Looks like I’m back up.
This version of CogDiss will be mothballed as the new and improved CogDiss comes online.
Watch this space for further developments as they happen.
The new WordPress 2 blog is up and running at http://durandus.com/cogdiss/. Please update your feeds accordingly. See you on the other side.
Dean has this important notice:
Don’t call it a laptop project….Gary Stager - Ideas and thoughts from an EdTech
It’s not a project or experiment, it’s the primary instrument of the day. On a personal note, having a laptop has been critical in my development as a learner. Not being tethered to a desk allows me to write this blog post while listening to another session, which I’ll blog about later.
Sitting in a Blackboard marketing session, I can appreciate this. I’m working wirelessly on my linux laptop and blogging my notes. Having my OWN laptop — not the institutionally provided model — means I can do anything I want with it. I’m not obligated to support the Official Party Line.
Gotta love it.
Today I’m in a propaganda session hosted by BlackBoard.
Oye.
New navigation options on the menus. This ‘3-click Rule’ needs to be re-addressed. Surfers click hundreds of times in a session. We need some research on this.
Great new question types that are not accessible for people with vision or motor disabilities. What a step backward.
The gradebook has been upgraded to not count assessments that haven’t been taken. Whee.
“Review Release” — at least they recognize that looking at the log data is meaningless when trying to analyse the amount of time that a students are using the system. Now, the student can flag material that says “I looked at it.” Whee.
“Adaptive Release” — you can assign different material to different students. For those involved in supporting classroom standards I guess this lets me have one group of students that get the “standard” material and one group that doesn’t. There are some good things there. Where the student doesn’t pass the chapter review, they don’t get the new material. An interesting way to get the students out of step with the content and create environments where having students talking to each other is counter-indicated.
The Community Modules are still “one person at a computer” — ugh. And a PORTAL! Whee.
The ePortfolio’s look good — at least they’re portable so I can get them away. The big selling point in this session seems to be the institutional control of the ePortfolio — look and feel, pieces, etc.
Whee. I’m totally underwhelmed.
They’re really setting this thing up to be the Microsoft of Learner Management Systems.
Blackboard still thinks of itself as a learnING management system but it’s still geared toward institutional and faculty control. The ePortfolio system isn’t bad, but it’s not any different than — say — Drupal. THE big selling point is “using the same tools and functions you’ve already learned in Blackboard” but doesn’t that hold with ANY environment?? If it weren’t so predictable …
From the D&D Blog (Design and Development: How do we improve AECT Conference session quality?) and from Trey’s Teachable Moment Teachable Moment
How do we improve AECT Conference session quality?
This has been floating around for some time and I’ve tried to respond to it on a number of occasions but I keep getting bogged down in my Curmudgeonhood. I’m going to try to do better.
The issue for me is that I don’t know that we’re asking the right question. Improving the sessions seems to fall into the same cognitive morass as redesigning the luggage rack on an Edsel. Don’t get me wrong. Better sessions would be good.
But would NO sessions be better? Probably not, but can we at least ask the question without getting all hyperventilated?
The research symposium slated for this summer — which I shame-facedly admit sounds only slightly less appealing than painting my house — at least has a model that requires participants to come ready to talk. I’m sure the people who will attend will enjoy it immensely and might even find the sessions stimulating. I probably would enjoy it, too, if I could convince myself to spring for the registration, airfare, parking, hotel, and divorce lawyer (if I travel any more this summer leaving wife to deal with children, I’ll need one).
When I think of going to the convention, I don’t think of attending sessions. I *used* to when I first started, but I learned quite rapidly that the probability of getting into a session I would find interesting, stimulating, or otherwise engaging depended mostly on luck.
What I think of is “Who can I meet?”
A large part of the convention is catching up with old friends, of course. But I’m always on the look out for people with new, different, strange, or oddball ideas and you don’t find those ideas in sessions. The selection process is geared toward keeping those kinds of presentations out.
Oh, it’s not like some kind of conspiracy. It’s more like the criteria we use to evaluate.
- “Is it suitable for the membership of the division?”
- “Is it well written?”
