miami approached me about possibly doing some activities with young single adults within second life. He was considering buying real estate there and felt that there was significant opportunities to help build relationships between young adults. At the time I thought, "I have a hard enough time getting people gather together to meet in REAL life, why would I want to focus on this in a second life?

After class this past week, I have to confess that I still feel this way. It may just be that I came late to class, and so missed the part that would have convinced me. And I did think that the virtual "Sistine Chapel" was beautiful--but it could be just as beautiful as a learning object; I didn't see the value added by second life.

I can see the rationale that it provides a gathering place for people to meet who are separated by time and distance. But videoconferencing can do that as well, and for me to have the "avatar" VS a real person is distracting. If I can see video stream of the real person and get their real gestures, why go the avatar route?

There was a lot of discussion about the moral implications (e.g. people might exhibit more aberrant behavior in second life than in real life) but this was not a primary concern for me. If it was used in an educational way (as demonstrated by our guest instructor) I don't think much trouble would occur. The trouble would occur as one walks around in random places (and trouble occurs in real life when one walks around in random places).

Perhaps there are important implications for younger learrners--e.g. it might help them be more free in the learning, or it might be more interesting for them. I don't foreclose on the possibility of virtual worlds as educational tools; however, for the moment I say, "Second Life? ...Let's focus on real life!"

Friday Review

2009-04-03T16:57:00.000-07:00

It's been an intense week! In a harbinger of what is doubtless to come over the next two weeks this week has been filled with serious study and writing sessions. Here's the roundup.

Research

Things are progressing nicely with the FWK study. The background and significance sections have been written, to complete the first draft we just need to describe results of the beta test. David was able to pull together the raw information and I'll take a stab at processing it this next week.

Distance Education

Had a great discussion on copyright. It got me wondering about what would happen if copyright were limited to 10 years. I got a draft of the research paper for this class that I feel very happy with. There's lots of room for improvement yet, but I think it's going to be a valuable contribution to the field.

Open Education

This week we investigate an ongoing debate between David Wiley and Stephen Downes. I was very glad we reviewed it in class because some important clarifications happened for me. One was that BY-SA cannot be remixed with BY-NC-SA. The other was the saying that "For producers of content that will be used commercially the BY-NC-SA license makes sense."

Assessment

We are pressing forward in this class. I worked on analyzing a couple of articles in terms of their reliability and validity.

Research and Stats

This was a major focus this week. Four hours studying for the test and four hours taking it. It was a lot of work, but I really feel like I have a great understanding of correlation, regression and ANOVAs. I also made some great headway in my research project for this class as I found a professor who doesn't require any scripture study of his students--it will serve as the perfect control. I'll let you in on one other secret since you've read this far. I typically don't buy textbooks--if I won't use it after the course, why make the purchase? For this class, I borrowed the textbook from Cary (and was very grateful to her!) But I have enjoyed this textbook so much I bought it this week (on ebay) even though the class is ending because I love it so much. I know I'm a nerd, but there have been a couple of times when I've been reading it just before bed and haven't wanted to turn off the lights!

What if copyright was limited to 10 years?

2009-04-03T13:26:00.000-07:00

At our distance education class this past week Carl Johnson from BYU copyright came and visited our class to discuss copyright issues and education. This had obvious implications for the course I'm taking in Open Education as well.

It was interesting to me that Carl seemed to promote the use of Creative Commons licenses and author rights. Although he was careful to say that he needed promote the interests of both authors and the university in general, he seemed to feel that a day of open-access was coming and that there are lots of benefits in this regard.

In the Open Ed class I was made aware of a comment by a member of BYU's legal counsel who said that on both professional and personal reasons he supported Creative Commons. I'm obviously spending too much time hanging out with open-access people but I started to wonder to myself, "What would happen if copyright was done away with?" Or, more practically, dramatically reduced?

For me as an author would I care? No--it seems doubtful that anything of value that I create will not be worthy guarding 10 years from now. But what if? What if I became like JK Rowling and came up with a slam dunk, home run of a story. How would JK Rowling feel if copyright ended after ten years. What would that mean?

So I could publish cheap versions of the Harry Potter books. That would be bad for JK Rowling (no longer receives royalties) and bad for the publisher (too much competition now). Would it wreck the brand of Harry Potter? Not likely. If somebody publishes Harry Potter 8 and it stinks, nobody will buy it. If on the other hand it is an amazing piece of work, I'd be grateful for new culture (though Ms. Rowling might not be).

What percentage of works are like mine, and what percentage are like Rowlings? An interesting finding by James Boyle in his book The Public Domain is the following: "We know that when U.S. copyright required renewal after twenty-eight years, about 85 percent of all copyright holders did not bother to renew."

Isn't that amazing! Boyle states that this can be viewed as an approximation of commercial viability. So if after 28 years people don't renew, it's likely that it wasn't worth it.

I wonder how many years copyright would need to be in place in order for half of people to bother renewing it. Let's suppose that it was ten years.

If that were the case, what if a mechanism was set in place so that copyright expired after ten years; however, those who wanted to renew could renew the copyright by paying a nominal (15$) fee. And they could renew it every 10 years until death. And as long as I'm proposing new policy, what if we made it so that nothing was copyrighted unless the author specifically asked for the copyright to be in place by affixing a little logo to the work.

Although others have pushed for a less radical solution, this is what I am proposing today. :)

This review of Lessig's book Remix also had some helpful insights for thinking about copyright.

Instructional Design and the Family

2009-03-31T13:02:00.000-07:00

At the end of class this past week, Charles Graham asked students to think about different structures that we've been given and to think of them in terms of facilitating learning. I have decided to focus on the family. In my family right now there is a mom, a dad and four children. So each of my children has two "teachers" and three "peers." This makes lots of opportunities for teacher-learner (parent-child) and learner-learner (sibling) interactions. Unlike a typical classroom, in which students shuffle from place to place, we are in a long-term learning relationship. This is important.

As I think about the students I teach here at BYU compared with students that I taught in Miami, I was probably able to teach individual Miami students better because (for most of the students) I had taught them for several years. So on average I knew my Miami students better than I knew my BYU students. And I believe knowing the person helps in teaching them. In this case, the family provides an opportunity for deep knowing of each other and for the potential for better teaching to take place as a result.

Shawn Cates also made a good point that families provide opportunities for collaborative learning. Another idea is that the family can provide a structure similar perhaps to an apprenticeship environment. Like the "Mayan Midwives" situated learning example, children have the opportunity to learn from their older siblings and parents.

Recently I read an article in which the author talked about how it was learning from an older sibling that made the difference for him. He wrote about some poor decisions he was making in his life, and when his older brother talked with him about it, he decided to make some changes. Although his parents had tried to get him to make these changes it was the influence of his sibling that made the difference.

(The late) Friday Review

2009-03-30T06:31:00.000-07:00

So for the first time this semester I missed the Friday review. Hope you didn't notice. :)

What knocked me off my schedule (and this is not an excuse) is that I spent the day in Salt Lake at the CES Academic Technology meeting. I was invited at the last minute and it seemed like too good an opportunity to pass up, although now I'm paying the price for missing the last statistics class before our midterm.

The conference itself was very interesting. For me personally the most exciting parts were the updates from Seminaries and Institutes about ways they are working to use technology to increase impact and exposure. Good things are happnening and it was fun to meet Tyler and Christopher. A couple of side conversations I had that were very interesting concerned some of the logistics of building community amongst LDS youth (Stephanie) using the "Express Book Machine" at the BYU Bookstore to increase the "long tail" of books (Roger), and the possibility of getting help from the BYU Library to scan out of print LDS books (Randy).

With that introduction, here is the roundup of what I learned this past week:

Research:

Tentative approval has been given to the "open book" project that will develop into my dissertation. That is super exciting. Currently, I'm working with David on a paper that describes the current status of the Flat World Knowledge Beta test.

Distance Education:

Dr. Howell came and visited our class. We discussed the role of assessment in distance education; one thing that surprised me is that some schools are moving away from having frequent proctored exams because of the difficulty people have in scheduling time to take such an exam. We also discussed how the family is a perfect "instructional" setting (another post on that issue is forthcoming). I also got IRB approval and have sent out the survey regarding David Wiley's class. The analysis of blogs is now complete.

Open Education:

It was a heady week as a lot of good things came to fruition. BYU appears to be considering joining the OCW Consortium and if one counts up the "good" things that have occured in part because of our class it is surprising.

Assessment:

Digging into reliability and validity. Although I have covered these concepts in other classes we're digging a little deeper which promises to push my brain this next week.

Stats:

I have completed all the data collection for my research paper on the effects of BYU religion classes on scripture study and now simply need to analyze it. I re-read chapters 7-12 of the textbook in preparation for the test this week, but still feel like I'm lacking a bit. I can do all the SPSS calculations, but I don't think my conceptual understandings are yet where they need to be.

With 3 weeks left in the semester it looks like there is a 50-50 chance I will finish with success!

Thinking about interactions and OCW

2009-03-21T11:25:00.000-07:00

Based on some feedback from Peter and Charles I have been thinking about different ways to situate my paper. Today I went back to some readings we had at the beginning of class to focus on how these frameworks could relate to OCW.

In 1989 Moore described three important kinds of interactions that take place in education. These interactions are the following: teacher-student, student-student and student-content. Anderson (2004) elaborates on these interactions, explaining that even if teachers and students are separated by distance they can still have rich interactions. Anderson also notes that the interactions amongst students are important because “the communication of an idea to other students…raises the interest and motivation of the interactors” (134). In a traditional sense, student-content interactions would consist of a student reading a textbook and responding to questions from the text. Although the value added by technology to the student-content interaction has been debated (Anderson, 2004), there are clearly more content options available to the typical student today than there were thirty years ago.

Open course ware has the potential to greatly expand these three types of interactions. Most OCW resources focus on the “student-content” interaction. Students can read syllabi and course assignments, and in some cases take online mastery quizzes. In isolated cases OCW providers have made efforts to facilitate ways for students to learn with other students. For example, at one point MIT created a discussion board that allowed students taking an open course to interact with other students taking the same course. However this attempt was not successful. Wiley (xxxx) has argued that had more effort been put into encouraging student interaction that the student-student interaction would have become a more vibrant part of the MIT OCW program.

While MIT, Yale, Carnegie Mellon and others OCW providers all allow students to interact with content; they do not provide any sort of interaction between students and teachers. A logical reason for this is the difficulty in scale. Two thousand people can all access the same online reading assignment at the same time; however, for a teacher to interact with 2,000 students would be much more difficult. Perhaps for this reason little OCW focuses on teacher-learner interaction.

Although institutions do not typically provide teacher-learner interactions, a few teachers have been experimenting with this type of open teaching. This would be where I could bridge into the paper.

What follows is probably beyond the scope of the paper I am working on at the present, but I think has interesting implications for another article I'd like to think about in the future. Anderson also points out two additional types of interaction: teacher-content and teacher-teacher. Open educational resources can also help facilitate these kinds of interactions. When multiple teachers open their content, and take the time to look at content that is openly available it increases the exposure teachers have to different kinds of content. For example, reading ten syllabi written by one’s peers could potentially improve one’s own syllabus. Similarly, as teachers are more open with their content teachers may be more able to easily identify teachers with whom they would be interested in communicating.

Follow up to assesment comment made by Dr. Howell

2009-03-21T11:23:00.000-07:00

I was very interested in a particular comment made in passing by Dr. Howell when he visited our Distance Education class. The comment had to do assessment errors being made when teachers calculate final grades. The error come s as the various weighted components are put together. Dr. Howell said this was very common and given that I am prone to common mistakes, I thought that I might benefit from learning more about this. Dr. Howell was gracious enough to send me this article and recommended that I read it to find out if I was making errors. The article talks about four common errors that are made. These errors are the following:

(a) the Average Speed Error – this is named for the classic problem pertaining to how many hours a person drives if they drive for 60 mph for 120 miles and 30 mph for the second 120 miles. People logically make errors by not making sure the problem has the correct numerator and denominator. This error could introduced if tests are worth different amounts and this is not taken into account. I don’t think I have this problem.

(b) the Weight Problem—this is a problem that I did have, although I’m not sure what to do about it or how serious a problem it is. This problem has to do with not taking into account the standard deviation on one test versus another. For example, if one test has a standard deviation of 5 and a second has a standard deviation of 25 then the tests should be weighted differently.

(c) the Natural Variation Violation – this problem is introduced when a teacher calls any grade from 93-100 an “A” and then compiles grades together. Thus a person who got a “93” on each assignment would get the same grade as a person who got “100” on every assignment. This is also a problem I don’t have.

(d) the Mars Climate Orbiter Miscalculation. This is related to the “weight problem” and shows how to correct for it.

My grading metric is something like this:

Scripture Reading – 100 points
Weekly papers – 100 points
Attendance –100 points
Mid-Terms – 200 Points
Final – 200 Points

So there are a total of 700 points, and I add up all the points a student gets, divide it by 700 and that results in a percentage earned of total points.

94-100 A
90-93.9 A-
87-89.9 B+
83-86.9 B
And so forth.

I guess my main objection to the weight and mars climate problem is that they seem too close to grading on a curve. At least for the present I am not as concerned with how well one student does relative to another, but whether each individual can reach the target. In addition the necessary calculations to adjust for the weight problem are somewhat tricky and most students would perceive them to be unfair. Francis, the author of the article, addresses these concerns but his attempts to resolve them were unsatisfactory (at least for me). I still remember 10 years ago taking a religion class and being so angry that teacher insisted on grading on a curve where 20% of students got an A, 20% an A-, and so forth. Although I got an A in that class, I thought to myself, “God doesn’t grade on a curve. He sets criteria for each kingdom and if you meet the criteria, then you get in!”

I could see somebody responding to this statement by saying, “Sure, if you are an omniscient teacher, go ahead and do that, but if not, you should probably try another approach.” And that may have merit. I’m not saying that I completely reject the “weight” problem, but I did not see it as a problem. If I weight the final twice as heavily and a student does really well on the final, then in my view that should compensate for a poor score on the first exam, regardless of what the standard deviations were.

I look forward to learning more from Dr. Howell on this issue, because he doubtless has some insights that would help resolve my concerns on this matter.

Open Ed: More on Finance Course

2009-03-21T09:15:00.000-07:00

This week David Wiley was able to contact Bryan Sudweeks regarding his course, and it appears that there may be some exciting possibilities with setting this part of the finance course free. I helped draft a letter regarding to Dr. Sudweeks regarding OCW and CC licenses. I also spent a lot of time on the personal finance site mapping various parts of it to the course objectives for the state of Utah's personal finance course (see google docs). It is inspiring to see somebody like Dr. Sudweeks who has created such a complete course, and is willing to freely share it without trying to charge people money for it. I love it.

Friday Review

2009-03-20T15:58:00.000-07:00

Here it is another Friday Review...Things are really heating up now and I am very hopeful that the last four weeks of this semester will bring a sweet fruition. Here's the roundup of what I've been up to:

Research

Starting to work on an article about Flat World Knowledge. It's an exciting opportunity to look at a unique way of approaching the high costs of textbook. We got into some data this week and I'm continuing to build the paper.

Distance

We had a great class this week. As I mentioned to Charles today though probably even greater is the interactions and personal mentoring I am having with him and Peter. For example today we spent an hour discussing the paper I'm working on and how it could be improved. Charles had a great idea about using a framework in terms of openness that I'm excited to explore. I also had an hour long discussion about IRB proposal I have in this class. Doing the IRB and working to really publish it has been an important part of the learning process for me.

Open Education

Good news--the author of a great Personal Finance Website is willing to consider licensing the content with a CC license and making some sort of effort to join an OCW consortium. Working to set content free makes me feel like a freedom fighter or something.

Stats

Made some good intellectual progress this week as I reread portion of the textbook. Also sitting down and punching out numbers on SPSS solidified my understanding. I am one week away from finishing my data collection and I'm excited about moving that research line forward.

Assessment

Studied my brains out and took a test. I felt really good about this test. We'll see how it turns out.

Open Ed: Quest 5

2009-03-13T21:18:00.002-07:00

As you hopefully know, I am working in a guild with Justin Johansen and Sara Joy Pond to create an open “financial literacy” class for high school students. We have taken the Utah state standards and divided out the objectives. Mine focus on investment and retirement. I searched through oerrecommender.com, wikieducator and discovered.creativecommons.org to find resources. I also remembered hearing about a personal finance site created by a BYU professor. I was able to locate both the site and its creator. I sent him an email to see if he would visit with me about opening up the content. I had not heard back after a few days and so I called him and we had a great conversation. The upshot of the matter is that he is very open to it. He had not heard of creative commons nor MIT OCW, but it seems like he wants to share his work as widely as possible as long as it is used non-commercially. It is a very comprehensive course and includes assessments. I believe that for me personally, I enjoy and think it is better to find complete courses and be instrumental in setting them free than to piece together modules from a variety of sources. I’m hopeful that a productive conversation will ensue, setting some content free!

Distance: Item Analysis

2009-03-13T21:18:00.001-07:00

Item Analysis

I really enjoyed the readings by Scott Howell. I discovered that in some respects he is my boss as I teach a night class and he is apparently the director of night classes. One of the readings that I particularly enjoyed was “Improving Student Assessment—One Item at a Time.” I guess I liked it because it is something that I’ve been working on right now. I teach a Book of Mormon class this semester and I taught the same class this last semester. So I took “exam #2” from last semester and just completed doing an item analysis and test revision on that exam prior to administering exam #2 this year. Some of the things I specifically found were the same as mentioned by Scott in this article. One of these items was “distracter analysis.” I noticed that several of my questions had distracters that were completely ineffective—nobody was distracted by them! In addition I had several questions that had an item difficulty of 1.0, meaning that nobody got them wrong. I made some adjustments to my test to strengthen some distracters and eliminated some of the questions that were apparently too easy.

I have a couple of questions that I would like to ask Scott in our class. First, it seems to me that this article is mostly focused on norm-referenced tests. I’m wondering if I am trying to create a criterion test if he believes that I should still strive for item difficulty levels between .4 and .7, as well as a minimum discriminating power of .3.

I also want to learn more about what he terms a “test blueprint.” I am sure that I could benefit from such a product. I’m looking forward to hearing from Scott in class this next week.

Friday Review

2009-03-13T21:17:00.000-07:00

Well, I definitely felt my brain expand this week…it was a good week.

Research

David Wiley and I finished an article regarding open publishing that we have been working on. The final product is one that I am extremely happy with and hope to share with the world. I think it will be the basis for a lot of what I do by way of future studies.

Distance Education

All things were able to pull together for turning in “part I” of my research paper. I was disappointed that the IRB committee meeting was postponed for a week, cutting into precious research time. Argh! Spent some time in class learning how to do qualtrics and found it to be immediately applicable.

Open Education

It was a good week—had fun searching for OERs in Finance and found several. I am working with Justin Johansen and Sara Joy Pond. I was able to talk with an individual who has created a huge finance class complete with assessment about the possibility of using a Creative Commons license. It could be a great opportunity to set some content free.

Assessment

It’s exam time again and I am cranking up my efforts to pack facts into my tiny brain. We’re allowed to bring in a page of notes, and so I’ve reread chapters 7-15 of the textbook and typed notes on them. Now I just need to shrink the font to size 6 and I’ll be ready to go.

Statistics

Good news—not only did my IRB go through, but the surveys have begun. I am happy because three of the sections I’m surveying have high response rates. The fourth section is being delayed in its participation, due to circumstances beyond my control; however, I think that is the way it goes with research sometimes… 

Wikipedia -- blended learning

2009-03-10T17:32:00.000-07:00

Even though I really like the idea of editing the Wikipedia entry for blended learning, I'm not sure I'm ready to take the whole thing on...I do think though that I could make some minor contributions to the article. One thing I would like to do is change the opening definition and replace it the definition given at the end of the article.

I also would like to add in a paragraph discussing the idea that blended learning is not about adding technology to existing F2F experiences to but fundamentally rethink how we go about teaching. To get into the idea that true blended learning has to do with thinking about what things work best in a F2F environment and what things work best at a distance.

I also wondered whether it would be efficacious to use how SLOAN defines blended learning.

I'm off to an interview!

WIKIPEDIA ENTRY BELOW

{{Cleanup|date=January 2007}}

'''Blended Learning ''' is the process of incorporating many different learning styles that can be accomplished through the use of 'blended' virtual and physical resources {{Fact|date=January 2009}}. Learning styles refer to the many ways in which people learn, through blended learning this can be accomplished by creating a variety of learning assignments and activities with the use of technology and instructor and peer interaction.

The instructor can also combine two or more methods of delivery of instruction. A typical example of the delivery method of blended learning would be a combination of technology-based materials and face-to-face sessions used together to present content. An instructor can begin a course with a well-structured introductory lesson in the classroom, and then to proceed follow-up materials online. The term can also be applied to the integration of [[e-learning]] with a [[Learning Management System]] using computers in a physical classroom, along with face-to-face instruction[http://www.tomw.net.au/technology/it/blended_learning/ Blended Learning: Using a Learning Management System Live in the Classroom, Tom Worthington, The Australian National University, 24 October 2008]. Guidance is suggested early in the process, to be faded as learners gain expertise (Kirschner, Clark and Sweller, 2006).

The role of the instructor is critical as this requires a transformation process to that of learning facilitator. Quite often, with the onslaught of baby boomers going back to school and pursuing higher education the skills required for technology use are limited. The instructor then finds him/herself more in the role of assisting the student with computer skills and applications, accessing the internet, and encouraging them to be independent learners. Blended learning takes time for both the instructor and learner to adapt to this relatively new concept in delivering instruction.

==Current usage of the term==
With today's prevalence of [[high technology]] in many countries, blended learning often refers specifically to the provision or use of resources which combine [[e-learning]] (electronic) or [[m-learning]] (mobile) with other educational resources. Some would claim that key blended-learning arrangements can also involve [[e-mentoring]] or e-tutoring. These arrangements tend to combine an electronic learning component with some form of human intervention, although the involvement of an e-mentor or an e-tutor does not necessarily need to be in the context of e-learning. E-mentoring or e-tutoring can also be provided as part of a "stand alone" ("un-blended") e-tutoring or e-mentoring arrangement.

Researchers Heinze and Procter have developed the following definition for Blended Learning in [[higher education]]:

:Blended Learning is learning that is facilitated by the effective combination of different modes of delivery, models of teaching and styles of learning, and founded on transparent communication amongst all parties involved with a course. (Heinze, A. and C. Procter (2004). Reflections on the Use of Blended Learning. Education in a Changing Environment conference proceedings, University of Salford, Salford, Education Development Unit, Available on-line: [http://www.ece.salford.ac.uk/proceedings/papers/ah_04.rtf http://www.ece.salford.ac.uk/proceedings/papers/ah_04.rtf])

Some of the advantages of blended learning include; cost effectiveness for both the accrediting learning institution and the learner, accessibility to a post secondary education, and flexibility in scheduling and timetabling of course work. Some of the disadvantages may include; computer and internet access, limited knowledge in the use of technology, study skills, problems which are similar to those who would be entering a physical learning institution.

It should also be noted that some authors talk about "hybrid learning" (this seems to be more common in Northern American sources) or "mixed learning". However, all of these concepts broadly refer to the integration (the "blending") of e-learning tools and techniques.

== Blended Learning systems and Projects ==
The European Union's Socrates program is currently funding development of blended learning courses in nine less widely spoken European languages. The development projects, Tool for Online and Offline Language Learning [http://www.toolproject.eu/ TOOL] coordinated by the EuroEd Foundation, Iasi, Romania and Autonomous Language Learning [http://www.allproject.info/ ALL] coordinated by CNAI, Pamplona, Spain.

Each project is developing blended learning programs at A2 'Waystage' level in accordance with the competence descriptors defined in the CEFR (Common European Framework of Reference).

ALL: Romanian, Turkish, Lithuanian, Bulgarian.
TOOL: Slovene, Dutch, Hungarian, Estonian, Maltese.

The development is large in terms of size and scope and in that these may well be the first Blended Learning courses available in these languages and represents a development for the application of modern communicative language learning techniques in these languages.

The course developments are undertaken by a development team, consisting of several partner institutions, from each country. These institutions include publically and privately funded Universities, and private language learning providers, plus consulting specialists.

Outside the academic sector, blended learning is being used in private companies, possibly because of the cost-benefits over traditional training, though no studies are available that show clear-cost savings. One of the earliest commercial offerings in the sector came from [http://www.virtual-college.co.uk Virtual College], who produced a blended learning NVQ system in early 1995.

Willow is another platform for creating blended learning courses [http://orestes.ii.uam.es:8080/willtools Willow]

Nvolve: http://www.nvolve.net is an approach that blends Classroom, Online and Mobile technologies

== See also ==
* [[Flexible Learning]]
* [[E-Learning]]
* [[M-learning]]
* [[Networked learning]]
* [[Virtual education]]
* [[Virtual University]]
* Negotiated learning [http://www.chester.ac.uk/pdu/ www.chester.ac.uk/pdu]

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
*[http://www.allproject.info/ "Autonomous Language Learning"] A European Union, government funded, education project to build blended learning language courses in European less taught languages (Turkish, Romanian, Bulgarian and Lithuanian)].
*[http://www.toolproject.eu/ "Tool for Online and Offline Language Learning"] A European Union, government funded, education project to build blended learning language courses in European less taught languages (Dutch, Estonian, Hungarian, Maltese, Slovene).

An Instructional Media Selection Guide for Distance Learning, an official publication of the United States Distance Learning Association (http://www.usdla.org) that contains a section on blended learning. Free download available at: http://www.usdla.org/html/resources/2._USDLA_Instructional_Media_Selection_Guide.pdf

[[Category:Pedagogy]]

[[bg:Смесено обучение]]
[[ca:B-learning]]
[[cs:Blended learning]]
[[de:Integriertes Lernen]]
[[es:B-learning]]
[[ko:혼합형 학습]]
[[nl:Blended learning]]
[[no:Blended learning]]
[[pl:Blended learning]]
[[ro:Învăţare mixtă]]
[[sl:Kombinirano učenje]]
[[tr:Harmanlanmış öğrenme]]

Published Review of Disrupting Class

2009-03-10T13:52:00.000-07:00

I am happy to report that a review I wrote of Disrupting Class by Clayton Christensen, Michael Horn and Curtis Johnson has been published by Education Review. You can find it here. Special thanks to my distance education class--this would not have happened without the class.

Friday Review

2009-03-06T17:20:00.000-08:00

It's been a busy week--so busy that I am sorely tempted to not do the Friday Review...but since I'm halfway through the semester I thought I would at least give it a try.

Research

"Open Publishing" article is all but done, just doing the final preparations and plan to submit it for publication next week.

Distance

Finished an IRB and wrote another couple of pages on the paper due next week. Also had a great class on blended learning, which was eye-opening.

Open

Had a good week in spite of David being gone. We came together as a group and started getting our hands dirty in finding OERs. It was a lot harder than I thought. I can tell it's going to be a great project.

Assessment

I worked on three projects--finished the interpretative exercise, and now am focusing on writing a test and using item analysis to critique the test.

Stats and Research

We've moved into correlation and regression. This is an area that I don't know as well, so I'm having to put in extra effort. I downloaded some stats lectures from iTunes to beef up my brain while I travel to Ogden for a best of EFY tomorrow.

Quest #4 personal finance resources

2009-03-06T14:17:00.000-08:00

Justin, SaraJoy and I formed a guild focusing on creating an open "personal finance" course. It is harder than I thought. Justin is going to post a "guild post" for quest 4. We are using the UT Core Standards for personal finance, and I'm focusing on the fourth standard. Thus far, here is what I have found:

4.2.2 Identify strategies for investing (e.g., diversification, dollar cost averaging.) dollar cost averaging, diversification http://www.discusseconomics.com/personal-finances/financially-fine-issue-7-dollar-cost-averaging/ *** http://earlyretirementextreme.com/2008/03/diversification.html *** SEE ALSO WIKIPEDIA

4.3.3 Describe the concept of the time value of money. time value of money http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_value_of_money

The Relief Society is on Facebook ???

