Mashable has a great little article about the role of college in the Internet age. Anyone who is responsible for business strategy in higher education should take note of these benefits in order to showcase and maximize the value of the institution to students.
Why College is Still Relevant in the Age of Free Information (Mashable)
The following is a commentary written for the expressed purpose of creating conversation about an essential topic.
Therefore, progress is the removal of any and all barriers to growth.
In order for any “entity” (in this case, an institution) to “progress” it becomes imperative to create a unifying vision or plan: this is how we will grow.
If success can be measured by this generalized concept of growth, i.e., how close is one to becoming the ideal version of itself (or if you will, how much progress has been made) then you will be unable to find any examples of unintentional, lasting success. For example, there is no successful:
Teacher without a lesson plan
Parent without rules
Business without a strategic plan
Jeremiah 29:11 “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” (NIV)
There are many common threads running through these examples which can be listed off as synonyms: design, control, intention, structure, system.
All of which share a common antonym: freedom.
Freedom is a concept that we cherish in our soul, a concept that is the very foundation of which this country was built on.
So we struggle with very nature of freedom and control, both of which carry its own unique set of burdens and responsibilities, positives and negatives. We must measure how much of each to balance, to compromise, and to sacrifice.
We do this, because in each and every one of us is the desire and drive to grow and to become the very best version of ourselves: the ideal.
Can we say that within our institution that we are truly one body moving, in harmony, toward that goal?
The following is a commentary written for the expressed purpose of creating conversation about an essential topic.
Therefore, progress is the removal of any and all barriers to growth.
In order for any “entity” (in this case, an institution) to “progress” it becomes imperative to create a unifying vision or plan: this is how we will grow.
If success can be measured by this generalized concept of growth, i.e., how close is one to becoming the ideal version of itself (or if you will, how much progress has been made) then you will be unable to find any examples of unintentional, lasting success. For example, there is no successful:
Teacher without a lesson plan
Parent without rules
Business without a strategic plan
Jeremiah 29:11 “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” (NIV)
There are many common threads running through these examples which can be listed off as synonyms: design, control, intention, structure, system.
All of which share a common antonym: freedom.
Freedom is a concept that we cherish in our soul, a concept that is the very foundation of which this country was built on.
So we struggle with very nature of freedom and control, both of which carry its own unique set of burdens and responsibilities, positives and negatives. We must measure how much of each to balance, to compromise, and to sacrifice.
We do this, because in each and every one of us is the desire and drive to grow and to become the very best version of ourselves: the ideal.
Can we say that within our institution that we are truly one body moving, in harmony, toward that goal?
"Thanks, Steve", Jonathan Mak
It was the 3rd Generation iPod that made me an owner but it was the iBook that had me hooked.
Though I’ve flirted with Apple products all of my life, normally in a school setting (from the beautiful green monochrome to System 7), I didn’t own one until I was 23 and received my first iPod for Christmas. Not my first MP3 player but it had that undeniable ‘magic’ that sounds so silly to label a man-made object but so appropriate when it’s an Apple product. It made me want to discover new music just so I could listen to it on my iPod. A couple of years later, I purchased a refurbished iBook from Apple’s website. My first computer as a child ran MS DOS and Windows 3.1 and filled me with the wonder of looking at the stars. Using Mac OS X all those years later filled me with the wonder of passing those stars on the way to distant worlds.
Now, I’m in a galaxy of MacBook Pros, iMacs, iPhones, and iPads and even as one pioneer signs off, I feel optimistic that there is still more out there in the Apple Galaxy waiting to be charted and welcomed to our ever expanding human universe.
Thank you, Steve Jobs, and Apple for all that you have done. You have done the greatest thing that a person could ever accomplish: you have made the world a better place. Farewell and God bless.
The Best Visual Tributes to Steve Jobs Around the Web (Gizmodo)
"Thanks, Steve", Jonathan Mak
It was the 3rd Generation iPod that made me an owner but it was the iBook that had me hooked.
