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New Directions in Virtual Space
This will be a short post. I just want to say … This city girl is back in the city! Yes, I’m in Singapore, my birth country. To keep being connected to my learning network, I try to tweet and stay in touch with as many Twitter pals as I can. It wasn’t and hasn’t been easy. Due to some home renovation, I had no electricity and water for a few days. I still have no kitchen cabinets or a sink to wash dishes. I have 2 bathrooms though and…
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Why I Teach a CL Course, or, Any Course
@yinbk @GoogleGuacamole @merryspaniel @Autumm absolutely. so much to unlearn before ppl can even start. why i made #ed1to1 slow/low-stakes. — Bonnie Stewart (@bonstewart) July 16, 2015 #Students are the #heart of my work & always will be. They are our #hope. #WisconsinIdea #OurUW — Sara Goldrick-Rab (@saragoldrickrab) July 17, 2015 To reflect is to think, ponder, or meditate. Some people write blog reflections in double-quick time. I can’t. Thinking takes time; and in my world, blog reflections consume time, which I don’t have a lot of now, particularly when an online…
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Twitter, Online Voice and Safe Learning Spaces
I commented on Mr. Robert Paris’ blog a few days’ ago. It was in response to his concerns about Twitter and how to provide a safe space for students to fail and not be subject to ridicule. My comment was so long that I think it’s worth reproducing on my own blog for others to comment on. Hi, I’m an ALT Labber who is currently teaching an online course (I do not use the term online class as I see an association of a “class” with a physical space). I…
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This is How I Tweet and Chirp
I use Twitter as part of my work and for professional development. I created an account in 2007 but wasn’t actively participating in the web until ALT Lab came along. I have ways to go but there are several things I’ve learned from using Twitter actively since October 2014. I’ve summarized and illustrated them as 7 big ideas thus far. I get the latest information from my Tweeps/Twends? (Twitter People/Twitter Friends) My Twends tutor me when I need some help. I reflect and wonder out loud on Twitter. Let’s not…
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This is How I Work
[Questions: LifeHacker] Current Gig: Learning Innovation Design Specialist at VCU ALT Lab. One word that best describes how you work: INTENSE. Current mobile device: Samsung Galaxy S6 for most of my on-the-go stuff, blue-tooth streaming of playlists, long-distance communication on Whatsapp, spontaneous photo capture of special moments. Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 (8 inch) for reading Kindle books, and other web resources. I had an old MacBook Pro for consulting with clients but have recently upgraded to a Dell XPS 13 Touch which is much lighter and syncs with my…
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For Marj DeVault
I meant to post this for you, Marj, on the Day of your party. I’m sorry I missed your BIG DAY. Remember the Acknowledgments page in my dissertation? “I am indebted to many people for the completion of this dissertation, not all of whom I am able to list in a detailed fashion. To the following I owe my utmost gratitude: Marjorie DeVault, my advisor, for taking me “from crayons to perfume” (To Sir with Love). You continually teach and model for me, in exquisite ways, the knowledge and practice of research,…
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Learning Organization
“… a project’s relative degree of success or failure may change over time. The Sydney Opera House is a good example. The original 1957 project plan called for the project to be finished in 5 years at a cost of $7M. In the end, the project cost $110M and took 13 years. By any measure that was a severely troubled project…” – Calleam Consulting Ltd. I am taking time to reflect on the projects I’m working on, mostly to sort out my understanding about this topic of project success. Thinking…
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Reinventing Dissertation Writing for Sharing
On June 10, 2013, I successfully defended my dissertation and officially graduated from a doctoral program in instructional design, development and evaluation. I had grand visions (delusions?) of staging it as a play. Even as I was writing it, I had considered writing it as a play. My advisor finally let me organize it as different acts/scenes in a play but it wasn’t written like a play script or in a dialogue format. She asked me if I was ready to be non-conventional. I didn’t know what to think at…
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Speaking and Not Understanding
After 2 weeks of redoing a web presentation of VCU’s ECAR findings, I’m at Round 3 (or more, I forget, after trying to push some data up quickly by redoing charts over and over) — figuring out what is at the heart of this project, and what we want to show from these findings. I hear a number of words repeated over and over. Here’s my depiction of that situation. The problem is that the mental model I have about research and dissemination of research findings is sloshing around in the whirlpool…
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Olé, Olé, Olé
According to Wikipedia (Oops! The mention of this word might start a friendly argument!), the word “olé” might refer to several things, including a football chant, with the star footballer’s name added to the end. In my case, I refer to both a rah-rah cheer (Go! VCU OLE!) and a program the ALT Lab is running.Today was Day 1 of the Institute and has been a pretty intense time with lots of ideas presented to participants. We are all going to spend some time tonight doing HW, yup, Home Work!…
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Thinking Like the Web
Anant Agarwal, CEO of EdX, describes MOOCs as the next-generation textbooks. As I was savoring Unit 3 of #CCourses, I tried to think about how students would respond to such a textbook. There’s a lot of information offered by the course, but we don’t have to cover all of them during these two weeks. When I first landed on the course, I was overwhelmed by the sheer volume of content and readings available. This week, I’ve learned to take it slowly, thanks to fellow #CCourses colleague, Tania Sheko, who blogged about…
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Wonder, Irresistible Learning and Heroic Imagination
The name game is an intriguing one. Word pantomime or labels? A number of people I know, and in the fields I work closely in, dislike labels. Many believe labels have the potential to subtract value from who they truly are. (Have you heard of the “Label Jars Not People” organization established by Siobhan Brady to reduce mental health stigma?) Yet, human beings like to find pattern in chaos and ways to make sense of the world. So being aware of layers of perception about organizers as starting points (versus…