2009-03-05T13:05:00.000-08:00

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Relief-Society/65924029832

Is this official???

Distance: Blended Learning #2

2009-03-03T18:24:00.000-08:00

I wanted to take what was discussed in class tonight and think about how I could apply it to myself, in my teaching situation. Right now I teach Religion 122. How could I create an effective blended course--how could I maximize the use of technology and F2F to create the best possible classroom?

Obviously the answer to this question will very much depend on what kind of students I have. But lets suppose I have a homogeneous group of students who are interested in getting the most they can from the Book of Mormon and also have decent technical skills.

First, what could I do?

1. Create audio and/or video podcasts of the class so that students could re-listen to/watch the class if they wanted to.

2. Find ways for them to post their work (principles/one-liners/patterns they discovered) and comment on what their classmates are doing).

3. Make course readings/powerpoints/ available on Bboard for students to review if they desire.

4. Have Bboard quizzes available to take for each class period so that they could test their knowledge of whether they are picking up key points from the reading (these could be graded or non-graded).

5. Other supplemental reading/videos on Blackboard.

One of the disadvantages of asynchronous communication is that you can't see how long I have sat here trying to brainstorm possibilities. I know I should easily be able to come up with more, but I am just not thinking of them at the moment. Feel free to add some in.

Of the above five choices, I currently only do #3. I believe that 1-2, 4-5 would increase the effectiveness of the course, but would require more resources than I can currently dedicate to the course. If I felt confident that they would make a significant difference, I would be more willing to put in the effort.

As I re-read these ideas I think that I should probably try an experiment in a future semester, in which I implement these strategies and see if there is a difference in the class.

Other suggestions?

Distance: Blended Learning

2009-02-28T08:39:00.000-08:00

At the beginning of our distance course we were given the premise that distance learning should not just be different than, or as good as F2F learning, but that it should be better. In an article on Blended Learning, Garrison believes that blended learning can accomplish this. He states that the challenge of blended learning is not just to add technology to existing F2F experiences to but fundamentally rethink how we go about teaching. He states that some kinds of learning take place better in asynchronous environments. For example, he thinks that dialogue can be improved in some ways if it is written asynchronously (providing reflection time). Building sociality perhaps is done better face to face. With blended learning we have the opportunity to critically think about what really promotes learning and design a system where this takes place. I've only done this first reading so far, but I look forward to studying blended learning more.

Two thoughts that I had after reading the article--one was to read what wikipedia has to say about blended learning. From what I read, I thought a fun class project might be to update the wikipedia entry.

A second thought I had was that it is a little surprising if, as Garrison says, blended learning is "inevitable" that I have experienced so little blended learning in my Ph.D program, in a fairly progessive department. I'm not saying this to be critical of the theory, nor the department, I just think that this illustration shows that it may be more complex to do blended learning right than first meets the eye. More posts on this topic to come.

Thoughts on visit with Dr. Barbour

2009-02-27T12:53:00.001-08:00

We had a successful online meeting with Dr. Michael Barbour at our distance education class. I had read some of his work before so I felt pretty excited for the opportunity. I hadn't thought very much about distance and K-12 education, but this is obviously a fruitful field. He gave us a brief history of things likek-12 online learning started in 1997; the first was was the F virtual school—used with state allocated funds.

We also discussed the difference between a "virtual school" (supplemental program, district/state based) and a "cyber school" (usually a district-based school, created under charter legislation).

Cyber charter schools have 70-80 kids per teacher, they use a model that the parent is considered one of the teacher and provides the primary instructional role. The cyber school providers the content, technology, a grader and a tutor.

An exciting part of the class (for me) had to do with a discussion Disrupting Class. Barbour has blogged extensively about this book, and I have written a humble review of it for Education Review. It appears that we had different views of the book :) I also later discovered that Jeb Bush (governor of FL, home of the first online school) is reading Disrupting Class, and apparently likes it. --no intent is given to state that Jeb Bush's reading materials do or do not merit endorsement.--

Another interesting thing we discussed is that there is no statistically significance in student performance in the F2F VS online courses. In fact, he seemed to think that perhaps only the “better” students are taking the online courses, in which case it might skew these results. In one case study he referenced those in the online classes got 11% lower grades than their f2f counterparts.

He pointed out that a lot of the distance learning strategies are built on learning for adults, which may be different from the learning style of adolescents. I think this is an important thing to think about as I try to create resources for youth - to study carefully about the ways in which they think and learn.

Friday Review

2009-02-27T12:39:00.000-08:00

Yet another good week. Here's a quick roundup--

Research

Made some great findings in open publishing. I came across the research report "Challenging Notions of Free" which had some information I had been looking for. Even better, I was able to spend an hour talking with Mac Slocum and gained a lot of insight on what is and is not known about the consequences of releasing electronic versions of books for free. I had a wonderful time visiting with Jeff Clark about possible future projects. I also benefited from attending a University library meeting and Justin Johansen's prospectus defense.

Distance

Worked on my research proposal, and hopefully finished the IRB for that project. We had an interesting distance class featuring Michael Barbour. He had some interesting thoughts that I'll be blogging about later.

Open

Finished the third quest. See blog post here.

Assessment

I read the affective assessment book. Enjoyed it. Getting started on a project to analyze a test I gave to see how it can be improved.

Stats and research

Took the first big test--took a ton of time, but was fun.

Open: Quest #3

2009-02-27T12:27:00.000-08:00

The Creation and Use of Open Educational Resources in Religious Education
Abstract A significant movement in education concerns the use of open educational resources (OERs). By “open” it is generally meant that the resource is freely available to others to reuse in different contexts. These resources could include books, lesson plans, syllabi, slide shows, etc. There are several examples of individuals and institutions providing open educational resources; this openness is also specifically manifest in the field of religious education. I discuss different levels in which OERs can be “open” and the implications of these levels when creating OERs. Common motivations and obstacles to creating OERs are discussed. A particularly significant issue regarding openness concerns copyright issues. I discuss copyright implications both in terms of reusing resources others have made (resources that may or may not be copyrighted), and using Creative Commons licenses to license OERs so as to give the desired level of copyright protection. Although OERs are not appropriate in all situations, they can be an important part of improving pedagogy and increasing access to education.

Introduction A significant movement in education concerns the use of open educational resources (OERs). By “open” it is generally meant that the resource is freely available to others to reuse in different contexts (McMartin, 2007). These resources could include books, lesson plans, syllabi, slide shows, etc. There are several examples of individuals and institutions providing open educational resources. Perhaps the most well-known institutional program is MIT’s OpenCourseWare Program which provides open materials for over 1,800 courses. Other significant providers that share completely open courses include Carnegie Mellon’s Open Learning Initiative, Yale’s Open Courses and Stanford’s Engineering Everywhere courses. Some institutions, instead of offering full courses, offer small units of instruction such as a class module, flash video file, lesson plan. Curriki and Rice University’s Connexions are examples of institutions providing these smaller units of educational content.

This sharing takes place by individual teachers as well as institutions. Individual teachers have uploaded lectures to YouTube, posted PowerPoint presentations to SlideShare, and shared photos of religious sites to Flickr.

Open educational resources are being shared with increasing frequency. This trend is occurring throughout education generally, and also specifically in religious education. Yale Divinity School publishes a course on the Old Testament, Notre Dame has three religion classes available and MIT OpenCourseWare has a class called “The Bible.” More than twenty religion courses are offered on iTunes University.

The increasing number of available OERs leads to several questions. What does it mean to be “open?” Why would teachers want to share their educational resources? What are obstacles to creating OERs, and how does copyright affect openness? In this paper I will discuss answers to these questions. Let’s begin with the question, what does it mean to be “open”?

A Closer Look at “Open”
As stated previously, “open” generally means that the resource is freely available to others to reuse in different contexts (McMartin, 2007). More specifically, Wiley (2009) has described four “R’s” of openness. Each of these R’s represents an increasing level of openness. These R’s are as follows:

Reuse—This is the most basic level of openness. People can use all or part of the work for their own purposes (e.g. download a copy of a song to listen to at a later time).

Redistribute—People can share the work with others (e.g. email a digital article to a colleague).

Revise—People can modify, translate, or change the form the work (e.g. take a book written in English and turn it into a Spanish audio book).

Remix—Take two or more existing resources and combine them to create a new resource (e.g. take audio lectures from a course and combine them with a video from another course to create a new course).

The following diagram represents these R’s in terms of how they can be combined to increase openness.

Any open item allows reuse. A more open approach is to allow individuals to reuse and redistribute the work. To allow others to revise, remix and redistribute resources is the most open approach. Depending on the goals of the creator of a particular OER, different levels of openness will be appropriate (Gurell, 2008). How the OER is licensed, a subject discussed later in this paper, also affects how open the OER will be.

In addition to these four R’s, there are other considerations that authors of OERs should take into account when designing for openness. Even if a work has been licensed so that users are free to reuse, redistribute, revise and remix it, the format in which the work is stored can make a large difference in how open it is. Some file formats are easier to open and edit than others. For example a scanned document that has been turned into a .pdf file is easy to open with free software, but is not easy to edit. Because free software exits to both open and edit a .doc file, this might be considered a more “open” format. Thus openness is increased when file formats are used that are easy to both access and edit. Another way to increase openness when distributing OERs is to make them available in as many formats as constraints allow.

Motivations for Sharing Open Education Resources
There are several reasons why individuals and institutions might be motivated to openly share
resources. Four common motivations are to (1) receive increased exposure, (2) do some good, (3) give new life to out-of-print works, (4) improve the quality of educational resources.

Receive increased exposure
One benefit of openly publishing OERs is that it has the potential to increase the distribution of
your work. James Boyle, a law professor at Duke University openly released a book entitled The Public Domain. Within six weeks of publication the book had sold 3,000 copies (a figure with which he and the publisher were both pleased). In addition, the book was downloaded 25,000 times in those six weeks. Boyle believes that the downloads do not represent lost sales (he believes that most people who downloaded the book would not have purchased the book anyways). Rather he believes that the downloads represent an increase in exposure (Boyle, 2008).

Allowing content to be revised can also significantly increase the impact a work can have. Lawrence Lessig of Stanford University published his book Free Culture in 2004. According to the Bookscan database, this book has sold approximately 17,000 copies in the United States since being released. However, the book has been downloaded several hundred thousand times (L. Lessig, personal communication, January 17, 2009). Perhaps more importantly, it has been translated into seven different languages, audio versions are freely available, and it has been put into sixteen different file formats (Free Culture Derivatives/Remixes, n.d.). All of these translations and format changes are freely available for others to download. Allowing others to remix Free Culture vastly expanded its reach.

Although not all OERs will be translated into multiple languages or revised in multiple formats, even small OERs often benefit from increased exposure when shared. For example, a PowerPoint presentation on the subject of open education has been downloaded from http://slideshare.net 5,809 times (2009). This increasing visibility of one’s work can build one’s reputation within a given community of practitioners (OECD, 2007).

Doing good in the world
A second reason for creating OERs is simply to do some good in the world. Many students cannot attend college. On-campus students might like to learn about the content of a specific course, but not be able to fit that course into their schedules. Some teachers would benefit from reusing educational resources created by others.

An individual might say, “If I've already made a set of PowerPoints for a class I teach, why not post them for others to view? If I can post electronic copies of articles I've published to others, why not let them benefit? If my campus’s Center for Teaching made a flash video to help me explain conflict in the Middle East, why not put it online?”

Give new life to out-of-print works. A third reason to create OERs is to give new life to out-of-print works. A significant problem in the publishing world relates to orphan books (Boyle, 2008). These are books that are out-of-print, and the copyright owner of the books cannot easily be identified. As time passes the out-of-print book becomes increasingly unavailable, as publishers merge and authors change locations, it can become impossible to locate. One religion professor wrote a book discussing the results of a significant longitudinal study. Once the book was out-of-print, he was frustrated because he felt that the study needed to be seen by many more people. Posting the book online and referring people to the book’s website when he spoke on the study would allow the book to receive new attention and bring new life to a book that would have otherwise not been seen again.

Improve the quality of educational resources A fourth reason to create OERs is that it may improve the quality of both the resources and student learning. When an educational resource is published openly it may bring about the mechanisms of peer review (Wiley, 2009). If people know their educational resource will be viewed by others they might desire to make it better than they ordinarily would. In addition, as others use the resource they may improve it and return the revised version to the creator, who then benefits from the improvement.

For example, suppose a teacher creates a PowerPoint presentation featuring quotes from world religious leaders and puts it online. A teacher on another continent has a collection of related audio files and attaches some to the slides. A third teacher has a video clip of one of the quotations and adds that into the presentation. The resulting work may in some contexts be a better educational resource than the original, and everyone can benefit from the improved resource.

Openness has a tendency to lead to better material used in courses not only because faculty can build on other open resources, but simply because teachers can more easily see what other teachers are doing. Just as observing others teach has been shown to improve teaching (Elmore, 1997), observing the educational resources that others use in the classroom may also improves teaching. Thus OERs benefit both the teachers who used them and the students who receive them. In addition, because the resources are openly available on the Internet, teachers can refer students to the resources directly so that they can be utilized outside of class.

Obstacles to Openness
Although there are many reasons why an educator might want to create and share OERs, there
are also obstacles to creating such resources. Four common obstacles are the following: 1. the amount of time necessary to put the OER in a format that can be shared. 2. A desire to keep the resource from being seen by others. 3. There are few if any external reward mechanisms for creating OERs. 4. Some educators are concerned that nobody will want to use the OERs they create.

A primary obstacle to creating OERs is that although they are shared freely, they are not completely free to create. For example, suppose a professor wants to podcast her lectures. Although she will be preparing and presenting her lectures anyway, there is an additional cost in time needed to record and upload the lectures. Even for a technologically proficient individual it might take five minutes to publish a new lecture. And if a professor does not have the technical ability to publish a podcast, the costs in time increase. In some cases this obstacle can be overcome by outsourcing the additional steps to “open the resource” to a Teaching Assistant with the requisite time and technical skill.

A second obstacle to creating OERs is that an individual may not want others to see the resource. This could be due to a professor not wanting to publish half-finished research, or a fear that others could copy ideas and profit on them. In some cases this is a legitimate obstacle. Openness is not the right solution for all educational resources. It is also important to note that how an OER is licensed, a subject discussed later in this paper, can sometimes ameliorate this concern.

Another obstacle to using OERs is that in most institutions there is little external motivation for doing so. An individual might want to increase exposure, or do some good by sharing, but feel a pressure to focus on activities such as publishing or committee work that will lead towards tenure. For example, one individual took a book he had written about a city and turned it into an online resource for information about that city. When it came time to review his publications from the previous year, the academic committee did not know what to make of this online resource. Although this is a problem likely to remain in academia for some time, there are glimmers of change on the horizon. Some have suggested that in order to resolve this problem that a peer-reviewed outlet for publishing OERs could be created to provide external motivation (OECD, 2007). Others report that some OERs (such as contributing a chapter to a book that is openly distributed) may be included in a Vita (Bazerman, et al., 2008).

A fourth obstacle that may prevent some from creating OERs is the thought that nobody will use the resource (Brown, 2007). If nobody utilizes the OER some fear that the time spent creating may have been wasted. It would be like planning a big party, but having nobody attend. This obstacle is an important issue with respect to OERs (Dholakia, King, and Baraniuk, 2006). Attention does need to be focused on creating resources from which others will benefit, as well as developing a community of users sufficiently large to have a collective impact. This obstacle can be related to the question, “If a tree falls in the forest, does anybody hear it?” In today’s world, the answer is, “If Google hears the tree fall, then others will hear it also (Wiley, 2009). As individual and collective capacities to effectively search online increase, it will become easier to locate and reuse OERs.

Another obstacle that prevents people from creating Open Educational Resources concerns copyright issues. This is a significant issue that is discussed in the following section.

Copyright Considerations
There are two key copyright issues with respect to OERs. First, ensuring that you have appropriate permissions to use existing resources as part of your OER, and second choosing a license for your OER.

Permissions
One professor teaching a Hebrew literature class used a series of articles as part of the class
readings. Because these articles were copyrighted he was not able to openly distribute them as a packet for others to use. Another professor wanted to upload his PowerPoint presentations but was not sure whether the images used in the presentation would constitute “fair use” and was worried about copyright violations. These are common concerns.

There are two ways that the permissions challenge can be overcome. One is to simply substitute open resources for copyrighted ones. Although not possible in all in all cases, it becoming increasingly easier to accomplish. For example at http://flickr.com one can search for photos that have been licensed for non-commercial use. There are 8,321 such photos of “The Dome of the Rock,” and 277 photos of “St. Peter’s Tomb.” Such photos might easily take the place of copyrighted photos in a PowerPoint presentation. Similarly, teachers sometimes can utilize articles that are already available for free on the Internet and combine them into a packet that can be used by others.

A second way to overcome the permissions challenge is to modify resources before they are openly shared. For example, if a teacher wanted to share a packet of course materials, the copyrighted materials could be removed prior to online distribution, and the rest of the resource could be openly shared.

Licensing Open Educational Resources
How an individual licenses an OER will significantly affect its openness. United States law states that anything you create is automatically copyrighted; therefore it is legally “closed” unless the author takes steps to open it (Lessig, 2004). One remedy to this situation is to use a Creative Commons license. Creative Commons provides several licenses to help creators of content license their work in ways consistent with their desires for openness. There are four important provisions of the Creative Commons licenses. They are: Attribution, Non-Commercial, No-Derivatives and Share-Alike. The Creative Commons website defines these terms in the following way:

"Attribution. You let people copy, distribute, display, perform, and remix your copyrighted work, as long as they give you credit the way you request. All CC licenses contain this property.

"NonCommercial. You let people copy, distribute, display, perform, and remix your work for non-commercial purposes only. If they want to use your work for commercial purposes, they must contact you for permission.

"ShareAlike. You let people create remixes and derivative works based on your creative work, as long as they only distribute them under the same Creative Commons license that your original work was published under.

"NoDerivatives. You let people copy, distribute, display, and perform only verbatim copies of your work — not make derivative works based on it. If they want to alter, transform, build upon, or remix your work, they must contact you for permission. [Note: the NoDerivatives clause would prevent individuals from revising or remixing the work.]" (Creative Commons, 2009).

If people wanted their resources to be as open as possible they could simple license them by asking for attribution. If a university did not others reusing its resources for commercial purposes it could license the resource in such a way so as to prevent commercial use. If authors do not want their works to be revised or built upon then they could use the “NoDerivatives” clause. These licensing options provide creators of OERs the ability to license their works in ways that are consistent with their desires for openness.

Conclusion As the world becomes increasingly connected, open educational resources provide a significant opportunity to share both content knowledge and pedagogical practice. Openness is increased as educators provide resources that can be reused, redistributed, revised, and remixed. Openness also increases when resources are placed in a file format that is easy to open and edit. There are several motivations and obstacles for creating OERs. One frequently cited obstacle concerns copyright issues. Through the use of Creative Commons licenses educators can protect the rights they wish to keep while giving some of those rights to others. Although OERs are not appropriate in all situations, they can be an important part of improving pedagogy and increasing access to education.

Bibliography
Bazerman, C., Blakesley, D., Palmquist, M., & Russell, D. (2008). Open access book publishing in writing studies: A case study. First Monday, 13(1-7).

Boyle, J. (2008). The Public Domain: Enclosing the Commons of the Mind. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Brown, J. S. (2008). Creating a Culture of Learning. In T. Iiyoshi & M. S. V. Kumar, (Eds.), Opening Up Education (xi-xvii): Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Creative Commons (2009). Creative Commons Licenses. Retrieved February 27, 2009, from: http://creativecommons.org/about/licenses/meet-the-licenses.

Dholakia, U., King, J., & Baraniuk, R. (2006). What makes an open education program sustainable? The case of Connexions. Retrieved February 26, 2009, from http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/3/6/36781781.pdf.

Elmore, R. F., Burney, D., & (US), E. R. I. C. (1997). Investing in Teacher Learning: Staff Development and Instructional Improvement in Community School District# 2, New York City. National Commission on Teaching & America's Future; Consortium for Policy Research in Education; US Dept. of Education, Office of Educational Research and Improvement, Educational Resources Information Center.

Free Culture Derivatives/Remixes. (n.d.). . Retrieved February 27, 2009, from http://www.free-culture.cc/remixes/.

Lessig, L. (2004). Free culture: How big media uses technology and the law to lock down culture and control creativity. New York: Penguin.

McMartin, F. (2008). Open Educational Content: Transforming Access to Education. In T. Iiyoshi & M. S. V. Kumar, (Eds.), Opening Up Education (135-148): Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development). Giving Knowledge for Free. The Emergence of Open Educational Resources. Retrieved February 27, 2009 from: http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/35/7/38654317.pdf

Gurell, S. (2008). Open educational resources handbook for educators 1.0. Logan, UT: Center for Open and Sustainable Learning.

Slideshare.net (2009). “Openness and the Disaggregated Future of Higher Education.” Retrieved February 27 2009 from: http://www.slideshare.net/opencontent

Wiley, D. (2009). Class lectures on January 13, January 27.

Book Review: Free Culture

2009-02-24T10:34:00.000-08:00

Free Culture
By Lawrence Lessig

I enjoyed this book. In some ways it was similar to other books I have been reading lately with critiques of copyright and scary stories such as the documentary maker who had to jump through 1,000 hoops because a part of his documentary caught 5 seconds of Simpsons clip.

There is lots that could be said about this book, but since you can read Free Culture (for free) I’ll let you do the heavy lifting. I want to focus on two specific points that meant a lot to me from this book.

One thing that I have been thinking about is what happens to a book after it goes out of print, and what a shame it is that so much “good stuff” is gone from the common view of the world. Lessig says,

“Here is an idea that we should more clearly recognize. Every bit of creative property goes through different ‘lives.’ In its first life, if the [page 113] creator is lucky, the content is sold. In such cases the commercial market is successful for the creator. The vase majority of creative property doesn’t enjoy such success, but some clearly does. For that content, commercial life is extremely important. Without this commercial market, there would be, many argue, much less creativity.

“After the commercial life of creative property has ended, our tradition has always supported a second life as well. A newspaper delivers the news every day to the doorsteps of America. The very next day, it is used to wrap fish or to fill boxes with fragile gifts or to build an archive of knowledge about our history. In this second life, the content can continue to inform even if that information is no longer sold.

“The same has always been true about books. A book goes out of print very quickly (the average today is after about a year). After it is out of print, it can be sold in used book stores without the copyright owner getting anything and stored in libraries, where many get to read the book, also for free. Used book stores and libraries are thus the second life of a book. That second life is extremely important to the spread and stability of culture” (112-113).

To put briefly, there is life after commercial use. Online technologies now allow the distribution of books and other culture to have a life outside of libraries and used book stores. Because it is now easy and cheap to share books and other media in this matter there is no reason why it should not be done. Just this past weekend I took a trip with Jack Marshall, author of several LDS talk CDs that are gone—out of print. These could easily preserved. But we need to act quickly. Lessig points out on pages 224 and 225 that some types of film will have disintegrated by the time they fall out of copyright—they aren’t being used right now, just there collecting dust. Continuing this train of thought:

“Of all the creative work produced by humans anywhere, a tiny fraction has continuing commercial value. For that tiny fraction, the copyright is a crucially important legal device….But even for that tiny fraction, the actual time during which the creative work has a commercial life is extremely short…Yet that doesn’t mean the life of a creative work ends…The noncommercial life of culture is important and valuable—for entertainment but also, and more importantly, for knowledge. To understand who we are, and where we came from, and how we have made the mistake that we have, we need to have access to this history” (225).

The second point that was so helpful to me was that while Lessig refers to “Free Culture” not in “Free” as in “give it away” but that we should be free to access the culture. But what I got out of it was Free Culture as in “set culture free.” Find culture that is trapped and will otherwise not be able to be accessed and set it free. My humble efforts to set LDS book culture free has begun at http://freeldsbooks.com As time goes on, I hope it can become a force in connecting people with culture that otherwise would be missing. Just this past week my wife was talking about a church book that had been written in the 1950s. It was a book for kids telling inspiring pioneer stories. But it’s out of print, and there is no way to get a copy…Let’s set culture free.

Virtual Schools

2009-02-24T10:11:00.003-08:00

--note-- this was written and published yesterday, but to the wrong blog--

Tom Clark's chapter on "Virtual and Distance Education in North American Schools" reinforced the idea that distance education is important, not just at the university level, or even high school level, but throughout all of school. It was interesting to see how over the past 80 years various forms of virtual schools have taken place, with a variety of technologies. Clark reports that there "were about 300,000 K-12 online-learning enrollments in public and private schools in 2002-2003, up from an estimated 40-50,000 in 2000-2001. That is amazing growth!

Some of what I read reminded me of Clayton Christensen's Disrupting Class.

Christensen and his coauthors state that a key problem in schools is students learn in different ways and that schools are not built to customize student learning to the different needs that students have. The authors argue that disruptively deploying computer-based innovations is a key to customize educational resources for students. They state, “student-centric learning is the escape hatch from the…hierarchical cells of standardization. The software is emerging. Student-centric learning opens the door for students to learn in ways that match their intelligence types in the places and at the paces they prefer by combining content in customized sequences” (38-39).

Their point is not that more computers are needed, but that computers need to be used differently. For example, consider a class in Arabic. Because the class is not offered, nobody takes the class. Through the use of video conferencing, a class in Arabic could be offered to interested students. In addition, video conferencing could allow students to be paired up with peer learners in Arabic speaking countries who are trying to learn English. Although the quality of this type of educational opportunity might not be as good as a live classroom (at first), it is better than the alternative (no Arabic instruction). Over time, as the technology improves, it is conceivable that this form of education could become as efficacious as face to face classroom instruction.

Christensen predicts that by 2020 a majority of high school students will be in "virtual schools." Looking at the graphs presented by Clark it seemed to me that the growth that has been shown in virtual schooling could continue to dramatically increase. As technology improves and access increases it may become an increasingly attractive choice.

The Open High School of Utah could be an interseting labratory in which to study a "virtual high school" in our own backyward.

Friday Review

2009-02-20T09:42:00.000-08:00

It's been another good week. Here's a quick recap:

Research

Continued work on the open publishing project. It is something I enjoy and feel passionate about. I found a presentation made last week on the subject--looks great. We were able to get a few more people to participate in the survey and some exciting trends are starting to emerge.

Distance

I spent a lot of time this week looking at different possibilities for my research project. It has been a little frustrating because I spent several hours walking down one road, doing interviews, etc. but was starting to feel like that wasn't going to get me where I want to be. Now I've been looking at how self-directed learners participate in online courses and this seems to have some interest for me. It is the kind of thing I can see myself doing in a couple of years (creating a course like the one I'm studying) and so I think the research will have some practical meaning for me. I'm excited about the direction I'm going.

Open

Worked more on a draft of a paper I am submitting next week. I think I made some good headway, but there is polishing still to do!

Assessment

I'm in the thick of 3 projects, one is an interpretative exercise, a second is doing an item analysis on a test, and the third is revising said test. It is fun and a meeting with Dr. Davies today gave me the direction I need to go forward.

Stats and Research

Our first test is this next week and so I've been going back and trying to consolidate the learning that I've gained. It is fun to see the statistics/research angles come together. Also, I made the suggested changes to the IRB and hope that it is approved so that I can get the next phase of research going.

Open Quest #2: Explaining openness--round 2

2009-02-17T15:16:00.001-08:00

To those who will read this post before 2/23. I welcome feedback. I'm not worried about spelling/missing words as much as substantive changes. What areas do see as being weak? Where should I add? What could I do to strengthen the work? How to conclude? I feel that I still need more specific examples from the realms of religious education, though I have improved in this iteration. All comments are welcome. Thank you.