Though I’ve flirted with Apple products all of my life, normally in a school setting (from the beautiful green monochrome to System 7), I didn’t own one until I was 23 and received my first iPod for Christmas. Not my first MP3 player but it had that undeniable ‘magic’ that sounds so silly to label a man-made object but so appropriate when it’s an Apple product. It made me want to discover new music just so I could listen to it on my iPod. A couple of years later, I purchased a refurbished iBook from Apple’s website. My first computer as a child ran MS DOS and Windows 3.1 and filled me with the wonder of looking at the stars. Using Mac OS X all those years later filled me with the wonder of passing those stars on the way to distant worlds.
Now, I’m in a galaxy of MacBook Pros, iMacs, iPhones, and iPads and even as one pioneer signs off, I feel optimistic that there is still more out there in the Apple Galaxy waiting to be charted and welcomed to our ever expanding human universe.
Thank you, Steve Jobs, and Apple for all that you have done. You have done the greatest thing that a person could ever accomplish: you have made the world a better place. Farewell and God bless.
The Best Visual Tributes to Steve Jobs Around the Web (Gizmodo)
Identify
“Narrate, Curate, Share”: A framework for blogging at Virginia Tech Center for Innovation in Learning.
Description
W. Gardner Campbell of the Virgina Tech Center for Innovation in Learning has partnered with the university’s own Honors Residential College in order to implement a program-wide blogging initiative (2011, p.1-3). Mr. Campbell has distilled the concept of blogging into what he calls three “imperatives”: ‘narrate, curate, share’. These imperatives serve as the scaffold for a framework designed to achieve the goals of:
Mr. Campbell provided a summary for each of the imperatives, which also served as the official explanations to the students. The idea behind the ‘narrate’ imperative is to treat blogs like stories. Through blogging, the student is actively engaging in meta-cognitive thinking, writing down what he/she is doing as he/she is doing it. This aims to reinforce the learning and will help the student remember the information longer and achieve mastery learning faster.
Next is the ‘curate’ imperative; using the story motif that began with the ‘narrate’ imperative, students are to think about the elements of their blog and how each represents the “larger story of [your] life’s work”. Every element on the blog should create interest and add value much like adjectives help augment character descriptions in a narrative.
Finally, there’s the ‘share’ imperative. Essentially, Mr. Campbell encourages students to be active when trying to reach an audience. He advocates for students to not let the audience try and find the blog but to seek connections and find creative ways to promote the blog.
Analysis
Mr. Campbell’s blogging initiative is a thoughtful approach to an often misunderstood and inappropriately utilized tool. He acknowledges that he still receives fundamental questions on the nature and value of blogging (2011, p. 1). This suggests that there are many in academia that are not yet ready to tackle questions of best practice since these same individuals probably don’t yet know how to write a blog. This is where the strength of his initiative becomes apparent: simplicity. By distilling the idea of blogging into three separate and distinctive imperatives he provides an effective framework for learning and training (Januszewski & Molenda, 2008, p. 112). This enables him to explain blogging through the analogy of ‘telling stories’, a simple and universal concept that will connect with users’ schema.
What the reader is exposed to in the article is but an overview of the blogging initiative launched at Virginia Tech. We are left to wonder about specifics. As he talks about in the ‘curate’ imperative, “a good curator should take pride in the elements of your blog” (2011, p. 2), but Campbell doesn’t articulate about what those elements are. As a web developer and blogger myself, I can deduce that he is advocating for users to consider an intentional design and layout aesthetic in developing a blog; bloggers should avoid extraneous “widgets” and “plugins” that would detract from the reader’s experience. However, Mr. Campbell is making an assumption that students have a basic understanding of web publishing principles. Modern Web 2.0 services like Facebook and Twitter provide simple and static interfaces which allows users to focus on creating content and thus removing the burden of how to present that content (Wikipedia, 2011).
The theory is sound, and the story analogy is a great way to explain blogging but, as any author will attest, it takes a lot of practice in order to write a good story.
