Small Changes; BIG RETURNS

I am now officially a student in the online Wilkes Instructional Media Graduate Program nearing the end of my first course. Called Project-Based Learning, it was about how to change up your delivery model to engage student more in active learning.  Under this model, students work in groups to unravel answers to ‘driving’ or ‘enduring’ inquiry questions that are intended to give more relevance to their studies and help them to learn to apply skills in new situations by simulating real life roles in the classroom. Projects have to be highly planned with underlying structures that ensure students gain both skills and content and also higher order skills.

We in BC have yet to see as much of this as has swept through the US, although our new math program (it gets a complete overhaul about every 7-10 years) has been redesigned on the American model and makes projects the vehicle through which math skills and concepts are to be explored, learned, practiced, and applied.

I always find it interesting that we follow the US in content and teaching models in Math even when they are clearly struggling with the fact that their own students are not excelling in that subject. Where will adapting this model put our students in 10 years? I’m curious to take a look at the new texts and wonder if there might be some workshopping potential there now that I’m a PBL insider. I’m also working on a rewrite of Earth Science 11 along a more project-based model, but group work is essential to this approach and I work in an individualized program. Without the interchange between group members to foster collaboration and dialogue, I’m not sure how it will work.

Taking a course online is an interesting experience. Assignments consist of participating in threaded discussions, writing blogs and papers and even doing a group project -- which I managed with partners living 2 provinces and 2 time zones east of me in Saskatchewan. For someone who has a lot to say, this means there’s a lot of typing to do. I really wish I’d taken that in high school (way back before it ever became keyboarding). I make a lot of typos that slow me down, and my proofreading skills are not always the best especially when I’m writing close to the deadline. I’ve learned to turn off the autocorrect which often guesses wrong, and to pay very close attention to the little red line beneath misspelled words. It’s kind of like learning to listen to the bells and dingers in cars without electronic locks. If you ignore them, you can find yourself locked out of your car with the keys still in the ignition and the lights on as I did way back in 97 the day I drove home my first new Rav4.

Vince Hill, the principal of Credenda (a virtual school that offers secondary and some college programs) and fellow Wilkes IM student has started a Wilkes support group that meets online in an Elluminate room on Tuesday nights! These gatherings take the place of meeting up with fellow students in a pub or coffee shop after a regular class on campus and give us to compare experiences and ask each other for help. They’re an absolute lifeline for me. I know I’d feel very isolated in my little Canadian corner without them. A few of us try to take the same courses so we’re really getting to know each other. Sometimes the instructors drop by as well so we can ‘meet them’ and they can field questions.

Vince is an interesting fellow. Several of his staff decided to take this program, and he decided to do it with them so he’d be able to better understand their work. How many principals have ever or would ever do that? Certainly none I’ve worked for, and I’ve worked for some very good people over the years.

I grew up on radio. My dad was a radio broadcaster. When I lived in my tent by the beaver pond in the Yukon, I kept a radio alive inside by hooking it up to an automobile battery. I actually had two batteries and alternated them between tent and truck so there was always one with enough juice to keep me happily listening to the CBC. Saturday Night Blues, a pot of coffee warming on the wood cook stove, and the northern lights dancing overhead –- it was a great way to live.

It’s not surprising then that on Saturdays at 9:00 am Pacific time, I often listen to Classroom 2.0 Live hosted by Peggy George, Kim Caise, and Lorna Costantini. This week will be about:

I ran into Ruston at ILC 2008 in San Jose and have written about his current project, New Vista for Learning, in an earlier blog. The Elluminate link to Saturday’s session has been posted here for you:

https://sas.elluminate.com/m.jnlp?sid=2008350&password=M.44001EDC1FB423F75F433DB0E5909E

I came across this interesting tidbit this morning.

Ada Lovelace Day is an international day of blogging to draw attention to women excelling in technology. Women's contributions often go unacknowledged, their innovations seldom mentioned, their faces rarely recognised. We want you to tell the world about these unsung heroines. Whatever she does, whether she is a sysadmin or a tech entrepreneur, a programmer or a designer, developing software or hardware, a tech journalist or a tech consultant, we want to celebrate her achievements.”

Nearly 2000 people –- mostly women – responded to this challenge. For a comprehensive list of their blogposts, you can look at The Ada Lovelace Day Collection and to see a few of the videos try this link. The video I’ve selected for today speaks about a woman in educational technology who is involved in Second Life, but it was also posted by an interesting woman who calls herself KerryJ who is an Australian broadcaster turned multimedia consultant who is now giving workshops on education.

Here is the link to KerryJ’s blopost about the Jokadia Second Live tour alluded to in the video below.

Now my project-bent mind is seeing this as a possible starting place for a learning experience about how women have contributed to technology. Who has been missed from this list? Who would I have written about had I come across the pledge on time to contribute? Do I have time for a Second Life when my first one is full to overflowing? Is there a Wilkes IM elective on Virtual World Education? So many questions . . . so little time.