Openly Sharing Your Classroom Content

Introduction
A significant movement in education concerns the use of open educational resources (OERs). By “open” it is generally meant that the resource is freely available to others to reuse in different contexts (McMartin, 2007). These resources could include books, lesson plans, syllabi, slide shows, etc. There are several examples of individuals and institutions providing open educational resources. Perhaps the most well-known is MIT’s OpenCourseWare Program which provides open materials for over 1,800 courses.

Other significant providers that share completely open courses include Carnegie Mellon’s Open Learning Initiative, Yale’s Open Courses and Stanford’s Engineering Everywhere courses. Others organizations, such as Curriki and Rice University’s Connexions provide ways to share smaller units of educational content.

Educators are sharing open educational resources with increasing frequency. This trend is occurring throughout education generally, and also specifically in religious education. Yale Divinity School publishes a course on the Old Testament, Notre Dame has three religion classes available and MIT OpenCourseWare has a class called “The Bible.” More than twenty religion courses are offered on iTunes University. Other teachers have uploaded lectures to YouTube, posted PowerPoint presentations to SlideShare, and shared photos of religious sites to Flickr.

The increasing number of available OERs leads to several questions. What does it mean to be “open?” Why would teachers want to share their educational resources? What are obstacles to creating OERs, and how does copyright affect openness? In this paper I will discuss answers to these questions. Let’s begin with the question, what does it mean to be “open”?

A Closer Look at “Open”
As stated previously, “open” generally means that the resource is freely available to others to reuse in different contexts (McMartin, 2007). More specifically Wiley (2007) has described four “R’s” of openness. Each of these R’s represents an increasing level of openness.

Reuse—This is the most basic level of openness. People can use all or part of the work for their own purposes (e.g. download a copy of a song to listen to at a later time).

Redistribute—People can share the work with others (e.g. email a digital article to a colleague).

Revise—People can modify, translate, or change the form the work (e.g. take a book written in English and turn it into a Spanish audio book).

Remix—Take two or more existing resources and combine them to create a new resource (e.g. take audio lectures from a course and combine them with a video from another course to create a new course).

The following diagram represents these R’s in terms of how they can be combined to increase openness.

With any item that is open there is an assumption that reuse is allowed. A more open approach is to allow individuals to reuse and redistribute the work. To allow others to revise, remix and redistribute resources is the most open approach. Depending on the goals of the creator of a particular OER, different levels of openness will be appropriate (cite source). How the OER is licensed, a subject discussed later in this paper, also affects how open the OER will be.
In addition to these four Rs, there are other considerations that authors of OERs should take into account when designing for openness. Even if a work has been licensed so that users are free to reuse, redistribute, revise and remix it, the format in which the work is stored can make a large difference in how open it is. Some file formats are easier to open and edit than others. For example a scanned document that has been turned into a .pdf file is easy to open with free software, but is not easy to edit. Because free software exits to both open and edit a .doc file, this might be considered a more “open” format. Thus openness is increased when file formats are used that are easy to both access and edit. Another way to increase openness when distributing OERs is to make them available in as many formats as constraints allow.

Motivations for Sharing Open Education Resources

There are several reasons why individuals and institutions might be motivated to openly share resources. Four common motivations are to (1) receive increased exposure, (2) do some good, (3) give new life to out-of-print works, (4) improve the quality of educational resources.

Receive increased exposure

One benefit of openly publishing OERs is that it has the potential to increase the distribution of your work. James Boyle, a law professor at Duke University openly released a book entitled The Public Domain. Within six weeks of publication the book had sold 3,000 copies (a figure with which he and the publisher were both pleased). In addition, the book was downloaded 25,000 times in those six weeks. Boyle believes that the downloaders do not represent lost sales (he believes that most would not have purchased the book anyways), but rather an increase in exposure (Boyle, 2008).

Allowing content to be revised can also significantly increase the impact a work can have. Lawrence Lessig of Stanford University published his book Free Culture in 2004. The book has sold approximately 17,000 copies in the United States since being released (Bookscan, 2009). However, the book has been downloaded several hundred thousand times. Perhaps more importantly, it has been translated into seven different languages, audio versions are freely available, and it has been put into sixteen different file formats. All of these translations and format changes are freely available for others to download. Allowing others to remix Free Culture vastly expanded its reach.

Although not all OERs will be translated into multiple languages or revised in multiple formats, even small OERs often benefit from increased exposure when shared. For example [either use David Wiley # of times a slideshare presentation is seen, or iTunes example of number of times a course has been downloaded). This increasing visibility of one’s work can build one’s reputation within a given community of practitioners (source: Giving Knowledge for Free (available here).

Doing good in the world

A second reason for creating OERs is simply to do some good in the world. Many students cannot attend college. Others would like to learn about the content you teach, but cannot fit it into their schedule. Some teachers, particularly in developing countries, cannot access the latest research and would benefit from reusing educational resources created by others (cite source).
An individual might say, “If I've already made a set of PowerPoints for a class I teach, why not post them for others to view? If I can post electronic copies of articles I've published to others, why not let them benefit? If my campus’s Center for Teaching made a flash video to help me explain conflict in the Middle East, why not put it online?”

Give new life to out-of-print works.

A third reason to create OERs is to give new life to out-of-print works. A significant problem in the publishing world relates to “orphan books” (Boyle, 2008). These are books that are out-of-print, and the copyright owner of the books cannot easily be identified. As time passes the out-of-print book becomes increasingly unavailable, as publishers merge and authors change locations, it can become impossible to locate. One religion professor wrote a book discussing the results of a significant longitudinal study. Once the book was out-of-print, he was frustrated because he felt that the study needed to be seen by many more people. Posting the book online and referring people to the book’s website when he spoke on the study would allow the book to receive new attention and bring new life to a book that would have otherwise not been seen again.

Improve the quality of educational resources

A fourth reason to create OERs is that it may improve the quality of both the resources and student learning (cite source). When an educational resource is published openly it may bring about the mechanisms of peer review (cite source). If people know their educational resource will be viewed by others they might desire to make it better than they ordinarily would. In addition, as others use the resource they may improve it and return the revised version to the creator, who then benefits from the improvement.

For example, suppose a teacher creates a PowerPoint presentation featuring quotes from world religious leaders and puts it online. A teacher on another continent has a collection of related audio files and attaches some to the slides. A third teacher has a video clip of one of the quotations and adds that into the presentation. The resulting work may in some contexts be a better educational resource than the original, and everyone can benefit from the improved resource.

Openness has a tendency to lead to better material used in courses not only because faculty can build on other open resources, but simply because teachers can more easily see what other teachers are doing. Just as observing others teach has been shown to improve teaching (cite source), observing the types of educational resources that others use in the classroom also improves teaching (cite source).

The improved OERs benefit the students who use them. In addition, because the resources are openly available on the Internet teachers can refer students to the resources directly so that they can be utilized outside of class.

Obstacles to Openness

A primary obstacle to creating OERs is that although they are shared freely, they are not completely free to create. For example, suppose a professor wants to podcast her lectures. Although she will be preparing and presenting her lectures anyway, there is an additional cost in time needed to record and upload the lectures. Even for a technologically proficient individual it might take five minutes to publish a new lecture. And if a professor does not have the technical ability to publish a podcast, the costs in time increase. In some cases this obstacle can be overcome by outsourcing the additional steps to “open the resource” to a Teaching Assistant with the requisite time and technical skill.

A second obstacle to creating OERs is that an individual may not want others to see the resource. This could be due to a professor not wanting to publish half-finished research, or a fear that others could copy ideas and profit on them. In some cases this is a legitimate obstacle. Openness is not the right solution for all educational resources (Osguthorpe, 2009, others?). It is also important to note that how an OER is licensed, a subject discussed later in this paper, can sometimes ameliorate this concern.

Another obstacle to using OERs is that in most institutions there is little external motivation for doing so. An individual might want to increase exposure, or do some good by sharing, but feel a pressure to focus on activities such as publishing or committee work that will lead towards tenure. For example, one individual took a book he had written about a city and turned it into an online resource for information about that city. When it came time to review his publications from the previous year, the academic committee did not know what to make of this online resource. Although this is a problem likely to remain in academia for some time, there are glimmers of change on the horizon. Some have suggested that in order to resolve this problem that a peer-reviewed outlet for publishing OERs could be created to provide external motivation ([source: The book Giving Knowledge for Free (available here).]. Others report that some OERs (such as contributing a chapter to a book that is openly distributed) may be included in a Vita (First Monday article, 2008).

A fourth obstacle that may prevent some from creating OERs is the thought that nobody will use the resource. If nobody utilizes the OER some fear that the time spent creating may have been wasted. It would be like planning a big party, but having nobody attend. This obstacle is an important issue with respect to OERs (Dholakia, King, and Baraniuk). Attention does need to be focused on creating resources from which others will benefit, as well as developing a community of users sufficiently large to have a collective impact. This obstacle can be related to the question, “If a tree falls in the forest, does anybody hear it?” In today’s world, the answer is, “If Google hears the tree fall, then others will hear it also (Wiley, 2009). As individual and collective capacities to effectively search online increase, it will become easier to locate and reuse OERs.
Another obstacle that prevents people from creating Open Educational Resources concerns copyright issues. This is a significant issue that is discussed in the following section.

Copyright Considerations

There are two key copyright issues with respect to OERs. First, ensuring that you have appropriate permissions to use existing resources as part of your OER, and second choosing a license for your OER.

Permissions

One professor teaching a Hebrew literature class used a series of articles as part of the class readings. Because these articles were copyrighted he was not able to openly distribute them as a packet for others to use. Another professor wanted to upload his PowerPoint presentations but was not sure whether the images used in the presentation would constitute “fair use” and was worried about copyright violations. These are common concerns.

There are two ways that the permissions challenge can be overcome. One is to simply substitute open resources for copyrighted ones. Although not possible in all in all cases, it becoming increasingly easier to accomplish. For example at http://flickr.com one can search for photos that have been licensed for non-commercial use. There are 8,321 such photos of “The Dome of the Rock,” and 277 photos of “St. Peter’s Tomb.” Such photos might easily take the place of copyrighted photos in a PowerPoint presentation. Similarly, teachers sometimes can utilize articles that are already available for free on the Internet and combine them into a packet that can be used by others.

A second way to overcome the permissions challenge is to modify resources before they are openly shared. For example, if a teacher wanted to share a packet of course materials, the copyrighted materials could be removed prior to online distribution, and the rest of the resource could be openly shared.

Licensing Open Educational Resources

How an individual licenses an OER will significantly affect its openness. United States law states that anything you create is automatically copyrighted; therefore it is legally “closed” unless the author takes steps to open it (cite source). One remedy to this situation is to use a Creative Commons license. Creative Commons provides several licenses to help creators of content license their work in ways consistent with their desires for openness. There are four important provisions of the Creative Commons licenses. They are: Attribution, Non-Commercial, No-Derivatives and Share-Alike. The Creative Commons website defines these terms in the following way:

Attribution. You let people copy, distribute, display, perform, and remix your copyrighted work, as long as they give you credit the way you request. All CC licenses contain this property.

NonCommercial. You let people copy, distribute, display, perform, and remix your work for non-commercial purposes only. If they want to use your work for commercial purposes, they must contact you for permission.

ShareAlike. You let people create remixes and derivative works based on your creative work, as long as they only distribute them under the same Creative Commons license that your original work was published under.

NoDerivatives. You let people copy, distribute, display, and perform only verbatim copies of your work — not make derivative works based on it. If they want to alter, transform, build upon, or remix your work, they must contact you for permission. [Note: the NoDerivatives clause would prevent individuals from revising or remixing the work.] (cited from
http://creativecommons.org/about/licenses/meet-the-licenses).

If people wanted their resources to be as open as possible they could simple license them by asking for attribution. If a university did not others reusing its resources for commercial purposes it could license the resource in such a way so as to prevent commercial use. If authors do not want their works to be revised or built upon then they could use the “NoDerivatives” clause. These licensing options provide creators of OERs the ability to license their works in ways that are consistent with their desires for openness.

Conclusion

As the world becomes increasingly connected, open educational resources provide a significant opportunity to share both content knowledge and pedagogical practice. Although OERs are not a panacea for all educational problems, they can provide an important role in improving the teaching and learning of religious topics.

Friday Review

2009-02-13T12:26:00.000-08:00

It's been another great week! Here's the wrapup of what I have been learning.

Research

Made some good headway on a paper regarding the effects of open publishing. Uncovered a great finding comparing two of Larry Lessig's books; hope to share more about that soon. Got the website http://freeldsbooks.com running-still room to improve it. I had thought it might be my only way to study open book publishing in the LDS market, but it also appeared this week that other possibilities may emerge.

Distance Learning

We had a fun field trip (see this post). With some help from Charles I submitted an IRB proposal to do the research I described last week. I have received some feedback on the proposal and just need to make a few changes to it. I will be doing this next week.

Open Ed

We've been working on a proposal to take to the CTL to have new creations at the walk-in center receive a CC license. After two "working classes" the CTL now has a form that they are ready to use. It will be an interesting experiment to determine how many professors choose to sign the form.

Assessment

One interesting thing I did this week that was related to the course, but not an assignment was to meet with one a religion professor and talk with him about his philosophy on testing. It is very different than most. His main theme was that our assessment should match that of God's. E.g. God's tests are primarily open-book. He doesn't grade on a curve. He wants everyone to succeed. It was very interesting to learn from his insights.

Statistics and Research

I know it sounds crazy, but I am really enjoying the textbook in this class. I finished chapter 5 about 9:00 PM one night and wanted to just keep on reading (I did)! This is some of the nuts and bolts of research and I'm enjoying it.

Distance: Field Trip

2009-02-13T10:34:00.000-08:00

This past week my "Distance Education" class took a field trip to BYU's Independent study center. The size and scope of their business surprised me. Some of the things that stood out to me are below:

They serve about 125,000 students and employ 250 people (I may be off a bit on my numbers, feel free to correct me).
Most of the students they serve are _high school_ students
They have a team that aggressively markets IS courses to school districts (e.g. they are not just sitting around hoping that somebody finds their course).
They receive about 2,000 help calls a day, and have multiple tiers of service. Only 1% of problems need to go to the professor for resolution.
As part of a research study a few years ago they implemented the idea of having tutors who provide a free (to students) service of helping them with problems.
They have a machine that opens their envelopes! (okay, that wasn't the highlight, but it was pretty cool). ]

It was really interesting to see theory meet practice. I noticed that some thing e.g. "the conversational theory" were never mentioned, while others, "e.g. the industrial approach" were frequently mentioned. Not saying that one theory is better than another, it was simply interesting to observe.

I also was reminded of how widely learning styles can differ. When it came to a discussion of "religious education" my views about how learning should take place came on somewhat strongly. But others at the table had their own views that they held equally strongly. So again the theme came back to having as many different approaches as possible so that people could select what was good for them as opposed to "the one true way."

(As I write that it makes me think how the "do whatever works for you" as opposed to "the one true way" philosophy isn't always a good idea.

Another thing that interested me was that they allow people to get their money back up to 60 days after beginning the course. So in terms of thinking about the "free" courses they are going to offer, what is the difference between letting them do the course for free VERSUS signing up for the course in the regular way and quitting after 25 days. Still was free.

The difference I see is that the "open" option allows them to be free as in "I don't have to give you my credit card info." I think one interesting thing to look at as this project moves forward is to see how many people sign up for the course because it was free. Obviously the hope is that people who would have never paid money upfront for the course do take it for free, and some buy it. I look forward to Chris Anderson's book on this topic.

I lost my phone number -- now with a CC license

2009-02-10T15:04:00.000-08:00

I am happy to say that my book I lost my phone number, can I have yours? Is now available for free with a CC license. It is available at http://freeldsbooks.com

distance: 10 articles finding

2009-02-10T10:43:00.000-08:00

Articles from International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning

As I looked for themes this week, one of the things that I learned was something about how I value and rank research findings. I noticed that tend to value more highly research that is experimental and concrete in nature. I place less value on historical or theoretical discussions—when it comes to research findings.

A couple of themes I found are as follows:

Of the 11 articles I read,

3 used extensive qualitative data
4 used extensive quantitative data
4 specifically listed limitations

I was surprised that more did not discuss the limitations of the article, and at how many used no “new” qualitative or quantitative data (I did not count literature review as qualitative data).

An article-by-article review follows.

1. Annand, D. (2007). Re-organizing Universities for the Information Age. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 8(3), 1-9.

Finding(s):

As this is a theoretical paper there are no official “findings.” The author does however give a “prognosis” that in order to stay relevant and viable higher education will need to adapt their educational methods and procedures. I rate this “prognosis/finding” a 3 because although it is interesting and somewhat well-supported, there are no specific findings to back up the assertion.

2. Barnard, L., Paton, V., & Lan, W. (2008). Online Self-Regulatory Learning Behaviors as a Mediator in the Relationship between Online Course Perceptions with Achievement. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 9(2).

Finding(s):

The authors found that “while online self-regulatory learning behaviors do not appear to be that strongly associated with academic achievement, self-regulatory learning behaviors do appear to mediate and account for a significant amount of the positive relationship between student perceptions of online course communication and collaboration with academic achievement” (8). More simply we could state that as students increase in their self-regulation they tend to be more likely to communicate well at a distance, which affects their achievement. I rate this finding a 6 because it helps tease out exactly in what ways self-regulation affects grades.

3. Bray, E., Aoki, K., & Dlugosh, L. (2008). Predictors of Learning Satisfaction in Japanese Online Distance Learners. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 9(3).

Finding(s):

The authors found that the students they surveyed were satisfied with their distance learning experiences. They also found that people who felt comfortable using a computer were more likely to enjoy distance courses and that people who had a high preference for social interaction in learning were less likely to enjoy distance courses. They also found that students with teachers they ranked as easier to interact with were more satisfied with the course. I rank these findings a 6. The analysis and statistical manipulations were extensive and rigorous; however, because their sample was based on volunteers it is unclear how widely these results could be extrapolated.

4. Caswell, T., Henson, S., Jensen, M., & Wiley, D. (2008). Open Educational Resources: Enabling universal education. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 9(1).

Finding(s):

This theoretical article did not offer anything by way of experimental findings. They state that for open educational resources to continue that they need to be self-sustaining. I did not find this to be a very novel finding, hence its rating of a 3. I did enjoy the review of OERs and have cited this article; however in terms of findings it is not very strong.

5. Deka, T. S., & McMurry, P. (2006). Student Success in Face-To-Face and Distance Teleclass Environments: A matter of contact? International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 7(1).

Finding(s):

The researchers found that “F2F students were significantly more successful than distance students, obtaining a higher percentage of A, B, and C grades” (11). They found that the main reason why F2F students did better is that they were much more likely to take all the exams. Completion was a major factor in lowering the grades of the distance students. Although this research may be old-hat to some, I thought it was significant and that the study was well-designed. I rate this study a 7.

6. Eib, B. J., & Miller, P. (2006). Faculty Development as Community Building. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 7(2).
Finding(s):

Although this what not a research paper, the authors did give a fairly detailed explanation of what they did and included several quotations from participants to support their assertion that it was a positive experience. It could have been stronger had they compared people who participated in the faculty development with those who did not, but given the limitations it seems that they did what they could. The other weakness was that the researchers themselves were heavily involved in faculty development so I wondered if there was a researcher bias. I would rate these findings a 4.

7. Grandzol, C. J., & PhD, J. R. G. (2006). Best Practices for Online Business Education. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 7(1).

Finding(s):

These researchers state that “the process of developing online courses requires faculty to do more than just try to duplicate the classroom online. Faculty must transform instruction, requiring fundamental rethinking of how to achieve learning objectives given the opportunities and limitations of the online environment…the evidence is overwhelming that online education tends to be as effective or more effective than traditional delivery” (8). In some respects this assertion goes contrary to Eib article mentioned above. I believe that the authors of the present study are trying to say that distance education, done properly, with students who are prepared for the experience, can be more effective. The authors have reviewed dozens of articles in order to determine what it would take to have the most effective distance education and gave 33 concrete descriptions of desired practice. Although they did not do their own experimental research they clearly surveyed the data. I would rate these findings a 7 because they have practical value and relevant application to me.

8. Leslie, P. H., & Murphy, E. (2008). Post-Secondary Students' Purposes For Blogging. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 9(3).

Finding(s):

Because only 8 of the 266 of the blogs analyzed met the criteria for inclusion in this research study I would rate their findings a 4, simply because I cannot tell how much they can be generalized. The authors state that the bloggers they studied seldom challenged ideas, and did not engage in knowledge construction; however there was little discussions as to why this was the case. The authors were frank about the limitations of their study, and I did admire them for upfront about those limitations.

9. Müller, T. (2008). Persistence of Women in Online Degree-Completion Programs. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 9(2).

Finding(s):

The authors found that the main facilitating factors for women in completing online degree programs were (1) engagement in a learning community, (2) schedule convenience, and (3) opportunities for personal growth. The three largest barriers were (1) juggling multiple responsibilities (e.g. working, mothering, etc.), (2) disappointment in faculty, and (3) face-to-face preference. Although their sample of twenty students does not allow for widespread generalization of results, hearing the voices of these women students was quite powerful. I rank this study a 6 due to its comprehensive discussion of factors experiences by these women.

10. Pan, G., & Bonk, C. J. (2007). The Emergence of Open-Source Software in North America. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 8(3).

Finding(s):

As with number 4, above, this historical article did not offer anything by way of experimental findings. One interesting thought that they shared (though it could not be considered a finding) is the idea of a “gift culture.” When people create open resources and give them away for others to build on, it changes the dynamics of the educational resource as well as the relationships amongst those who use the resource. Although I liked the article I rated the findings a 3 because they did not appear to present any kind of new research to the field.

11. Shachar, M. (2008). Meta-Analysis: The preferred method of choice for the assessment of distance learning quality factors. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 9(3).

Finding(s):

Although the author is clearly passionate about the importance of meta-analysis there was little research showing that it was clearly the best method to use (perhaps a meta-analysis of meta-analytical studies would have been in order!) This is more of a “how-to” article as the author explains how to conduct a meta-analysis. If my goal were to do a meta-analysis I would rank the article a 5 (had it been more plain it would have received a higher ranking). However, if the goal is do present research findings I would rate it a 3 because there was little evidence to back up the claim that meta-analysis is the direction distance research should go. I do not necessarily disagree with the claim, there simply was little evidence of it presented.

Distance: Self-directed learning

2009-02-07T17:00:00.000-08:00

This week I read two articles by D. Randy Garrison concerning self-directed learning (SDL) and distance education. Garrison states, "The foundation of the interest and movement in SDL was a focus on the freedom and responsibility of the individual learners to construct their own learning experiences. It was also a rejection of an excessively teacher-centered traditional educational experience, which too often demonstrated little trust and respect for the competency of individuals to take responsiblity for learning" (162). However, Garrison did not appear to be 100% sold on the virtues of SDL as it is generally understand. Garrison pointed out that a total focus on SDL negates opporutnities for teachers and institutions (who may know better) to guide student learning.

I think that much of what I have written/thought about distance learning was summed up when Garrison described Peters view that the "new form of distance education [has] the dominant pedagogic pattern being 'autonomous, self-guided learning.'" (164).

Garrison pushes back stating, "However as relevant as Peters' concept of autonomous learning might be for informal learning and society at large, it does not address distance eduation's role and responsibility in the area of facilitating or supporting effective formal learning" (164).

Garrison went on to discuss issues of control and motivation, and how they relate to SDL. I decided to do more research on SDL and uncovered a book review of "Self-direct learning" by Malcom Knowles, which, as far as I could tell, was the first book using that term. One of the key points I took from the summary is that the self-directed learner has to feel like the problems that are being researched are important for him/her. I wonder how much of institutionally-directed learning fits this criteria.

I also stumbled across an article about Andragogy and Self-Directed Learning. I was not familiar with the term "andragogy" (adult education) and it was interesting to read this additional perspective. A key takeaway was that there are different kinds of learners. Different degrees of SDL will be appropriate for different learners.

I look forward to touring Independent Study and learning about how these principles are being put into practice in their instructional design.

Distance: Response to "Computer Mediated Learning Groups"

2009-02-07T08:27:00.000-08:00

Charles Graham was the lead author of a book chapter entitled "Computer-Mediated Learning Groups: Benefits and Challenges to Using Groupwork in Online Learning Environments." I thought this was a very interesting article.

To me there is a tension between what the research says, and my own personal experience. In this I am not referring to F2F group learning VS computer-mediated group learning, but rather the research that group learning is so much more effective than individual learning. My experience is that most group learning that is contrived for the sake of classroom exercise has not been as fruitful as independent learning. (I admit it is possible that I have been a part of many poorly constructed group learning activities, or that I have a personality/learning style that needs specialized group work treatment. Graham points out that business executives differed in their approach to group work from educators and management was my undergraduate study). However as I talk to many of my peers they seem to share the view that most classroom groups they have been a part of are contrived and quickly merge to the less effective "divide and conquer" approach that Graham discusses.

I have found group learning to be powerful when (1) all participants are highly motivated and (2) share the same goal. One fruitful group I was recently a part of was centered on a book called WHY but as I looked more carefully at the chapter I realized that this was a "work group" as opposed to a "learning group."

I want to believe the research, and I want to develop the skills of helping facilitate powerful learning. I had no quarrels with the ideas presented on how to apply group learning to a computer-mediated environment, but I struggled with the research presented by Johnson and Johnson because it is so different from how I have interpreted my learning experiences.

Please comment and share successful learning groups you have been a part of...

Friday Review

2009-02-06T12:30:00.001-08:00

It's been another great week! Here's the review of what I've been learning:

Research: Making some exciting progress on the open-book project. I also had an idea for helping "orphan LDS books" find open online distribution. I look forward to working more on that.

Distance Education: I made some good progress on my research paper (see here) and have two more interviews scheduled for Monday. I also had my first formal "distance learning experience" as I experienced class from home this week. There were definitely advantages (being home earlier was the primary one), but to be candid I will state that I probably didn't get as much out of class than I would have had I been there face to face. I was tempted to eat dinner while listening to the lecture, and technical difficulties prevented me from making comments as often as I would like. In my case where distance is not a necessity, I believe that going to class F2F would be better. However, if I lived in Salt Lake and worked full time and it was the only way I could participate then it would be a great way to go.

Open Ed: I enjoyed spending several hours this week just reading and writing. I'm almost done with the OER Handbook (good job Seth). I also have been writing a draft of a paper to introduce somebody to OERs and hopefully motivate them to want to participate.

Assessment: I did some extra research learning about how to use multiple choice tests in literature. I was appalled at the paucity of information; perhaps I should be appalled at my research skills...but the research librarian couldn't find anything either. I wrote several multiple choice questions and am experimenting with some different forms of questions in an upcoming test.

Research and Statistics: We started getting into the numbers this week. It was a lot of fun, I haven't had to do any math for 9 years, and it's been 13 since I've taken a stats class. What I'm learning here is basic stats, and it's fun. I also submitted my IRB proposal to do research on how grading affects students' scripture study.

Good stuff!

open quest #1: explaining openness to a faculty group

2009-02-06T11:38:00.000-08:00

Bard Quest #1

I have "revised" the bard quest and am working on a paper geared towards college professors who are not very familiar with the idea of open educational resources. This paper will continue to improve over the next three quests.

I still need to refine the introduction, I begin this version of the paper with a closer look at the word "open." Sorry for format troubles, copy/pasting from Word is killing me!

I'm particularly interested in feedback on the diagram of the Rs. Perhaps it is unnecessary, but I thought it would be helpful of having a visual way to conceptualize it. I tried various versions and I include one in the body of the paper, and another one at the end with a discussion on the two. Any suggestions on the below are welcome. It should be clear that some parts are pretty polished and others are more outline-ish.

**

A Closer Look at “Open”

"Open” generally means that the resource is freely available to others to reuse in different contexts (McMartin, 2007). More specifically Wiley (2007) has described four “R’s” of openness. Each of these R’s represents an increasing level of openness.

