The Big Picture How to Succeed in the DLL
If you haven’t already reviewed this page and the related links you owe it to yourself to spend the 30 minutes that it will take to see how to really do well in the DLL.
The Big Picture – EDLD 5303 Week 1 Assignment Tips
WordPress Self Hosting Recommendation
If I were to start my ePortfolio/blog from scratch today I would use self-hosted WordPress on a hosting service like Bluehost. This is exactly what I have been using since 2006. The only regret I have was that from 2006-2009 I posted on a WordPress site for a college I worked at rather than my own domain and when I left that college I left three years of posts behind. Don’t make this same mistake–post your work on a site your own. You can always cross-post to another site.
The cost for a self-hosted WordPress site on Bluehost is as low as $4 per month and there are special deals for college/university students and faculty at http://www.bluehost.com/hosting/education.
While promoting the growth mindset is important it must be done so within the context of structural changes to the learning environment. The research is quite clear using the growth mindset as an intervention alone or on its own will not make any significant difference. If you wish to help your learners adapt and grow a growth mindset then you make a structural change and create a significant learning environment in which you give your learners choice ownership, and voice through authentic learning opportunities.
Kohn’s concluding paragraph summarizes the problem of promoting the growth mindset while not changing the structural arrangements or the learning environment:
I’m not suggesting we go back to promoting an innate, fixed, “entity” theory of intelligence and talent, which, as Dweck points out, can leave people feeling helpless and inclined to give up. But the real alternative to that isn’t a different attitude about oneself; it’s a willingness to go beyond individual attitudes, to realize that no mindset is a magic elixir that can dissolve the toxicity of structural arrangements. Until those arrangements have been changed, mindset will get you only so far. And too much focus on mindset discourages us from making such changes.
Hendrick points to the systemic problem that we have in education that limits the potential of the growth mindset:
One of the greatest impediments to successfully implementing a growth mindset is the education system itself. A key characteristic of a fixed mindset is a focus on performance and an avoidance of any situation where testing might lead to a confirmation of fixed beliefs about ability. Yet we are currently in a school climate obsessed with performance in the form of constant summative testing, analysing and ranking of students. Schools create a certain cognitive dissonance when they proselytise the benefits of a growth mindset in assemblies but then hand out fixed target grades in lessons based on performance.
This Meta-Analyses of growth mindset interventions reveals that there week impact of the growth mindset on student achievement. Growth mindset interventions on their own won’t bring about change but as the researchers argue:
Alternatively, mind-set interventions might need to be combined with other interventions to increase effectiveness.
More evidence to suggest that changing the learning environment and giving learners choice, ownership, and voice through authentic learning opportunities may make the difference.
Hattie warns us to not over-reach with our claims of what the growth mindset will provide and encourages us to go back to the original work and recognize that the growth mindset has a role to play in the whole learning environment.
We need more care about over-reach with concepts like growth and fixed mindsets- otherwise, they will disappear like other over-used and over-rated claims that bedevil education and psychology. We will then miss the incredible value the research on these topics can provide relating to when to use them, how to use them, with which students, and to what ends.
The faddish or pop culture version of the growth mindset is emerging as: “Have a Growth Mindset.” This smacks of the “Just So No” campaign of the Reagan era. Catch phrases about a growth mindset will have as much effect on actually developing a growth mindset as just saying no did on curbing drug use.
A lot of teachers are saying ‘yes I have a growth mindset’, without doing the work and without making a journey to deeply understand it and to know how to apply it.
Once again we argue that this hard work involves creating a significant learning environment in which you give your learners choice ownership, and voice through authentic learning opportunities.
How to Build a Growth Mindset – While this video is upbeat, motivation, and does point to the fact you have to take action it misses the key factor of the need to change your learning environment in order to create the context for the growth mindset. https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=20&v=V7XjFTrPl6o
The promises or hype of educational technology are an unfortunate central part of our long-standing tradition of attempting to use technology to change education. Will the hype around Artificial Intelligence (AI) be any different than the hype that we have experienced this past century? Should teachers be fearful of being replaced by AI? The answer depends on the type of the teacher. Before, we address who should be wary of AI it is important to set the context.
Schools have had a longstanding immunity against the introduction of new technologies. In 1922 Thomas Edison predicted that movies would replace textbooks. In 1945 one forecaster imagined radios as common as blackboards in classrooms. In the 1960s, B.F. Skinner predicted that teaching machines and programmed instruction would double the amount of information students could learn in a given time. Filmstrips and other audiovisual aids were fads thirty years ago, and the television, now seen as a supplier of brain candy, once had a sterling reputation as an education machine (Seidensticker, 2006, p. 103).
