Design-Based Research

I like this!

I enjoy designing systems and classes along with analyzing things and improving them. OK, so I'm a grad student and probably should have known to look at this .. but its that old thing, you dont know how to find what you dont know exists. So anyway

The paper I read this week is The practice of esign-Based Research: Uncovering hte Interplay Between Design, Rsearch, and the Real-World Context by D. Joseph

Here is a summary of that paper and then thoughts.

Design-based research projects -- the combination of research, design, and pedagogical practice.

Through iterations of designing learning environments that get better and better at supporting the learning. Using prior research knowledge the design effectiveness is imporved. In this particular paper, the author is the designer, the research and implements the practice.

The project is a passion school project where the learner interest is used to drive the design and goes through two passion curriculum trials. The two are:

• weekly summer program around the theme of flight for 8 year olds
• an after-school program in a public elementary school called the Video Crew

Narrowing the questions based on the passion school:

Here critical questions are pinpointed and then artifacts are developed to test the questions using what the author refers to as the lens of design. The design in turn then narrows the questions further and pinpoints further things to test.

Hodge Podge

This weeks post is going to be a variety of things from class:

On Teaching Online

This is my first semester of teaching online and I must say I am enjoying it tremendously. Of course it helps to have a good group of students who are working hard. There are some things that have surprised me about teaching online and one in particular that related to the discussion on distributed learning. Part of being an effective teacher is to look at feedback from students and adjusting teaching methods and presentation to help engage and accommodate student understanding of material. Online this feedback is by far more difficult to ascertain. The more students email, post to blogs and converse with each other have now become my clues to the progress of the material. And now, instead of seeing faces, body stance, the questions in class, I am relearning these small nuances in terms of the posts and other types of interactions. I am glad that I have a great group for this for they do provide the feedback needed!

On Learning the Basics

Along with the discussion of distributed learning we talked about the need for prior knowledge to be able to build and grow further. When student enter the IT concentration there are certain classes that students are scheduled to take to provide the basics for further technology classes. These were well for those students coming into the program with little technology background. On the other hand, for those coming in with a more technical background but little education background, they are on their own to figure out what background is needed. While with the help of good friends who pointed me to the a couple of great resources I made it through that rough transition and I don't see the need for students to be tested on the basics of education terminology, there could be a happy medium where either the basic foundation class is recommended first. Or, there could be a recommended couple of articles that explains the basic concepts.

On the project

This has been a difficult choice for me this semester. I usually have ideas of what area I want to research on but this semester has been a tough one. The project at the top of the list right now appears to be doing research about what factors correlate with successful use of the web 2.0 wiki technology. Do wiki users need to understand web design? what about word processing? or even simple email? In the next couple of days I have to get my head around this project.

Distributitve Cognition

Distributed cognition: Domains and dimensions
John Sutton -- Macquarie University

I found this article is a mental exercise in terminology and vocabulary and have tried to simplify the article in the summary below.

This is an article about the different aspects of distributitve cognition, and how they might be studied.


He starts off with there is a variety of, or motley mess, as a way of looking at this, but then defines two "domains"

He is going to look at basically two domains Kirsh's distributed cognition and Clark's extended mind DC and EM In his opinion these two are important and deserve further research.

1.1 We use external items and writings to help us process what we think about. Therefore this distributes our thoughts
1.2 We use our natural perceptions and use of technology create meaning as well.
1.3 Our interactions with others also affect how we think and process information.
1.4 Our bodies, skills and capacities influence our thought processes and the sense we make things
1.5 The actual physical neural functions and the strategies we use to remember things

2.0 How can we analyze distributive cognition?
Where we do different things based on different inputs: A person will come to different conclusions about what they take in if there are with someone or if they are by themselves

Where we do the same things with an input no matter our surroundings: There are some things we do that are highly repeatable..and reliable -- that is we process them all the same way


Because of all the interwoven internal and external inputs, then possibly shouldnt research be ethnographic and wholistic.

