David Simpson

Thanks for the Memories…

Perhaps because I just recently read that the CEO of Evernote wants me to be able to remember everything, I’ve been thinking a lot about elephants lately and about Jorge Luis Borges‘ Funes Memorius and about those Seven Sins of Memory outlined by Psychologist Daniel Schacter. One of the ~~downsides~~ joys of being liberally educated is that one sees interconnections among seemingly disparate things.

Based upon my thinking about the links above, I’m convinced that I don’t want a perfect memory—nor do I want technological tools for remembering everything. Still, as I grow older I am increasingly sensitive to issues of memory loss. I am haunted by the descriptions of dementia so graphically and accurately described in Walter Mosely’s novel The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey.

Here is an interview with the author.

There is so much ~~hype~~ interest today in using technology to improve one’s brain power, health and well-being. Try, for example, doing an online search on “brain power.” You’ll be overwhelmed with the results though (hopefully) be underwhelmed by the validity of the claims. The challenge is to know how to decide which claims are “snake oil,” which represent vaporware, and which are science-based. Consider these three Internet “tools” (none of which I am endorsing but each of which I am investigating with my students) … and their promises and claims of success at improving one’s life

Which (if any) in your informed judgment is based upon valid psychological science? Which is merely entertainment? Which make false or unverifiable claims? Which is patently wrong?

Here is a video of some evidence-based things we can do to improve our health and psychological well-being. The first presenter, Dr. Michelle Braun, is a Carroll graduate who recently returned to campus to receive the Joseph E. Runkel Excellence in Psychology award. She is also the first speaker in the accompanying video. Her message is uplifting, well-presented, and data based. Thank you, Michelle, for your advocacy and for serving as a touchstone for my learning. You continue to enrich my life and those of my students.

Sorting My Technology Learning Tool Box (Part 2)

Many thanks to student readers who have shared their thoughts about the technology learning tools from Jane Hart’s survey (identified as favorites by 500+ learning professionals from 48 countries worldwide). I found your responses thoughtful and helpful in informing my reflections about which tools to teach, which to further investigate, and which to use in my own personal learning plans. I found especially interesting your sharing which apps help you become a more effective learner. Keep those insights coming.

Continuing my ruminations from Part 1, I have mixed reactions about Tool #14, Wikipedia. I do use it as a starting point when I explore topics about which I know little. I am amazed at how current its articles often are. Moreover, I am intrigued by the Association for Psychological Science’s Wikipedia Inititiative to improve it. However, I can’t convince myself of its credibility nor can I motivate myself to dedicate time to joining others in making it better.

I have played with Prezi (Tool #15) as an alternative to PowerPoint, but find it too “jazzy” a presentation tool for my purposes. I can see how it might readily engage and entertain an audience younger than I ordinarily interact with. I have found Tool # 16 (Slideshare) more useful as a personal learning tool than as a teaching tool. I am fascinated with the potential of Tool # 99, Learnist.

I can’t image NOT using Tool # 17 (Word). Though I presently prefer blogging tool WordPress (Tool # 8) over Tumblr (Tool # 65), and Blogger (Tool #18) and Typepad , that is more a personal preference that has evolved over time. Here is a recent comparison of some of the elements of several blogging tools. And here are some “scoops” about technology learning tools as my top tool preferences evolve.

Which of these tools allude to above serve your learning needs best? Why? What tools like this do you use most often?

Sorting My Technology Learning Tool Box (Part 1)

Time to revisit Jane Hart’s Top Learning Tools list (7th edition) and her invaluable, newly updated Practical Guide—well worth purchasing, studying and using. I regularly consult it, especially the web-based version, when I am interested in trying to find a “right” tool for the particular type of learning experience I am seeking for me or for my students. In concert with Michelle Pacansky-Brock’s Best Practices for Teaching with Emergency Technologies, Susan Manning and Kevin E. Johnson’s The Technology Toolbelt for Teaching, Steve Johnson’s Digital Tools for Teaching, and Alec Couros’ Becoming a Networked Learner, these resources have demonstrably changed how I teach, how I learn, and how I “reach out” to others via social media. Clearly, as Curtis J. Bonk has evangelized, my world has been opened and expanded. The challenge is to find balance between tool use and the tools controlling me. For a horrific example of such a dystopia I recommend your reading Dave Eggers novel The Circle.

Though I have explored every year each of the 100 learning tools, I have no “favorite” tool. Which tool I use most is very much a function of the learning/teaching task I am engaged in, the discretionary time I allow myself for being online, the audience I am working with, and the particular computer/operating system I am using. All these factors change very quickly.

This year I am using the #1 tool Twitter much less often than last year (when I was an active Carroll Technology Fellow) I could see my use of Twitter increasing suddenly if I decide upon it as a tool of choice for communicating with my newly acquired and rapidly increasing global fellow-teachers. Since English for them is their strategic language of choice, limiting communication to 140 characters or less makes some sense.

