Week 14 Reflection

My favorite Web 2.0 tools were blog and Wiki. Well, I also want to point that Jing and Google Suite have lot potential on education. Jing can be used to easily teach a technique to leaners. Google Suite includes a lot of tools such as Google Drive, Google Maps, or Google Docs, etc. They provide a platform that allows everyone can share information, files, ideas, etc.  But I think blog and Wiki are the tools that will be frequently used in instruction.

Blog. Well, we use this tool in this whole semester. We post our reflection and application reviews on our blog. As the author mentioned about, “Web 2.0 tools potentially opens learning beyond the closed doors of the classroom or walled gardens of registered student, login-only, course sites” (p.300). By using Blogger, we can read other classmates’ idea towards every week’s reading. We also share experience from different background. This really helps me to expand my vision a lot. Since I have a totally different background of education, I had no idea about United States education before. But right now, after a semester’s reading about others blog, I get some information about it. In contrast, if I take all of courses in classroom or an access restricted learning management system, I might haven’t the opportunity to communicate with other classmate about extra knowledge and information since the class’s time is limited and we need focus on what professor is introducing to us.

Wiki is a knowledge and information repository that “allow users to add value to team work through their comments, additions, edits, or deletions of erroneous content” (p.300). We used to use “Wiki” as a verb. Like, if you don’t know anything, ok, go to wiki it! “As important as their contribution to networked artifacts is the skills and attitudes learners acquire by creating and offering content to the open world.” To some extent, Wiki helps people break the knowledge boundary of subject. In the past, if we wanted to know some other subject’s knowledge, we had to go to library and spend a lot of time to search the information we needed. But right now, we just need to enter the keywords and then we can find the information we needed from Wiki, no matter what subject or field. This help people gain knowledge more quickly. Although there are some defects since Wiki allows everyone edit the information, I still think Wiki is a good tool to acquire information. Because I think that the knowledge we presently possess is not changeless, absolute truth. Like a word I once read from a book, “There is no only alternative; there is no absolute truth.” I think that’s why we keep discover this world.

Week 12 Application Reviews

The two applications I choose to recommend are Google Documents and PicMonkey. Here, I don’t want to focus on describe the features of each applications, but I want to explain why I choose this two tools.

Google Documents:

Well, I didn’t use too much of this application before. But I have to say that this is what I need most right now. In my leisure time, I prefer to play online computer game with my friends. Recently, we established a guild in that game, and until now, almost 100 people were enrolled in our guild. As a leader in this guild, I have to formulate the system about how to manage members and how to reward and punish. After discussing with my friends and several old members, we decide to use DKP (Dragon Kill Points) system. For this reason, I need an application to count everybody’s point and post it to somewhere to let them check. Now, the Google Sheets will help me a lot. It can help me record everyone’s point. Also, I can edit and save the data online and everyone can check it easily. On contrast, if I choose to use Microsoft Excel, I have to edit the point every week and upload again and again to renew the recent record. Similarly, using Google Documents is so helpful for education. Between teachers and students, or groups members, they can easily share the Docs, Sheets, and Slides. Especially, it will be useful in teamwork. Since everyone can join to edit, once a Docs/Sheets/Slides is uploaded, everyone can review and edit it basing on their opinion while a virtual group meeting isn’t necessary. This will help to everyone in this team to schedule their time more flexible.

Another reason I choose this is because the Google product is more worldwide. Almost everyone in this world knows the Google. Also, for personal reason, since I find that I can switch the language of Google product into Chinese or other language, this might be more suited to recommend to other people since the language problem will be solved.

PicMonkey:

I try the SumoPaint for several minutes actually but I still prefer to recommend PicMonkey. UmoPaint is a good application that I think it almost can replace Microsoft Paint. But I’m thinking that Microsoft Paint is already a free application, and we can use it even without Internet. For this reason, I’m more considering about which one is easier to use. I have to say that I really like the interface of PicMonkey. It is very intuitive and neat. And I think this might be the application that even my mum, a 55 years old high school teacher and always have difficult on technology using, will know how to use it by click the icon. I always prefer to recommend application that is easy to use to others, instead of recommending a complicated one and they might ask me tons of technic questions after they use, since we are trying to solve problems, not creating problems.

