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.
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 …
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?
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.
Clarence over at Remote Access often puts ideas that are floating about in my head into words on his blog. Usually before I’m even aware of the ideas.
Remote Access: Classrooms of 2015
Yesterday, while out shoveling snow, I finally had a chance to listen to David Warlick’s podcast #50. A main point of this session was to spend some time thinking about what classrooms will be like in 2015. I finished this program and was worried. What worried me was not the ideas that many people had about what advances are possible. Many people spoke about wireless technologies, laptops in classrooms, digital books, distributed learning, etc. Great ideas, but here already; and this is what concerns me.
I left him a comment this morning, but the whole thing has been swirling about in my synapses for most of the day.
My problem with visualizing classrooms of 2015 is that we’re visualizing classrooms. We’re NOT considering what Education is or how it needs to be replaced. That it does need replacing is — or should be — a given. The current models of Education are not working.
Specifically, for the most part K-12 does not prepare students for the present, let alone the future. The disassociation between school and life is readily apparent to my seven year old who can’t wait to get out of school so she can “learn stuff that’s fun.” Our vision of K-12 as a basic skill training and socialization for our citizenry is desperately lacking with fewer than 90% of our citizens earning a high school diploma or equivalent by the time they’re 25 years old.
The bachelor’s degree has become the new “diploma.” It used to be that you needed a high school diploma in order to “support yourself” but that was replaced by the bachelor’s degree in the last 20 years. I say 20 years because I used to be able to make a living as an experienced systems analyst up to about 20 years ago. Then I ran into companies with H.R. policies that discounted my decades of experience because the job qualifications called for “a bachelor’s degree.” Note that in many cases, it’s not a “relevant bachelor’s degree” but just ANY degree. As one HR boffin explained it to me, “Jeez, if you had a degree in basket weaving, you’d be hired in a minute with this level of experience behind you, but without a degree, I’m prohibited from passing your resume to the hiring unit.” Now he may have been blowing smoke, but I have the feeling that there’s more of this than we know about going on.
And fewer than 25% of Americans have bachelor’s degrees.
So where does that leave us?
The Federal government has declared No Child Left Behind and requires that states spend education money on assessments to prove that schools are performing. It requires a clinical trial model of research to consider interventions valid but does not require that the assessment instrumentation even be valid. On the basis of that, the government in the US is slowly taking control of the local Educational establishment out of the hands of local communities and replacing it with … well, with nothing yet.
So, what can we do? What does Education mean?
Last year, Jim Elsworth and I went around about the commodification of Education. I think we may need to revisit that discussion. Jim suggests that the purpose of Education is to prepare a nation’s citizens to be productive in the world marketplace. That’s a good working definition until somebody comes up with a better one.
I’ve suggested that there are three obstacles to replacing the current educational infrastructure — credentialling, funding, and childcare. There may be more, but those three will be horrendously difficult to overcome.
Credentialling is the process of certifying that somebody knows something. Right now, you need a bachelor’s degree to get any job outside of the service industry in the US — and probably many of those IN th service industry as well. Why? Doesn’t the ABA have a better model? You can get a law degree anywhere you want — or even no law degree (is this true?) — and if you pass the bar exam, you’re a lawyer. Of course, without a degree you are a bit limited because firms will look unkindly at somebody who hasn’t been to law school … and practially speaking getting a law degree constitutes “Bar Exam Prep” in a big way.
But the model — learn it, pass the credentially examination, begin practice — seems to be a practical way to deal with credentialling.
So what’s the credentialling model for, say, high school? GED? What about reading credentials? Math?
If we use Stephen Downes model of “Education like Water” where you turn on the tap to get the amount of education you need just this minute, where does that put the notion of credentials? What does that mean for a society of educated citizens?
Thanks to D’Arcy Norman for this ego stroking link!
My blog is worth $15,242.58.
How much is your blog worth?
There’s been a lot happening and I am still blogging … just not here.
The SPTF Report (Draft) has been sent off to the Executive Board. The group made 40 recommendations on strategic direction, questions for future study, membership, and convention. It’s been a long year’s work and I’m anxious to see what comes of it. We’ll be posting the draft over on Terra Incognita when it has become finalized.
A few weeks ago, I started teaching my online teaching course. It was my first time using a Moodle and I gotta say, I’m torn. On the one hand, it’s kinda nice having the space where people can go — use the wiki, find resource materials, etc — but it’s WAY too “classlike.” I need to think about this. The class has been using EduBlogs, and it’s been working GREAT up to last week when EduBlogs RSS feeds all went west. I’m hoping James gets back from vacation and fixes them this week. I’ve really tried to help the students create a personal learning space by having them put a couple of tools together in ways that make sense for them. I can’t say as I’m feeling all that successful across the board, but it HAS been interesting.
And, like I need another hobby, I’ve been building a computer. It’s one of those projects that keeps my brain engaged in odd ways that still relate to my main work. I want to be able to record the few TV programs I really like, play DVDs, and watch anime from optical disks. It should work on an infrared remote like my TV and actually use the TV as primary output. I needed so solve problems with wireless networking on 802.11g, infrared control of a headless server, and video capture and recording.
I’ve been documenting my progress using Dave Winer’s OPML Editor and blog server. This tool is pretty interesting from a “I need to write something fast and dirty and get back to work” point of view. Anybody who reads Scripting News is familiar with the format. This is a darn interesting tool for the “journal” blog.
Orlando is about 10 days away (tag aect2005). I’m looking forward to seeing old friends, making some new ones, and thinking about the conversations we need to be having about the purposes of a Professional Organization.
Actually, those aren’t mutually exclusive.
I ran across tihs story via Slashdot, and in typical Slash-fashion the ensuing discussion is mostly heat and not much substance
Intel to cut Linux out of the content market
INTEL IS ABOUT TO CUT Linux out of the legitimate content market, and hand the keys to the future of digital media to Microsoft at your expense.
I’m not sure what this all means for me, the Linux enthusiast.
Read the rest of this entry »
I haven’t dropped off the face of the Earth, but I’m sure it seems that way.
My personal life has taken over during the last week. You can see more on Ubiquity.
I’m hoping to get back into the swing of things this coming week.
Susan Smith Nash has a post reporting some research that Rehearsal and Repetition May Be Bad For Learning.
There’s some interesting implications here and I wish she’d post the cite…
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