Just finished reading Susan Manning's and Kevin E. Johnson's (2011) book "The Technology Toolbelt for Teaching". Interesting to juxtapose this against the seminal 2008 work by Jane Hart that first focused my interest in bringing technology tools into the classroom. I'll use the Manning and Johnson decision matrix to help me decide which tools to use in the Virtual Cross-cultural Immersion Experience my students and i are designing.
Reflections on the Carroll Experience: Seven Voices (Please Add Yours!)
Please contribute to this VoiceThread conversation if you ever attended Carroll College/ Carroll University (Wisconsin). Contact me if you don’t know how to join the conversation.
Internet Detritus and Wabi-sabi
A few years ago a Carroll trustee remarked to me that he wondered how much Internet detritus has accumulated (unused email accounts, abandoned web pages, forgotten electronic projects). Jim's musing about this lost virtual space recently returned to me while I was attending a Carroll Technology Fellows' meeting. We were being introduced to wikispaces and it dawned on me that I not only had an account there, but I also had abandoned accounts on four other wiki hosts which I had explored intermittently since 2007: pbwiki, wetpaint,
twiki, and jotspot. That embarrassing realization in turn led me to revisit Woods and Thoeny's (2007) Wiki's for Dummies, revisit all my prior accounts, and think about whether an "old" (e.g. 2007) largely abandoned teaching technology tool deserved any place in my technology teaching tool kit today.
Ward Cunningham invented the wiki (essentially a collection of web pages) as the simplest possible online data base that anyone could edit. Simple it is. Myriad wiki tools exist. Here is ONE way to choose among them.
I presently am using wikispaces because it is free to educators and is easy to use. Presently, I have (re)found it valuable as a project manager of a
colloborative research project I am working on with six undergraduates where we have a
need for an easily accessible, editable shared repository on the web. Abundant well-written
tutorials exist for guiding the novice user.
Woods and Thoeny liken wikis to electronic, linkable index cards and enjoin the reader to embrace the attitude of "Wabi-sabi"—the beauty of unfinished content—as one enters the world of wiki collaboration. I personally find that attitude motivating in the same sense as the Zeigarnik effect or the lines of Robert Frost "…miles to go before I sleep." Though I have not seen wikis "conquer" problems as some wiki evangelists predicted, I presently benefit from the tool facilitating collaboration. Perhaps the logo on this t-shirt expresses it best:
Reaching Out Globally—Virtually
Help me out. It is official. My 6 very talented undergraduate research assistants and I have successfully "won" a university-wide competition with our proposal to create a pilot Cross Cultural Experience (CCE) at Carroll University with a focus on an in-the-classroom emersion experience. Each student will be awarded a new Ipad and will receive two-credit hours for pioneering this course development project.
"Dr. David Simpson, Professor of Psychology,
along with students Phoumany Phouybanhdyt, Ryan Waters, Catrina Duncan,
Amy Peterson, Elizabeth Firkus, and Maxine Venturelli, proposed
a pilot that focuses on a single culture/nation for approximately 2 weeks.
By the end of the semester students will be able to compare and
contrast several cultures to the United States. The goal of the
classroom experience is to give the students the
ability to have an immersion-like experience through the different uses
of technology incorporated within the course through class discussion
and student reflection. Students will have the ability to interact
globally through the use of various 21st
century technology learning tools."
along with students Phoumany Phouybanhdyt, Ryan Waters, Catrina Duncan,
Amy Peterson, Elizabeth Firkus, and Maxine Venturelli, proposed
a pilot that focuses on a single culture/nation for approximately 2 weeks.
By the end of the semester students will be able to compare and
contrast several cultures to the United States. The goal of the
classroom experience is to give the students the
ability to have an immersion-like experience through the different uses
of technology incorporated within the course through class discussion
and student reflection. Students will have the ability to interact
globally through the use of various 21st
century technology learning tools."
We have already created a wikispace and will no doubt be using among other tools Skype and VoiceThread. This is a wonderful opportunity for me to cascade into the larger Carroll community several teaching tools I have been invesigating since 2007.
What a joy to work with, develop, and learn with such student talent. This is going to be fun.
We welcome ideas, contacts, and interested virtual observers as we learn together.
