CEP 810: The Gateway into the MSU Educational Technology Program

Reflecting on my learning experience in CEP 810 has led me to the realization that I am moving on with more questions than answers—thank goodness for that. From my viewpoint, CEP 810—and I am sure CEP 811 as well—are the gateways into the educational technology (Ed tech) program at Michigan State University. I see now that one of the major purposes of CEP 810 is to help students form framing questions they can take with them throughout their Ed Tech experience. That is not to say I am moving on from CEP 810 without new concrete skills and schema that will both sharpen and broaden my professional practice.

One of the significant ways I see my professional practice changing is my new found understanding of the differences and relationships between experts and novices. While I have a command of the social studies disciplines I teach, my expertise is in the pedagogy in teaching secondary social studies and this sets me apart from an expert, say, in history who may possess expertise in the historical method but lacks the necessary expertise in pedagogy to teach such a method to others. Because of what I have learned in CEP 810 I am now acutely aware that I am not necessarily taking my students to a point of expertise in either social studies or as learners. Instead, I am putting them on a path that will lead them to become experts in their own learning as well as whatever discipline, field, or vocation they choose to pursue.

As alluded to above, the questions I now have regarding not only Ed Tech, but also, good pedagogy greatly outweighs the new schemas and skills I have acquired and for that I am thankful. One of the questions that still remains for me is how can I harness the energy of participatory culture and affinity spaces within my specific field of teaching—social studies. As I observed in my final blog entry addressing the Network Learning Project “exactly what that [the energy of participatory culture and affinity spaces] looks like is not clear to me yet.”

My experience with learning Punya Mishra’s framework of Technology, Pedagogy, Content, and Knowledge (TPACK) has left with me lingering puzzles and problems to solve. TPACK was a bit of epiphany for me. The whole idea of repurposing technology for use in the classroom—both as an aide to the teacher and learning tool for students—has had a profound effect on how I see the evolving role of technology in education. What TPACK looks like specifically in the context of a secondary World History class is an issue I am excited to explore.

CEP 810 has left me with a collection of inquiry pathways to explore and the tools to be successful in my exploration of teaching for understanding with technology.

TPACK in the Kitchen: A Time to Repurpose & a Time to Not

The focus this week was on technology integration in the classroom. Specifically, we focused on an approach known as TPACK, which stands for Technology, Pedagogy, Content, and Knowledge. In preparation for what I suspect will be an ongoing immersion into TPACK throughout the program, we were assigned to film a video of our selves attempting to repurpose various kitchen items to prepare various foods. We had to have someone else select the following: a bowl, plate, and kitchen utensil. It was up to my assistant, my wife Amanda, to select the type of bowl, plate, and kitchen utensil. Amanda selected regular dinning bowl, A dinner plate, and for the utensil, a small ladle. With these three items in hand I had to do the following: make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, slice up some fruit, slice up some vegetables, and make whipped cream from heavy whipping cream.

Why, you may ask, would a class in one of the nations best master’s programs in educational technology ask their students to do such an assignment? From my perspective it comes down to one word that Punya Mishra repeated numerous times throughout his lecture at the 21st Century Learning Conference in Hong Kong in 2012—repurpose. According to Mishra, there is no such thing as educational technology, rather, educators and students repurpose technology for facilitating their own teaching and learning. So then, a large part of integrating technology into the classroom is knowing how to explore the potential a technology may possess as an educational technology or knowing when a technology is just bells and whistles with little value in an educational setting.

Watch my video to see how I fared in attempting to repurpose a bowl, dinner plate, and ladle.

The Network Learning Project: The Big Take Away

How truly useful can You Tube videos and online forum discussions be in education? More specifically, is there any usefulness or merit in utilizing the affinity spaces found online as a component for student learning in the classroom. I see these questions through the eyes of a secondary social studies educator. There is an excellent You Tube video series by Historical Thinker on how to write a history essay with an excellent video on how to develop an historical thesis. However, I have not explored what may be available as far as affinity spaces for secondary history students are concerned.