Week 12 Reflection

“Likewise, e-learning is a process of a learning group in action among an increasing array of learning options and shared experiences.”(pg. 284) This semester is my first time to take an online course. What I feel more impressively is sharing experiences. This is what we never do before within a normal class (on-campus class) in China. This is what I do during my undergraduate study: listen to what the teacher introduce or explain to us, take notes, go back to dorm and write paper, hang on the paper, done. We only can share experiences in presentation which might happen once in a semester. But here is different, I can learn from other classmates’ experiences, especially working experiences, by looking their reflection, or discussion. This is actually what I need most since I didn’t have such perspective due to lacking working experiences and coming from a different country that has a different educational background. Also, since I got benefit from e-learning and I feel like this is what my country need most, I hope I can learn more about e-learning and maybe I can participate in this field in the future.

“Likewise, it is preferable to think of e-learning technologies not as a platform (e.g., a learning management system) but as parts of a functional architecture combining technics in designed experiences that support learners’ reception or (preferably) construction of knowledge, skills and attitudes.” I would put this word into my aphorism collection. I think it is what an IDT designer should always remember in heart. We are not providing a tool to let student use, but using technics to design an environment to help student improving learning performance. As an online learner right now, I’m really enjoying to observe about how different teachers design the online course. Right now, I already experience two ways. One is this course that need reading and writing reflection since theoretical knowledge are included in this course. But another course I take, the Adobe Digital Design, is almost all about technics. So we mainly learn how to use different software of Adobe Creative Clouds. In this way, I’m not only study the knowledge including in those course, but also I’m studying the experience about how to use the knowledge into practice.

Week 11 Website

Here is my website.

I never used the Google Sites to create a personal site before, but I used the Adobe Muse to create a website last week . Generally, I create this site for sharing some information about EDT field.

The Home page is just a friendly welcome page.

In the EDT News page, I share some new article from TECH LEARNING and EDUTOPIA. Also, I use a RSS FEED tool to track the update.

In the Information main page, I link the two minor pages, EDT Information and Chinese Education, in this one. And add a Sudoku game for fun.

In the Chinese Education page, I upload an inforgraphics I did before that includes some information about Chinese Education.

In EDT Information page, I share some information related to education technology field. And I add a WIKIPEDIA tool on this page so that you can quickly search some extra information.

In the future, I would like to create a website that collect more information about EDT field that I can share it with my student probably. Collecting a lot of recourse need a lot of time to searching. So, by using a website such like this, I can add new thing on it day by day. And one day, maybe I can make a website that has abundant information about Educational Technology.

Week 11 Reflection

For your reflection this week, pick out at least two of the lessons that he described that feel relevant to your current or short-term future needs. Describe how they are relevant to you and what are some steps you can take for each that will help you develop yourself professionally?

In this chapter, Robert Reiser shared his experience in EDT field with us. Generally, every lesson he shared is helpful for me. But I want to highlight the lessons that will mostly relate to my future needs.

Lesson 5: Acquire a Strong Set of Skills in the Production of Instructional Media

Actually, this is what I am interesting about in EDT field. I already master some media techniques before I apply for this major. When I was considering which major I should choose that it is relate to education. After some times searching, I found this major, Educational Technology, which I could apply the technique I got and is related to education. However, I still want to learn more skills in in the production of instructional media. So, I selected the Adobe course in this semester. And I will select some other course that related to media skills.

Lesson 6: Acquire a Strong Set of Design (and Analysis!) Skills

This is what I want to focus on in master study. Since I’m in 0 level on instructional design at the beginning of this major’s study, I mainly scheduled my courses that is related to design and media technique. In that way, after I finish the master study, I think I will get a strong set of design skill.

Lesson 8: Develop a Strong Set of Communication Skills

Communication is vital, no matter when or where. But talking about this, as an international student, I have to say that knowing the local culture is also important. Since you live in here, study in here, or even work in here, knowing the local culture will not only help you better understand the local language, but also will help you to build relationship with others who have a different background culture with you.

Lesson 14: Develop an Area of Expertise

What I want to improve to be an expertise is instructional media technique. As I mention before, this is what I am really interesting about. I’m always enjoying doing some media technique things. Also, as the author mention about that “it is important that while you are developing your expertise in that area, you produce some tangible evidence that demonstrate your skill and experience”, the next step I need to consider about, after this semester, is how to do this.

Lesson 18: Demonstrate to Your Professors That You Do Good Work

I think this point is VITAL for me during the whole master study period—DOING GOOD WORK!

