Winter News

Hello!

I thought I would take a moment to recount what's new.  The weather in the bay area has been absurd -- 76 F in February?  What!?  But, the sunshine is welcome.  Here is what's been happening lately.

First, I am going to learn to teach Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction.  This is great for me on a personal level, but also compliments my interest in cognitive development and learning.  I hope I can turn this content into something I can use when I volunteer with your engineers and kids on the Digital Divide like I adapted my Design Thinking and UX/UI courses.

I've been working with Howard Rheingold and team on the Peeragogy Handbook.  I've also been helping to design a Stanford course on new technology literacies.

I'm very excited about getting back into the classroom teaching Design Thinking the Google CAPE program for 2012.

I've been invited to teach a lab on innovation at St. Mary's University MBA program  in Texas.  They are well known for producing non-profit leaders. 

I had fun making this cooking video showing how to make gluten free soccas.

I've been doing Code Year and following a MOOC to keep myself busy with learning new things.

I published an article on a course I designed at Google for Supplier Managers.

I figured out a way to measure the potential in an organization for informal learning using existing data and zero coding.

Finally, East Palo Alto Phoenix Academy was awarded a $15,000 Google Home Sweet Home grant!

When to apply Connectivism?

I have been thinking about how I have a contrary opinion of Connectivism as it is applied in education. Most of the time, I hear the properties of Social Constructivism mislabeled as Connectivism without regard to the special features of learning organism and learning organization. I have to wonder if Connectivism is a useful framework for formal learning at all. I always associate Connectivism with informal learning.

I would say that even the #cck12 course is not an example that one could use to fully explain Connectivism.   Social Constructivism is an adequate framework for this type of learning, decentralized as it is.  I think that the evidence for learning in a network is quite different from the goals of a social media enabled course or CoP.  Most theories in this are locate knowing and learning as cognitive (neurological) or psychological (mind).  Connectivism locates learning in collective action and novel problem solving.  In a university course, the intentional sense-making is a Social Constructivist activity; the extra-course optional emergent and self-organizing collective action as an unintended outcome is the Connectivism.

The issue is a bit semantic, of course.  Great learning is the real goal, not a debate about vocabulary.  Still, I have been researching ways to measure informal learning using Connectivism as my framework.  I have been hatching a process for measuring informal learning potential with existing data and free Internet tools.  It was this special case of the learning organization that inspired me, and in no way did I see that the evidence for the health of such an organism would be found in my home turf of formal learning.

TubeChop - Cosmos: A Personal Voyage - Episode 11 (Carl Sagan) (02:26)

http://www.tubechop.com/watch/267098

In this segment, Carl Sagan reviews the amount of information we need to adapt quickly to changes (versus evolve slowly) and discusses our need to store information externally.

#cck12

 

Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age

• Here are my highlights from Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age

• Looks like I need to change how much I highlight to provide context, but the way Diigo works, in general, is close to how I like to make annotations.  I usually teach students NOT to use highlighters because they just make a nonsensical coloring book out of expensive textbooks.  I will make an acceptation for legal highlighting.  I think that the Diggo annotation function is much more useful for me, but without the context of the highlight, they make little sense once extracted.

• I say try this for a class.  The straight to blog function is pretty keen, and I will recommend this for my research projects as a way to collect and evaluate possible term paper resources as well as solicit dialog from peers/instructors.

• • 
    • Or, Social Contructivism.
  • constructivism
  • George Siemens
  • These theories, however, were developed in a time when learning was not impacted through technology.
  • environments
  • novel
  • 
    • This is not a change. Informal learning is how we *evolved* to learn.
  • no longer
  • learning organisms
  • know-where
  • change in human performance or performance potential
  • 
    • cognitive/psychological processes
  • A central tenet of most learning theories is that learning occurs inside a person.
  • They also fail to describe how learning happens within organizations
  • rapid evaluation of knowledge
  • act by drawing information outside of our primary knowledge.
  • We derive our competence from forming connections.
  • ‘I store my knowledge in my friends’
  • The ability to recognize and adjust to pattern shifts is a key learning task.
  • change its structure
  • 
    • Complex Adaptive Systems
  • Connections between disparate ideas and fields can create new innovations.
  • connecting specialized information sets
  • Nurturing and maintaining connections
  • Decision-making is itself a learning process.
  • knowledge management
  • Information flow
  • Social network analysis
  • This amplification of learning, knowledge and understanding through the extension of a personal network is the epitome of connectivism.

     
• Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

 

Sign ups for free workshop open

Evidence Based Learning Design and a Practical Approach

Ruth Colvin Clark is known for her meta-study to on the ground approach to writing.  Her most recent book is the most concise and useful that I've read so far.  She busts learning myths with real studies and takes the work out of mapping research to practice with useful guidelines and checklists.

Her effortless writing style makes this book an easy to read and easy to apply field guide.

If you are at all involved in creating learning experiences, tread this book! 

This is what a neglected blog looks like!

What have I been up to lately? Settling at my new job and designing two new workshops:

Technology Design for Humans: The Tech in Ed Edition (6 hr)

• This workshop focuses on paper prototyping web, tablet, and mobile technologies for use in Education or for educating. Non-techies will learn repeatable ways to create prototypes of their technology ideas so that they can test, explain, and pitch their concepts to investors, partners, and developers ... fast and on the cheap! It teaches design methods that are both human centered and human friendly. No super human technology skills required!
• Min 10; Max 40
• $500/pp (ask about Educators/Non-Profits price)

Technology Design for Humans: Paper-to-Clickable Prototypes (3 hr)

• This workshop continues the 6 hour Technology design for humans. We'll take our tested paper prototypes to the next level using simple tools to create clickable prototypes. Clickable prototypes are great for continuing testing your ideas and presenting them to investors, partners, and developers. If you can use basic drawing tools on your computer, you can do this. No super human technology skills required!
• Min 10; Max 20
• $250/pp (ask about Educators/Non-Profits price)
• Software: ~$200
• Pre-req: any Technology Design for Humans 6 hr wokshop