- “Is the requested session length suitable?” Heck, we always change ‘em anyway. Who cares?
Where’s the question that asks, “Will this presentation shake anybody up?” where answers of YES will get high marks?
I suspect it’s not there because nobody in his/her right mind would give a presentation so radical as to rattle any of the very staid cages. And isn’t that a sad commentary?
Don’t get me wrong. I scope out the convention program. I always find the stuff I wanted to see last hour and I can never find the stuff coming up that would be interesting until I’ve missed the session. Having 300 sessions in 3 days is a bit like drinking from a firehose, but nobody says it’s easy.
Anyway. For all those reasons, my suggestions are:
a. No more than 5 sessions in any given hour. We have 3 days of sessions, six hours a day. That’s 90 sessions total. Heck, round it up to 100 and run an extra hour or so. Ya, that probably means *I* won’t present unless I come up with something pretty damn special. But shouldn’t we EXPECT that the sessions would be that special? With over 300 sessions on the docket in Dallas, getting an overall feeling or theme running in the program is a function of ‘normal distribution’ rather than planned program construction.
b. No more “blind review” of proposals. Put them up in the open. Let the members read the proposals and pick their top 10. Let them ask questions and have the proposers respond. Scrap the grading rubric, or replace it with something that has a little more — I don’t know — relevance perhaps. Pick a cut off vote level and date. Any proposal that doesn’t get at least the cut off (say 300 votes), doesn’t make it to the program. If we get too many proposals that meet the cutoff, only the top 100 make it. We can keep a running tally. If we can’t get enough people interested in selecting the program, then we may have a very different problem than session quality.
c. Ban powerpoint presentations. If you put something up on the screen, it better be a picture, demo, example, or other artifact that you’re going to talk about *with* the people in the room. I know there are the dyed-in-the-wool types who can’t talk unless they can pontificate with bullets to back them up, but presentation is performance and if you don’t have a good act, sit down.
d. No more prepared round table sessions. Instead, we have a room with tables, chairs, flip charts, and wireless access — beverage service and perhaps some fruit and cheese would be nice. In each hour, anybody can “claim a table” provided that it’s open, and declare a subject for discussion. You can’t claim it until you get on site and a scheduling database will be available so that the subject, the time slot, table, and person can be recorded and made available to attendees. If nobody shows up, the table is declared “forfeit” and any group who wants to claim the chairs can establish an ad hoc discussion. We’d probably have to put a cap on it … something like you have to be a member in good standing ith the AECT and you can only claim a table once per day.
e. I still like Ward’s “Bowl of Shrimp” session.
My absolute FAVORITE feature in any convention in the last five years was a mistake. In Atlanta, the hotel set up tables in the common area and they just left them. People could just congregate, bring coffee, snacks, papers, whatever and talk. It wasn’t like we had to fit laptops on stinky little bar-tables — there was room to sit down, spread out and have a conversation. It was central so you’d walk by and see somebody or overhear something and perhaps join in. And if there weren’t wait-staff with hot and cold beverages, well then we didn’t get stuck with the tab, either. Now that was a convention!
So? Who else? Start thinking creatively people! Let’s shape this discussion around the entire convention, not just putting a new luggage rack on this Edsel.
My ISP is moving me to a new box.
With any luck, nobody will notice. Altho I’m planning on making the blog address http://durandus.com/cogdiss when it’s all settled.
Never a dull moment, eh?
With all the nastiness going on with spam harvesters, hackers, and politicians, I figured it was about time to start being a bit more careful with my email. Anybody who gets email from me, should find a digital signature certifying that it, in fact, comes from me. The certifying authority may not be in your ‘trusted store’ because I’m certifying my own sigs via my personal domain (durandus.com). Furthermore I’ve set up the necessary tools for establishing digital signatures for all the people at work. I don’t expect most people will use them, but it’s there if they want it.
I’ve set up encryption as well and over the next year, I’ll be asking those people I correspond with regularly to set up a digital signature and encryption keys. It’s not that I’m planning anything nefarious, but I’m getting tired of anybody with a packet sniffer and a federal employee ID figuring that it’s ok to screen my email for content just because they can.