We have seen over a century of predictions and subsequent failures about how technology would radically change education as we know it and yet we still continue to buy into these notions. In The History of Teaching Machines, Audry Waters (2018) shares the progression of our infatuation with the automation teaching. The difference with the 21st century and the digital information age is that we are moving through these hype cycles at a significantly faster pace.
Just consider the hype around MOOCs that exploded in 2012, peeked in 2103, by 2014 many were reporting the problems with MOOCs (Friedman, 2014), and were declared complete failures by 2017 (Shahzad, 2017). I have been on the cutting edge of educational technology use and started teaching completely online in 1995 but knew from several decades of experience of using technology to enhance learning that the MOOCs would fail because of its emphasis on the information delivery and regurgitation model of instruction and that MOOCs ignore the fundamental presupposition that teaching and learning is uniquely human relational activity.
Another reason we fail in recognizing and using the potential of educational technology is that we ignore the challenges of our current information age. My colleagues Bill Rankin and George Saltsman (2010) offered the following summary of the challenges of the information age and how we as teachers should respond to the challenge of the digital information age: Even though our educational system is still mired in the print information age, if we assume that we are currently in the digital information age then consider the following:
If I imagine my primary job as a teacher is to serve information, am I helping solve the current informational problem or make it worse?
And given the vast complexity of the informational network, if I insist on my centrality, does that establish or harm my credibility as a teacher?
If assessing information – and the wisdom & experience that requires – is the central challenge of the current informational age, are teachers more or less necessary?
Considering the overwhelming amount of information that that average 21st-century learner has at their disposal there is no denying that assessing information is one of our biggest challenges and subsequently teachers are more important than ever.
This brings me back to the initial question – Should teachers be fearful of being replaced by AI?
If you are a teacher that is currently operating in the 19th and 20th-century information transfer model of education focused on delivering content and then checking that delivery through a standardized testing model established in 1914, then you should be afraid of AI. Any standardized rules-based system can be automated. With the advances in AI that we have seen in the past several decades, we are only a short time away from the development of algorithms that can automate this information transfer model and eliminate the need for teachers who are using this information transfer model.
A more important question may be: Are you jeopardizing your students future by conditioning or preparing them to be replaced by a more efficient and automated information regurgitation algorithm?
References
Friedman, D. (2014) The MOOC revolution that wasn’t. Techcruch. Retrieved from https://techcrunch.com/2014/09/11/the-mooc-revolution-that-wasnt/
Rankin, W., & Saltsman, G. (February 2010). Teaching and learning in a mobile world: Engaging a new informational model. Presentation for the Teaching and Learning Initiative Conference. Houston, Texas.
Seidensticker, B. (2006). Future hype: The myths of technology change. San Fransico. CA: Berrett-Koehler Publishers
Shahzad, S. (2017) The traditional MOOCs model has failed. What next? Educational Technology. Retrieved from https://edtechnology.co.uk/Article/the-traditional-moocs-model-has-failed-what-next
Watters, A. (2018). The history of teaching machines. A Hack Education Project. Retrieved from http://teachingmachin.es/timeline.html
Learning from Leaders – What Lines are Others Taking
Following the example of a successful innovator can also get you past the most challenging obstacles and can save your organization time and money.
Course Outcome/Goal
Learners will identify technology innovations and embrace them as opportunities rather than challenges, recognizing that they can proactively use those changes as catalysts to enhance their organizations.
Module Outcome/Goal
After completing this module, you should be able to:
Highlight the opportunities technological innovation spawns.
Develop strategies to proactively use these opportunities to move your institution/districts toward developing active learning environments.
Introduction Video
The Lines That Went Before You
Readings
Refer to the links in the module assignment
Please note: To stay, as current as possible additional cases study examples will be identified and provided shortly before the start of each course.
Want to Innovate? Discussion
Consider the following two TED talks:
In Want to innovate? Become a “now-ist” Joi Ito the head of the MIT Media Lab skips the future predictions and instead shares a new approach to creating in the moment: building quickly and improving constantly, without waiting for permission or for proof that you have the right idea.