Reuse—This is the most basic level of openness. People can use all or part of the work for their own purposes (e.g. download a copy of a song to listen to at a later time).

Redistribute—People can share the work with others (e.g. email a digital book to a friend).

Revise—People can modify, translate, or change the form the work (e.g. take a book written in English and turn it into a Spanish audio book).

Remix—Take two or more existing resources and combine them to create a new resource (e.g. take audio lectures from a course and combine them with a video from another course to create a new course).

The following diagram represents these R’s in terms of how they can be combined to increase openness.

With any open item there is an assumption that reuse is allowed. A more open approach is to allow individuals to reuse and redistribute the work. To allow others to revise, remix and redistribute resources is the most open approach.

How an individual licenses an OER also affects its openness. United States law states that anything you create is automatically copyrighted; therefore it is legally “closed” unless the author takes steps to open it. Creative Commons provides several licenses to help creators of content license their work in way that is consistent with their desires for openness. There are four important provisions of the Creative Commons licenses. They are: Attribution, Non-Commercial, No-Derivatives and Share-Alike. The Creative Commons website defines these terms in the following way:

"Attribution. You let people copy, distribute, display, perform, and remix your copyrighted work, as long as they give you credit the way you request. All CC licenses contain this property.

"NonCommercial. You let people copy, distribute, display, perform, and remix your work for non-commercial purposes only. If they want to use your work for commercial purposes, they must contact you for permission.

"ShareAlike. You let people create remixes and derivative works based on your creative work, as long as they only distribute them under the same Creative Commons license that your original work was published under.

"NoDerivatives. You let people copy, distribute, display, and perform only verbatim copies of your work — not make derivative works based on it. If they want to alter, transform, build upon, or remix your work, they must contact you for permission" [Note: the NoDerivatives clause would prevent individuals from revising or remixing the work.] (cited either from http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Frequently_Asked_Questions%20%5D or
http://creativecommons.org/about/licenses/meet-the-licenses double check).

If people wanted their resources to be as open as possible they could simple license them by asking for attribution. If a university did not others reusing its resources for commercial purposes it could license the resource in such a way so as to prevent commercial use. If authors do not want their works to be remixed then they could use the “NoDerivatives” clause.
In addition to licensing, there are other considerations that authors of OERs should take into account when designing for openness. Even if a work has been licensed so that users are free to reuse, redistribute, revise and remix the format in which the work is stored can make a large difference in how open it is. Some file formats are easier to open and edit than others. For example a .pdf file is easy to open with free software, but it cannot be edited using the free software file. Because free software exits to both open and edit .doc files, these could be considered a more “open” format. One way to increase openness when distributing OERs is to make them available in as many formats constraints allow.

Motivations for Sharing Open Education Resources

There are several reasons why individuals and institutions might be motivated to openly share resources. Three common motivations are to (1) receive increased exposure, (2) do some good, (3) create opportunities to collaborate and improve OERs.

Receive increased exposure

One benefit of openly publishing OERs is that it has the potential to increase the number of people who see your work. James Boyle, a law professor at Duke University openly released a book entitled The Public Domain. Within six weeks of publication the book had sold 3,000 copies (very respectable for an academic text) but had been downloaded 25,000 times. Boyle believes that the downloaders do not represent lost sales (most would not have purchased the book anyways), but an increase in exposure.

Allowing content to revised also significantly increases the impact a work can have. Lawrence Lessig of Stanford University published his book Free Culture in 2004. The book has sold about 17,000 copies in the United States since being released (Bookscan, 2009). However, the books has been downloaded several hundred thousand times. Perhaps more importantly, it has been translated into seven different languages, audio versions are freely available, and it has been put into sixteen different. All of these translations and format changes are freely available for others to download. Allowing others to remix Free Cultures vastly expanded its reach.
Although not all OERs will be translated into multiple languages in formats, the possibility that the will remains.

* Increased reputation
The book Giving Knowledge for Free (available here) also had some great insights.

Do some good in the world

Massive numbers of students cannot attend college. The UN says, Everyone has a right to free and compulsory education in the primary grades. Main purposes of education to teach kindness, tolerance. An individual might say, “If I've already made a set of PowerPoints for a class I teach, why not post them for others to view? If I can email electronic copies of articles I've published to others, why not let them benefit?”

Advantages for students
• Teachers can refer students to other courses they have taught.

Create opportunities to collaborate and improve OERs. Mechanisms of peer review – I will create something better if I know that others are going to view it.
• Better material used in courses (b/c profs can see what other profs do).
• Increased speed/cheaper course design
• Faculty collaboration may increase.

Obstacles to Openness A primary obstacle to creating OERs is that although they may be given away for free they are not completely free to create. For example suppose a professor wants to podcast her lectures. Although she will be preparing and presenting her lectures anyway, there is still a additional cost in time needed to record and upload the lectures. Even for a technologically proficient individual it might take five minutes to publish a new lecture. And if the professor does not have the technical ability to publish a podcast, then the costs increase. In some cases this obstacle can be overcome by outsourcing openness to a Teaching Assistant with the requisite time and technical skill.

Another obstacle to using OERs is that in most institutions there is little external motivation for doing so. An individual might want to increase exposure, or do some good by sharing, but feel a pressure to focus on activities such as publishing or committee work that will lead towards tenure. Some authors have suggested that in order to resolve this problem that a peer-reviewed outlet for publishing OERs should be created ([source: The book Giving Knowledge for Free (available here) .].

A third obstacle that may arise is the nagging doubt that nobody will use the resource. If nobody utilizes the OER some fear that the time spent creating it will have been wasted.
Does anybody care? Talking about “if a tree falls does anyone hear it” Wiley's answer is, “If Google hears the tree fall, then others will hear it.” In other words, one of the challenges with OER is that we may be planning a big party (creating lots of OERs) but nobody wants to come (or wants the resources).

[add in...Sustainability of OER is becoming a subject of academic study. Dholakia, King, and Baraniuk,81 for example, argue that current thinking on the topic is often solely tactical with too much attention on the “product” and not enough attention on understanding what its user community wants or on improving the OER’s value for various user communities. Their proposal is that “prior to considering different revenue models for a particular OER and choosing one or a combination of them, the OER providers should focus on the issue of increasing the aggregate value of the site to its constituents to the greatest extent possible. In other words, unless the OER site is able to first gain and maintain a critical mass of active, engaged users, and provide substantial and differentiated value to them in its start-up and growth phases, then none of the available and/or chosen revenue models will be likely to work for the OER in the long run.”]

Conclusion

I still need to write the conclusion.

Below is another version of the diagram. This one illustrates that an item could technically be be licensed in such a way so as to allow revisions or remixing, but not to allow distribution. But since no CC license would allow that I thought it was a point to fine to make in a paper for my intended audience. I also put a dashed line to separate revise and remix, because from a practical standpoint there is no way to allow somebody to revise your work but prevent remixing it. Even considering the distinction that remixing brings up the issue of the licenses of the different works being remixed, from a permissions standpoint, if I give you permission to revise you also have permission to remix.

Distance Research Project

2009-02-06T10:10:00.000-08:00

I am still in the process of refining my distance research project. With the help of Charles Graham I have refined my research questions to be:

Research Questions

1. What online technologies do Religious Education Faculty use to facilitate learning?
2. Why do they use it?
3. How do they most effectively use it?
4. Are there any issues that are unique to online technologies and religious education? (e.g. not just concerned with knowledge acquisition but the spiritual edifying of students).
5. In what ways do Religious Education Faculty members consider “openness” (publishing resources for a wider audience) as part of their teaching stewardship?

I have completed three interviews with faculty members and so far I think they have gone well. I have certainly learned from hearing their perspectives. When you hang out in distance learning and open education courses your perspective tends to get a little skewed. Below is a rough transcript of one of the interviews, I've made some slight changes to protect confidentiality. If you have any bright ideas as I pursue this inquiry, please feel free to share them.

Q. What online technologies do you use to facilitate learning?

A. Mostly Blackboard. I give tests on blackboard, papers, PowerPoints, web links, assignments appear and are submitted on Blackboard.
I think that with a BYU TV output, and then respond through something like Blackboard you would be very close to really having the world as your campus.

Q. Why do you use these technologies?

A. Saves time, less paper, Makes it easier for students to see their grades.
Electronic interaction is so good that it eliminates confusion on the part of students—fewer emails from students, fewer students stopping by.

Q. How do you use these technologies to maximize their effectiveness?

A. I teach off of Blackboard –accesses the PowerPoint via BBoard. Modeling how to use Bboard.
We have to do a better job at the adult teaching level for motivating learning. We assume that adults want to learn but that isn’t really true in the classroom. You as the teacher has the responsibility to make the classroom fun and interesting and motivational to learn. Need to find ways to motivate people to learn. University level students need motivational online teaching strategies—we have to get better at these things.

Q. Are there online technologies you have considered using but chose not to? If so, why?
I have considered taking media that I didn't want to take class time to show and put it on BlackBoard. There is lots of good media that could be developed so that students could watch it on their own in Blackboard.
Time/availability/cost are things that have prevented him from doing these things.

Q. Are there any issues that you have considered regarding online technologies and religious education?

A. I’m sure there is some truth to the idea that distance makes it harder to edify, but it hasn’t bothered the Brethren to take GC out there. But GC is only spiritually interactive. There is a difference between preaching and teaching, but I think you could have a pretty good package if you could have the interactivity where someone could participate in class long distance. All we really need is one student or TA who can take questions from a student in the Philippines. Not taking it live might reduce participation.

Q. In what ways (if any) do you consider “openness” (publishing resources for a wider audience) as part of your teaching stewardship?

If you had a BYU ID you could be still sign up for blackboard in a BYU course. The main obstacle to publishing things on iTunes, etc. is the amount of time I have available. If I had enough student TAs I could teach the world.

7. Any ideas of how else I should talk with?

Distance: Articles report #4

2009-02-03T09:08:00.000-08:00

Articles from International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning

Summary of theories utilized in these articles (total does not equal eleven, as some articles drew on multiple theories:

Transactional distance—3
Moore’s three types of interaction—3
Openness—2
Industrialization—1
Communities of practice—1
Communities of inquiry—1
Theories pertaining to the benefits of blogging—1
Persistence and retention—1

I noticed that the top 3 theories are all theories that I have studied either in this or other classes. It may be that I am falling into the trap of “once you know how to use a hammer, everything becomes a nail,” but I suspect that transactional theory as well as the different types of interaction are foundational issues in the world of distance education. I was surprised that only one of the articles mentioned conversational theory and it was only a passing reference.

1. Annand, D. (2007). Re-organizing Universities for the Information Age. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 8(3), 1-9.

Theoretical Framework(s):

One theoretical framework that Annand uses is the idea of Industrialization. In fact, the very first word of his article is “Peters” in references to Peters’ discussion of this theory. He also utilizes the conversation framework when discussing the three forms of interaction (student-teacher, student-student, and student-content), and highlighting how they are used in a University setting. He also uses Moore’s theory of transactional distance.

2. Barnard, L., Paton, V., & Lan, W. (2008). Online Self-Regulatory Learning Behaviors as a Mediator in the Relationship between Online Course Perceptions with Achievement. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 9(2).

Theoretical Framework(s):

The authors draw on the theory of transactional distance as well as Schunk’s theories regarding self-regulated learning. They seek to find a relationship between these theories, e.g. does one’s level of self-regulation affect how one perceives transactional distance.

3. Bray, E., Aoki, K., & Dlugosh, L. (2008). Predictors of Learning Satisfaction in Japanese Online Distance Learners. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 9(3).

Theoretical Framework(s):

These authors also cite Anderson’s theory regarding the three kinds of student-interactions, and discuss the challenges of getting the mix right.

4. Caswell, T., Henson, S., Jensen, M., & Wiley, D. (2008). Open Educational Resources: Enabling universal education. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 9(1).

Theoretical Framework(s):

I don’t know that there is a theoretical framework that the authors are using (at least not one that I am aware of). In their review of OpenCourse Ware it is clear that there is a theoretical construct of openness, but I am not sure that they specifically draw on that in their research.

5. Deka, T. S., & McMurry, P. (2006). Student Success in Face-To-Face and Distance Teleclass Environments: A matter of contact? International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 7(1).

Theoretical Framework(s):

Although not specifically stated, it seems to me that the theory of transactional distance was the primary focus of this study. The authors were comparing F2F learners with those watching the same lectures at a distance. They discuss the “connection” between the students and teachers and noticed that the distance students felt less of a connection. TO me this appeared to be in the realm of the transactional framework.

6. Eib, B. J., & Miller, P. (2006). Faculty Development as Community Building. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 7(2).

Theoretical Framework(s):

These authors did not appear to be drawing on theoretical frameworks that are specific to distance education. Rather they focus on a theory of communities of practice (citing Barab) and Schon’s theory of the importance of reflection.

7. Grandzol, C. J., & PhD, J. R. G. (2006). Best Practices for Online Business Education. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 7(1).

Theoretical Framework(s):

These authors discuss best practices and frame much of the “best practice ideas” in terms of how well these methodologies promoted “communities of inquiry.” They cite Scardamalia and Bereiter, Lave and Wenger, and Garrison as having significant influence on their ideas regarding why communities of inquiry are important and how to create them.

8. Leslie, P. H., & Murphy, E. (2008). Post-Secondary Students' Purposes For Blogging. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 9(3).

Theoretical Framework(s):

These authors review literature relating to blogging. Their overall theory seems be that blogging allows students to write in a journal-format. This format helps students feel more comfortable in writing entries and provides a way to help students share their feelings with the teacher and other students.

9. Müller, T. (2008). Persistence of Women in Online Degree-Completion Programs. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 9(2).

Theoretical Framework(s):

The theoretical focus of this article concerns factors relating to persistence and retention. From looking at the authors they cite it appears that Tinto was a foundational theorist in this field and that many others have built on his theory, examining different factors that affect students persisting to finish distance courses. I believe at some level this also relates to transactional distance.

10. Pan, G., & Bonk, C. J. (2007). The Emergence of Open-Source Software in North America. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 8(3).

Theoretical Framework(s):

Similar to the article on OpenCourse Ware, this article does not seem to have a clear theoretical base that relates to distance education specifically. Rather, the theory is based on the benefits having resources be openly available.

11. Shachar, M. (2008). Meta-Analysis: The preferred method of choice for the assessment of distance learning quality factors. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 9(3).

Theoretical Framework(s):

The theory Shachar draws on seems to be that to draw conclusive results it is best to synthesize multiple studies. He states, “One of the benefits and advantages of conducting mata-analysis is that it ‘gives a voice’ to ‘small and distinct’ studies, each one in itself not strong enough to qualify as being statistically significant, or robust enough to warrant serious consideration. But ‘integrated together,’ can contribute their findings to the ‘big picture’” (3).

Distance: Computer Mediated Communcation

2009-02-03T09:07:00.001-08:00

It was interested to study two articles that centered on Computer Mediated Communication (CMC). The first article by Randy Garrison was entitled “Computer conferencing: the post-industrial age of distance education.” I thought it would an article about video conferencing. Then I noticed the publication date was 1997, and read that CMC “is characterized by its asynchronous text-based (written) communication” (3).

Similarly, in the article “Group Development in Online Distance Learning Groups” the authors pointed out that when they wrote that in 2003, when they wrote this chapter for the first edition of the Distance Education Handbook “most online group development occurred through asynchronous modes. Today online groups increasingly operate in blended learning environments and use a variety of collaborative, synchronous technologies to communicate and accomplish their work (142).

The changes in technology demonstrate that in the short space of a decade the tools to facilitate computer mediated conversations have dramatically improved.

Garrison focused a significant part of his article on how the differences between “real-time verbal and asynchronous written communication (4). Although a lot of communication done in distance education now is not asynchronous written communication I believe that these distinctions are still important. Garrison states, “It would appear that the asynchronous (i.e. reflective) and precise nature of this means of communication is consistent with higher-order thinking and cognitive development. Since the exchange of messages is less rapid and are stored, learners do not have the burden of remembering the points made by other speakers while waiting for one’s turn to speak. For this reason, it allows time for reflection and, thereby, facilitates learning making connections amongst ideas and constructing coherent knowledge structures” (5).

As I think about asynchronous communications that I am a part of (including this blog) I believe the above statement is true. If I were just verbally responding to these articles I probably would not do so with as much care. Writing down my thoughts enables me to go back and carefully review the articles, selecting quotes that I want to share and structuring my thoughts in a coherent way. All without the time pressure of having people wait to see what I will say. In some ways this type of communication can increase the quality of a dialogue, in that if the quality of comments increases, the quality of the dialogue overall with increase also.

If there are all these advantages to asynchronous written communication, are these advantages taken away when the class becomes a video conferencing class? I don’t think so—this newer technology simply enables other types of learning and bonding to take place. The asynchronous written communication can continue to take place in structured ways (like the assignment that initiated this blog post). In addition, teachers in F2F classes can structure writing assignments, (such as in class last week in which we all responded to this blog post). Although not asynchronous, it still provided the time for reflective writing.

One other thing I want to note from the readings is “when groups work online, anonymity and idea generation are increased Individuals working in large online groups feel a greater sense of anonymity, are less inhibited, and feel freer to express their ideas. They also have a tendency to produce more unique ideas” (143). Again, I think this is a basic principle of learning and group work that need not be confined only to distance learning. However, the ways in which computer mediated communications facilitate bringing large numbers of people into the conversation may make it so this advantage is something important to consider when structuring learning at a distance.

Book Review: The Public Domain

2009-02-02T13:36:00.003-08:00

This book was both depressing and fabulous. Depressing because I did not realize how difficult the challenge of copyright is. Fabulous because it was written in a way that was easy to understand and Boyle's points came across with strength. It was a book that everyone involved in copyright law should read. If you want to preview the book (or even read the whole thing) you can download it at http://www.thepublicdomain.org/

Kudos to you Mr. Boyle for openly licensing your book.

The book is easy to read, and takes a complicated matter and makes it very accessible. In one sense, this book is depressing. Boyle’s logic is impeccable and I find myself feeling discouraged at the copyright laws that we have and feeling like there is no hope. I believe that most people who agree this book would agree with its conclusions, but most people (myself included) just haven’t thought about these issues carefully.

Some of the main points that were interesting to me:

• Early thinkers such as Thomas Jefferson specifically did not want intellectual property to have a lengthy copyright. The Constitution itself states that it must be limited, and Jefferson and others were clearly concerned that the limitation be no longer than what was needed to encourage innovation.
• The difference between rivalrous and non-rivalrous goods and how this relates to “the tragedy of the commons.”
• Grokster—I had never heard of this company, the Supreme Court ruled that its actions were illegal, which has inhibited legitimate growth in peer to peer exchanges.
• Had one simply imagined the Internet with the tight restrictions or way of thinking some have today with regard to copyright law it might have seemed completely ludicrous. The benefits we receive from the Internet could have been eliminated had somebody said, “this free sharing of information—sounds like a lot of potential for piracy.
• One needs to think carefully about how much harm is actually being caused by copyright violation and have a stick just big enough to address it, but not bigger.

This excerpt helped drive home the point as it applies to us today:

"Go to the Library of Congress catalogue. It is online at http://catalog.loc.gov/. This is an astounding repository of material—not just books and periodicals, but pictures, films, and music. The vast majority of this material, perhaps as much as 95 percent in the case of books, is commercially unavailable.6 The process happens comparatively quickly. Estimates suggest that a mere twenty-eight years after publication 85 percent of the works are no longer being commercially produced. (We know that when U.S. copyright required renewal after twenty-eight years, about 85 percent of all copyright holders did not bother to renew. This is a reasonable, if rough, guide to commercial viability.)7 Yet because the copyright term is now so long, in many cases extending well over a century, most of twentieth-century culture is still under copyright— copyrighted but unavailable. Much of this, in other words, is lost culture. No one is reprinting the books, screening the films, or playing the songs. No one is allowed to. In fact, we may not even know who holds the copyright. Companies have gone out of business. Records are incomplete or absent. In some cases, it is even more complicated. A film, for example, might have one copyright over the sound track, another over the movie footage, and another over the script. You get the idea. These works—which are commercially unavailable and also have no identifiable copyright holder—are called “orphan works.” They make up a huge percentage of our great libraries’ holdings. For example, scholars estimate that the majority of our film holdings are orphan works.8 For books, the estimates are similar. Not only are these works unavailable commercially, there is simply no way to find and contact the person who could agree to give permission to digitize the work or make it available in a new form" (9).

What a tragedy that so much of "copyrighted" work is no longer available. It seems to me that it is completely reasonable to have copyright last 14 years with two renewable 14 year terms (Boyle suggests a 28 year term).

Boyle does not leave the reader hopeless. His call for citizens to make efforts to unlock the commons inspired me to be more open in my own work.

Boyle gives a thorough review of copyright, and I highly recommend this book.

Book Review: The Mormon Way of Doing Business

2009-01-31T15:50:00.000-08:00

I have been wanting to read The Mormon Way of Doing Business for a long time. I had heard a talk on CD by Jeff Benedict (the author) and really enjoyed it (my brief review of it is posted on the previous link).

This book chronicles how eight LDS businessmen live their lives and juggle the responsibilities they have with their families, church callings and their intense work assignments. I felt inspired by their examples and wanted to be better. Although they each had a different style of doing things, there are lessons to be learned from each.

One anecdote that impressed me was how Clayton Christensen defined when he would and would not work (you must read his talk here). Truly profound! Anyways, he was a new hire, working for a high-profile company. He was asked to come to a work meeting on Sunday. He said, "I've got a problem--I've committed not to work on Sundays." The manager was mad, but switched the meeting to a Saturday. When he informed Christensen, Christensen said, "I'm sorry but I have a problem. You see, I've committed to my wife that I will keep Saturday a day for the family." When the manager expressed displeasure, Christensen said, "If it won't work for you to have me spend time in this way than perhaps it would be better if I found other employment." In other words, he wasn't backing down.

Turns out the manager rescheduled the meeting for Friday and it became known that Christensen didn't work Saturdays and Sundays. He did however arrive at the office at 6 AM Monday-Friday, and didn't take lunch breaks.

Kim Clark worked a similar ethic; his rule was to always be home by 6:30 PM. In each case the men balanced their priorities differently, but it was neat to see how they had been successful by carefully putting first things first.

There is much more I could write by way of insights I gained from this book--I highly recommend you read it.

Friday Review

2009-01-30T08:24:00.000-08:00

It's been another great week. Some of the highlights are as follows...

Distance Education: I woke up at 3:00 AM Wednesday morning thinking about my research project in this class. I'm really interested in learning about simple technologies for publishing one's research/classroom materials at a distance for others to take advantage of. What drives some faculty members to do so? What are prevents others from doing it? What are technologies that most easily facilitate the distribution of such materials? These are questions I am interested in exploring further.

Open Education: A question was asked about the usefulness of OERS: "If a tree falls in the forest does anybody hear it?" --If I openly publish something, will anyone notice? David's response was, "If Google hears the tree fall, then yes, others will hear it." Profound. Also it was interesting to hear Dr. Osguthorpe's observation on how licensing ChemLab to Pearson had led to much wider distribution than it would have received had it just been "open." If one is interested in disseminating ideas it needs to remember that openness is one tool, but not necessarily the best tool for every situation. I believe it is often a good tool, just not one that is considered as often as it should be.

Assessment: We got the results of our test back, and I proved once again that I need to worry less about the grade and more about the learning. As I have said, "I don't care what grade I get, as long as it is an A." I have resolved to just focus on what I am learning and not stress about grades. I believe my learning goals are sufficiently high that they should meet the required bar.

Research: Spent some valuable time in the library learning about research tools. I look forward to meeting with Rachel, the education research librarian on Monday to learn more. I'm in the process of refinining my questionairre on scripture study.

Distance: Research Question

2009-01-30T06:18:00.000-08:00

I've been thinking about the research question to study for this class. I have a few different ideas, but the one that I woke up thinking about at 3 AM a couple of days ago concerned surveying faculty to members to determine their attitudes towards and uses of tools that would help them distribute some of their ideas at a distance. I found this literature review regarding faculty perceptions of distance education and read through it to see what I could find. One thing I noted was that the focus was on creating complete distance education courses. I am more interested in studying how faculty perceive and use Web 2.0 tools to share part of their teachings at a distance. For example how do faculty members view podcasting their lectures? What prevents them from doing so?

My initial thought is to interview 5-7 faculty members asking questions such as...

1. What tools (if any) do you use to share your course content with those at a distance?

2. If they do use tools, ask about the ways in which they use them and why the use them. Also, why do they not use other tools.

3. If they do not use tools, why not? Is there a technical barrier, a low perceived value?

4. I will also ask them if they know of faculty members that they feel are successful in using tools to promote distance learning. This will help me find a wider variety of users.

I would hope that I could turn this study into a paper by the end of the semester. Actually doing the research would be very helpful for me.

Comments/suggestions?

Using ISI to measure journal impact

2009-01-27T15:42:00.000-08:00

Suppose that you are trying to see the level of impact a specific journal has. Using the ISI web of science you can figure this out--

1. Go to http://lib.byu.edu/

2. Click Journal Citation Reports (ISI)

3. Click "social science" (in my case) and subject of interest.

4. Sort journals by impact.

--note--obviously this isn't the only important factor to consider in selecting a journal, I just thought it was cool. I still need to learn more about how to use this tool. If you have ideas, please let me know.

Distance: Transactional Theory

2009-01-24T17:51:00.001-08:00

The transactional distance theory states that a "psychological and communications space" (transactional distance) exists between the instructor and student (22). Depending on the level of dialog and structure in a distance education class the transactional distance will vary. Increased structure The greater the level of transactional distance the more autonomy the students will need to have.

In one of the articles we read Moore focuses on three types of interaction (where these uses are strong "dialog" would be increased and transactional distance would be decreased). These three are "learner-content" "learner-instructor" and "learner-learner." Moore states that "the main weakness of distance education programs is their commitment to only one type of medium" (5). Those preparing distance (and other kinds of) education courses need to pay attention to the levels of these interactions.

I was particularly interested in the "learner-content" interaction as it reminded me of one of my favorite essays by David Hawkins (who served on David Williams' doctoral committee). Moore suggests that this may be one area in which Holmberg's conversational theory may be particularly applicable.

Thus far in this class we have focused on three theories--"industrialized education," "conversation" and now the "theory of transactional distance." Moore (the author of transactional distance theory) discusses the relationship between these theories as saying that Peters' (industrialized) model is the highest-level, with transactional theory nested underneath. Holmberg's (conversational) theory is a "lower-level system nested within the transactional distance system" (101). Thus we see that these theories do not need to conflict with each other but can come together in a whole.

One insight I gained while reading this article stemmed from Moore's argument that transactional distance is a matter of degrees and that (commenting on Holmberg's theory) "Rather than declare that all teaching should be conversational, it would be more helpful to describe what kinds of students benefit and do not benefit from such an approach, and what aleternatives are available to each" (101). Typically, I have tried to find "the one best way." This quote illustrates that there may not be a "best way" for every situation. In some cases high transactional distance is okay. At times, a conversational approach may be the best way to go. And perhaps even an industrialized mass-produced product also has its place. The key is to guage the needs of the learner and match them with the appropriate pedagogical tools.

Friday Review

2009-01-23T15:41:00.001-08:00

This Friday review will be brief--but I can't stop a habit when I've just started it! Insights from this week:

Distance Ed: The conversational theory has lots of good insights both for distance education and instructional design in general. Try to think of teaching as having a conversation--what things are interesting in conversation? How does one have an interesting conversation (hint--it's not just from one person talking!)

Open Ed: I enjoyed the card game that we played and the Creative Commons quest really helped solidify my understanding of these different licenses. I am working to apply what I have learned by securing a CC license for a book I have published.

Stats/Research: I worked on an IRB proposal and am encouraged about the idea of measuring how students perceive their scripture study and how much they read and seeing if there is any correlation between this and grading structures in their religion classes. We also had some great readings and discussion about writing and publishing papers.