Concept Maps - The Art Theories of Plato

I would use this concept map to teach student about the art theories of Plato. Plato created his art theory that mainly had three parts: imitation, function, and inspiration. This concept provides the main content of each theory and some viewpoint towards this theory. I would show this map at the beginning of class to let them have an overview about what we will learn. Also, after class, they can choose one part of viewpoint from this map to expend more information and write a reflection. 

Week 10 Reflection

The first theme I noticed is the instruction design model. Generally, I can see the application of different models in these chapters. In chapter 18, rapid prototyping is introduced. Unlike some traditional instructional design approaches that the design process and the development process are separate, rapid prototyping if faster since it “using working models of the final product early in a project tend to eliminate time-consuming revisions later on and design tasks are completed concurrently, rather than sequentially, throughout the project” (pg. 183). Therefore, it seems to be widely used in business and industry area. Differently, in P-12 and higher education, ADDIE model (analyze, design, develop, implement, and evaluate) is widely used, especially in higher education. Although different University roles seem to have different emphasis of work, ADDIE model is always applied in their work. Like what Junko Nemoto, an assistant Professor from Kumamoto University, introduced to us about her work-analysis students, design learning portal website, develop online course, or evaluate their design by getting feedback through observing students’ learning processes. Another example is provided by Brenda Litchfield about her perspective of faculty development that “assists university faculty members in several important areas: analysis of students and learning contexts, design and development of instruction, innovative methods of implementation, and evaluation of teaching and learning.”(pg. 224)

The second theme I noticed is the technology-based learning. In chapter 18, the author talks about the web-based training which has the features of synchronous and asynchronous. In chapter 21, technology integration, more specifically, integrating teacher and student use of technology and media, is emphasis. In chapter 22, distance education/online course/eLearning has been mentioned about many times from different University roles.

I select those two themes because it is useful for my future professional work. The instruction design model, definitely, will be frequently applied to work in educational technology area. Also, I’m interesting in online teaching and learning, and I hope I can have the opportunity to involve in such program. Therefore, knowing more information about this from different contexts will help me to better understand it and apply to it.

Jing: Using Google Drive to Share A File

I use Jing to show how to use Google Drive to share a file with other people. Sometimes, we might have a file that others didn’t have or want to get some files from others. By using Google Drive, we can simply share files from each other. This is especially useful in instruction. For example, instructors can share some instructional materials with leaner, or leaner can share project files in a group, etc. Moreover, by using a public account, which means both instructor and leaner can log in a same account, they can establish an information repository that can also share it with more people. With the accumulation of information, it will become a valuable resource. Therefore, by watching this video, student will leaner how to use Google Drive to simply share a file with others.

Also, you can watch this in here.

Week 9 Reflection

For your reading reflection, pick out two trends or issues in Chapter 21 that particularly surprised you and/or hit home and explain why.

1.    NTeQ Model.

NTeQ model “uses an instructional design foundation to develop problem-based lessons focused on student use of technology as a tool”. To solve problem, student need to get required knowledge and skills, which are the instructional objectives. By following the ten-step lesson plan, teacher can efficiently integrate the instruction with computer by designing the instructional resource (including information and environment that are needed in learning process) and the instructional process of student achieve the knowledge and skills. Besides, this model is also helpful on improving students’ abilities. Since student might be curious about the problem, it can stimulate the student’s initiative of learning. In problem-solving process, students need to select appropriate information from various information and resources that teachers provide to solve problems. In this process, student grasped the instructional content. At the same time, they get practice of their critical thinking since they need to reason some questions such as “why choose this information” or “how to use this information”. As later of this chapter mention about, critical thinking and problem-solving skills are important element in twenty-first-century.

2.    Preparing for the Twenty-First Century.

I think this is what we are doing right now, preparing ourselves. Under the situation of globalization, the requirements for people are different from before. To be able to get a position in such a highly competitive environment, the professional knowledge that only learned from schools is hard to meet the needs. The elements that listed in this chapter (page 213) make me think about the situation of Chinese education. In our undergraduate study, we only focus on the major study, instead of learning something else at the same time, like the Life skills. On the other hand, in China, students always are passive audient. They get knowledge from listen to what teacher tells to them most time. They are hard to get development of their critical thinking and problem-solving skills. Well, I know that this might because the tradition of Chinese education since the long, long time ago. But the 21^st Century Skills affords us some good points that merit attention. Maybe, what we need is a revolution of our education system.