Thanks in advance to Drs. Lynne Bernier and Terri Johnson for creating this educational opportunity and special heart-felt thanks (or is that Hart-felt thanks) for my wise, generous, indefatigable virtual mentorship by Jane Hart for sharing her social media wisdom and insights across the years.
Dr. Simpson’s Neighborhood
Appy Daze Is Here Again! Making Lemonade from a Rotten Apple
This summer I was overconfident about my multi-tasking capabilities. Stupid. Careless (oopsie). Hypocritical. "Save regularly, backup often," I repeatedly tell my students. Practice what you preach, Dr. Simpson. Somehow I managed to make my faithful MacBook Pro inaccessible and inoperable. In addition I created considerable havoc and access confusion on its backup hard drive. Duh. Ouch.
I tried to no avail offering sacrifices to the computer gods and appealing to their intervention.
After many days and considerable expense experimenting with trial versions of data repair and data recovery software I called a well-known tech support recommended by Robin.
In retrospect, perhaps I shouldn't have kicked her off the couch before I asked Dogbert for help.
I believe that I have recovered all the apps and succesfully transferred them to my new MacBook Pro. Of course within a month after I purchased my replacement laptop a new MacBook Pro was released and the new Mountain Lion operating system became available (for which many of my apps need to be upgraded).
Over the rest of the semester I hope to revisit each of the 200 apps I have (re)installed. Why do I have so many? How many of them do I regularly use? Which are critical to my success as a teacher, as a learner, and as a consultant? Which are more than "Mac Gems" or POPULAR technology tools? Which has demonstrated their value acoss the years? Which can be retired before I retire? Stay tuned.
What corporates can learn from the Top 10 Tools for Learning 2012 | Learning in the Social Workplace
Few can rival the vision of Jane Hart. As I move in and out of the academic and business worlds I treasure her inspiration and wisdom.
What corporates can learn from the Top 10 Tools for Learning 2012 | Learning in the Social Workplace.
The Top 100 Tools for Learning 2012 list is revealed | Learning in the Social Workplace
The Top 100 Tools for Learning 2012 list is revealed | Learning in the Social Workplace.
Jane Hart continues her valuable service by sharing this list sorted in a number of interesting ways. Which of these tools have you found most useful? Which would you like to see more used in the classroom or to learn more about?
Psychology at a Crossroads? “Lord of the Data” Revisited
My belief in the integrity of psychological science is in a dither. How unsettling it is to read so much lately about fraud, fabrication, and plagiarism conducted by prominent researchers. Ironically, a well-respected popular science writer who wrote a
thoughtful article about the increasing difficulty of replicating
effects and the declining strength of replicated findings has himself been successfully challenged for plagiarism.
One result of these egregious violations of academic integrity has been the development of a number of tools and efforts to identify the likelihood of fraudulent data and its prevalance. Major empirical efforts such as the reproducibility project are underway to attempt to replicate findings published in prominent psychology journals within the past few years. The two major American professional psychology organizations, the American Psychological Association and the Association for Psychological Science have offered suggestions about how best to put these malfeasances in context and proposed ways of reducing the likelihood of fraud.
It has NOW been over year since the data fabrication of the renowned Dutch experimental social psychologist Diederik Stapel formerly at Tilburg University was formally exposed. Many of his widely cited articles have been formally retracted. The American Psychological Association has attempted to summarize the facts of the case, which has received extensive and often thoughtful consideration Inside Higher Education, the Chronicle of Higher Education, and the New York Times.
As a constructive attempt to use these events as a teaching moment, I shared with my students information about the Stapel controversy and asked them to share their responses in this forum. I invite you also to share any responses you have to the information above or to their thoughts since some of these students will become researchers in the near future.
Musings about Introducing Global Issues Into My Classroom.
Just finished a Skype session with a former student now in Nicaragua. Though I had (from time to time) been following his blog, it was nice to hear his familiar voice (and would have been even nicer if our cameras were working). How egocentric of me to assume that he had the same technological resources as I.
via curiousdavidredux.typepad.com
As I decide whether to move from Typepad to WordPress blogging software, I am revisiting earlier written blogs. These musings seem germane to the proposal several of my students are writing to create a virtual international experience for Carroll students. What suggestions do you have for my students seeking to provide supplementary virtual international learning experiences?