Consider getting your own digital signature — even if you don’t encrypt, yet. You can get an email certificate from thawte. It looks like a pretty good deal (free) and doesn’t require anything more than having an email address.
While I was disappointed to learn that David Wiley beat me for the board-member at large seat for the 2006-2009 term, honesty compels me to admit that I didn’t *really* think I could beat him. I had hoped but I mean the man testifies in Congress, for crying out loud. I can’t compete with that, and I wish him well.
But I also must confess I was more than a bit relieved. Being on the Board would, in some sense, been a muzzle. As a member of the Board, I would have been under some obligation to “support the party line” in a sense. Even if I didn’t agree with it. As a member, I’m under no such compulsion and can continue to be as critical as I like.
These will be interesting times.
Of late, a common theme has been coming up in a lot of my conversations. I get a lot of requests from people who want help “building a website.” The conversation goes something like this:
Me: So what do you want to do with this web site?
Them: Well, you know. Have a presence …
Me: And what do you want to do with this presence?
Them: Well, I’d really like to create a kind of one-stop-shop for everything widget. A place where anybody can find a comprehensive resource on rich widgety goodness.
Me: Why would they come to you instead of searching for “rich widgety goodness” on Google?
Them: Um…?
Me: Are you going to be sweeping the web all the time to keep this place updated with all the latest information?
Them: What do you mean “all the time” … I was thinking I’d add resources as I run across them …
Me: What will make you an authority over … say … anybody else in Widgetry?
Them: Well, that’s one of the things I’m trying to establish … So, what’s your hourly rate?
Me: You can’t afford me.
People? Get with the program. The days of creating the One-Stop-Shop ended about five years ago. Here are some facts of life:
Google is the index. Trying to be a specialized index to web-based content is pointless unless you’re going to try to unseat Google. Yahoo fans might disagree with me. Ok. They’re right, too. You have to beat BOTH of them to be a credible index of content.
Amazon is the mall. If you’re trying to start a store, don’t. Go to Cafe Press and save yourself the heartburn.
eBay is the fleamarket. You can open your own stall here. Stop wasting time farting around trying to create a store front. What you need is traffic and eBay has more of it in ten minutes than you can realistically attract in a year.
What does that leave?
Art.
If you’re going to have a website, create something new. Maybe it’s a blog. Maybe it’s the anchor for a community. Maybe it’s a catalog of your artworks. Write fiction. Write political manifestos. Create something worth seeing/reading/hearing.
More and more, the purpose of the web is not to find something — but rather to find somebody. When you open your browser, you join one of the single largest communities in the world. The challenge is finding the five people you want to talk to right now. Maybe they’re not online right now but you can read what they blogged, or listen to their podcast from yesterday. Maybe you don’t know who it is that you need to talk to and what you need to do is figure out who that is.
And given THAT perspective, then your website should make you findable and provide a reason for people that you want to talk with to find you.
Darn! I’m gonna have to try harder!!
Inside Higher Ed :: David Horowitz Has a List
But today, with the release of David Horowitz’s new book, The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America, Caroline Higgins finds herself in elite company. She makes the list along with such big name academic stars as Derrick Bell, Michael Bérubé, bell hooks, Noam Chomsky and Eric Foner. Horowitz, a one-time ’60s radical, includes plenty of ’60s radicals who didn’t have the conversion experience he did, so Angela Davis and Bernadine Dohrn make the list, of course, along with the likes of Ward Churchill and a who’s who in Middle Eastern studies.
I don’t know if I didn’t qualify becauce I don’t have tenure or if I’m just not dangerous enough … I’ll have to write to Horowitz and find out.
In case you’re living under a rock … I can only anticipate what this will do to the cost/flexibility of these tools:
Inside Higher Ed :: Blackboard-WebCT Merger Approved
Blackboard announced Monday that the Justice Department has cleared its plan to merge WebCT into its operations. The merger plans, announced in October, required Justice Department antitrust review because of the dominance the two companies have in the course-management industry. But Blackboard and WebCT officials had earlier predicted that approval would take place. The merger is now expected to be wrapped up in March or April.