Google Maps Engine Activity

I choose option 2 of activity.

Idea:

When I try a several times of Google Maps Engine, I’m thinking about using it into Chinese History study. Since China have a long history with many different dynasties, student can use Google Maps Engine to create each dynasties’ simple map. Here is one I did as an example:

The red line is the boundary of Qin Dynasty. And the gray line is the Great Wall in that period.

Furthermore, I think teacher can give different student different assignment. Like some student can mark some important cities in this dynasty; some student can mark where some important event happened; some student can draw the line of march of some crucial war; etc. 

Week 8 Reflection

I didn’t have a professional work before and now. So, I mainly use my own experience, as an international student, to explore useful application that description in this chapter.

Cross-Cultural Training

In my undergraduate and graduate study, I play different roles. In my undergraduate period, I studied in a University that has 60% students coming from different countries. I once helped many international students to learn Chinese. At that time, my English was not good. In that way, communicating was a hard thing sometimes. Like sometimes they didn’t understand what you were talking about since they couldn’t understand the idiom or slang, or maybe they didn’t know some particular things that only had in China. I realized the cultural gap at that time. And now in my graduate study, I reverse my role to be an international student. In here, I’m the one who have a different culture with most of my classmate, and the one who have to always ask, “Oh, what is that?” I need to learn the new culture and adjust myself to the new educational system while I study the EDT knowledge. Therefore, using my own experience to say, it is important to consider the cultural factor in instruction.

Technology-based training delivery

Here I want to address the Web-based training most. I never experience a normal web class in University before. In China, I rarely hear about any University have a web class (maybe now some Universities have but I don’t know). The best thing I get in web class, comparing Chinese class and US web class is the feedback. Well, this maybe a plaint. In my four years undergraduate, I never got a feedback from all my teachers, except the graduation thesis. Many Chinese students might face this problem. Since there are too many people in China, every class might have 40 or more, sometime even 70, students. And for some public class, there might have more than 200 students in one class room. In that way, most teachers haven’t time to give feedback to every student. So most of the time, they just give us a grade. But without a feedback, student will not know which part they didn’t do well that cause they lose the point. As a consequence, they did practice but they did get improvement. But the web class is different. Its features of synchronous and asynchronous allow teachers have more time on their student so that student can also benefit from self-study and teacher’s help. 

Week 7 Reflection

1. Related to Chapter 14, what are some ways the ideas/concepts/principles discussed in this chapter could be applied in your professional work? Do you see opportunities where these ideas could help you or your students? Reflection

This chapter mainly introduces the history of HPI and HPT to us. When we talk about human performance technology, we always relate it with company or training. Indeed, the application of HPT in enterprise has got some effects. But at the same time, I think that we also need to consider about performance in educational field. When I read this chapter, I recall some about the definition of educational technology discuss in previous chapter, “Educational technology is the study and ethical practice of facilitating learning and improving performance by creating, using, and managing appropriate technological processes and resources” (AECT, 2008). To facilitate learning and improve performance, from a perspective of performance to design instruction is needed. For example, the gap between desired workforce performance and actual state of workforce performance in performance analysis (pg.141) can be related with need analysis, which is the first step of design instruction. Therefore, whether in the teaching activities or on the job training, we should realize the complementary advantages of methods and practices between HPT and ID.

To apply HPT in instruction, I think we can use the instructional goal as the desired performance and some present situations of instruction, such as the instructional resource, instructional model, and instructional concept of instructor, as the actual state of performance, and then find the gap and analyze the cause to design and develop intervention which can improve the performance.

2. What added value might podcasting have in your professional setting (company, school, etc.)?

In this week’s activity, I choose option 2-create a podcast. Here is my Podcast onPodOmatic. I think Podcast is a tool that easy to use since user can easily upload their audio file and share it with other. Like RSS, user can subscribe the podcast they like. Also, users can communicate with each other by using comments function. Those features of podcast make it can be used in instruction.

1)      Create a Podcast learning platform. Instructor can create a podcast and upload instructional audio series on it. Since many textbook update slowly, instructor can update instructional content at any time. Also, learner can play those podcast at anywhere and anytime. Furthermore, both instructor and learner can use comments function to discuss easily.

2)      Establish an open instructional library. Since everyone can podcast, the audio files they upload can be the valuable instructional resource. Instructors can exchange their knowledge, opinions, and experience. Learner can use those resources for autonomic learning. Here is one experience of myself. When I was preparing the TOFEL test, I used a tool that can subscribe podcast which include a lot of English Listening resources that can help me to improve my listening.