Assessment: Having a test in this class did lots of things for me. First, it helped me really focus my learning and stuff some fact into my brain. Second, it gave me a lot more sympathy for my students who have to take tests. Third, it made me question the validity of testing in general and think more deeply about the outcomes I am trying to help my students achieve and what sorts of assessment measures could promote that learning.

Other: I worked on a book review of Disrupting Class. As I thought about disruptive innovations I feel that within the intersection of my studies and publishing that is room to target nonconsumers in important ways.

There's more to say...but not now!

Open: Sustainability

2009-01-23T15:30:00.000-08:00

This week I focused on Yochai Benkler's Common Wisdom: Peer Production of Educational Materials (http://www.benkler.org/Common_Wisdom.pdf)

One thing that impresses me about Benkler is his commitment to open publishing because it is the right thing to do. The fact that he personally releases books free and openly say a lot about his commitment to open education.

With regards to sustainability it is interesting to note how he describes the power of free time. He says, "A billion people in advanced economies have between two and six billion spare hours among them, every day. In order to harness two to six billion hours, the entire workforce of almost 340,000 workers employed by the entire motion picture and recording industries in the United States put together, assuming each worker worked forty hour weeks without taking a single vacation, for between three and eight and a half years!"

With that kind of free time every day it seems like there are few problems that could not be solved! Indeed this surplus time is one of the reasons that Wikipedia has been able to be so successful. So some might wonder, why haven't Wikipedia style textbooks taken off?

Benkler states, "The main problem with even a successful project seems to be that textbooks that look and feel like textbooks, and, more importantly, that comply with education department requirements, are not quite as susceptible to modularization as an encyclopedia or a newsletter like Slashdot. The most successful book on Wikibooks, for example, is the cookbook. But the cookbook had 1301 “chapters” as of July of 2005. In other words, each module was effectively a single recipe."

So are there sustainable solutions for textbooks? Particularly in fields that are not changing rapidly? I am involved in a project right now concerning Flatworld Knowledge, a company that is creating and distributing open textbooks. There business model is such that profit can be gained even by books that they are allowing free (and open) access to (more on this later).

As I was researching open textbooks and looking at sustainability issues I stumbled across an article that talks about motives people have for creating free textbooks. I believe that sustainbility is important, but not necessarily financial sustainability. I am persuaded by the volunteer hour count that Benkler cites and believe that incentives can be set forth to harness the power of this leisure time.

Below are other excerpts from Benkler's work that I found to be particularly important:

[all of the below are quotations--I'm not trying to integrate them, just quoting them because I want to save these excerpts.]

The problem of quality is best exemplified by the K-12 textbook market.i Significant consolidation in the past decade has left four major textbook publishers in the United States. At the same time, statewide adoption practices have meant that decisions by government officials in California, Texas, and Florida control the demand in roughly a quarter of the K-12 textbook markets. The combination has led to the content of most textbooks being determined through intense lobbying in the three state capitals. Because of the benefits of economies of scale in not producing different texts for these states, and then for others, textbooks have become relatively homogenized and aimed at some lowest common denominator—which may be challenging for states with cultures as different as those of Texas and California.

Beyond the sheer potential quantitative capacity, however one wishes to discount it to account for different levels of talent, knowledge, and motivation, a billion volunteers have qualities that make them more, rather than less, likely to produce what others want to read, see, listen to, or experience.

This leads to the more general statement of the problem of motivation. Our standard economic models for productive human action tend to assume that motivation is more or less homogenous, capable of aggregation, and reflects a utility value capable of summing within a single individual, even if not for purposes of interpersonal utility comparisons. This simple model was useful for economic modeling, but is wrong. There is now significant literature on the diversity of human motivation, on the availability of different forms of social, psychological, and material gain, and on the fact that there can be “motivation crowding out:” that is, that adding money to an activity will not necessarily increase the activity.iv Intuitively, this is hardly news to anyone who has not been indoctrinated in economics. That is, sometimes we do things for money.
Sometimes, however, we do not. Ranging from trivial acts like responding truthfully and with diligence to a stranger’s request for directions on the street, to quite substantial efforts we go to in order to help friends and family, or pursue a fun hobby, or do what we believe we ought to do as well adjusted members of society.

In the mid-1990s firm-centric views competed as strategies for searching and indexing the newly growing Web. The first were search engines like Altavista or Lycos. The second was Yahoo. The theory behind the search engines was that smart software developers would write the best possible algorithm to extract human meaning and relevance from a mechanical analysis of text and metatags in webpages. Yahoo’s innovation was to add human beings—its employees would look at websites, decide on their meaning and quality, and include and index them in a directory of the Web. In both cases the idea was that firms would pay smart employees to map the web, each in its own way. Both were largely wrong, and each in its own way lost to a competitor that used peer production instead. Google’s search algorithm, we have already seen, is aimed at the best possible capture of the opinions of website authors about which sites are good and relevant, rather than aiming at having the software itself be good enough to make that judgment mechanically. As for Yahoo, its peer produced alternative was the Open Directory Project. While Yahoo continues to be a successful company, it has done so by moving in very different directions. Its staff of paid employees could not effectively compete with sixty thousand volunteers, each monitoring one or two areas of particular interest to them, including and excluding sites as they spent small increments of time reading and surfing things they might well have spent time on anyway, but adding their knowledge in small increments to a volunteer run and peopled directory.

...Horner, for example, is considering a new system based on xWiki that would allow the implementation of a system with much smaller chunks, that would not be posted into a text, but into a database for peer review moderation. These, in turn, would be moderated, accepted, edited and or included. Such a system would also require integration of a reputation system, through which authors who contribute regularly and at high quality can be recognized by the system and given a greater role in moderating and editing the text so as to smooth it out. The trouble with such controls, however, is that they make it harder to capture the power of very large numbers of contributors. Indeed, the question of the extent to which Wikipedia would be and remain free for anyone to edit, with or without logging in, and without hierarchical preference for “authorized” and authoritative users was a critical, self-conscious, and contentious decision at the early stages of Wikipedia. It led Larry Page, who had been originally employed by Jimmy Wales to edit and set up the encyclopedia, to leave and vociferously criticize Wikipedia from the outside. But it turned out to have been a critically successful organizational choice. Whether greater modularization does indeed require tighter technical controls on contribution to maintain consistency, or whether in fact, the greater the modularization the lower the barriers necessary because no single contributor is likely to make a very large mistake, and because the contributions of many are required to move the project forward in these newly-smaller chunks, is a critical design question for the next phase of open textbook development.

This brings us to the second question, of whether or not, given such an open engine, educational materials, learning objects and contexts will in fact be authored, by whom, and with what degree of openness to further extension.

Distance: Article Report #3

2009-01-23T11:00:00.000-08:00

As I re-examined the articles I have been studying, specifically looking at data collection and analysis methods, I noticed some interesting themes. Five of the eleven articles I have been reading had no data collection. These articles focused on historical or theoretical issues dealing with distance education. Three of the articles used questionnaires to survey student opinions or outcomes and then used various statistical techniques to analyze the data looking for correlations. I noticed that two of these studies had a 33% response rate and the other had a 50% response rate. Three of the articles used a more qualitative approach. One article discussed an analysis of eight blogs and interviews the authors of the blogs; another reported on interviews with twenty women regarding distance education. The third described a professional development program in detail (case study).

I thought it was particularly interesting that of these eleven articles only one compared students who were in a F2F setting with students learning at a distance to compare their learning outcomes.

Below is a table that outlines specific methods used in each of the articles. Blogger would not let me copy/past from Word so I had to upload it as an image file. I spent some time researching a better way, but could not find one. Should you have insights as to how to do this, they are welcome.

Distance Ed: Articles Report #2

2009-01-20T10:45:00.000-08:00

As part of an ongoing report in Distance Education, I have selected twelve articles from the International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning to study. I will be looking for trends within these articles and reporting on various aspects of them each week. Today I examine the context of each of these articles.

1. Annand, D. (2007). Re-organizing Universities for the Information Age. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 8(3), 1-9.

Research Question(s):

Will universities need to make significant changes because of external forces in the world today? Digitization of information and the Internet make different forms of education (such as distance education) increasingly feasible. If universities need to change, what sorts of changes might those be? [theory based.]

Context:

This paper focuses on the university as a whole. There is no physical setting nor experimental unit of analysis per se; instead, the authors give a brief history of the university, focusing on the industrialization of education and its implications for learning. They also suggest that distance education is a disruptive innovation that has the potential to help educate the large numbers of individuals in areas without access to face to face education.

2. Barnard, L., Paton, V., & Lan, W. (2008). Online Self-Regulatory Learning Behaviors as a Mediator in the Relationship between Online Course Perceptions with Achievement. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 9(2).

Research Question(s):

Do self-regulatory learning behaviors mediate the relationship between student perceptions of online course communication and their academic achievement?

Context:

The context of this study was a public university in the Southwestern United States. An email survey sent to 628 students enrolled in online (these students are the unit of analysis) . The purpose of the survey was to determine the level of self-regulation that the students had (using a pre-made/validated questionnaire), and how this related to their GPA and feelings about distance learning. The students are the unit of analysis.

3. Bray, E., Aoki, K., & Dlugosh, L. (2008). Predictors of Learning Satisfaction in Japanese Online Distance Learners. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 9(3).

Research Question(s):

Are Japanese students in a specific online distance university satisfied with their experiences in distance education? What factors (if any) affect their satisfaction with distance education?

Context:

This study focuses on student enrolled in one of Japan’s online distance universities. Students at this schools are the unit of analysis.

4. Caswell, T., Henson, S., Jensen, M., & Wiley, D. (2008). Open Educational Resources: Enabling universal education. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 9(1).

Research Question(s):

In what ways do open educational resources have the potential to transform distance education? [theory based.]

Context:

This article does not have a clear physical context. It is more of an historical overview of open educational resources and a discussion of their benefits and challenges.

5. Deka, T. S., & McMurry, P. (2006). Student Success in Face-To-Face and Distance Teleclass Environments: A matter of contact? International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 7(1).

Research Question(s):

Can students succeed in a low-contact distance (versus face to face) environment? What factors might predict a student’s success in distance education?

Context:

The physical location of this study is a mid-sized Midwestern university. Research was conducted with both face to face and distance students. One interesting facet of this study was the face to face students saw the lecture live, while the distance students saw the exact same lecture, but either saw it via distance live, or watched it later. Students were the unit of analysis and were given surveys to measure them in a variety of ways.

6. Eib, B. J., & Miller, P. (2006). Faculty Development as Community Building. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 7(2).

Research Question(s):

How can faculty development increase community building, regardless of the physical distances separating faculty members? [theory based.]

Context:

The setting for this article is a higher educational organization in Western Canada. This article is a case study of sorts as the authors describe how faculty members in this organization developed a strong community of practice, and how this helped their faculty development.

7. Grandzol, C. J., & PhD, J. R. G. (2006). Best Practices for Online Business Education. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 7(1).

Research Question(s):

What does the literature say are the best practices for online business education?

Context:

This article synthesizes several articles on distance-based education in the field of business. The units of analysis are articles on various aspects of distance education.

8. Leslie, P. H., & Murphy, E. (2008). Post-Secondary Students' Purposes For Blogging. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 9(3).

Research Question(s):

What purposes do post-secondary students have for blogging?

Context:

The setting for this study was in the Foundations Department of the Dubai Women’s College. Eight women, along with the blogs they studied, were the units of analysis.

9. Müller, T. (2008). Persistence of Women in Online Degree-Completion Programs. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 9(2).

Research Question(s):

Why do women persist, or fail to persist in distance education, and what are the factors that support or hinder women in completing distance education courses?

Context:

The context of this qualitative study was a college in northeastern United States. This is an “open-admissions” college and offer both undergraduate and graduate degrees. Twenty women were interviewed about their abilities to persist in their education; these women are the units of analysis.

10. Pan, G., & Bonk, C. J. (2007). The Emergence of Open-Source Software in North America. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 8(3).

Research Question(s):

What are the educational implications of open-source software? [theory based.]

Context:

This article does not have a clear physical context nor unit of analysis. It is an historical overview of open software and its educational implications.

11. Shachar, M. (2008). Meta-Analysis: The preferred method of choice for the assessment of distance learning quality factors. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 9(3).

Research Question(s):

What are the advantages of meta-analysis in distance education? [theory based.]

Context:

This article also lacks a clear physical context or unit of analysis. It is rather a treatise on the importance of meta-analysis, and suggestions for how to do meta-analysis.

Open: CC Licenses

2009-01-19T14:58:00.000-08:00

I started out my research on Creative Commons with this question in mind: Suppose I have a book that is published in print. The publisher has exclusive print rights to the book, but I have exclusive digital distribution rights. Can I/should I put a creative commons license on my digital version. What effect (if any) would it have on the publisher’s copy?

As I explored the CC site, I found some very helpful information. From the video on their front page, I learned that whenever you create anything you are automatically given 100% copyright over whatever you created. If you want your work to be freely shared it technically is illegal without your permission.

A basic question that many have is: [quoting from creative commons:] “What are the terms of a Creative Commons license?

The key terms of the core suite of Creative Commons licenses are: Attribution, NonCommercial, NoDerivatives and ShareAlike. These license elements are succinctly described as follows:

Attribution. You let people copy, distribute, display, perform, and remix your copyrighted work, as long as they give you credit the way you request. All CC licenses contain this property.

NonCommercial. You let people copy, distribute, display, perform, and remix your work for non-commercial purposes only. If they want to use your work for commercial purposes, they must contact you for permission.

ShareAlike. You let people create remixes and derivative works based on your creative work, as long as they only distribute them under the same Creative Commons license that your original work was published under.

NoDerivatives. You let people copy, distribute, display, and perform only verbatim copies of your work — not make derivative works based on it. If they want to alter, transform, build upon, or remix your work, they must contact you for permission.”

These elements can be “remixed” into six difference licenses. The key acronyms are:

BY—meaning attribution is required.
SA—meaning that users are required to put the same CC license that you used on any remix or redistribution of your work.
NC—meaning that there can be no commercial uses of your work.
ND—No derivatives allowed. The whole work can be copied, but no remixes.

The associated symbols are:

Attribution

Share Alike

Noncommercial

No Derivative Works

Their definitions of licenses are here:

My short version follows:

BY—least restrictive. Only attribution is required.

BY-SA—people can remix as long as they attribute you and use your same CC license.

BY-ND—people can share your work in its entirety, (commercially or not) as long as you are given full credit.

BY-NC—people can remix your work, but can’t make commercial uses of it, though they can relicense it however they want. I have a hard time seeing why people would choose this license.

BY-NC-SA—like BY-NC, except people have to use the same license you did.

BY-NC-ND—Like BY-ND, except no commercial uses. Most restrictive license.

Another question that comes up is, “If I use a photo that has been CC licensed, am I guaranteed that I won’t have any legal issues with it?” Sadly, the answer is NO!

From the CC website:
“You should learn about what rights need to be cleared and when a fair use or fair dealing defense may be available. It could be that the licensor is relying on the fair use or fair dealing doctrine, but depending on the circumstances, that legal defense may or may not actually protect her (or you). You should educate yourself about the various rights that may be implicated in a copyrighted work, because creative works often incorporate multiple elements such as, for example, underlying stories and characters, recorded sound and song lyrics. If the work contains recognizable third-party content, it may be advisable to independently verify that it has been authorized for reuse under a Creative Commons license. If the work contains images, voices, or likenesses of people, educate yourself about publicity rights. The result of this is that you should always use your informed good judgment, and you may want to obtain legal advice.”

To me this is very disappointing—it somewhat negates the positives of using CC images on Flickr. The story of Virgin Mobile getting sued for using a CC licensed photo gives one pause.

So back to my original question--can I relicense my digital version without affecting the rights of the print version? I believe the answer is yes, if I put a BY-NC-ND license on it. With such a restrictive license, one asks, "What is the point of even using it?" From what I understand the purpose would be so that people could email the e-book to each other freely which they technically could not do if the regular copyright restrictions were in effect.

Distance: Conversational Theory

2009-01-19T14:07:00.000-08:00

In Holmberg's article, "Course development—fundamental considerations" I was surprised by the strong constructivist bent. I have always thought of distance education as simply dispensing information. But Holmberg believes that distance education cannot be simply content delivery. Helping students connect with prior knowledge and create their own knowledge is of paramount importance. One thing I did not understand was on page 48 Holmberg states that students who do “too much elaboration seem to risk having difficulties in retracing the text information in the multitude of connections they have established.” I can understand the danger in too little elaboration, but I am not certain of the dangers of “too much elaboration.”

One of his key points was that students will be more likely to engage if there is a conversational feeling to what they read. He gives specific ideas about how to write texts—not too dense, a personal tone, attempts to engage the student in conversation so to speak, and engage the student emotionally. Using personal pronouns.

Another suggested idea was to imagine that you are tutoring and individual and then write down that conversation as though you were having it with an individual

One specific suggestion I found interesting was regarding the insertion of questions into the text to increase the conversation-like quality. Holmberg states, “To the extent they make students aware of how they learn and direct their attention to reflection, inserted questions are likely to support learning” (66).

I particularly found the following valuable from a practioner’s standpoint. :

1. 7 points of guided didactic conversation (p.47).
2. 6 points of creating a conversation text (p. 48).
3. 9 suggestions of making a tutorial in print (p. 52).
4. Gagne’s 9 events of instruction (p.66).

In the article “A theory of distance education based on Empathy,” Holmberg presents information that is largely similar to the previous article. He states that the first part of his theory of distance education is that it serves people who cannot or do not want to have face to face instruction, assuming it seems that f2f is the de-facto method of teaching.

Holmberg also states that having students feel an empathy and belonging will help students want to learn—thus the reason for “conversation-like presentations of the subject matter” (82).

In each of these readings Holmberg talks about how “three empirical studies” tested his conversation theory “to rigorous falsification attempts” but admits that although his theory has not been proved false, neither is their evidence that assures us it is true. I would like to learn more about the research that was done and if other research has validated his theory.

Holmberg cites Baath as doing research that shows that the frequency with which assignments were turned in did not seem to affect the course completion or test results of students. Did it affect their empathic feelings towards the course or subject matter?

To me, the tenets of the conversational approach are somewhat at odds with the industrialization approach. The "empathy" idea does not seem to be in harmony with the "get as many students in and out" approach. I do believe that as long as one is going to write text that is intended to be used as a way to dessminate information using the principles espoused by Holmberg could help make the material more palatable.

Friday Review

2009-01-16T11:13:00.000-08:00

One of the goals I set for myself this semester was to reflect on my learning each Friday. I have four core courses that I am taking and each week I plan to review my class and reading notes and write a paragraph about what has impressed me in each class.

1. Distance Education.

One thing that has stayed with me is an insight from a Robyn Williams article in which once she learned about a "Joshua Tree" she saw it everywhere she looked, though previously she thought she had never seen it before. Williams states, "Once you can name something you have power over it." This quote was used (I believe) to illustrate the power of theories. Once we see and understand certain theories we can then use them in various frameworks. The main framework we discussed this past week was the industrialization (mass production and delivery) of education. I appreciated Dr. Graham's comment pointing out that with the technological tools that we have, mass production/delivery do not necessarily need to be in conflict with personalization. I'm interested in learning more about these tools.

2. Open Education

The SLAM analysis of openness had an impact on me. In my efforts to be "open" thus far I have been sort of a "closed open person." Meaning that I am not doing everything I can do to make things easy to revise and remix. My openness has been to post .pdf files which may not be as easily editable as other formats. As I hope to take part in encouraging others to be more open with the materials they have authored I need to help them see that there are levels to openness. I also want to record that I was touched by a prayer offered in this class and believe that because of my publishing with Deseret Book I may be able to help influence openness in certain LDS markets that may be beneficial for others.

3. Assessment

This class really intrigues me because I believe the topic is so important. This week we discussed Bloom's Taxonomy, which I have studied before, but not analyzed in terms of measurement. I am chagrined to see that a lot of what I test for is fact-recall and look forward to the assignments that will help me to tweak this. Also in this class I have used I-Clickers for the first time and I really see the power of these as teaching tools. Perhaps BYU should raise tuition $8.00 for student and provide all freshmen with one.

4. Research and Statistics

I really like the textbook for this class. The writers give clear examples that are both interesting and easy to follow. The assignment for this class to conduct research is exciting and I have already started working on my IRB proposal. This class in fact starts in a few minutes and so I must pass on the opportunity of writing more about it at the moment.

Open: Comparing MIT and OLI open courses

2009-01-15T14:48:00.000-08:00

Comparing MIT and OLI open courses

For those not interested in reading the specifics (likely everybody who reads this post) here is my short version of a comparison between the MIT and OLI courses.

1. In general the OLI courses pass the "SLAM" test better, meaning they would be easier to revise and repurpose.

2. In general the OLI courses seemed more like courses that I could "take" on my own and really get a lot from the course.

3. I really liked the quiz features on OLI and felt that they were very helpful for learning.

4. The breadth of courses offered by MIT is amazing.

In general, forced to choose between the two, I would rather take all OLI courses.

OLI course #1: Economics

—I could tell that there was some good things happening in this course; however, the layout was a little confusing. I went through three modules and it frequently referred to an experiment with X numbers of traders and I was not sure how that related to the course. I’m sure that there is a strong logic behind it, and perhaps I entered the course at the wrong place; however, trying to act as an interested but not totally committed user, I think I would back out of the course since the structure wasn’t making perfect sense to me. It also appeared from the course description that parts of the course were in fact closed.

OLI course #2: Causal Reasoning and Statistics

One thing that is cool about this course is that at the end of each module there is a quiz that one can take to check your understanding. Another interesting feature was that they invited you to offer contributions to the course by emailing them if you found an online causality example that could add to the course. There were cool simulations and then quizzes to see if you understood them (I got 100% on the one I took J). I thought that all quizzes were open, but the one at the end of the module said: Quiz > Causation: Preliminaries Quiz (Not available in Open and Free courses.) Some other quizzes were available. It wasn’t readily apparent to me why some were included and others were not. On one of the quizzes I took it gave you feedback to let you know whether your answer was wrong or right and why. Cool and helpful!

OLI Course #3: Logic and Proofs

Another good course. One thing I noticed this time when I took the quiz was that if you get the answer wrong it does not explain why you were right, it just says, “correct!” Some times I guessed correctly but would have appreciated a short explanation saying, this is why you are right.

In class today we talked about SLAM analysis, meaning that to tell how open a course is check the following measures are helpful.

* Self-sourced?
* Level of expertise?
* Access to editing tools
* Meaningfully editable?

With this in mind, on this course I noticed there was a video that one could watch; in addition, you could read a text that went along with the video. However, the video was in a format such that with my (decent) skills I could not edit as easily as I could an .mpg file. Similarly the quiz questions came up one at a time, and the process of copying and pasting them was much more laborious than it otherwise could have been.

OLI Course #4: Empirical Research Methods. I’m starting to feel like I have a feel for what an OLI course looks like. I appreciate the standardization and think that is helpful. I don’t think I have any new critiques to make of this course that are greatly different from my thoughts on courses #1-3.

OLI Course #5: Introduction to Statistics (Excel version).

This was another great course! It had more text (which I like) and in this course the quizzes gave you feedback whether you got an answer right or wrong (see course #3).

MIT Course #1: Chinese

Had lots of .pdf files, a “flashcube” (similar to electronic flashcards). In addition there were audio and video resources so that I could hear the Chinese tones. It seems like I could gain a lot from taking this course. As far as SLAM, it did seem that the .mp3 files could be easily repurposed and the text didn’t seem too bad either on the SLAM test, if one can manipulate .pdfs (which I cannot).

MIT Course #2: History of Philosophy This course was listed at the top of most-visited courses and it was a bit of a disappointment to me. It seemed to be full of .pdf lecture notes of the professor but I had a hard time following them (probably because I had not read the texts). It would be harder for me to use the materials from this course than one of the OLI courses for remixing. They had an “assignments” section which explained papers that a person is supposed to write, but no quizzes like OLI.

MIT Course #3: How to Develop "Breakthrough" Products and Services.

I found this course by navigating through the OCW site. There site is very well organized and the depth of content is amazing. I selected this site based by browsing through their courses specific looking at ones tagged as audio/video. I like how they have a variety of formats so that if my goal is to learn on the go, that is an option that is presented to me. Unfortunately with this course less than half of the lectures had video, and those that did used REAL media, which I don’t have. L

MIT Course #4: Comedy

I got to this course by browsing their new courses (thinking that the newer courses might have new approaches). I’ve been do a better job of creating humor so I was excited to check this course out. Sadly, I discovered that the syllabus said, “This class will not help you recognize, understand, or produce comedy more adeptly than you do now.” Oh well. I still perused the course. One of the things I don’t like about this (and other MIT courses) is that the readings are not available. The syllabus gives a list of dates and reading, but those readings aren’t easily accessible so I would have to go out and buy all the books if I really wanted to participate. A few of the readings were linked to Project Gutenberg sites, but some that I am pretty are in the public domain (e.g. Jane Austen) were still linked to Amazon to buy a copy. Furthermore there was this warning: “Note: All downloadable texts linked here are not the versions used in the course. Be aware that they may contain errors.” Kind of like the threatening notice David Wiley said they had in relation to the discussion board.

MIT Course #5: Economy and Business in Modern China and India

Same story as course #4. Texts all needed to be purchased separately and “lecture notes” were included for only one lecture. Looked like a fun course, but it was pretty sparse and there seemed to me almost no way that students could get value from this course (not to be overly critical) aside from benefiting from the organization of readings that the professor had put together.

Great resource for those in the BYU community

2009-01-14T13:05:00.000-08:00

Peter Rich pointed out a great tool that is free for those in the BYU community. It's called Cabells and shows a wide variety of academic journals. It gives information such as the acceptance rate for articles in that journal and other information. Happy publishing!

Distance: The industrialization of education

2009-01-14T10:47:00.001-08:00

In the second week of my distance education class we focused on the "industrialization theory" propounded by Peters. The essence of this theory is that many elements of industrialization were implemented in education, without regard to their pedagogical effects. In Learning and teaching in distance education, Peters emphasizes, that to industrialize something means “careful planning, division of labor, costly development, and objectivization” (112). For example, industrialization brought to a division of labor. Some people designing curriculum, others printing it, other presenting it. The focus was now on mass production and mass enrollment, and distance education became "the most industrialized form of education" in that it is specifically designed (in many cases) to educate as many students as possible using the least amount of resources.

In our class discussion the general view of industrialization was negative, in that students may be viewed more as objects, and there was a general negative sentiment (at least that is what I perceived). Peters himself did not say that the industrialization of education was a good thing.

Charles Graham pointed out though that as we look at these various theories it is easy to tear them apart, and that a more useful idea may be to see how parts of these theories can be used for good. As I have been thinking about the readings and class discussions, I have asked myself, "What important advantages do "industrialized resources" bring to education? For example, the distribution of General Conference .mp3s via the Church's website was done through the process of division of labor, there is no customization, and the goal is to maximize distribution. Is this bad?

As I think about various distance education opportunities that I am familiar with, the "industrialization" parts of them do not concern me. For example, I have recently downloaded lectures on "the psychology of happiness," "use of open objects" "copyright" and "statistics." All of these are topics I'm interested in and it does not concern me that I do not know the professor and cannot make personal contact. If it were not for the industrialization I would not be able to access this information.

On the other hand, I very much appreciate the opportunity I have to work with some of my current professors in a "community of practice" of sorts, that would not be an option with these other distance approaches. My point is that the industrialization of education is not "bad" nor "good." What I gained from the readings and class discussion is that those designing distance education need to carefully consider industrialization issues and design their materials appropriately.