Because of an increased need for collaborative work with on campus committees, cross-national collaborations, and with my student research group and because across the course of a day I move between a desktop PC, a desk top Mac, a laptop PC, a laptop Mac, and IPads, I am now using to a greater degree Tool # 2 Google Docs/Drive . Without Google Docs or a similar sharing capacity I would be plagued by not remembering upon which machine I stored information needed to be shared.

Clearly my International colleagues (and my students) are more facile with the use of YouTube, Tool #3 and have much to teach me about its value (or lack of value) as a learning tool. Jane’s Practical Guide often includes YouTube links which I have found quite useful as an additional modality of learning how to use technology learning tools.

Tool # 4 Google search is my search engine of choice though I grossly under-use the sophisticated and nuanced search capabilities it provides.

I intentionally under use Tool # 5 PowerPoint (see the preceding link about the evils of PowerPoint!). Tool # 6, Evernote, is one I keep intending to master and yet, the Kindle book version about it and Quick Guides about it remain neglected pixels on my screens. I even am using some Skype-recording apps which can export into Evernote—and I have found a number of occasions where I need to use Skitch to annotate a web page . Maybe I need to read and heed this link.

I have the same usage problems with Tool # 7, Dropbox. I have it—it exists in the background of all my machines, but I have failed to devote the time to master it. So many tools; which ones deserve my time?

Tools # 8 (WordPress), # 9 Facebook, #12 (LinkedIn), and #13 (Skype) now play an integral role in my teaching, learning, promulgating, networking modus operandi. I’m still struggling with finding additional value from further investigating Tool # 10 Google+ and Hangouts (they just are too informal or duplicative in function with other tools) for my present perceived needs. I have ignored learning Tool # 11. Moodle since I find such LMS structures constraining

Help me out. Help me learn. Which of these tools have you used? What am I missing in discovering their utility for teaching and learning? Which would be most useful in advancing my interests in cross-national cross-generational teaching and learning?

Which develop skills that all global citizens should be familiar with?

So much to learn….

One of the many joys of being a professor is being afforded many opportunities to learn and discovering new ways of learning and teaching. My Thursdays this semester are especially devoted to research, learning, and reflection. Among today’s learning activities I engaged in were

studying a successful Comenius grant kindly shared with me by a fellow teacher from Turkey. Thank you, present and former fellow teachers Inci Aslan (Turkey) and Irma Milevičiūtė (Lithuania)!
further exploration of the curating learning tool, scoop.it. Here is some background information I “scooped” today to better know Turkey.
having a simultaneous Skype sessions with three of my undergraduate students and a graduate student where we test the usefulness of two Skype recording applications Pamela and Callnote. Skype is becoming an increasingly useful teaching and tool for me.
rediscovering an old neglected audio recording “app” Tapedeck and finding that it worked with the new Mavericks operating system OSX 10.9 and seamlessly interfaces with YouTube and Itunes
providing feedback to a blog post of a teacher in Spain. I continue to learn so much from etwinning elementary and secondary school global colleagues who are far more adept than I in using learning technology

Last Tuesday I updated my MacBook Pro to MAC OSX 10.9 . Now I have the challenge of updating my far-too-many applications (I just received notice within the past five seconds of the need to update 8 of them!) . So much to learn…so little time. Yet what fun to have so many learning opportunities and new teachers of all ages and from all over the globe!

CONFIDENTIAL: Teaching Students with Disabilities

The sealed envelope stamped CONFIDENTIAL from our Counseling Center appears in my campus mail the day before classes begin . Some semesters none arrives; other times I may get three or four. Inside is a form letter addressed to all faculty teaching classes for “Student X” indicating that the student has provided proper documentation for a diagnosed (but unspecified) disability. In addition, the letter lists special accomodations that, according to the Americans with Disabilities Act, my institution is required to provide the student to better allow an equal opportunity to learn and to be fairly tested.

Over the 35 years I have received more and more such letters though whether that is due to increases in enrollment of such students, broader definitions of “disability,”increased enrollments of students in general, or increased fears of law suits is unclear to me. Although I actively endorse the concept of equal learning opportunities and I clearly indicate in my syllabus that I am open to private discussion with students about any special needs, I often question whether I should be privy to this information and wonder whether there are better ways or better times to communicate it.

I have taught students with a wide range of ages, abilities and “disabilities.” It is definitely helpful to know in advance if a student has special physical needs (e.g. wheel chair access; special versions of course materials) in the classroom or if their presence may mandate my changing how I teach. In my classroom all students are special and all have special needs. I make special efforts from day 1 to create an atmosphere of trust so that students will feel comfortable alerting me in timely fashion to idiosyncratic special needs or special learning or testing accomodations. But I am also wary of prematurely labeling a student—or of reinforcing their dependency. So many times such students and I have been able to celebrate their academic successes without the recommended accomodations. It is especially thrilling to see them graduate having developed skills to succeed academically.