Generally, I think Podcast is a useful tool that has many potential waiting us to explore. For self-interest using, like what I upload in Podmatic, I can share my Rap songs with you all!

Podcast

Here is my podcast. I upload a rap song that made by my friends and me.
Using Podmatic is very easy. I use my facebook accout to sign up. Then, just following the direction, and  you can publish your own podcast so quickly.

Week 6 Reflection

It is really difficult of this week’s reading, Psychological Foundations of Instructional Design. I’m not sure if I understand in a right way in some parts of it. So, for the reflection, I will quote the part that inspire me first and the plan next.

Behavioral Learning Theory.

l  “Because of the anticipated reinforcing benefits of feedback, instructional designs resulted that broke instruction into small steps and required learners to respond frequently, thus virtually assuring errorless performance.”(p.37)

l  Teaching plan:

In this course, students will be asked to figure out how to but 48 cans cola in cheapest way. I will broke instruction into 2 parts, and each parts will have several steps.

1.     A. Teacher will give students the information of choices. There are 2 brands of cola- Coca Cola and Pepsi Cola. Each brand has a different price, which should be provided to students.

B. Students need to make choice. Basing on the information that the teacher gives, student will figure out which brand is cheaper and then make their choice. Then, they should give their choice to teacher.

C. Teacher will check up their answers to see if they are correct. If so, students will go to next step. If not so, they will be required to do this step again until they get correct answer.

2.     A. Teacher will give students the information of choices. There are 4 types’ packs of cola-1 cans, 8 cans, 12 cans, and 24 cans- and each type has a different price, which should be provided to students as well.

B. Students need to make choice. Basing on the information that the teacher gives, student will calculate the price of each cans in different types’ pack and decide which pack is the best choice. Then, they should give their result to teacher.

C. Teacher will check up their answers to see if they are correct. If so, it means that student learned to calculate and compare the unit costs of various sizes and brands of the same product. If not so, they will be required to do this step again until they get correct answer.

Situated Learning Theory.

l  “Learning from a situated perspective occurs through the learner’s participation in the practices of a community, practices that are mutually constituted by the members of the community.”(p.38)

l  Teaching plan:

In this course, students will be separate into several groups, and each group will be given $20 and asked to buy cola as much as they can. As the prerequisite, there should be at 2 brands and 4 types’ packs with different prices. Therefore, students need to make choice between different brands and packs. Also, after they made choice and bought the cola, teacher can make a comparison between groups and let them have a communication of their way to make choice. At the end, teacher should give a best number of cans that $20 can buy to student in order to let them know the best choice.

Yunnan Impression

Yunnan province is my hometown. This video shows some beautiful places in Yunnan. I've benn to some of them. But there still have a lot of place I have never been to yet. If I have time, I will continue to tour my hometown as much places as possible.

I took this picture 2 years ago when I went to Mang city. This ia a peafowl, one kind of typical animal of Yunnan!


I live in Kunming City. But I was born in Chuxiong City.

Week 5 Reflection

1.      Why the project had very little effect on the instructional practices employed by the teachers?

a.      Teachers or students are unwilling to change from the traditional ways of learning and teaching to using laptop computers which already installed all of the curriculum materials. Besides, it could also be possible that teachers and students are unfamiliar to the computers and thus they spend too many times and energies on how to use it. In that way, they might psychologically resist to use it so that the positivity and efficiency of both teachers and students will be reduced.

b.      The selecting of software in computers or curriculum materials is unsuitable or insufficient for the needs of instruction. Since those computers and curriculum materials were provided by school and used without tryouts with learners, once they were unsuitable, they would have very limited effects on instructional practices.

c.       Pertinence of different subjects is lacked. “It was necessary to consider all the elements of the communication process, and not just focus on the medium, as many in the audiovisual field tended to do.”(p.19) Similar to what this chapter mentioned about, besides considering the laptops and curriculum materials themselves, how to use them by teachers and students is also important. Furthermore, since there are four subject (math, language arts, social studies, and science), same instructional way might not be applicative to all of them.