Clearly, today’s youth possess some degree of awareness of affinity spaces, as some experts in the field of educational technology call informal online communities. I am personally aware of the popularity of Reddit among many of the high school students I have worked with. The videos and discussion forums they seek out tend toward what they are passionate about in this stage of their lives—namely video games—and this is most prominent among boys, at least from my antidotal observations. Therefore, when I encountered the notion of leveraging videos and particularly online forums as a means to engage students in their own learning I confess I scoffed a bit.

That is, until I tried to learn a new skill I wanted to learn by relying solely on informal online communities. I have been wearing bow ties for years. Because I have become an accomplished hemmer of pants, the thought of creating my own bow ties has been a growing interest with no outlet. The Network Learning Project (NLP) in my Educational Technology class, CEP 810, at Michigan State University was the perfect opportunity to test my grit in the context of relying on online communities to learn and acquire a new skill. I made missteps throughout the entire bow tie making process but it is in those mistakes that I learned the most.

I believe that the emerging participatory culture and affinity spaces hold promise in providing students the opportunity to take ownership of their own learning.  As teachers—at the secondary level at least—we may begin to view our role as not just a teacher but a partner and consultant for our students as they pursue their education in ways that are more independent. My experience with the NLP has led me to the conclusion that there is a role for participatory culture and affinity spaces in public education—and for me secondary social studies. Exactly what that looks like is not clear to me yet. But I am certain that as I progress through my journey in exploring educational technology in more depth, I will develop a more crystalized vision of how the potential participatory culture and affinity spaces can empower students in taking ownership of their own education in intellectually meaningful ways.

References

Gee, Paul. Affinity Spaces.pdf. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://jamespaulgee.com/geeimg/pdfs/Affinity%20Spaces.pdf

Historical Thinker – YouTube. (n.d.). Retrieved June 21, 2016, from https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzRB3_0BYz5FKoOx2WWl89A

Where in the World…? Using Geoguessr to Teach Geographic Inquiry & Analysis

What does a meaningful integration of technology in teaching and instruction look like? What learning skills must a teacher target when constructing learning experiences that integrate technology and how, exactly, does a teacher specifically have students use technology in their learning that is meaningful and contributes to their learning and growth as learners? Being sensitive to which technologies will contribute to these goals is imperative for all teachers. This was the assigned mission in my Educational Technology class at Michigan State University, CEP 810.

For me, this was an exciting challenge. I had the space, time, and focus to create a learning experience integrating carefully selected technology into a lesson to provide an authentic learning experience enriched by digital tools, which would give students genuine experience in making practical application of disciplinary concepts. I first began writing this lesson as a purely conceptual effort but it quickly blossomed into a lesson I have used with my seventh graders. Seventh-grade content expectations in Michigan present some very exciting targets for a social studies educator because so much of the standards focus on temporal and geographical conceptual frameworks.

My lesson plan, Where in the World..? Using Geoguessr to Teach Geographic Inquiry & Analysis, is based on much of what I have learned thus far in CEP 810, particularly instructional concepts I learned in this week’s activities. Among other things, our instructors turned our attention toward Renee Renee Hobbs’ essential competencies of digital and media literacy: access, analyze & evaluate, create, reflect, and act. I was especially interested in the competency of “act” which Hobbs describes as “working individually and collaboratively to share knowledge and solve problems in the family, the workplace and the community, and participating as a member of a community at local, regional, national and international levels.”

The Where in the World..? lesson plan uses three browser-based resources: Geoguessr, a browser-based geography game which uses the Google Maps Street View function; the NOAA Climate Zone webpage, an online reference tool to climate zones; and the If It Were My Home website, which allows users to compare the living conditions of their own countries to others. This lesson is largely based on the use of Geoguessr. Geoguessr drops players in random locations around the world. Players must guess where they are based only on their surroundings. In the Where in the World..? lesson students are tasked with using geographic concepts such as physical geography, cultural geography, and climate zones to make an educated guess as to where they are. Students then click where they think they are in a world map in the corner of the Geoguessr window. Students can use the NOAA Climate Zone website as a reference tool to analyze and figure out the climate zone of their location.

Geoguessr uses Google Maps street view to randomly place viewers in locations around the world. Points are based on how close a player’s guess is to the actual location.

The NOAA interactive Climate Zone map allows students to analyze what climate zone a particular location may be in.