Joi Ito: Want to innovate? Become a “now-ist”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VsjTVGIw4z8
In Click here– blended learning and the future of education Monique Markoff challenges us to consider that we have had computers and educational technology for a long time—yet we aren’t we at the point where we are using technology effectively to enhance the learning environment? What can we do about this?
Click here– blended learning and the future of education: Monique Markoff at TEDxIthacaCollege
Instructions
Participate in a class discussion, which you begin by addressing the following issues/questions.
What else can we learn from these examples of innovation?
Education is what people do to you and learning is what you do to yourself… need to learn is how to learn. Are you actually practicing this in your learning environment? Why or why not?
Ito challenges us to: “Stop this notion that you need to plan everything, you need to stock everything you need be so prepared and focus and being connected, always learning fully aware and super present. I don’t like the word futurist I think with we should be “Now ists”. If you are not a Now ist, what is holding you back?
Are you flexible? Is your school flexible enough to allow teachers to be innovative and to experiment blended learning or other ways to use technology to enhance learning?
Are you committed to have kids really use technology? Are your colleagues able to commit to use the technology?
Are you able to able to create the necessary learning environment where students are giving the choice, ownership, and voice through authentic projects?
Please remember the list of questions are for your benefit and are intended to help you focus your thinking. We are not asking nor expect you to answer each question in your discussion–rather you should use these questions to help focus on how the insights gained through this discussion will help you to add another component to your innovation plan.
This discussion will be assessed as part of your participation grade.
Learning from Leaders
Assignment Value: 75 points
In this assignment, you will review examples(s) of organizations who have used disruptive innovation as a catalyst to bring change to their organizations and gain insights and ideas on how to develop an innovation plan or proposal and to also implement a innovation initiative or strategy in your organization.
Since 2008, Abilene Christian University (ACU) has been recognized nationally as a visionary leader in campus-wide exploration and 1-to-1 deployment of iPhones, iPod touches and iPads. Notice how ACU has leveraged mobile technology to bring about transformative change in this Southwest Texas university campus.
The Maine Learning Technology Initiative (MTLI) is one of the longest running best documented 1 to 1 initiatives running in North America. The 10 years of experience with the MTLI provides perspective that we can all learn from.
Instructions
Step 1
As a starting point in your review, consider the significance of what ACU refers to as “Video Vision Casting.” One could argue that the spark that started the process at ACU is the Connected Movie produced in 2007, even before Apple had announced the 3G iPhone. Unfortunately, the video is longer then it could be by today’s Youtube standards so overlook the length and look to the vision that the video creates.
Review the following videos that explain how ACU leveraged the disruptive power of the iPhone and iPad as a catalyst for the change in learning on their campus:
Regardless of your interest in mobile learning, 1 to 1, blended learning, or other technology-focused initiative it is always a good idea to keep the right perspective that it isn’t just about the technology it is about the learning. Alan November does a wonderful job reminding us of this in his article:
These case studies listed above are just a few of many examples of how other organizations have implemented technology to enhance learning. Feel free to use other examples in your planning process.
Step 2
From your review of the sites and case studies in Step 1 and from using the ideas gleaned from your literature review, develop an implementation outline for your innovation plan. At this point in your studies, we do not expect you to have fully detailed and complete report or implementation plan. You do have enough information to develop an implementation outline that provides significant details for the first year of your plan and then a more general or broad overview of the following months or year(s). You will be revisiting and revising this implementation outline in EDLD 5304 and again in other courses in the DLL program.
While the format of the implementation outline is up to you keep in mind that you will be posting this plan to your ePortflio for peer review so this plan MUST be submitted as a link from your ePortfolio. Also, keep in mind that the most important aspect of implementation outline is to identify who your audience will be and why and how they will use the material.
Step 3
Add your outline to your blog site for peer review.
Visit at least three other classmates sites and review their outlines.
Peer Review Process
If you are the first person to visit a classmates site preface your review with the heading “Peer Review 1”, if you are the second, preface your review with the heading “Peer Review 2” and so on. Everyone must follow this heading process so that we can ensure that all outlines get reviewed.
Each outline should be reviewed by at least three different classmates, so if you come on a site that already has three reviews move onto another site and offer your feedback. Feel free to visit all your classmates sites and offer comments and to get ideas for your own outlines.
Your review should take the form of encouragement, questions, suggestions, recommendations and other forms of positive feedback. If you notice issues with an outline ask questions rather than give criticism. All reviews must be completed by midnight on the Wednesday of the following week.
Step 4
Revise your implementation outline based on the comments from your peers.