2.      Strategies that could have been employed to help mitigate the factors.

a.      A professional training of computer might be helpful. In the training process, teachers and student will learn to use the computer and thus they will reduce the costing of time and energy on dealing with the technical problems during their teaching/learning time. Besides, in this process, they will be getting familiar with computer, and become to accept it. I think frequently using is one way to decrease the psychological resistance.

b.      Before the practice among the whole school, teaching experiment is needed. In the experiment, following steps should be considered:

1)        Analyzing the instructional needs of each subject. This will help to identify the learning needs and goals of student.

2)        Selecting the instructional materials. Basing on the learning goals, teachers should identify which instructional materials will be used to help student to enhance their knowledge and ability, and thus meet their learning goals. This will help to make sure that the selected software of computer or curriculum materials are suitable.

3)        Planning the instructional strategies. Teachers should plan the instructional strategies in order to help student to master the instructional content and achieve the learning goals. Especially, the situation of different subject should be considered. This will help to make the instruction have more pertinence.

4)        Evaluating the instructional effect. Before putting into practice, evaluating the instructional effect and improving the details or defects basing on the evaluation is necessary. This can help to ensure the effectiveness of instruction.

Also, here is my Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/128317393@N06/

Week 4 Reflection

1)

This is my first time to use a Social Bookmarking like Diigo. I explored several basic function of Diigo, and it is really a big surprise for me. I realized that social bookmarking, such as Diigo, is a kind of social tool which can be used to save and share website. Through Diigo, users can collect and classify their interesting information, also can share them with other people. Since Diigo is a useful knowledge management tool, in my view, it also has some instructional use.

Firstly, it is helpful for instructor to prepare to classify and sum up the instructional materials. In order to avoid repeatedly searching, instructor can use Diigo to save and classify the website online they often use so that they easily use it whenever and wherever they want. Furthermore, basing on this, many website will be selected out by different instructors and classify by Tag. Once they share these information to each other, it will become a valuable instructional resource. Also, considering that the inefficient search engines, which might be caused by the larger amount of information, will make learners spend many time on searching information, instructors can provide these useful website to learners. Besides, learners can also use Diigo to save and share their interesting website. In that way, instructors will know some about their interesting through Diigo. This will help both instructors and learner have a better communication.

2)

The 1994 definition correspond with my understanding about educational technology. In my view, we learn how to design, develop, utilize, manage, and evaluate the processes and resources of learning in order to facilitate learning. However, the AECT 2008 definition makes me think more. Some words I want to highlight especially:

l  Ethical practice: This clearly stipulates that the practice of educational technology should meet the requirements of ethics.

l  Performance:  From the emphasis on resources, to the emphasis on teaching, then to the emphasis on learning, and finally to the emphasis on both learning and performance, this process reflect the shift, with the time change, of the main emphasis of educational technology. Adding improving performance to be one of the goals of educational technology means that the learning effects, benefits, and efficiency playing an important role as well.

l  Appropriate technological: This reflects a shift from the study of learning processes and recourses to the study of appropriate technological processes and resources.

By reading the chapter 1 of Trends and Issues, I learned something new about this are. To my surprise, I never knew that the history of educational technology can be traced back to the 1920s. I read some reference materials in China before, and they showed that the definition of education technology began in the 1963. So after reading the chapter 1, I searched more information about the history of definitions of educational technology. Then, I found that there were something seem to be missing in the book. In 1972, AECT stated a definition of educational technology listing as follows:

Educational technology is a field involved in the facilitation of human learning through the systematic identification, development, organization and utilization of a full range of learning resources and through the management of these processes. (Ely, 1972, p. 36)

References:

Kay, A, Persichitte & Alan, Januszewski. A HISTORY OF THE AECT’S DEFINITIONS OF EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY[EB/OL]. http://lichinhuangdl.wikispaces.com/file/view/ER5861X_C010.pdf

Diigo

Here is my Diigo page: https://www.diigo.com/user/iapetos000

Summary of O Reilly's "What Is Web 2"

Hi everyone,
I just created a Wiki!
Also, here is my summary of O Reilly's "What Is Web 2.0". 

Week 2 Reflection

When Blog appeared and came into vogue in China many years ago, I caught up with the trend and used it to communicate with my friend. At that time, I just realized that Blog is a good tool to share your experience and emotion with others. Since that time we always had to spend a lot of time on studying either in school or at home, this tool had become a valuable way for us to communicate. So almost every day my friends and I would write something on it and made comments to each other. Comparing with surprises or pleasant, I think our feeling about Blog at that time was more about thankful.