If It Were My Home allows students to compare their own living conditions to other nations

Whether their guess was close or on a different continent, students will then compare their own living conditions to that of the nation of their location. This all ties into Hobbs’ competency of act in that it plugs them into other regions of the world. The aim is to help students develop a broader worldview, global in scope, and thus see themselves as members of an international community.

Getting All Tied Up: My Adventures in Learning How to Make a Bowtie

In Search of a Bow Tie Sewing Community

I spent a considerable amount of time evaluating various online sources for sewing a bow tie. There is a great range between expertise and novice represented in what I have considered thus far. I have read a number of blogs with accompanying comments as well several forums hoping to find a range of expert to novice exchanging and learning. What I found mostly, though, was complements to the blogger or author of a forum thread rather than an exchange of ideas or some level of inquiry. My search, however, was not in vain.

Reddit: I Finally Get It

One of my CEP  810 professors suggested that I explore Reddit’s Male Fashion Advice sub-reddit forum which led me to a posting on making bow ties from the material of a necktie. Re-appropriating a necktie for making a bow tie is the ultimate expression of resistance to conventional neckties.

The Reddit Male Fashion Advice sub-forum was an excellent example of an affinity space composed of a wide spectrum of novice learners to experts.

My initial experience with Reddit was with high school students during substitute teaching in a computer aided mechanical drawing class. Every student had his or her own assigned computer and access to the internet. I caught quite a few students—mostly boys—reading or looking at material that was—let us just say—school inappropriate—on Reddit during class periods. Consequently, my first experience with Reddit was not through a positive lens. I could kick myself now. As I explored how to make a bow tie in the Reddit Male Fashion Advice sub-reddit forum, the memory of redirecting the mechanical drawing students from Reddit—with a feigned scowl—surfaced and I immediately searched for a mechanical engineering sub-reddit forum, and lo and behold, there it was. It was a missed opportunity to turn students toward an academically productive use of one of their favorite social media platforms.

Professor Pincushion

Videos were by far the best mode for my learning. I love reading—I have a book with me all the time—but I am not a fan of reading directions. The videos offered more coherent presentations of the steps to make a bow tie rather than step-by-step photos with directions. Professor Pincussion produced by far the best video I found. Experts in sewing operate the Professor Pincushion website which, is aimed at those who are new to sewing or wish to learn how to sew. The website hosts a variety of forum groups focused on certain essential aspects on sewing. I did explore the forums but it was the video, which afforded me the greatest understanding of how to make a bow tie.

So Far, So Good

To date, I have used a stencil to cut out the fabric for my bow tie as well as cut one layer of interfacing for inside the tie. I encountered several challenges along the way. One was how to affix the stencil to the the fabric and interfacing so that I could achieve the most uniform cut between all three pieces. Most videos I watched pinned the stencil to the fabric. Initially, I had pinned the fabric with the pin oriented in the direction of the length of the tie. This caused the stencil to shift. I then decided to place each pin at opposing angles from one another thus offsetting she shifting from one pin to the next. You know you are learning well when you make mistakes in the process, reflect on why it did not work, and then think of a new strategy or approach to address the problem.

Pinning at alternate angles helped me overcome the stencil shifting when placing a pin.

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Where I Started, Where I am Now

Here I am performing one of the first essential steps in making a bow tie—Gently ironing the fabric so that it is optimally flat.

After cutting the tie fabric and interface using a stencil, I ironed the interface to one side of the bow tie. I am now ready to begin sewing my bow tie.

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A short video of cutting tie fabric.

Empowerment Through Effective Workflow

During my adulthood, I have always struggled with organizing my life. The advent of Google Calendar was a sea change event for me—I discovered a new way to organize myself in being more productive in my personal and professional life, which was very empowering. I often refer to Google Calendar as an extension of my brain—I know I am not alone in doing so. This week in CEP 810, we considered David Allen’s Getting Things Done (GTD) approach to productivity. Between a TEDx video of Allen speaking about his approach and a synopsis of the GTD approach to productivity I am now seeing how I use Google Calendar through a new lens. In GTD, Allen breaks down effective productivity into a workflow of five steps: collect, process, organize, review, and do. I will focus on how the organize step is already having an impact on my productivity.

