pdZone

I just posted my final project for my final course for my M.Ed. While I am glad to be finished, I am a little wistful. I really enjoyed my program and would gladly do it again. On the other hand, my son has been telling me over the past couple of weeks that he want my courses to be done. How can I argue with that?

Overall, I am glad I did it. It has been challenging trying to balance the coursework with family and the new admin responsibilities at work. Even so, WOO-HOO! I’ll have to figure out what to do to fill the void, but I suppose the entropy of life will fill in that void pretty quickly.

Things are only impossible until they’re not.
– Jean-Luc Picard

This would have been useful last summer when I took those courses in teaching with video games and adventure game learning: 26 Learning Games to Change the World. It would also be a good fit with our character education program. Gotta share…

Darren’s post A Difference: Assessment and Rote Learning helped to remind me why I was a math person (I would like to say that I still am but I seldom get to use it these days). In particular, I enjoyed the image of a math puzzle that he included with the post. I am embarrased to admit how long it took me to figure out the solution, but the type of thinking that I had to do was exactly the type that students need to be doing.

I also think that David Truss’ original comments about math assessment are spot on. I remember having several discussions with colleagues about how a student had demonstrated sound mathematical skills despite a small error early on in solving a problem. If I simply mark the question wrong because the final answer is nowhere near the correct one, am I really assessing the student’s skills? I still know many colleagues who are more concerned with designing an assignment or test that is easy to mark rather than one which goes into great depth. I know it takes a little longer, but looking carefully at the process followed by the student gave me a much greater insight into the student’s abilities.

Boy I miss math!

Last week I attended the ECOO conference in Toronto and was fortunate enough to attend two presentations by George Siemens. I have read his Connectivism and elearnspace blogs for a while now and was not disappointed. He presented some interesting ideas regarding learning and technology. I just saw that he has posted presentation on Learning in Context today.

Now I have something to show my principal when I go off on a tangent about how the way kids learn is changing. Thanks, George!

Random Walk in E-Learning: What if everything we think about school is wrong?

Key quote: “Education is in the heart of the listener, not in the voice of the teacher.”

I was at a workshop today on the use of LMS, specifically Blackboard. The presenters, from the Ottawa-Carleton D.S.B., told us about how they use Bb for blended and online courses, as well as for professional learning communities. As the day progressed, I had a look at Bb and compared some of its functions to those of Moodle. I took a few notes through the day and thought about how I could apply some of what I learned here in my own system. Here are my (very brief) notes:

• Very interesting
• There are a lot of similarities between Blackboard and Moodle. Bb does have a few more tools available, but I do like the open
• source nature of Moodle. I really enjoy the quick development and modules that are available in a project like Moodle.
• I would like to put board- or school-developed documents into a wiki and allow individual teachers to modify tasks and rubrics.
• This would allow teachers to have input into the process. It would also allow those who make the final decisions to see what the classroom teachers think about the process. This could be done in Moodle.
• Desire2Learn is licensed through OESS, but only for courses that are completely online.
• OCDSB has an “Intro to elearning” course for 7,8,9 students before they move into high school. What a great way to get the kids ready for those learning experiences that they will encounter as they progress through secondary and post-secondary learning!
• Use LMS as a vehicle for teacher PD.
• Professional Learning Communities could be organized in Moodle with PD courses for teachers. Teachers could also have the opportunity for sharing, asking questions.

Yesterday, I was looking through Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point again, just to see what new insights I might bring to my reading of a few passages. In the end notes, the author directs readers to his web site, where I read through a few of his archived articles. At the end of The Talent Myth (The New Yorker, July 22, 2002), Gladwell writes about the whole Enron fiasco from a few years back: “They were there looking for people who had the talent to think outside the box. It never occurred to them that, if everyone had to think outside the box, maybe it was the box that needed fixing.”

In education we often hear that we need to think outside the box (an expression I loathe, by the way). I wholeheartedly agree that we need to be adaptive and find strategies to be effective problem solvers, and to help the students develop similar strategies. What if, as Gladwell states, it is not just a matter of all of our thinking outside the box? What if it is also a matter of changing the way we do business?

While we still work within some pretty rigid confines, there have definitely been some moves toward more progressive changes in the system. I ofetn read people lamenting the fact that education does not seem to keep up with the bleeding edges of technology and societal changes. Inertia is a hard force to overcome. Many of the old “inside the box” strategies are still very effective, but differentiation of teaching and assessment strategies can certainly allow for greater freedom of student learning.

Where am I going with this? I am not sure, but I find Gladwell’s statement to be quite provocative. I am still trying to pull together pieces of my own understanding of these issues. The more I read, the more I think, and the more I realize I don’t know!

God, I love learning!

In his post Representing Information, Clarence makes a good point about “How we represent information, what it looks like, and the forms that are possible, shape our thoughts about it.”

I have thought about the other side of this, but this makes so much sense. I am comfortable with the idea that we make meaning in what we read based on our own experience. It seems so obvious then that we continue to shape our understanding of a concept when we represent it. I recently went to a workshop on differentiated instruction, and Clarence’s statement makes me think about strategies whereby the students are given more options in the way that they demonstrate their learning. If the way in which we represent information helps to shape the way in which we view that knowledge, it stands to reason that we need to give students as many opportunities as possible to select those strategies that best suit their own learning.

Will we encounter students who will take the easy way out and select those strategies that simply require the least effort and which lead to minimal learning? Let’s not kid ourselves. It’s going to happen, if we allow it. I suppose it comes back to us to guide the kids to choose the strategies that will be most effective for them (we should know or kids well enough to have a good idea what will work best).

What about a topic like mixing colours of light, for example? Which kids will benefit from demonstrating their understanding of this concept through a structured written task? What about a demonstration with ray boxes? How about a computer-based activity in which the students demonstrate their understanding by mixing colours of light in the cells of a table? They all address the same curriculum expectations, but each student could develop his/her own understanding of the topic through the mode of presentation/writing representation that he/she chooses.

I have a meeting on Monday morning and I think I might refer back to this.

As a Math teacher, I look at this and think it would be a great way to look at the types of questions asked in surveys and the meaning behind the results.

You scored as The Amazing Spider-Man. After being bitten by a radioactive spider, Peter Parker was transformed from a nerdy high school student into New York’s greatest hero. Peter enjoys the thrill of being a super hero, but he struggles with the burdens of leading a double life. He hopes someday to win the heart of his true love Mary Jane, the woman he’s loved since before he even liked girls. Right now, he just wants to make it through college and pay his bills. Neo, the "One" 71% The Amazing Spider-Man 71% The Terminator 67% Batman, the Dark Knight 63% Lara Croft 63% Maximus 54% Indiana Jones 46% William Wallace 42% Captain Jack Sparrow 42% James Bond, Agent 007 42% El Zorro 21%

Which Action Hero Would You Be? v. 2.0
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