Distance Ed: Articles report #1

2009-01-13T10:06:00.001-08:00

Open Ed: Motivations

2009-01-10T10:49:00.000-08:00

David Wiley in a report to Secretary of Education indicates that one motivation for open education is to improve educational quality by creating educational opportunities that are

Digital, Open, Mobile, Connected, Personal and Participatory (in other words to help education catch up with the rest of the world. Doing this allows students to get involved with courses before they enroll (or after they have long left the course.) His report can be read at: http://www.ed.gov/about/bdscomm/list/hiedfuture/3rd-meeting/wiley.pdf

I have hear sections of this testimony on many occasions. In many ways I am persuaded by his arguments. I do wonder however if the extra effort to make the course open (however marginal that may be) is worth the effort. For example, do we really need an “open algebra class” from BYU, MIT, Notre Dame, Harvard, UVU, Utah State, etc.? Wouldn’t one be enough?

I think David would say that the more material that is out there, the more likely a person would be to be able to customize what was out there to meet their needs. This presupposes that there is a large body of individuals who are out there just waiting to access the content. Again, I’m not sure how true this is.

For example, BYU Independent Study offers a free (though not open) Book of Mormon class. Approximately 1,000 people enroll in the course each year. On its face, that seems pretty good. But if on further examination it turns out that those 1,000 individuals spend an average of 5 minutes in the course then I would question whether it was worth the effort to make it happen.

On the other side of that argument there is Elder M. Russell Ballard who has said that even if you are only reaching a small group; how important is the one! I’m not discounting the value or motivations of Open Ed, just pointing out that I don’t think that the need for it is always clearly defined.

The need definitely exists. Gordon B. Hinckley’s discussion of the Perpetual Education Fund makes it clear that there are people with low incomes who will greatly benefit from education; it’s just hard to tell how open education fits into the puzzle. Would open education resources make it so a person in Peru could get free education to give him or her a better job?

For me personally my motivation in providing open educational content is to extend the sphere of my classroom. If I've already made a set of PowerPoints for the Book of Mormon class I teach, why not post them for others to view, even if only a few people see them? If I can email electronic copies of books I've published to others, why not do that and let people who would never buy a copy benefit from reading it online? So I am persuaded that the motivation to share is obviously good, and that paritcularly when the cost to share is low, and the benefits are high open education clearly makes sense.

Open Ed: Intro

2009-01-08T16:51:00.000-08:00

One of the classes I'm taking this semester is Introduction to Open Education. You may be feeling left out that you cannot take the course. Fear not! You can. Register for the course here. It's free. C'mon mom and dad, maybe you should try it!

This week I read about the beginning movements of Open Education (OE). Here are some of the highlights:

I began my study of the history of Open Education by reading A review of the Open Educational Resources (OER) movement. It’s available here.

Ten years ago there were not many open education resources; certainly not in the organized way that we have now. Hewlett provided funding to get OE going and the authors of this report believe that Hewlett has done an effective job of getting a movement started.

The flagship OER provider is MIT. They were the first to bring substantial resources to the community. Other significant providers are Rice Connexions, Carnegie Mellon’s Open Learning Initiative, Utah State’s COSL.

One of the additional links described as an "open education" resource was to Chengo—a “free” resource to learning Chinese. Sadly it no longer is free, which makes one wonder about the “sustainability” issue. They discuss several sustainability challenges the first on their list was funding. They said:

“A challenge of any fixed-term, externally funded initiative is long-term sustainability by an entity other than the original investor, in this case the Hewlett Foundation. In the MIT project, bringing a course to the OCW costs approximately $25,000 per course plus maintenance and enhancement. The MIT OCW model involves professional staff taking course material in almost any form from faculty and bringing it into a uniform, professional format. This was appropriate for the rapid startup of a large-scale, pioneering project but it will not work for many other places. It does appear, however, that MIT will be able to sustain the maintenance through internal funding and external contributions. Additional approaches to sustainability need to be explored, including the following:

1. Encourage institutions, rather than just individual pioneer-faculty, to buy into the OER movement so that institutional resources will be committed to sustain it.

2. Situate OER collections not as distinct from the courseware environment for the formally enrolled students but as a low marginal cost derivative of the routinely used course preparation and management systems. Increase the amount of course preparation and management systems that service closed and open institutional courseware...

4. Explore roles for students in creating, enhancing, and adopting OER. Consider an “OER Corps” in which students receive training, small stipends, and prestige to assist in material preparation, enhancement, and use (especially in historically disadvantaged domestic communities and developing countries).[I thought this idea was especially cool.]...

...Sustainability of OER is becoming a subject of academic study. Dholakia, King, and Baraniuk,81 for example, argue that current thinking on the topic is often solely tactical with too much attention on the “product” and not enough attention on understanding what its user community wants or on improving the OER’s value for various user communities. Their proposal is that “prior to considering different revenue models for a particular OER and choosing one or a combination of them, the OER providers should focus on the issue of increasing the aggregate value of the site to its constituents to the greatest extent possible. In other words, unless the OER site is able to first gain and maintain a critical mass of active, engaged users, and provide substantial and differentiated value to them in its start-up and growth phases, then none of the available and/or chosen revenue models will be likely to work for the OER in the long run.”

In other words, one of the challenges with OER is that we may be planning a big party (creating lots of OERs) but nobody wants to come (or wants the resources). Other sustainability challenges include the following:

* Preservation of Access
* Object Granularity and Format Diversity—they started out using .pdf as the key format but now that there many other file formats that can be easily converted they believe that xml is the method of choice.
* Intellectual Property Issues—some of the licenses are in conflict; there is also a “learning commons” movement.
* Content Quality Assessment and Enhancement—assessing which resources are good, and helping point people towards the best ones.
* Computing and Communication Infrastructure—especially in third world countries.
* Scale-up and Deepening Impact in Developing Countries

One very interesting statement occurred at the end of the sustainability section. The authors quote Sir John Daniels, saying

“Half of the world’s population is under twenty years old. Today, there are over thirty million people who are fully qualified to enter a university, but there is no place available. This number will grow to over 100 million during the next decade. “To meet the staggering global demand for advanced education, a major university needs to be created every week” (page 33).

This statement indicates that although there are several challenges to sustainability, the problem is real, and solutions must be found to meet the needs of these 100 million individuals.

The book Giving Knowledge for Free (available here) also had some great insights.

It described in greater detail MIT's reasons and history for beginning OE.Contrary to what was said in a previous article about the sustainability challenge of formatting, these authors state“While the OCW model is sometimes criticised for offering only static lecture notes in PDF format without interactivity, user evaluations from MIT OCW show that 97% of users find PDF a suitable format for their purposes (d’Oliveira, 2006).”

The authors also referred to MERLOT, which I think is interesting in its “peer reviewed” way of judging the educational artifacts submitted. I believe that something like “MERLOT for Seminary Teachers” could greatly improve the teaching quality of seminary.

The authors also observe that the majority of users of MIT OCW come from outside the US, a finding that is not true for all OER providers.

I thought the chapter on motivations and barriers for sharing was the most intriguing. Motivations for sharing include:

* It's good to share
* Educational institutions should leverage tax payer dollars by creating resources that others can freely use
* Others may improve what I've done (bread cast upon the water...)
* Good PR/free advertising
* May get people to purchase another form of the product eventually
* Increased reputation
* Ego of seeing yourself online and other people using your resources
* Prevention of monopolies

Drivers to share include

Increased access to broadband, and decreased cost for the creation of digital content is a driver in increasing OERs.

A prime barrier could be lack of funding as well as lack of reward systems for people who create OERs. Lack of licensing compatibility can increase the difficult of remixing, which decreases the motivation to provide content.

It is interesting how law could effect OERs. What would happen if government only funded open-education projects—the amount of resources would quickly multiply. Some European countries are investing in this way (such as the Dutch OpenER).

Another interesting thought, one similar to that which was shared by David Wiley in his lecture: “To establish a credible academic reward system that includes the production and use of OER might, therefore, be the single most important policy issue for a large-scale deployment of OER in teaching and learning.”

One last little nugget that I cannot help but repost. I think this is a very interseting question regarding what sort of expectations one should have when trying to create an open community of learning and how to increase participation:

Box 4.2. OLCOS Roadmap to open learning communities:

How much contribution can be expected, and how can the level of

participation be raised?

“One observer suggests: “It’s an emerging rule of thumb that suggests that if you get a group of 100 people online then one will create content, 10 will “interact” with it (commenting or offering improvements) and the other 89 will just view it.” (Arthur, 2006) For this pattern he cites available data for community content generation projects such as Wikipedia and discussion lists on Yahoo!. For example, on the Yahoo! Groups, 1% of the user population might start a group and 10% participate actively by starting a thread or responding to a thread in progress. The initial idea of a “1% Rule”, i.e. that about 1% of the total number of visitors to an “online democratized forum” (such as a wiki, bulletin board or community that invites visitors to create content), was promoted by the marketing consultants Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba (2006).

The ratio of creators to consumers is also important with respect to learning communities

which, among other activities, create content. But what really is important is not the “1%

Rule”, but the question of how to achieve at least 10% of people who add something to the initial activity and content. In an OLCOS expert workshop, Graham Attwell from Pontydysgu (Bridge to Learning) proposed what may be called the “searching–lurking–contributing” theory of learning processes: i) first, persons interested in a topic will “Google” some links; ii) then they will find denser places of content, such as a website of a community of interest, a thematic wiki, weblogs of experts on the topic, etc.; iii) then they will become “lurkers”, i.e. come back to find new information, discussions, commentaries, links, etc. If the community has a newsletter or an RSS feed they may also subscribe to such services. Finally, iv) if they feel “familiar” with the community they may also become contributors. So, a strategy for educational communities that want to raise the number of active participants and content contributors is first of all not to shut out learners who just want to observe what is going on. Furthermore, it is important to actively “grow” the community through direct information channels (e.g. a regular e-mail newsletter or RSS feed) and opportunities to participate (for other options that help to “familiarise” interested people, see the practical suggestions by Ross, 2002, and SitePoint Community, 2003).

Distance Ed: Getting started

2009-01-08T12:41:00.000-08:00

One of the classes I'm taking this semester is Distance Education. One of the reasons I'm taking this class is because I believe that there are incredible opportunities for educating people at a distance, and providing self-help tools. This past semester I worked on a website for an "independent research" class. The site is http://studyyourscriptures.com and I was thinking about this website as a form of "distance education." No, it's not a course that one could take (though the idea occurred to me to create a free online "how to improve your scripture study" web class occurred to me during class), but it's more of a piecemeal approach to educational resources at a distance. While I was creating the site I found several websites that had tips or ideas or provided free resources--my point is that all of this was (to me) "distance education" albeit not of a formal sort. My belief at the start of this course is that this kind of education (on-demand, not part of a formal course) is very important and I hope to learn more about how to create it, and make it more effective.

I briefly reviewed two articles giving a flavor for the research being done in distance ed research. I was intrigued by one journal called Open Learning. I googled and was led here. I was disappointed to see how closed this "open learning" journal was. In fairness, I'm not sure this is the same open learning journal.

In this blog, titles that begin with "Distance Ed" will relate to this class. If you're not interested in Distance Ed, feel free to skip them (not that you need my permission!).

Book Review: The Long Tail

2009-01-02T11:11:00.000-08:00

I very much enjoyed The Long Tail by Chris Anderson. The basic premise of the book is that the Internet has enabled more and more niche products to come into the public view and demand. For example, in the 70's, if you wanted to watch something, you had the ten choices of your local television channel. In the 80s and 90s cable and video rentals gave you more choices. Today you have a nearly limitless choice in what you watch thanks to Netflix and http://youtube.com (on which I have a few videos).

Increasing markets may be available in "niche" areas. Anderson uses the example of "who cares what the top ten hits are?" if I am interested in Latin dance music, I'll want to see the top ten in that market. People who can create and aggregate in demand niches may find new and/or expanding markets.

This is particularly helpful when store space is not a consideration. For example a typical Blockbuster rental store can only hold a few thousand DVDs, but Netflix's warehouses can hold 100,000. So Blockbuster can only afford to put the "blockbusters" in its stores because shelf space is at a premium. But Netflix's storage is considerably cheaper and so it can offer many, many more DVDs (even though they are not blockbusters). These are "the long tail." Increasing evidence shows that there is surprising demand in this long tail area. Back in 2006 when Netflix only had 25,000 DVDs they said that 95% rented at least quarterly. Apple said that every one of its then 1,000,000 tracks had sold at least once, and ecast said that 98% of their tracks sold at least once per quarter. Perhaps Blockbuster cannot afford to stock all the titles, but there is demand for less-poplular titles and people who can figure out a way to distribute them will be able to sell products. The "sweet spot" in this area is when you are selling digital products--storage and delivery are virtually free making it so you can have however large an inventory you want.

The graph of "the long tail" looks like this:

image from this site

Choice, and particularly informed choice often has the effect of increasing demand. Once again the message was given to distribute your content in as many ways as possible because certain people will only want it in certain ways.

The version of the book I read came with a new chapter called "The long tail of marketing." I thought this chapter was intriguing , particularly as far as how someone could apply it in order to increase visibility for their niche products. Ideas included figuring out "who's influential in our space...what/who influences them, how to get Digged, effective blogging, using beta-test invite lists as marketing, the art of begging for links, stunts, contests, and other link bait..." (242).

Anderson also states that "The best way to market to Long Tail consumers is to find out who is influencing them and focus your energies there. That starts with doing less messaging and more listening. Fortunately, the tools for listening have never been better. ALong wiht being the best word-of-mouth medium ever, the Web is also the most measurable one. There are dozens of free tools online that can tell you what people are saying about your brand and which of those people have the most influence" (230). He mentions Technorait filters, Google Alerts, and Google Trends as being ways to get a pulse on who is talking about your "long tail." I searched google trends for the term "scripture study" and was surprised to see that that phrase is most often googled from Salt Lake City, UT. Who knew?

I was intrigued by the use of google alerts, particularly in reference to a comment made by Stephanie on my post about the mind and the brain. Given the incredibly small readership of this humble blog, it seems most likely to me that Stephanie was using google alerts (or something like it) to find references to The Mind and the Brain on the Internet and then direct people reading and writing on this topic to this website. Super clever! (It got me to go there).

If you find people writing about you or your products Anderson suggests that the effective strategy "starts with listening (designate someone to monitor the feeds) and then figuring out when and how to respond. If a blogger praises a company or product, and email of thanks is often very appreciated ("They read my blog!") and can create a lasting evangelist. Criticism is tricker. Again, some sort of response is better than none, in part because it shows the blogger respect, which can go a long way toward defusing a situation. Blog convention is to do things in [232] public, so a response in the commens, where everyone can read it, often pays greated dividends than a private email" (231-232).

In a world where obscurity, not piracy is the biggest problem most products face, these ideas have important implications. Anderson also states, "At best, a Long Tail marketing strategy focused on stimulating word of mouth among influential consumers can just create awareness. If the product is no good, no amount of emailing is going to keep it from being savaged or ignored" (232).

For more information on this book, you could visit http://thelongtail.com/

Excerpts from "Opening Up Education"

2009-01-02T10:37:00.000-08:00

MIT Opening Education

But if we can entertain the semantic web, perhaps we could entertain a vast

and recursively interconnected web of simulations. No one group can

build it all, but many could contribute, including students themselves. (xiii).

A common observation made by those skeptical of the open educational

technology movement is, “you get what you pay for.” The implication

is that products developed without the benefi t of sustained commercial

investment, and lacking the control structures and accountability

identified with centralized, for-profi t incentives, will be certain to

disappoint… Rather than “you get what you pay for,” the sentiment “you get what you design

for” may be a better characterization of open educational technology’s

potential to positively affect teaching and learning. Simply put, design

matters. Designers have a greater infl uence on outcomes to a much

greater extent than is often recognized. (27).

I propose fi ve principles of design that I believe to be critical to the

success of open educational technology. While not exclusive to open

technology design, these qualities refl ect some of open education’s highest

values:

1. Design for access.

2. Design for agency.

3. Design for ownership.

4. Design for participation.

5. Design for experience.

Open educational resources and technology have long been high on

substance and low on appeal. However, it is this affective dimension of

a tool, its attraction, that when combined with thoughtful instructional

content and design motivates learners, capturing their attention and

engaging the mind. One need only observe the considerable draw of

video games and online social networking and role-playing environments

to understand the potential of technology to engage an audience. Designing

for experience recognizes the instructional benefi t of creating open

technology and resources that are at once substantive and attractive,

compelling and a pleasure to use. (43)

chapter on “The gates are shut” could relate to disaggregation article—LMS

The Internet and the Web along with a host of

available educational resources are making “open” the necessary default.

Overnight, “open” is on steroids and has taken on new meanings:

• Teachers are becoming facilitators in a charged, multivocal, online, and

onsite learning discussion that is multicentered and which they no longer

control.

• Publishing is freed of many traditional gate-keepers and therefore disciplinary

content is revised constantly.

• All educational design principles are giving way to the mandate: “be

open to multiple possible users and uses.” (89)

Vision of disagg learning:

Community for Student: P2PU

Let us imagine a vibrant Web community of learners at something called

Peer-To-Peer University, or “P2PU.” P2PU would not be a “real” university,

but rather, a group of self-learners and tutors who work together

to emulate some of the functions an academic institution would carry

out, in a peer-to-peer fashion. Providing degree tracks would help selflearners

navigate the vast terrain of OER resources in a goal-oriented

way. P2PU would defi ne “degrees” by assembling OER materials from

different repositories that, together, would suffi ce as a “degree” in that

subject. For example, P2PU might specify 15 physics courses, available

across the various OER project sites, which one would have to complete

in order to get a P2PU physics degree. Since many OER resources contain

components that are not free and open, such as textbooks and academic

papers, P2PU would only use courses that either have all the components

available, or will fi nd alternatives. Thus students might take Physics 101

from MIT OCW, and Physics 202 from Tufts OCW.

Beyond specifying degree tracks, P2PU would organize scheduled

“courses” where groups of learners would come together and learn the

material for a course. Participants could also have profi le pages that

detail their interests, occupations, and show which courses they have

completed. Posting the names of students and the OER courses somewhere

on the site could provide an additional incentive for having students

complete classes at P2PU. It may be that one day an employer

would recognize a “Net Degree” from P2PU to be as valuable, or even

more valuable, than a traditional university degree. Inherent in the

system, P2PU students—who are comfortable with their “network

selves”—would be recognized as resourceful self-starters and group

learners. A “Net Degree” from P2PU would be valuable in its own right,

and soon begin to take on its own meaning of accreditation. (100)

“So, whether in a library or on the Internet, it can be hard going for

the learner, particularly if he or she is studying in isolation. For educational

opportunities are more than just learning opportunities: There is

some implication of responsibility by a teacher or educational institution

for enabling effective, responsive, appropriate learning opportunities that

are personalized to the learner. There is a sense of agency on the part of

the educator. And, as I discuss later, some educational opportunities, of

course, offer additional expectations, such as certifi cation of learning.

Textbooks or videos of lectures represent a sort of halfway point:

There is clearly an intention on the part of the author or lecturer to

provide an educational opportunity but without the interaction, adaptation,

evaluation, and personalization that characterizes full-fl edged

delivery of quality education. So, one way to frame the open education

challenge is to ask how far beyond textbooks and instructional videos

we can affordably go by intelligent use of technology and appropriate

educational content; when these techniques are likely to be fruitful (for

what educational needs and in what disciplines); and how closely their

outcomes compare to those of traditional human teacher-intensive educational

approaches. It is also worth asking the question in reverse: How

much better does a traditional higher education institution do when it

offers a lecture course to 500 undergraduates?” (107).

Open University has no entry qualifi cations

to its modules or programs, is only limited in the number of students on

a module by the availability of suffi cient tutors (to date, the greatest

number on any single presentation of a module has been 14,000), and

allows students to register for one module at a time rather than requiring

commitment to a complete degree program. (151)

“The OU has an open access policy: No prior qualifi cations are needed

to register for the courses, and there is no age restriction (generally

students must be at least 18, but the OU does have special schemes

allowing those under 18 to study modules alongside their school

level qualifi cations). Over one third of those who enroll in the OU annually

do not have the educational qualifi cations that would normally

ensure their entry to other UK universities. Many of these “underqualifi

ed” people successfully complete all or part of a program; their success

demonstrates the effi cacy of the levels of support provided and suggests

that good exit achievement is readily attainable without any entry

selection.

Lastly, the OU recognizes and gives credit for certifi ed study at other

institutions. The OU also assesses prior experiential and work-based

learning, enabling learners to access more learning opportunities. These

services acknowledge and support the mobility of the learners: They can

learn where they want, when they want, unrestricted by rigid schedules

and specifi c locations.”

As the design of OU’s OpenLearn suggests, open educational resources

are but a small part of open education. They truly are just resources for

teachers and learners to use as suits their needs. Their fi tness for that

purpose will vary, dependent on the pedagogic nature of the resources

and the learning styles of the users. Just producing or using OERs does

not greatly open up a university. To do that requires attention to the

teaching, learning, and support methods and systems that draw upon

those resources. I have indicated above many of the factors that need to

be addressed by universities, but a major signifi cance of OERs is what

it does for the role of learners within education—changing relationships

between teachers and learners. (158)

Learners generally like being part of a peer group

that they can interact with, whether as an active participant or as a

passive onlooker. That is why in OpenLearn the OU has added tools

and technologies that encourage and enable sharing, collaboration, and

knowledge generation between educators and educators, educators

and learners, and learners and learners—as much as its own content

and to have much of that interaction recorded for others to look at and

review. (160)

the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education have

initiated a project to help state residents complete a bachelor’s degree

through an innovative statewide approach involving public universities.

Tens of thousands of Oklahomans have completed more than two years

of college but have not fi nished a degree (P. Moss, personal communication,

May 19, 2006). Collaborative curriculum development, learning

materials, faculty development, and technology will be important components

in this effort to help working adults complete a degree. The

system offi ce will be institutionalizing use of MERLOT as a key tool in

advancing this project.(191)

Finally, the development of user communities around open digital

resources, along the Wikipedia model, is much discussed, with many

suggesting that sustainability and high quality can be approached when

communities contribute to and organize content, primarily through new

social software tools and associated practices. In the current “Web 2.0”

climate, it might be a little too easy to dismiss valid questions about

whether a “wisdom of crowds” vision can be realized while still ensuring

high quality (see, for example, Duguid, 2006, among others). The costs

to creating and sustaining high quality curricular resources are high.

When coupled with the potential for rampant propagation of misinformation

and poor quality educational materials on the Internet, tensions

can be created for some developers of OER. (208)

Currently, about 150 colleges and universities

are operating or planning OCW Websites. (213)

“We are seeing about 2 million visits per month to MIT content (total for

MIT OCW and translation affi liate sites). Since inception, over 25 million

unique visitors have accessed MIT OCW, representing more than 1.5

billion hits on the Web site. In addition, there are over 100 mirror sites

in Africa and Asia that deliver MIT content to users who have limited [216]

Internet access. And users have downloaded complete course packages

for off-line use over several million times.

From OCW’s extensive, ongoing evaluation process, we have learned

that about 16 percent of OCW visitors are educators, 32 percent students,

and 49 percent self learners.2 Some 96 percent of educators say

OCW has helped them (or will) improve their teaching or their courses.

Among all visitors, 98 percent say OCW has a positive impact. Thousands

of users have expressed their appreciation for OCW and told us

anecdotal stories about the impact it has had on their lives.” (215-216).

“About 60 percent of MIT faculty use OCW materials in their teaching

or advising at MIT. A third say publishing on OCW improves their

materials. And OCW enables faculty to gain more detailed insight

into what is taught in other courses.” (221).

Over 70 percent of current graduate and undergraduate students

use OCW, and this percentage shows steady increase from year to year.

As a student in electrical engineering/computer science explained, “OCW

has given me countless materials that have inspired me for projects,

helped me complete related projects, and helped me understand course

material. My 6.111 report was posted on the OCW site. Since then, a [223]

student in Chile contacted me about it and we’ve been able to communicate

across countries.” (222-223).

The important fi rst step has been to gain a deep understanding of who

Connexions’ users are (and should be) and what constitutes value for

them. Utpal Dholakia of the Rice University Jesse H. Jones Graduate

School of Management has been studying the diverse Connexions users

through formal marketing research, by attending to user feedback, and

via informal observation and interactions. He has found, for example,

that the primary motive for a majority of academic textbook authors

who contribute their original content to Connexions is not to earn royalties;

rather, it is to have the greatest possible impact on scholars, practitioners,

and students within their disciplines through the widespread

dissemination and use of their educational and scholarly materials. As a

result, while authors may agree to forgo revenues from their contributions,

it is important that they receive full credit for them; not surprisingly,

this is often a prerequisite for them to participate. This points to

the criticality of the “attribution” clause in the Creative Commons

license and the noncriticality of the “noncommercial” clause.(238).

Today, there are over 30 million people qualifi ed

to enter university but denied access due to the restricted seat numbers

and restricted fi nances. In the next 10 years, the number of potential

students who will be denied access will grow to 100 million (Daniels,

2007). A major university would have to be created each week, starting

now, to meet this overwhelming demand.

We need to rethink the traditional notions of where, when, and how

people learn. Learning will continue within traditional structures, but it

could also be more widely available through new emerging models. (261).

the Monterey Institute for Technology and Education

(MITE; See http://www.montereyinstitute.org/nroc/nrocdemos

.html). The MITE courses cover much of the subject matter of the early

years of college (and for secondary school Advanced Placement courses)

and use rich, engaging, media-based content. All three open learning

initiatives allow students to pace their learning as appropriate and review

conceptually diffi cult material as needed.

In California, the textbooks for a community

college student ordinarily cost more than the student’s tuition and fees.

Imagine instead that there were a set of high quality text books open

and reusable on the Web. Each open textbook has the conventional pages

and fi gures as other textbooks but also has embedded laboratories,

interactive simulations, video, and other supporting material. One powerful

component of making this textbook freely available on the Web is

that it could be continuously updated for new knowledge. A version of

the textbook could also be available on a hand-held device. A low-cost,

printable, on demand version of the textbook would be available. Though

in the print form the book would lose its interactive characteristics, it

would still be as useful as current textbooks. (269).

In the long run, the possibilities for self-directed learning of this sort

are wide open. There is, however, an important implication. If someone

learns the material independently, why not get some credit or certifi cation

for the effort? Figuring this out might require that rigorous course

fi nal examinations be developed to determine if the person has actually

achieved an adequate level of understanding of the material. Then an

organization or organizations would have to be established to administer

such an exam, and certify that the person has learned the material. The

Western Governor’s University, located in Utah, provides a service something

like this.

Finally, the existence of a body of complete, free online courses suggests

that it might be possible to populate courses that satisfy a full

college major. (272).

(AAC&U, 2002).

Worldwide, the demand for postsecondary education will be nothing

short of staggering. At the beginning of the new millennium, over 90

million students were already enrolled in some form of higher education

worldwide. By 2025, estimates are that the number of enrolled students

is likely to reach 160 million (Perkinson, 2005). At this point, the lessdeveloped

countries manage to provide postsecondary education for only

4 percent of their young people, yet they hold the vast majority of the

world’s prospective students. Nearly half the world’s population (almost

3 billion people) is under the age of 25, and 85 percent of the world’s

youth live in developing countries (World Population Foundation, n.d.).

The possibility of fi nancing enough buildings, books, technologies,

and educators to serve millions of additional learners is close to

unthinkable in less-developed countries where qualifi ed instructors and

critical resources are often lacking altogether (Larson, 2001, viii). (395).

But how does the community judge the

quality of its collective output? Here, too, the burden can be distributed

across the community by providing support for user reviews and recommendations.

To confront the implications of such a strategy, the open

education movement will have to come to grips with the nature of valuation

itself. Is the quality of a course something inherent within the

learning resource itself or is it something that emerges only in use, judged

by how it affects its users in a specifi c learning context (Hylén, 2006,

p. 8)? If so, will we blend peer review with rating systems like Digg to

determine the quality of a resource? (397).