Not too long ago I began using the tasks function of Google Calendar as my to-do list. There is always a menagerie of items on my tasks list. At any given time there are some items caught in a vicious positive feedback loop of delayed action. Allen’s suggestion that tasks should be categorized between actionable and non-actionable items has greatly affected how I get things done. Additionally, completing items that can be done in two minutes or less has had a great effect as well. I have done this with quite a number of tasks and this has shortened my to-do list considerably.

This exercise has also motivated me to explore more deeply how I can use the tasks function in Google Calendar more effectively. Since I can create more than one task list I have created an “actionable tasks” list for single step items that will take more than two minutes to complete and a “projects” list for multi-step tasks. If you are not familiar with Google Tasks you can watch the videos I created below which will introduce you to the basics of how Google Tasks functions. . Bear in mind—these are the first instructional videos I have produced. The instructions are solid but the narration could use a bit of polishing.

Google Calendar Tasks Tutorial 1 focuses on creating and managing individual tasks within in a task list.

Google Calendar Tasks Tutorial 2 focuses on creating and managing task lists as well as demonstrating how multi step projects can be organized in Google Calendar Tasks.

References

TEDx Talks. (n.d.). The Art of Stress-Free Productivity: David Allen at   TEDxClaremontColleges. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=CHxhjDPKfbY&feature=youtu.be

My Professional Learning Network (PLN)

In CEP 810 we have been tasked with mapping out our Professional Learning Network (PLN). My PLN is not as expansive as most teachers I know. This is due to the fact that I have yet to teach but I am confident that will change this hiring season! I have no doubt that my experience in CEP 810 will greatly expand my PLN it realms that had not crossed my mind before. I look forward to seeing the growth and change to my PLN.

Engaging in the Emerging Participatory Culture

Can learning a specific skill through online sources such as YouTube, forums, and blogs lead to mastering the targeted skill effectively? I begin this entry with this simple question because pursuing the answer is the mission I have been assigned in my first course— CP 810—  in Educational Technology at Michigan State University. We have thus far explored the thinking from some of the leading experts in the field of Educational Technology such as Henry Jenkins and Paul Gee. What Jenkins refers to as “participatory culture” and Gee refers to as “affinity groups” is a relatively new social force that is changing the landscape of how society learns and shares their knowledge, skills, and thinking. Diving into learning a new skill by relying solely on online or digital communities will provide me experiential insight into this new paradigm of learning and teaching. So what skill am I to pursue in this adventure?

For a long time now I have have wanted to both learn how to sew and begin sewing various items for myself and my family— especially bow ties. If I can sew my own bow ties, that will save my family a great amount of money and give me more choices in the types of fabrics, patterns, and styles I can have in my bow tie collection. I do have some experience using a sewing machine. In fact, it was through watching a number of different tutorials on how to hem pants on YouTube that I learned how to to do so for myself which has saved my wife and I a near fortune. It is a rarity when I find a pair of pants that fit me well enough not to have to hem them. Thus, for my Network Learning project I will be learning how to sew my own bow ties.

Thus far in my search I found a host of YouTube videos of varying quality demonstrating a wide array of offerings from novice to expert. Parsing through all the videos impressed upon me the urgent need to provide students with instruction, practice, and experience in identifying good verses questionable sources. I have found several videos, which altogether, provide good references for sewing a bow tie. Professor Pincushion is the best resource I have found thus far. They created an excellent tutorial video, which is embedded below, and also host nine different forums on sewing for the novice to expert.

      Sewing a bow tie tutorial YouTube video from Professor Pincushion

 

Critical Thinking in Educational Technology

CP 810 is the first course I am taking on my journey to my master’s in educational technology. For my first assignment, I have been tasked to write a brief essay addressing the differences between the learning processes of experts and novices and what insights these differences provide educators as they seek to provide their students learning experiences, which support their growth as critical thinkers in the 21st century. Additionally I briefly address teaching methods that support student growth as critical thinkers and a few ways in how educational technology can play a supporting role in these methods. This brief essay is informed by my assigned reading from this week—Bransford, Brown & Cocking’s (2000) How People Learn. My essay can be found here. I welcome your comments.