Unlike Blog, this is my first time to use an RSS Reader this week. I knew this tool long time before but I never used it. So after I created a Feedly account and followed the instruction to subscribe to both my classmates’ blogs and some other feeds, I feel so surprises. Last week when I wanted to look my classmates’ blogs, I had to click the link one by one. But this time, by using Feedly, it become much more convenient, especially after I download a Feedly app on my iPhone.

Putting aside the Blog’s or RSS’s features itself, I think the process that we using Blog and RSS for learning are made us go through all of these three experiences, the direct experiences, iconic experiences, and symbolic experience. I use a SmartArt below to explain.

Especially, the last two steps can be a cycle. That means, in the process we use Blog and RSS repeatedly, we are constantly involving in almost all parts of the Cone of Experience.

I quite agree with the list that Siegel gives about The Web’s Strengths, and I think that Blog and RSS can achieve a lot of them. Different from the single model that some tools have, such as the old Wikipedia, which can only search the explanation about some concepts, Blog and RSS actually break the wall between people and create a comprehensive information environment. Like by using RSS, we can individually choose the information we are interested in or need, and update them easily and quickly. On the other hand, by using Blog, we can effectively link together. In this point, the “effectively” means we have so many ways through multimedia, and the “link” means we can provide information, exchange thoughts, share and spread ideas through Blog. As Siegel says, “It’s not a single feature but a coherent set of concepts. This is computer imagination!”

Week1:A Reflection on Reigeluth & Joseph and Postman's Articles

Historically, the development of technology always will change the way of people’s life, and bring some problems. In that case, different opinion and attitude towards technology will occur. Some people have a positive attitude towards the relationship between education and technology; others might have a negative attitude, such as Reigeluth and Joseph, and Postman.

The immature status of technology when it just appeared often lead the people at that period develop a negative attitude to technology, such as the example Postman gives about his attitude on cruise control and electric windows. But in my opinion, sometimes, some people reject the new technology just because they don’t want to change. Because they deny those technologies first, so they always only see the defect, instead of some advantages. And it is worthwhile to note that the big improvement comes from a lot of small improvement. Some details might be inessential when they separate with each other. But once they are put together, they might have a significant contribution to the unitary development.

I quite agree with the view of Reigeluth and Joseph. Firstly, the viewpoint of “our current paradigm of education is not designed for learning; it is designed for sorting” (Reigeluth，1992) highly summarize the present educational situation of China, even some other countries. In China, almost all of children are educated by same course from elementary school to high school, and then participate in the college entrance examination. This only one time’s exam grade almost decides their future. Student who has a high score can go to a good university and get a good major, and then has a good job in the future. But the student who has a low score is quite opposite. In that way, we spend nearly 10 years to learn some knowledge that might not be used, even forgot, in University or future, but we are sorted by those knowledge. In my view, this is kind of wasting of resources, even life, since we can use those times to master much other knowledge that will be helpful to our future career and life. Therefore, I think the perspective of Reigeluth and Joseph towards “principles for a learning-focused paradigm of education” is really good for education’s transformation. And I also feel that this will be the development trend of education system in the future. Hence, the utilizing of new technology among education cannot be halted. As the author saying, “It is not an exaggeration to say that technology is indispensable for allowing us to transform teaching and learning to better meets our children's needs in the information age.”

In addition, I also agree with the viewpoint of Reigeluth and Joseph that regarding the technology as the only power to push the development of education is a mistake. I accept that technology is a double edged sword which not only improve the quality and system of education, but also bring some problems. For example, some teachers are over dependent on some technological tools. Teachers are always the main guide during the whole teaching process. Some modern technological tools, such as wonderful PPT and interesting video, will be helpful to attract students. However, this will also reduce the teaching charm of teachers themselves. As a guide, teacher might be regarded as a role model by student. In that case, their status will influence students directly. If a teacher lose his or her unique charm, and he or she can only use the technological tools which might be same with other teacher’s, how can he or she help student create their own personal charm? Therefore, it is also important to teachers improving themselves.

All in all, I think we should dialectically understand the relationship between education and technology, and then seek advantages and avoid disadvantages. In that way, the development of education can not only keep up with the pace of the times, but also meet our needs.

References:

Reigeluth, C.M. & Joseph, R. (2002). Beyond technology integration: The case for technology transformation. Educational Technology, 42(4), 9-13.

Postman, N. (1993). Of Luddites, Learning, and Life. Technos Quarterly, 2(4).