Evaluation
Mr. Campbell has definitely created an effective framework in order to ensure the success of Virginia Tech’s blogging initiative. This is a best practice that communicates the value and implications of the technology, both of which are necessary factors for integration (Batson, 2011, pp. 2-3). I myself will adopt this framework when training for blogs if the need should arise at my university. Because this is curriculum, it is safe to assume that students are being assessed on their blogs, which will inform program evaluations. Furthermore, I would venture to say that the questions generated by this article might already be answered for Virginia Tech. Nonetheless, like any good educator, we analyze best practices; we take the pieces that work, discard the weaknesses, and assess the needs of our audience (or students) in order to tell our own stories.
References
Batson, Trent. (2011, April 6) Faculty ‘Buy-in’ –to What?. Campus Technology. Retrieved from http://campustechnology.com/articles/2011/04/06/faculty-buy-in-to-what.aspx
Campbell, W.G. (2011). ‘Narrate, Curate, Share’: How Blogging can Catalyze Learning. Campus Technology. 1-3. Retrieved from http://campustechnology.com/Articles/2011/08/10/How-Blogging-Can-Catalyze-Learning.aspx?Page=1
Januszewski, A. & Molenda, M. (2008). Educational Technology: A Definition with Commentary. New York: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Web 2.0 (n.d.). Retrieved September 9, 2011 from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2.0
The iPad further asserts its place in our culture by making itself an invaulable resource for students. Kno is a free app available via Apple’s App Store through which it sells more than 100,000 textbooks which can be read on the tablet itself. I am really curious to see what the usage is next semester in order to guage the future of this trend.
Kno’s Textbooks Is Top Back-To-School iPad App With One Download Every 8 Seconds (TechCrunch)
It’s that time of year again! There’s a lot to share that will make up for a slow summer. Let’s get to it.
The official MoodleMoot site has been recently updated with links to a selection of presentations from the recent event. This is an opportune time to share some of my favorite resources from MoodleMoot!
Last week I had the pleasure of attending my first Moodlemoot. These ‘moots’ are conferences that bring together users and developers of Moodle, the most widely used open source learning management system in the world. So after 2 days of sessions, keynotes, and networking opportunities what is there left to take back to our institutions? Answer: a ton.
Liked
There’s a lot to love about this conference for anyone who has some vested interest in Moodle, not just IT people. The sessions themselves covered topics ranging from best practices to faculty trainings. Whatever questions needed answering, there was somebody at this conference who could answer it, including representatives from across the California State University system and even Martin Dougiamas, the founder of Moodle.
Speaking of which, it was exciting to hear from Mr. Dougiamas himself regarding the future of Moodle including changes in the upcoming release as well as a new mobile app for iPhones and Android smartphones.
There was some awesome social network interaction, particularly on Twitter whereby searching the trending topic #mootusca11 one can find links to conference notes, impressions of Moodle, updates on the conference itself, as well as instant highlights of sessions and keynotes. If there was a session that I was unable to attend I could hop on Twitter and see what the highlights were by other attendees.
Furthermore, it’s always great to hear some encouraging statements made by speakers who end up providing affirmation that “you’re not the only one who thinks this way”. Attendees were quick to jump on their favorites and publish them to Twitter. Some of my favorites:
For me, the mark of a good conference is coming out of it feeling like pumped to make changes and implement the best practices that were presented. I love sitting in on a session and feeling jealous when somebody talks about what they are currently doing; if you can make me say ”why didn’t I think of that?!”, then you’ve done your job and I just got my money’s worth out of the conference.
Changed
On the whole, no real complaints. At the time of this article, there are no links to any of the presentations which is sorely missed (though I do have almost 30 pages of notes to sift through). However, somebody did have the bright idea of creating an open Google Document which will prove to be a valuable tool for reflection and reference.
Conclusion
As I mentioned, I have dozens of pages of notes to go through as I put together a summary and recommendations for my colleagues. If that’s not an indication of how engaging the conference was then I don’t know what is. I am very grateful to Simpson for the opportunity to have attended and I hope that I can attend next year and learn even more! My thanks to all of the presenters, sponsors, and facilitators that made the event possible!