In Search of Arrow: Additional Reflections about The Cellist of Sarajevo

At the end of his novel The Cellist of Sarajevo Steven Galloway mentions briefly his search for the sniper Arrow whom he fictionalized. Here is an audiotape of the interview he refers to.

Here is a newspaper article about her.

Here is another newspaper about Arrow’s “transformation” from a longing for peace to a longing for the front lines.”

Here are some images.

And here are, some more images.

When will we ever learn…

What Did You Do This Summer, Professor Simpson???

Perhaps it is my age. Perhaps it’s my approaching retirement. However, I like to think it is because of my values. I no longer yield to the increasing Carroll peer and institutional pressure (and financial incentives) to be on campus teaching, writing grants, doing research, and mentoring students over the summer. Summer for me is a time to be away from campus and from campus emails— a time for reflection, for recharging, for redirection, for play and for rejuvenation. I never stop learning (amusingly my Mac DayOne App just eerily intruded to ask what I learned today!).

I’ve hardly been academically or intellectually stagnant since I left campus in May. Among the books that I have enjoyed reading this summer are

Adam Johnson’s The Orphan Master’s Son
Steven Galloway’s The Cellist of Sarajevo
Ben Fontain’s Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk
Khaled Hosseni’s The Kite Runner
Kate Atkinson’s Life After Life and her Behind the Scenes at the Museum
Connie Willis’s The Best of Connie Willis: Award-Winning Stories
Neil Gaiman’s The Ocean at the End of the Lane and Unnatural Creatures: Stories Selected by Neil Gaiman
Marisha Pessl’s Night Film (thank you, Susan Gusho, for the treasured autographed copy!)
Erin Morgenstern’s The Night Circus
Robert Galbraith’s (aka J. K. Rowling) The Cuckoo’s Calling

What shall I read next?

I have written almost every day (blogging, developing international contacts, Twitter, Facebook, book reviews, manuscript reviews) though what I write and where I write seems not to be highly valued by my institution’s reward system. C’est la vie.

I continue to develop expertise to bring into the classroom technology learning tool applications (e.g. Ning, WordPress, Paper.li, Scoopit, and Animoto) based upon the path-breaking contributions of Jane Hart and others I have “met” virtually this past academic year and this summer. I have created a Sandbox for International Educators whom I have come to know and respect and experimented with BlogTalkRadio.

Here is an Animoto short video slideshow of some highlights from this summer: Final Copy of Summer Vacation 2013.

“My Name is Alisa”: Reflections on Steven Galloway’s The Cellist of Sarajevo

Our Opening Convocation at Carroll University this year will feature a presentation by Steven Galloway, author of the novel The Cellist of Sarajevo. All incoming freshmen were given a copy of the book this summer and extended a “challenge” to submit an original piece of writing (e.g. a speech, essay or poem) that engages both The Cellist of Sarajevo and the campus-wide “humanity” theme.

Being an incoming student at heart (every year), I dutifully read the book and curated some background information in the form of two paper.li editions. Here are links to the August 13 edition and August 18 edition. Here is the cellist performing. Here is a story about “Arrow.” I would also recommend reading The Book of My Lives by Alekzandar Hemon.

I very much look forward to hearing the author in person. Though I am not involved in freshmen seminars, I can easily see drawing upon this material in my Introductory Psychology class which has predominantly freshmen in it. Putting the book down, I was reminded of the course I once taught “Why War?” of this song.

Too Many Applications: Not Enough Applying

Summer time in theory allows me time to embrace the 5 R’s: Reading, Reflection, Regrouping, Refocusing, and Rejuvenation. Alas, it’s past time to revisit the 270 applications on my Macbook Pro and decide which are essential, which are duplicative, and which should be removed to free up space. Still, I want to leave some remaining summer time for enjoying the simple beauty of the flowers.

There are many drawbacks to having too many applications (and electronic devices). One challenge is keeping them updated, though I subscribe to a number of services which alert me to updates and upgrades. Another, is simply keeping track of them in terms of what they do and how well they do the task. A third challenge, is keeping in mind to what degree they are portable and comparable in capabilities across the electronic devices which I use. And, then, of course the electronic devices themselves “evolve” with new operating systems and new devices.

Tonight I am focused on apps on my Macbook Pro which begin with the letters A-C (or begin with a number). Clearly my most valued applications are 1Password and Camtasia. I continue to delude myself into thinking I can find some teaching potential for Clarify, Comic Life, and Crazytalk. Hey, a guy has to have play time.