My "Other Brain"

So this week is all about distributive cognition. Most of the articles we read for this week are fairly well written. However, the one that I was reading was so "overwritten" that being "newbie" to distributive cognition, I found it almost unreadable. I hope the author of that article is not considered notable in the field because I have no desire to read any more of his work. But enough of that, I'll save it for class.

I've glanced through the blogs tonight too and found John's comments about Google making us stupid to be interesting. This last week I have been looking at Google as a business and its philosophy.

"Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful" www.google.com

Of particular interest was an interview I found of Eric Schmidt, the CEO of Google. In this interview Schmidt discusses how that people are doing things much faster than before and for us who have not grown up with the in that fast pace feel it more as a bad thing, while today's generation that is growing up has only seen the "fast pace" and to them it is the norm and they are adaptable. http://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/Googles_view_on_the_future_of_business_An_interview_with_CEO_Eric_Schmidt_2229

My interpretation of this also means less patience with rote memorization when things can be found on the web much faster. Instead they will be come experts in searching and finding what they want. They will create their own 'local search memory" by tagging locations they want to remember then being able to search their own custom tags. And then, if they cant find something in their own personal external brain, they will turn to the larger search sites such as google.

Internet Privacy -- Take off from J

Finding me on the web!!
To help spur me on with more to write this week I read the challenge on internet privacy. My name is fairly uncommon so I've never found anyone else with that name that actually has a web presence. I suppose I shouldnt be surprised that now has changed, but it has.

I remember as a child not liking the fact my name was so different from everyone else but now I have learned to emabrace and enjoy that fact. I really had a sense of dislike when I found the other person with the same name that has an active web presence. While there are other people who would come up in a phone directory type listing, this was the first to have pics of herself.

I wont comment on what I found -- I dont think it was the fact of the content as much as there was just someone.

Privacy?? Not when things are published publically

I had a 2. 5 hour phone call the other night over a discipline matter with youth sports. I volunteer many hours with youth sports and recently during one game unfortunately there were some players who let's just say let their tempers get the better of them. Apparently, someone was filming the game being played at the time and shortly there after a clip of the video was found on YouTube. In addition, comments about the game were being made by some of the players in the game. Of course the screen names did not reveal exactly who these players were but the comments were extremely inflammatory. While these were children, it would be the same type of comments that would get a professional player fined, suspended or both.

While there had been some discipline given after the game, this particular hearing would not have been held had it not been for the online video and public comments. What is worse, the players could not deny anything-- it was all public and documented with the video.

The final results of the hearing is still being deliberated so I'll refrain from further comment on that here... but just another example of people not understanding the public nature of the internet and the social sites that exist.

Article for Class

I've had a tough time deciding what to post about this week. I had originally intended to do more than just the review for the article I chose but nothing has come to mind. So to try to get things rolling here is the article I found that I thought would be good to share with class.

The good, the bad and the wiki: Evaluating student-generated content for collaborative learning

Wheeler, S., Yeomans, P., & Wheeler, D. (2008). The good, the bad and the wiki: Evaluating student-generated content for collaborative learning. British Journal of Educational Technology(0).

Qualitative Study
Study consisted of

Who:
35 Students enrolled in Bachelor of Ed with Honors program
1st, 2nd, and 3rd year students
Ages: 18 - 25 + 2 older students

What:
Students used wikis during their classroom sessions as space to store and edit work from their research exercise and as a discussion forum. They were invited to post their views of the use of the wiki on a discussion board during the semester and completed a post-module questionnaire via email --(Did not say that all 35 of the students agreed or if any opted out etc)

Findings:
Over all Comments generally positive

Limitations
Students confused at the first session.
did not suit the learning preference of all students -- too unstructured
Some apportioned responsibilities but a limitation of this was to create individual areas as opposed to collaboration areas
Ownership and property rights became an issue-- others welcome to read but they did not want their work changed.
All students don't participate equally -- few students write.. many read

Benefits
Student were aware of unseen audience and had a desire to write accurate and relevant content