Three Cups of Tea: Book Review

2008-12-31T14:34:00.000-08:00

Three Cups of Tea
By Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin

I read this book hoping to be inspired as I was when I read Mountains Upon Mountains. In truth, I liked Mountains better; however Three Cups of Tea was still good. I won’t summarize the plot, visiting their website will give you the basic idea of it.

One thing that I found particularly interesting was that in 1993 Greg Mortenson was just a regular guy. He didn’t have a Bachelor’s degree, he wasn’t rich; he didn’t even know how to use a computer! But he had a determination to fulfill a promise he made to build schools in Pakistan.

Comparing the resources I have now with what Greg had in 1993, it seems that I certainly could (and should) make a bigger difference in the world.

I confess being troubled somewhat at the price Greg had to pay in leaving his family so often. It seems that his wife was cool with it though, and that is the most important thing.

My favorite part—the pictures that are included in the book. After reading about Mouzafer Ali, Haji Ali, and Jahan to see their pictures brought tears to my eyes as I realized once again how very similar the peoples of the world are.

Book Review: Rapid Instructional Design

2008-12-29T09:46:00.000-08:00

Rapid Instructional Design by George M. Piskurich

One of the key takeaways from the book is that in order to have good instructional design you need to do extensive analysis before you begin. What are the people like for whom you are designing the training? Why are they taking your training? What are their needs? Discussing this pre-design information gathering was the subject of about ¼ of the book. Interviews, questionnaires and other resources can be helpful in gathering this information. He states, “The last question I always ask [in interviews] is ‘Is there anything that you are surprised that I did not ask about?’” I use this question or a variation of it no matter what the purpose of the interview is” (55). Seems like good advice.

An impatient designer (like me) doesn’t want to do the pre-work he describes. Nor do I want to do the beta tests that he recommends to find out if the training is really hitting the mark. I was convinced after reading his book that if I’m serious about producing training that will often be reused and bring quality results (and not all training is going to be used multiple times, thereby needing extra rigor) that beta tests and pre-design research are critical.

In addition, you should evaluate the course if you plan to reuse the training. Simple evaluations could be to ask four simple questions:

1. Rate this class on a scale of 1 to 5
2. State the one thing you liked best about the class
3. State the one thing you would most like to change about the class
4. What do you think was the most important thing you learned from the class?

On pages 198-201 he had a nice list of teaching activities. Some that I liked were:

• Getting anonymous questions from participants
• Have trainees critique a demonstration
• Panels
• Role reversal role play—in which the players assume the roles of others with whom they normally interact on the job.

Page 259 had a handy list of tips for facilitators like,

Overprepare
Observe others as they facilitate and take notes on what they do that works.
Use name tags and name tents
Memorize your instructional content
Start and stop on time
Use nonbreak breaks, like throwing a ball, stretching, or mind relaxers
Everybody likes prizes
Candy breaks, particularly in the afternoon, are real energizers.

Overall I liked this book. I felt that if I didn’t have access to the Internet to help solve specific problems that it would be a resource I would want to continually look at. One weakness of the book was that the e-learning sections felt that they were eight years old (although the copyright shows 2006).

Book Review: The mind and the brain

2008-12-27T20:16:00.000-08:00

The Mind and The Brain

By Jeffrey M. Schwartz, M.D. and Sharon Begley

This book was recommended to me by Russell Osguthorpe, author of Choose to Learn. I thought it was fascinating.

Schwartz begins by talking about his treatment of people with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). Since I mildly manifest some OCD symptoms this was especially interesting to me. One of his keys points is that contrary to the belief that we are controlled by our genes, and basically predestined to certain outcomes, we have the power to make choices not only to override these predispositions, but to actually alter the composition of our brains. (For a quick and interesting read on this topic, see "Does Thinking Make It So" published in the most recent Harvard magazine).

Schwartz weaves the stories of several scientists and their experiments to show this thesis to be correct. One of his key ideas for changing the way our mind has to do with Buddhist practices of meditation. The four steps he suggests are to “Relabel their obsessions and compulsions as false signals, symptoms of a disease, they reattribute those thoughts and urges to pathological brain circuitry (“This thought reflects a malfunction of my brain, not a real need to wash my hands yet again”). They refocus, turning their attention away from the pathological thoughts and urges onto a constructive behavior. And, finally, they revalue the OCD obsessions and compulsions, realizing that they have no intrinsic value, and no inherent power” (14). [see end of this review for more on these “re’s”.]

Schwartz’s story of how he developed this theory is quite interesting. Previous treatments of OCD seemed quite strange (forcing people to do the behaviors that they hated) and the cure rate was very low. Piece by piece he put these four keys together and eventually began using them in therapy with great success. In fact he showed that there was substantially decreased metabolic activity in that part of the brain that is overactive in OCD patients. He stated that “This was the first study ever to show that cognitive-behavior therapy—or, indeed, any psychiatric treatment that did not rely on drugs—has the power to change faulty brain chemistry in a well-identified brain circuit” (90).

A corollary of this finding is that the brain remains subject to change and grow, not just in childhood, but throughout life. Additional evidence to demonstrate this comes from the Silver Spring Monkeys. A researcher named Taub experimented on these monkeys by altering a small part of their brain making one of their limbs unusable. Then he put the good limb in a straitjacket forcing the monkey to use the arm that it thought was useless. In time, the monkey was able to use the “useless” arm. In other words, the brain was able to become active and have other parts of the brain learn how to control its arm. This work with monkeys was later applied to stroke patients, and many were able to regain use of limbs that they thought they would never be able to use again. Taub says, “If a stroke knocks out your Broca’s region, I am suggesting, you can in effect grow a new Brocas’ region” (196).

Another interesting finding reported by Schwartz is that mental activity can have the same effect on the brain as physical activity. “Pascual-Leone…[had] one group of volunteers practice a five-finger exercise, and a comparable group merely think about practicing it. They focused on each finer in turn, essentially playing the simple piece in their hands, one note at a time. Actual physical practice produced changes in each volunteer’s motor cortex, as expected. But so did mere mental rehearsal, and to the same degree as that brought about by physical practice…merely thinking about moving produced brain changes comparable to those triggered by actually moving” (217). This shows that the mental processes of relabeling and so forth that Schwartz described have the potential to actually change the physical structure of the brain. This was also related to how dyslexia (Fast ForWord) and Tourette’s might be treated.

The part of the book that caused Dr. Osguthorpe to recommend it to me was the final third which focuses on volition. “Mental force acts on the physical brain by amplifying the newly emerging brain circuitry responsible for healthy behavior and quieting the OCD circuit” (295). In simple terms, you are not controlled by your genes or your brain. The things you do and think about can literally reconfigure your brain.

One insight that I found particularly interesting as a teacher was that we can choose what we pay attention to, and that the things we pay attention to changes the way our brain works. “Attention to shape and color pumps up the volume of neuronal activity in the region of the visual cortex that processes information about shape and color…in people, paying attention to faces turns up activity in the region whose job it is to scan and analyze faces” (329).

So when I as a teacher say something like, “Students read verse 8 and look for…” I am helping to focus their attention on a certain point. This will fire up certain neurons and brain activity in a way that would not happen if they were reading without looking for something specific. “The way an individual willfully focuses attention has systematic effects on brain function, amplifying activity in particular brain circuits” (334).

So the implication for me as a person trying to become better is that by choosing to pay attention to certain things, or looking for certain things I can literally change my brain. Perhaps “looking for the positive” actually changes neurons in my brain and helps me to be a happier person. As a teacher I can work carefully to help focus students’ attention in meaningful ways.

[More specifics on the “re’s.]:

Speaking of what he came to term relabeling he said, “To register mentally the arrival of each and every OCD obsession and compulsion, and to identify each as a thought or urge with little or no basis in reality, would require significant, willful effort. It would not be sufficient just to acknowledge superficially the arrival of such a symptom. Such superficial awareness is essentially automatic, even (almost) unconscious. Mindful awareness, in contrast, comes about only with conscious effort. It is the difference between an off0handed “Ah, here’s that feeling that I have to count cans again,” and the insight “My brain is generating another obsessive thought. What does it feel like? How am I responding? Does the feeling make sense? Don’t I in fact know it to be false?” (78).

On reattribution: “Relabeling and reattributing reinforce each other…by reattributing their symptoms to a brain glitch, the patients recognize that an obsessive thought is, in a sense, not “real” but, rather, mental noise, a barrage of false signals. This improves patients’ ability not to take the OCD thoughts at face value” (82).

For refocus he “developed a ‘fifteen minute rule.’ The patient had to use an ‘active delay’ of at least fifteen minutes before performing any compulsive act. Setting a finite length of time to resist giving in seems to help patients…the fifteen minutes should not be just a passive waiting period, however. Rather it must be a period of mindful adaptive activity intended to activate new brain circuitry, with the goal of pursuing the alternative activity for a minimum of fifteen minutes. This seems to be the length of time generally needed for most patients’ OCD urges to diminish noticeably” (84). “When patients changed the focus of their attention…the brain might change too” (85). “Refocusing is the step that, more than any other, produces changes in the brain” (86).

“Revalue is a deep form of relabeling. Anyone whose grasp of reality is reasonably intact can learn to blame OCD symptoms on a medical condition. But such relabeling is superficial, leading to no diminution of symptoms or improved ability to cope….revaluing went deeper” (87) “…[it] means seeing matters as they really are” (88).

Good stuff…I should practice it! :)

Here Comes Everybody: Book Review

2008-12-22T12:46:00.000-08:00

Here Comes Everybody by Clay Shirky

Special thanks to Cahlan Sharp for originally recommending this book, and SaraJoy Pond for loaning me her copy. Shirky starts off with an interesting tale of a woman named Ivanna who lost her phone. Turns out it was stolen, but her friend Evan using new media brought the situation to the public’s attention and eventually the phone was returned. The full story can be read here.

What makes the story so incredible is that it could not have happened ten years ago. Media outlets would not have picked up the story and there would have been no way to get the NYPD to pay attention to Evan’s claims. One key lesson is that new media allows groups to be formed (and dissolved) more easily and rapidly than ever before.

Shirky introduces chapter two by discussing the Birthday Paradox. Shirky uses this paradox to point out that he more people involved in a community, it become exponentially more complex. This creates organizational challenges, and in fact it is extremely difficult to force large groups of people to organize. But new media tools allow people who want to organize to do so fairly easily. He points out that using Flickr groups of people who do not know each other can easily pool together their pictures of a specific event.

These tools break down barriers that have existed for a long time. Now a woman living in Thailand can blog and post pictures about a military coup and get more press time than a report for the New York Times. People can easily create and distribute books, music and movies. As available content proliferates how this content is annotated, or tagged will become increasingly important.

One thesis of the book is that the ability to coordinate is power. There are several examples, such as using facebook to force a bank to change its policy towards students, using new media to protest the Catholic church’s handling of sexual abuse allegations, complaining about airline treatment, and so forth.

Shirky uses The Prisoner’s Dilemma to illustrate the importance of trust. And there are plenty of tools that allow people to build trusting relationships even though they never meet face to face. This allows people to meet and work together in new ways.

So what does all this mean? Well, if you are trying to change the world, you had better tap into the power of the masses. Shirky states that “Caterina Fake, one of the founders of Flickr, said she’d learned from the early days that ‘you have to greet the first ten thousand users personally’” (264). It takes effort to create a space (like Wikipedia, or Linux) where people will want to contribute to a project. The simplest promise to make to contributors to whatever you are creating is that if you help build this _____ it will improve.

Shirky concludes by tell of technology pioneer Aldus Manutius, who is 1501 began publishing books in a size small enough to easily fit into a man’s bag. Shirky writes, “Rather than either lamenting the influence of the [printing] press or continually marveling at its initial usefulness, he took it on himself to make an improvement that seems obvious in retrospect but that was at the time a small revolution extending the big revolution of moveable type” (302-303). The challenge for us then is to follow in his footsteps in our day.

The Book of Learning and Forgetting: Book Review

2008-12-22T12:11:00.001-08:00

The Book of Learning and Forgetting by Frank Smith

Charles Swift recommended I read this book, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It reminded me of the writings of Eleanor Duckworth. If I were forced to summarize the book in a few sentences I would say that Dr. Smith’s view of learning is very similar to that articulated by Lave and Wenger of forming communities of practice. Smith states that basically you learn by the company you keep. It is by being with people who do certain things, and participating with them that you learn to do those things. As a case in point, my brother-in-law is in dental school. About 80% of his school time is spent in a dentist office where he works on people’s teeth, under the watchful care of a licensed dentist. He is learning by participating in the activity and associating with others who do it.

Smith uses a “club” metaphor for this—stating that a good way to think about learning is to join a club. It’s voluntary, you’re with other people who share the same interest, and you work together. A less-effective way to learn Chinese—copy characters and use brute memorization force. More effective—join a Chinese club with native speakers and practice speaking with them.

Smith points out that people learn an enormous amount of information without formal schooling. One of his major points is language acquisition. Third grade children learn on average 3,500 words per year just from naturally living life. That would be like learning ten new vocabulary words per day—but everybody knows how easily vocabulary words are forgotten. Because these children aren’t forcing themselves to memorize these new words they are likely more easily remembered.

Smith states that learning that is hard, intentional, based on rewards or punishments, assured by testing, etc. is learning that will soon be forgotten and is not, in the classical sense, true learning.

If you want to teach your children to read, read to them. Don’t worry that you are crippling them by reading for them, as soon as they are able they will start reading, because kids want to do things for themselves. Don’t worry if your kids like to read the same books over and over again, or if they are reading books that are “too easy.” This is part of joining and feeling a part of “the literacy club.”

Smiths rips into researchers such as Ebbinghaus stating that our whole theory of learning is based on memorizing (and forgetting) nonsense syllables, and creating learning systems that work well for the military, but not for creating true learning. Behaviorism and testing also get the cold shoulder.

Sadly, I felt that Smith was describing some of my tests when he said, “Memorization is emphasized, the inevitable forgetting is ignored, and no attention at all is paid to what students actually and permanently learn about themselves and education” (65).

The challenge I grapple with at the end of the book is, if I throw out my tests, how can I realistically tell what students are learning. Smith states that if students are engaged in activities and don’t seem bored or confused that they are learning. But how can this be realistically determined? I truly want my students to join a “club” so to speak as they participate in my class and become in their own ways scholars of the Book of Mormon with an ability to think and write about it. I want them to be able to find new insights from the text and effectively share those with others. But how to measure it?

Real Love in Parenting: Book Review

2008-12-22T08:46:00.000-08:00

I recently finished the book Real Love in Parenting, by Greg Baer, M.D. It came highly recommended from several of my aunts, and I enjoyed it quite a bit. The following is a summary of the ten chapters of the book.

The First Principle of Parenting: More than anything else, my child needs to feel loved

Just like plants die when they are not watered, children act badly when they are not loved. What children need is real love—not imitation love. Analogy—if you have a ten minute conversation with a person and for nine minutes they are loving and kind, but for the last minute they yell and scream at you, what will you remember? The one minute. Even if we are loving towards our children 90% of the time, sadly, they will remember the one 10%. Needs to be closer to 99.9%! If you are angry or not loving towards you child it is because you do not feel enough real love yourself.

Analogy—imagine that you are hungry and only have $2.00 left to buy food. I come in and steal your $2.00. How do you feel? You are probably very angry. But what if you have 1,000,000,000 dollars and I come in and take two. How do you feel? Not mad at all. So it isn’t me stealing $2.00 that makes you angry, it is that you only have $2.00. Similarly, when our children are yelling and arguing, that isn’t what makes us angry, it is that we do not have enough love, patience or other resources to deal with the problem.

The Second Principle of Parenting: When my child behaves badly, he or she does not feel loved

There are many ways that we show imitation love to our children. Any time it is about me as the parent it is probably imitation love. For example, I am often guilty of this with doing activities with the kids. A lot of the activities are really things I want to do, as opposed to things I do unconditionally for them. When our children are angry, hit, cling, whine, etc. it is a sign that they don’t feel loved.

Analogy: you are at a pool giving a speech. Somebody from the pool splashes you. Once. Twice. A third time. You are getting angry. You turn to yell at the person and see that it is a person who is drowning. Does your perspective change? Of course…when your kids are exhibiting bad behaviors it’s like they are drowning and trying to let you know.

The Third Principle of Parenting: When I’m angry, I’m wrong.

When you are angry you feel bad and your child feels bad. What does it teach children if we yell at them? We typically get angry because we are empty, we’re afraid of losing control, we’re worried about how their behavior inconveniences us, or makes us look bad. These are all essentially selfish behaviors.

Analogy: If behavior “causes” you to become angry, but another person is not angered by the behavior, this is proof that the behavior does not cause anger.

Analogy: Suppose your child breaks your camera, which “makes” you angry. Then your mother gives you one million dollars. Would that make you less angry? Yes, you say. And then we could say, “if the million dollars would make your anger go away, then the cause of your anger is not the broken camera, but your lack of one million dollars.”

Children do need to be taught manners, and to respect and honor their parents. What we need to do is make sure we are teaching them for their benefit and not to fulfill some need that we as parents have.

Five steps to eliminate anger: 1. Be quiet. 2. Be wrong—acknowledge that simply because you are angry, you are in the wrong. 3. Feel loved (remember the love that the Savior and others have for you). 4. Get loved (reach out to adults who can express real love to you). 5. Love and serve others.

The Fourth Principle of Parenting: I can’t give what I don’t have—I must find real love for myself

You have to have real love for yourself. Four keys to find unconditional love are 1. feel the desire to change. Tell the truth about yourself. Exercise faith. Give up your getting and protecting behaviors. Tell the truth about yourself means to state that at times you are selfish, or focused more on you than your kids. As you acknowledge the truth you create opportunities for people to see you as you really are, accept you and love you. You don’t go to your kids seeking this love but to “wise men and women” who have real love to give you. Telling the truth means many things…For example, “how many times do I have to tell you…” means “I can’t believe you’re so stupid, but you must be, or I wouldn’t have to keep telling you the same things over and over. If I were more loving I would teach you this lesson as many times as it takes, but my life is so empty and unhappy that if everything around me doesn’t go smoothly, I get upset and angry” (106). “Be quiet” means, “I’m so selfish, intolerant and controlling that I can’t live with the noises that all children make at your age.” “Can’t you hold still?” maeans “stop moving around and acting your age. Behave like and adult” (107).

The Fifth Principle of Parenting: My child needs to be loved and taught.

Sometimes what we should do is teach our children to tell the truth about themselves and their motives by 1. telling the truth about ourselves, 2. loving them when they tell the truth about themselves and 3. telling them the truth about themselves. So when kids are arguing you could say something like, “What we all really want most is to be happy, isn’t it? Everythnig we do is worthless if we’re not happy…there’s a lot of quarreling and irritation, which means people aren’t happy. Lately’ I’ve been doing some studying…and I’ve been learning that most of the unhappiness in our family is my fault. As a mother I’ve been making some huge mistakes…think about all the times I’ve been irritated with you when you didn’t do what I wanted….did you like that? You had it when I’m angry at you, because when I’m angry, I’m thinking of myself, not you” (130). By telling the truths about ourselves it helps our children to see that when we got angry at them it was not a manifestation of lack of love towards them, but that we are acknowledging that it was our own problem. You don’t tell children about your mistakes to get love from them, but rather to help them see the past differently, to give them an example of being truthful and to help them feel your love for them.

It’s important to love children even when they make mistakes. “Children judge whether we really love them according to how we treat them when they’re behaving badly. The absence of disappointment and anger when they’re ‘bad’ is the only kind of love that counts” (138).

Express love to your children by looking at them and giving them your full attention.

Some rules that can be helpful in arguments: 1. One speaker at a time. 2. Whoever speaks first is the speaker. 3. the speaker can only talk about their own feelings, not what others did or did not do.

When you need to correct a child, show genuine love—you have to really tell them the feeling, and tell them the truth. For example to a little boy who ate the last cookie help him see that he feels selfish and not as happy as in times past when he has shared.

The Sixth Principle of Parenting: After my child has been loved and taught, he or she needs to be loved and taught again

When children get angry, see accept and love your children. Teach them about real love and discuss the effects of anger on happiness. Teach them alternative ways to behave and at times impose consequences.

With respect to “time out” it should only be to accomplish a specific purpose to allow them to cool off. It isn’t a punishment but an opportunity to learn something, and a loving invitation is giving to come back as soon as they can kindly be a part of the family.

Keys to preventing anger, clinging, etc. love our children unconditionally, teach them to responsible and loving, establish clear rules, consistently apply consequences, learn how to say no, be grateful when your children are loving.

When praising children, frame it in loving and teaching. You don’t want to say that you are good person, but rather when you did such and such a thing you felt good. E.g. What did you do differently to have things work out so well? What did you learn from this?

The Seventh Principle of Parenting: The law of Choice.

“The most important principle in relationships is the Law of Choice: We all have the right to choose what we say and do” (262). If you feel disappointed and/or angry with your kids it’s probably a sign that you are limiting their choices for your own convenience, and not for their benefit. When possible let children make their own choices and suffer from (or be rewarded by) the natural consequences. For example, remember the purpose behind the requirement. Cleaning your room is important to teach responsibility and so that your kids can find stuff when it’s time to get dressed in the morning or go to bed at night.

The Eighth Principle of Parenting: Happiness comes from being loving.

When your children are fighting see and love them. Talk to them. How do you feel when you’re fighting? We’ve talked before about how when we are angry we aren’t feeling loved. What is happening that is having it be so that you don’t feel loved. Help your children see the truth, that when they are fighting over a toy they are being selfish.

You don’t have to be a doormat to be loving. You can teach your children about setting limits. He gives an example of a sibling always taking another sibling’s bike, and then helping that kid get a lock for his bike so his sibling wouldn’t always take it.

Two keys of success in relationships are 1. tell the truth about yourself. 2. Never expect any one person or group of people to love you. The only way you can make a difference is to change yourself, not blame or worry about what others are doing, because you cannot control those things.

The Ninth Principle of Parenting: Happiness Comes From Being Responsible

This chapter was similar to Merilee Boyack’s book on teaching children responsibility. Have meetings to discuss chores, give children choices where possible and set up assignments and deadlines with everybody’s agreement. Also suggests having one-on-one interviews with your children.

But What About…

This chapter covers various scenarios like “what if the kids are fighting” “what if they don’t go to bed…” etc. Most of the solutions were pretty common sense and in harmony with what I’ve read in other parenting books. One part that I thought was interesting was what he taught about “teaching children about sex” and how similar it was to what church leaders have taught.

“In the absence of real love…many of us use sex as a tool to create happiness and that never works out…The biggest reason young people experiment with sex is that they’re not happy. They’re looking for anything that will make them feel less unloved, powerless and alone” (392, 393).

As far as “what is the line of how far you should go” he gives an analogy of driving down a mountain and staying as far away from the edge as possible. Elder Boyd K. Packer taught something similar. He also states, “I suggest that children not be allowed to date before age sixteen” (398). Also, “Steady dating…encourages intimacy that children are not emotionally prepared for. Exclusive dating is therefore unwise until people are prepared for a committed, mutually loving relationship, like marriage” (398).

Book Review: The Future of Ideas

2008-12-12T13:33:00.000-08:00

Book Review

The Future of Ideas
By Lawrence Lessig

One of the things about this book that I really value about this book is that it is free. You can read it in its entirety or download it at http://www.the-future-of-ideas.com/download/ I think it is pretty cool that an esteemed author such as Dr. Lessig is willing to put his whole work out there to be read and revised as the world sees fit.

Lessig describes an interesting interview he had with (I believe) the head of the RIAA who accused him of being a hypocrite because he was selling his book. Lessig has shown that he is not a hypocrite by releasing his book to the public for free. Will Hollywood follow? Doubtful.

In this book Lessig explores the evolution Internet and how it is a resource that has dramatically altered our society in many ways. He also shows how if we are not careful the freedoms provided by the Internet can be controlled and underutilized to meet the needs of big business and/or other stakeholders whose interest is not the common good.

A theme in the book is the “tragedy of the commons” and Lessig shows various scenarios in which this tragedy does and does not apply. For example, he argues that bandwidth is does not fall in this category because there is an inexhaustible amount of it (although it may currently be untapped).

Although this book was written in 2001, there are still many theoretical nuggets that are valid today, though I was glad to see that some of the more dire predictions have not come to pass (yet).

Lessig suggests many creative solutions to problems we face that should be considered. He strongly feels that the patent office is out of touch and that a radical overhaul is needed as to how long patents can be enforced, and under what conditions.

In this short review I have not done justice to the ideas in this book. But to be brief, I will state my three biggest takeaways.

1. Patents should offer some limited protection, but our current law gives patents that are WAY too long.

2. Control is not necessarily bad, but we need to think carefully about how it is used.

3. Innovation is key to continued growth, and openness is a key to innovation.

Musings on the Social Life of Information

2008-12-11T16:36:00.001-08:00

Today I read a chapter by John Seely Brown and Paul Duguid in their book The Social Life of Information that I wanted to comment on. They talk about the difference between “know that” and “know how.” “Know that” refers to learning about facts, data and information. “Know how” is how to do something. And “we learn how by practice” (quoting Ryle, 128).

Brown and Duguid quote from Lave and Wenger describing how communities of practice add to “know how.” They describe different settings in which newcomers were able to associate with expert practitioners and learn from them. They also describe how situated learning is more effective than learning out of context. Using an example of learning how to speak by reading, listening and talking as opposed to looking up new words in a dictionary they found the former to be much more effective.

To lampoon the “know that” crowd they quote from Hard Times in which Gradgrind states, “Teach these boys nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing less and root out everything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts…Stick to Facts, Sir” (135).

Using the metaphor of “supply and demand” Brown and Duguid point out that although we often think of teaching and learning stemming from supply (finding somebody who can teach us), the more critical part is the “demand” that students have to learn. If one really wants to learn, it will make all the difference.

Book Review: The Ten Faces of Innovation

2008-11-13T13:39:00.001-08:00

The Ten Faces of Innovation

Introduction

Picture the scene—a new idea is being discussed, and somebody says, “Let me play the devil’s advocate.” This person then goes on to tear apart the idea, leading to its untimely demise.

Tom Kelley and Jonathan Littman, authors of The Ten Faces of Innovation believe that this is anathema to the process of design and idea creation. Instead of the “devil’s advocate,” they propose ten roles individuals can play that will lead to increased creativity and more successful innovation. In this paper I will review these roles and discuss applications that I see from them in the design process.
The Anthropologist

The authors quote Marcel Proust as saying, “The real act of discover consists not in finding new lands, but in seeing with new eyes” (16).

This quote captures the basic role of anthropologists, which is to carefully observe, and learn lessons from what they see. The authors posit that there is much to learn if we will simply open our eyes to observe. One of the keys of being an anthropologist is to, as much as possible, have the experiences of those that you want to study. For example, one IDEO “anthropologist” spent 48 hours in the hospital with a patient to better understand the kinds of treatment she would receive.

I related this to how I, as an author, could spend time in bookstores interviewing people who chose to buy (or not buy) particular books. I could learn a great deal from watching what customers pick up, how they interact with, and talking to them about why they purchase the products they purchase. This information could help in the designing of future books.

Another key insight from this chapter is that anthropology holds a key for understanding the future. The authors quote Henry Ford who said, “If I had asked my customers what they wanted, they’d have said a faster horse” (37).

Therefore, customer surveys will not necessary tell you what products to design, because the customers themselves have not thought of them yet. But by talking with people and coming to better understand what they really want, one may be able to uncover innovative ideas.

The Experimenter

The experimenter tries to create physical representations or prototypes of ideas, even if they are rudimentary, knowing that just getting started on something often leads to more successful iterations. This is one manifestation of the IDEO axiom to “fail often, to succeed sooner” (52).

As an example of a simple experiment, a store called The Good Guys inserted an advertisement into a magazine that when unfolded was the actual size a 42-inch flat-panel TV would be. One of the reasons people had not yet bought these TVs was that it was hard to picture how it would look in their family room. But this cutout helped them to visualize how the TV would look in their home, and sales dramatically increased as a result. It wasn’t a fancy experiment or design, but it brought great success.

A key to being a good experimenter is to come up with multiple prototypes. If you show somebody a solution to a problem they are having, and you only give them one solution, their response to it “is muddied by what they think about you” (55). But if you are able to give two or three solutions (prototypes) to the problem it will be much easier to further experiment and play with the possibilities.

The Cross-Pollinator

The third type of person discussed is the “cross-pollinator.” Many common inventions we have today came from cross-pollination—the escalator and the Frisbee being two examples. Cross-pollinators are people who can take knowledge from one area and transfer it into another. Oftentimes they have deep knowledge in one area, and broad knowledge in others. They combine their deep knowledge with new things they learn to create innovative ideas.

To increase one’s ability to cross-pollinate, one should learn about a variety of topics and travel to different places. Look for connections between what you are learning and what you are an expert in. For example, as I am learning about design, I can take what I learn and apply it in an area where I have deeper knowledge (religious education) and find new ways of doing things (cross-pollination).

The Hurdler

The hurdler does things even if, and sometimes especially when, they are hard. Regardless of budget constraints or other difficulties, hurdlers find ways to accomplish their goals. One example of a hurdler is Richard Drew, who as a young employee of 3M invented scotch tape, even when his superiors told him to focus on other things, and refused to budget for his research. He leaped through the hurdles and succeeded anyways.

In some respects the hurdler is the opposite of the devil’s advocate. While the devil’s advocate will say all the reasons why something can’t be done, the hurdler will focus on ways things can be accomplished. When somebody plays the role of the hurdler solutions will be uncovered where none were previously seen.

The Collaborator

The collaborator is a bridge-builder one who can help get people with different points of view to work together. They “stir up the pot. They bring people together to get things done” (114).

One of the innovative ideas a collaborator can use is an “unfocus group.” This means pulling together a group of people who are different, and are all extremely passionate about what they believe in. They can often bring new ideas to the table and a collaborator can help capture these. “Quirky, fun, and often surprising, unfocus groups give companies a chance to see real people interact and experiment with products and things they care about” (122).

A great metaphor for collaboration is the relay race. In an Olympic relay, each of the four runners in the 400 meter could run the 100 meter in about 10 seconds. But they could run the relay in 37.4 seconds. How did they do this? It was possible because by the time the handoff occurred, the second runner was already running at top speed.

Recently I have been involved in a collaborative effort in designing a book. This book was conceived to be something totally different for anything on the market for LDS youth. The three main collaborators have been two co-authors, and the publishing director. Chris, the publishing director on this project has been the quintessential collaborator. He has mediated difficulties, inspired new ideas, and reached out to others with a variety of specialties to make the project better. This experience has shown me that multiple heads are better than one, and the person who can successfully stimulate collaboration is a very valuable team-member .

The Director

The role of director is likened to that of a director in a movie. He brings together a good cast of individuals and then lets them have the limelight. Directors do not have all of the ideas themselves, but can pull great things from others. For example, directors often engage in brainstorming. The authors state that one of the keys to have successful brainstorming is to “Begin with a clear statement of the problem of the problem, a question that’s open-ended but not too broad.” (151).

IDEO has rules such as “go for quantity, encourage wild ideas, be visual, defer judgment, [and] one conversation at a time” (151). These rules help keep things flowing and prevent good ideas from being killed too soon.

They also suggest numbering the ideas and to “capture…ideas in visual, low-tech mediums that everyone can share. Spatial memory is a powerful force you can use to guide the participants back on track” (152).

The Experience Architect

The next type of individual discussed is the experience architect. These individuals are “people who focus relentlessly on creating remarkable customer experiences” (166).

There were several examples of how companies had been able to make breakthrough designs by considering the experience that the customers were having. For example, when one needs to put antifreeze into a car there is often a complicated mixing that needs to take place in order for the antifreeze-water ratio to be just right. An innovative company changed this “experience” by creating a product that had a pre-blended mix; making things much easier for the consumer, and changing the experience they had.

As another example, Coldstone has created a whole new “ice cream experience” in which customers get to participate in the creation of their own personalized ice cream treat. Coldstone realized that they were serving more than just ice cream—it was the whole experience of going out to eat a treat that they focused on.

One key suggestion they gave to enhance experience is to bring it to the customer where possible. For example, one dentist would go to a large corporation and do checkups on-site, dramatically reducing the amount of time that employees had to take off for their dental checkups. Having the dentist on-site totally changed the experience.

Currently I am working on the design of some websites that I hope will encourage people to learn more deeply from the scriptures. To take on the role of the experimenter, I need to think about the “experience” that people who use the site will have. There is more to design than the “what to teach” and “how to teach;” the overall experience must also be planned for and created.

The Set Designer

The set designer knows that the space you work in can have a large impact on what gets accomplished. This can be as simple as making sure critical supplies are stocked close at hand, or by changing the surroundings of a room. As an extreme example of the power of set design, when the Cleveland Indians changed their arena they began winning more games. Was this a coincidence? The authors did not think so.

It is important to note that one set is not right for everyone. Some may crave privacy, while others want to be close to others. Realizing that different activities and people may need different types of spaces to work with is all part of the role of the set designer.

I recently changed office locations, and thought carefully about what I would bring to the new office. I am teaching the Book of Mormon and noticed that I had no pictures of the Savior up in my office. I found that putting up a picture of the Savior teaching, along with a picture of my wife, and pictures of former students creates an environment where I can better prepare to teach.

The Nurturer

The authors state, “Think of your best personal experience with a good physician, how they took care of you in a professional way and at the same time nurtured you…that’s exactly the sort of caregiver we all hope for…” (216).

There are several ways that companies can give this kind of care—and the benefits of doing so are obvious. One personal experience I have had with this was an experience related to me by a customer service manager at a Toyota dealership.

He received a call from an angry customer who had been told by a technician that his brake pads needed to be changed. The customer had gone to get a second opinion and had been told that his pads did not need to be changed. The customer accused the Toyota dealership of trying to cheat him.

The customer service manager said, “I want to make sure that you have not been cheated. I will come to your home and personally check the pads for you again.”

The manager did so, and discovered that in fact the pads did not need to be changed. He apologized profusely and offered the man some free services from the dealership. Although this required time, this kind of nurturing won him a client for life.

A specific idea the authors give to increase nurturing is to keep customers informed about wait times. One of the things that customers dislike is uncertainty. Netflix provides a good example by emailing customers notifications of when movies have been received or shipped. This decreases the uncertainty, and increases satisfaction—part of the nurturing process.

When it comes to designing products they should have a nurturing feeling to them. An example of this that I recently saw was an online course in new media (not David Wiley’s). The course had a fun and energetic feel to it, and I felt welcomed there.

The Storyteller

The final role discussed in this book is that of the storyteller. Stories “trigger emotional responses that frequently spark valuable insights” (255).

At IDEO they will often begin design sessions by listening to stories from clients. For example, listening to a story from the benefit of a medical device could be of benefit to them as they begin seeking ways to improve that device.

Not only should companies and individuals tell stories to captivate viewers, they should also listen to the stories of their customers. For example, “Instead of asking questions like ‘what do you like or dislike about your mobile service?’ [say,] ‘Tell me a story about the time your mobile let you down.’” (247).

Engaging in this type of conversation allows more doors to be opened and experiences to be sharer. I believe that story-telling can help me in my efforts to help people gain more from their scripture study. Rather than asking people, “Do you read your scriptures?” I could ask, “Tell me a story about a time when your scripture study helped you.” This latter statement would help me gain much more valuable information.

Conclusion

To me there are two key implications from The Ten Faces of Innovation. First, when I am involved in a design project, I should try to use the lenses of these different roles to help in the design process. In group discussions, rather than looking for reasons why it won’t work (devil’s advocate) I can try to make a prototype of what is being discussed, or facilitated brainstorming as a director would. As I develop proficiency in these additional roles, my usefulness as a part of a design team will increase.

A second implication is that I should consider these different roles in the actual design of products. I could ask questions like, how could we make this a better experience? How can we capture the stories our customers or end-users will have? What can we do to make this a more comfortable (nurturing) design?

Sharing, Part 3

2008-10-21T15:41:00.000-07:00

I had a bit of fun with the tools this week!

One good slideshare presentation I found sums up several of the web 2.0 tools we've been talking about in class:

http://www.slideshare.net/phauly/w2-234160

I also uploaded my own PowerPoint and embedded it into a wordpress site I've been working on at http://ldswhy.com/

I may not have mastered Diigo yet... I left a comment on http://boyceducation.blogspot.com/ and I can see it...but can anybody else?

Still working on Google Analytics...right now I haven't been able to integrate it properly into wordpress...but I will get there...or maybe I should use the WP Plugin (?)

Sharing (part 2)

2008-10-17T13:45:00.000-07:00

Some of the sharing things this week get me really excited. First, http://youtube.com. What an incredible invention! A couple of years ago I discovered http://youtube.comand was excited about the opportunities that it presented for sharing the gospel with others. At the time I had recently produced a DVD and I decided to upload some of it. It has been seen a few times, and I feel good about that. I also taken some spiritual videos I have (like one of President Hinckley expressing his love to college students) and posted them as well.

In addition, I’ve added some videos that I thought were funny (Grinchmas) and some that are good family videos. All of these videos can be found at: http://www.youtube.com/user/johnhiltoniii To celebrate the “sharing” of this week, I uploaded a new video this week. Be one of the first to see it! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwzguixUDYc

I also found a great way to do podcasting. Go to http://gabcast.com and check it out. You can record a phone conversation and turn it into a podcast or save it as an .mp3 file. And it’s 100% free. I will soon be adding some podcasting features to a new website I am working on: http://ldswhy.com

There are clearly lots of great gospel-sharing sites on http://youtube.com, and I have used some in the past. Sadly the fact that I am doing research for this blog at BYU limits my ability to provide you links at this time. But I did check out http://revver.com (why is http://youtube.com blocked and revver is not?) I found a great video clip that is doubtless available on youtube, but you can find it here:

http://revver.com/video/1153811/mormon-christian-faith-mormons-are-christians/

Well worth watching. Great LDS video.

As to the educational values of these kinds of sharing there are many. In fact the challenge is finding ways to sort through all of the information that is there. For example, http://lecturefox.com/mix/ has hundreds of high-quality university courses that can be downloaded as audio or video files. If I had hours of free time I would listen to them…but right now I am so engrossed in my other studies that I “don’t have time.” But as I look backwards I saw that in my “pre-doctoral” life I did have some time, especially when I was traveling that I could have used to listen to these lectures, and so I hope that I will have this kind of time in the future.

Delicious and Flickr

2008-10-11T18:34:00.000-07:00

This week was "sharing, part 1" studying the bookmarking and photosharing tools.

I created accounts with delicious and flickr--should you care to check them out you could visit:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/31162943@N04/

Flickr was a fun site. In the past I have never been able to use it because my old CES computer had it blocked. I liked looking at the top new pictures and saw many visuals that I thought, "I could use this in a talk." I liked it.

My delicious account is: http://delicious.com/johnhiltoniii yet sadly no bookmarks have been placed in here. I only use one computer and so I couldn't really find a good use for it. I did look up some of the "top bookmarks" and I thought they were good at pointing me towards good information. One site I liked was: http://lecturefox.com/mix/

Seeing as 1 Billion new pages are added to the Internet everyday, bookmarking tools can be very helpful for sifting through all the information; the key for me is finding people I like and trust point me to good places to go.

Interestingly enough (but perhaps not surprising) there are lots of groups looking at how to use these resources for educational.

Flickr sites:

http://www.jakesonline.org/flickrinclassroom.pdf
http://www.flickr.com/groups/33384223@N00/

Bookmarking for education:

http://www.edtags.org/ This site is not a "delicious" site, but it is pretty cool. It is a way to rank different education sites. I was impressed as it was a good way for me to sort through many different sites through finding out what others have found effective.

PS--I should say it is cool in "concept." Upon further looking into it, it appears that this isn't as developed as it could be. What I thought was #1 vote, was actually that only 1 person had voted on it...

Second Post About Facebook in 1 Day (see--I am addicted).

2008-10-01T16:37:00.001-07:00

Have you ever started reading websites and following links, finding so much cool stuff that your brain was going to explode? Then you started closing tabs, only to remember what you had started searching for!

That happened to me today. While searching for educational uses of social networks I first read http://venturebeat.com/2007/12/03/facebook-education-app-gets-funding/ It was an interesting article about the future of how within facebook students could easily form study groups, share notes, and so forth.

Then I went to http://www.infinitethinking.org/2008/01/social-networking-in-education.html which had a host of links (this is where I got sidetracked). One site that was interseting was http://www.classroom20.com/ Two things I found that are somewhat unrelated, but amazing were this Karl Fisch video: http://www.teachertube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=6f2c2eba77f39993d118&page=1&viewtype=&category= and this one that syncs "We Didn't Start the Fire" with visuals: http://www.teachertube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=f061977fb2f7ba36d74d&page=1&viewtype=&category=

BYU is not currently blocking teachertube. Sweet.

Anyways, back to the article, the author works for Ning...an social network for educators. They had lots of interesting links--but for the ones I clicked on you had to be a part of Ning...

I am left with a lot of thoughts in my mind from the Fisch video, thinking about how much web-traffic myspace and facebook currently generate, and yet they did not exist just five years ago. What an interesting task to think about how social networks can affect education.

I have become a facebook addict

2008-10-01T12:55:00.000-07:00

I have been an avid email user since 1996. Back in "those days" you had to pay $3.00 per month to have a BYU email account and the online place I knew how to access the Internet was in the labs at the Talmadge building. Then I went on a mission, and when I came back it was a whole new world.

Email has been my primary communication since then, and I have frankly been annoyed when some people don't promptly return my emails. I noticed this particularly among my institute students in Miami, many of whom always talked about "facebook."

Alas, my computer (owned by the Church Educational System) blocked facebook so I never got to join in the fun.

Fastforward to September 2008. I want to keep in touch with all my loved ones in Miami, co-workers at Deseret Book are insisting I get facebook, and even my mom has an account. I waited until we were supposed to open an account for this class (the original date) and then began my facebook experience with gusto.

Now my life has changed.

Okay, that is a bit dramatic, but facebook has become a significant part of my communications life. I've reconnected with people from my mission (companions and converts), touched base with people I have met at different stages of life, and even become "friends" with some new people.

One of the reasons I was persuaded to try facebook is that I want to see how it can leveraged as a means to communicate uplifting messages. I'm not too interested in updates like, "I hate the testing center. lol." But I do think facebook can be leveraged for good. I have made two "status updates" both of which were along these lines.

First, I made my status a gospel question that I was asked in a religion class I am teaching. It was a question that I did not know the answer to! About seven people responded (either by commenting on my status or writing me a message) and the question was answered, so hopefully some knowledge was gained.

My second post included a link to an article I wrote for Deseret Book's Timeout for Women (http://deseretbook.com/time-out/devotional?dev_id=1602) My hope was that my former institute students, and others, would read the message and benefit from it. About the same number of people (seven) wrote on my wall or sent messages indicating it was helpful to them. I wonder, does that mean that only seven people followed the link? Is there a generalizable rule...if 7 people commented, then 14, or 21, etc. actually read it? I do not know.

I still think it is somewhat inconvenient to check email and facebook (why can't people just send me an email instead of writing on my wall) and email is my preferred mode of communication. But I still check my facebook account from my phone while walking up the hill to campus. And sometimes even during class. (don't tell anyone).

Education Use of Social Objects

2008-09-24T14:54:00.000-07:00

Can educational content be a social object? Why or why not?

Absolutely! Social objects, by definition, are objects that gets people “talking.” A video clip for example could be shown, with the instruction to discuss its implications afterwards. That video clip becomes a social object. An interesting challenge for educators is how to make their content “social” while still maintaining the necessary content and rigor.

Can assessments or assignments be social objects? Why or why not?

I believe so. I want to throw out something I’ve done and see if it fits the bill. In the Book of Mormon classes I teach, I have the students bring a written (yes, on paper) summary of insights they have gained from their scripture study that week. I will often have student read each others papers as class begins and give each other (positive) feedback on it. In this respect I’m trying to take an assignment they’ve done and turn it into an object for social conversation.

If you've ever taken a class that used a learning management system (LMS) like Blackboard, how compatible does the idea of social objects appear to be with the notion of a learning management system?

I’m using blackboard for the first time this semester and so far it seems like a less-effective way. There are probably features I haven’t explored yet; but it seems mostly like a good way to transmit information (download assignments, take quizzes, etc.), rather than an effective way of encouraging conversation. Wikis or blogs would probably do a better job of that.

A good post on the educational use of social objects was:

http://nogoodreason.typepad.co.uk/no_good_reason/2008/01/whats-a-social.html

A key takeaway I gained from this article was that content itself is a key “social object,” although it often gets pushes aside in favor of other, flashier, objects.

The second post I found was http://opencontent.org/blog/archives/437 Curiously enough this post was from David Wiley and he quoted from the exact same blog I had just read. Weird. Of course, it has good insights—and—just for fun, let’s carefully examine this phrase:

“The campfire does, of course, have important nonsocial functions (like providing heat) just like educational content has important nonsocial functions (like conveying information), but the most important function of both the campfire and educational content is the manner in which it draws people together.”

What is the most important function of the campfire? As one who hates camping (ouch) I have still sat around a few campfires in my day. When I first read this statement I thought, “Well the most important part of a campfire is the warmth” (leading to, the most important part of educational content is conveying information). I was remembering some cold nights.

But as I thought on more recent camping trips I have been on, the campfire really wasn’t for warmth. If you go too close it was uncomfortably hot and there was smoke (I’m sure there are educational analogies to this as well). What kept me warm were my clothes, and at times, a sleeping bag.

This led me to reason that there are other ways of conveying information as well—time spent in class is not the only way students will gain knowledge.

After thinking more about it, I think an analogy similar to the campfire is the dinner table. Yes, part of the family sitting down together to eat is to build caloric intake; however, the most important reason for sitting down together is the social interaction that takes place.

Educational uses of wikis

2008-09-17T09:11:00.001-07:00

I found several sample classes where "wiki's" have been used in education.

http://welkerswikinomics.wetpaint.com/page/Intro+to+Economics+and+Microeconomics is one example, and frankly this one was not too impressive. Probably you should save your time and not visit it.

Some seemed to have a good idea such as http://mathjmss.wetpaint.com/?t=anon. In this site the hope is that people will share ideas they have for math education. Sadly, few have shared, which is a danger of counting on others to contribute content.

A much more useful educational wiki is at: http://businesslaw.pbwiki.com/ Here, there is a "business law" class and you can hear podcasts, read chatpers from the text, download contract forms, links to articles, powerpoints and more. It wasn't quite perfect, I would have liked to see all current textbook assignments linked onto the wiki (they were using an assigned text that had to be purchased), but this was one of the better examples that I saw.

I did find another "new media" class wiki at : http://jmsc.hku.hk/blogs/webjourno/

Given David's comments on other blogs about donuts and brownosing, I will not comment on which syllabus I found to be more exciting.

My changes are still in!

2008-09-16T17:07:00.000-07:00

About 30 hours ago I made my first changes in Wikipedia...and nobody has changed it back yet! I made a small change about the which of the twelve tribes native americans are "typically" or "sometimes"

I made this change because although Lehi came from the tribe of Manessah, Joseph Smith taught that Ishmael came from the tribe of Ephraim. Because most patriarchal blessings are private anyways, it didn't seem to make sense to say that Native Americans "typically" are from Manessah.

I use Wikipedia all the time and now that I know how easy it is to use, I want to edit more often. I read more about how it was started in a book called Wikinomics, and it is fascinating. Wikipedia is a powerful testament to me of the power of the masses, both to create and self-regulate.

Some thoughts on teaching and learning

2008-09-09T15:17:00.001-07:00

In IP&T 620 we were assigned to write a reflection paper on our theory of learning. I'm including it below:

What does it mean to learn? What does it mean to teach? How can people improve their ability to learn? These are simple, and yet exceedingly complex questions.

First, different kinds of learning exist. One type of learning concerns factual information[1]. For example, a student could learn the names of people and places in the Book of Mormon. A second kind of learning is the acquiring of new skills. To continue the preceding example, students could learn how to search the Book of Mormon for patterns, or how to liken the scriptures to their lives.[2] A third kind of learning is more difficult to quantify. It involves personalized revelation from the Holy Ghost, and could include gospel insights, inspiration on what to do, and so forth.[3] As a learner and teacher I should monitor my study and pedagogical practices depending on the types of learning I hope to facilitate.

A second key facet of learning is the desire of the student. Meaningful learning occurs only when the learner wants to learn. From my own experience, I have sat in classes where a professor gave an informative lecture, but I did not learn anything from the lecture—because I chose to not focus on it. The same thing has happened to me when “involved” in a pair/share activity. It was meaningless because I did not want to learn. As a learner I need to increase my desire to learn, and as a teacher find ways to enhance students’ desire to learn. A key component of student desire is having a heart that is prepared to learn. Students have the main responsibility to prepare their hearts, but teachers also share in this role.[4]

Third, learning is enhanced when the learner has questions. [5] If I as a learner think I know everything, I will be less motivated to learn.[6] As a teacher I need to help students ask questions.

Fourth, learning is much more likely to occur when participants are actively involved in the process.[7] “Active involvement” includes reading, writing, speaking, engaging in hands-on activities, and so forth.[8] Listening in a lecture can also be an “active” process, as listening can be active, although this skill does take some practice.

Fifth, one of the most important parts of learning is the action it produces in the life of the learner. Knowledge that does not change what one does or is, may not be very important learning. [9] As a learner I should ask myself, “What will I do as a result of this class?” Similarly, as a teacher, I can help students apply what they learn in a variety of ways. I must help students make and keep commitments that will help them improve their lives. [10]

Sixth, some of the most important lessons that can be learned are based on observing the actions of others[11], and learning from the kind of person they are.[12] Some of my most valuable learning has occurred not from listening to a lecture, but from observing how my professor interacted with others. For example, one professor stressed in class the fact that teachers should encourage their students by getting excited about their ideas. On one occasion, when I shared an idea, she expressed genuine enthusiasm for my idea. What she did at that time has had a lasting impact on me.

Seventh, a key factor in learning is the expectations that the teachers and learners have about their capabilities. If I as a teacher can exhibit high expectations for my students, they will be more likely to attain those heights.[13]
Eighth, as President Gordon B. Hinckley taught, “Repetition is a law of learning”[14] I should not be afraid of re-learning concepts that I thought I already “knew.” Repetition often increases retention.

Finally, one of the most valuable sources of learning is gained through inquiring of the Lord.[15] This often comes through prayer, scripture study, and pondering.[16] As a teacher and learner I can inquire of the Lord to know what my next steps should be. The most valuable instruction I have received has come through this way of learning.

The preceding paragraphs have been an outline on some of my views on what it means to learn and teach. They hold keys to increase one’s capacities in these areas.

[1] “What have you learned by heart? Some of it is factual or informational. Such learning is useful. It helps us solve daily problems and meet immediate needs” (Susan W. Tanner, “Learning by Heart,” http://speeches.byu.edu/ [2006]).
[2] “As gospel instructors, you and I are not in the business of distributing fish; rather, our work is to help individuals learn to “fish” and to become spiritually self-reliant” (Elder David A. Bednar, “Seek Learning By Faith,” http://speeches.byu.edu/ [2006]).
[3] “The third level of learning comes from qualifying to obtain spiritual direction in your life. It is the most rewarding yet possibly the most difficult initially to feel confident in using” (Elder Richard G. Scott, “Learning to Succeed in Life,” http://speeches.byu.edu/ [1998].)
[4] “It’s important that you know this. The inspiration you may draw from the General Authorities as they come here to speak to you depends only partly in the effort they have expended in the preparation of their sermons. It depends much more considerable on what preparation you have made for their message” (Elder Boyd K. Packer, “Follow the Brethren,” http://speeches.byu.edu/, [1965]. Elder Gene R. Cook of the Seventy also stated, “You, as the teacher, must do all in your power to prepare the hearts of men so the Spirit can teach” (Ensign, Nov. 1988, 38).
[5] “The more questions we can get from the learners about something, the more they are engaged in the learning” (Julie B. Beck, Ensign, June 2007, 101).
[6] “But do you suppose that he [the slave] would ever have enquired into or learned what he fancied that he knew, though he was really ignorant of it, until he had fallen into perplexity under the idea that he did not know, and had desired to know?” (Socrates, in Plato’s Meno).
[7]“My personal experience confirms that to gain knowledge of great worth requires extraordinary effort through personal involvement. This is particularly true when our desire is to gain spiritual knowledge” (Elder Richard G. Scott, “Acquiring Spiritual Knowledge.” http://speeches.byu.edu/ [1993]).
[8] “A skilled teacher...asks, ‘What will my students do in class today?’” Teaching the Gospel Handbook, 13.
[9] “When teachers present a doctrine or a historical event, they should teach a related principle—something hearers should do, something they should apply to their lives” (Elder V. Dallas Merrill, Ensign, October, 2001, accessed at http://lds.org/).
[10] “[Helping] individuals…become spiritually self-reliant…is best accomplished as we encourage and facilitate learners acting in accordance with correct principles—as we help them to learn by doing…One of the fundamental roles of a [teacher] is to help [students] make and honor commitments—to act and learn by faith. Teaching, exhorting, and explaining, as important as they are, can never convey to [a student] a witness of the truthfulness of the restored gospel. Only as an [student’s] faith initiates action and opens the pathway to the heart can the Holy Ghost deliver a confirming witness”” (Elder David A. Bednar, “Seek Learning By Faith,” Address to CES, [2006]).
[11]“As you study and learn and grow during your time as a university student, I hope you also are learning about and becoming quick to observe. Your future success and happiness will in large measure be determined by this spiritual capacity” (Elder David A. Bednar, http://speeches.byu.edu/ “Quick to Observe.” [2005].
[12] “Our children and the youth of the Church will learn the most from what we do and what we are—even if they remember relatively little of what we say. (Elder David A. Bednar, “Marriage is Essential to His Eternal Plan, Ensign, June 2006).
[13] “It begins with expectations, yours and theirs. If you expect little, they will feel your lack of faith in them and in the Lord’s promised outpouring of the Spirit. If you communicate, by word or action or even by your tone of voice, that you doubt their spiritual capacity, they will doubt it. If you see [powerful potential] in them, they will at least have the chance to see it in themselves. Your choices of what you expect will have powerful effect on their choices of what to expect of themselves.” (President Henry B. Eyring, “Raising Expectations,” [2004], 2.)
[14] President Gordon B. Hinckley, Ensign, Nov. 2000, 50.
[15] See Mosiah 26:13-14
[16] “Teach the importance and power of pondering; provide time in class to ponder, to think.” (Elder Robert D. Hales, Teaching by Faith [address to religious educators at a satellite broadcast, 1 Feb. 2002], 3–4.)

A little bit about me

2008-09-09T14:17:00.000-07:00

I like to know people's names, and why they were given those names.

My full name is John Levi Hilton III, obviously after my father and grandfather. My grandfather received his first name from his paternal grandfather (John Hugh Hilton) and his middle name from his maternal grandfather (Levi Mathers Savage). That family heritage is important to me.

I hope to learn your name and why you were named it.

My life revolves around my family and my religion. My wife Lani and I met during our undergrad years at BYU, and we have been married for 8 years. We have four children, ages 7, 5, 3 and 1. Some pictures can be viewed at our family website, http://thehiltonfamily.org/ (sadly it is 8 months outdated).

Professionally, I am a "religious educator," in various facets of that phrase. Some of my published works can be accessed at http://johnhiltoniii.com/ (also outdated).

I am beginning this blog as an assignment for IP&T 692. I'm taking this class because I use few "Web 2.0" tools, and want to learn how using them could assist in sharing religious content, and more specifically, improving open-access religious education classes.