Include links to your innovation plan and your literature review so that we can see how these components of your change strategy fit together.
Submit the completed implementation outline by 11:59 PM CST on Sunday of the fourth week of the course.
Submission Details:
This assignment MUST be submitted as a link from your ePortfolio so include the assignment URL in the provided document template: Assignment3-EDLD5305-Submission.docx Click for more options
Download the document template,
Post the URL into the space at the top of the document template,
Add your name to the document,
Rename the file with your name and assignment identifier
Upload the file to Blackboard by or before the deadline.
If your assignment does take the form of a Word or Pages document then you can simply paste the content into the document template and complete the assignment submission as outlined above.
The School of Education is using this submission process in its online courses for two reasons:
We wish to provide you an offline copy of the assignment instructions that you can refer to.
We want to ensure there is a consistent and permanent record of assignment submissions that can efficiently be converted to hard copy.
Formats:
While the format of the implementation outline is up to you keep in mind that you will be posting this plan to your ePortflio for peer review so this plan MUST be submitted as a link from your ePortfolio..
Use the APA format to cite your sources.
Use the assignment name, your last name and first initial (assignment name + last name + first initial) to label your assignment submission.
Add to ePortfolio:
Since this assignment is part of the course outcome of identifying technology innovations, embracing them as opportunities rather than challenges, and recognizing that they can proactively be used as catalysts to enhance your learning environment and organization you will also need to add this to your ePortfolio. In the final module you will be required to consolidate all the course assignments into a cohesive section on your ePortfolio, so we recommend that you add this to your ePortfolio as you go along rather than wait until the end.
Picking Your Line – Where Does The Data Suggest We Need To Go
Determining what the literature, research, and data point to as the next disruptive innovation will enable you to proactively leverage the disruptive innovation rather than reactively respond to its effects.
Course Outcome/Goal
Learners will identify technology innovations and embrace them as opportunities rather than challenges, recognizing that they can proactively use those changes as catalysts to enhance their organizations.
Module Outcome/Goal
After completing this module, you should be able to identify, analyze, and evaluate current and potential examples of disruptive innovations.
Introduction Video
Picking Your Line
Readings
Required Readings
2017 – 2012 Horizon Reports – view from https://www.nmc.org/nmc-horizon/ Select the report type appropriate to your interests or organization.
Meeker’s 2018 Internet Trends Report
Meeker’s 2017 Internet Trends Report
Meeker’s 2016 Internet Trends Report
Meeker’s 2015 Internet Trends Report
Meeker’s 2014 Internet Trends Report
The ECAR Study of Undergraduate Students and Information Technology 2017 & 2017 Student and Faculty Technology Research Studies Please note that this is the main ECAR 2017 Studies archive where you will find the Undergraduate Students and Information Technology studies, Faculty studies, Infographic and much more.
2016 Students and Technology Research Study
The ECAR Study of Undergraduate Students and Information Technology, 2015
The ECAR Study of Undergraduate Students and Information Technology, 2014
The ECAR Study of Undergraduate Students and Information Technology, 2013
The ECAR Study of Undergraduate Students and Information Technology, 2012
The list of readings for this module was set up to be purposely overwhelming because you need to be aware of just how much information is available and, more importantly, you need to learn to glean what is valuable and what is not. If you have been following educational technology literature for many years, then you will not be overwhelmed with all this reading, because you will have read each of the reports when they were published. If you are new to the discipline, then you have a bit of catching up to do.
Ideally, you do want to read all the material, but given the time constraints of this course and the fact that you all have lives, I suggest that you look to your class colleagues to share the load of reading and devise a plan to distribute the reading load and to at least look at the following in detail.
At minimum, read the most recent years of the Horizon Report, and then read the Executive summaries, Technologies to Watch, Critical Challenges and Significant Trends sections of the earlier reports. Look for patterns and also critically assess how accurate the earlier reports have been. Compare the predictions and claims of the Horizon Reports with that data in the Internet Trends Report (at minimum, use the report summary). Read the most recent ECAR Study of Undergraduate Students and Information Technology, and review the Key Findings of the previous two studies to identify patterns that will point to disruptive innovations and compare to the Horizon and Meeker reports.
Introducing Your ePortfolio/Blog Site
This is an opportunity for you to share your blog URL with the rest of the class.
Instructions
Copy and paste your blog URL in the subject box of a reply thread at the bottom of this page.
Visit at least 3-5 of your classmates sites. Post a reaction to any of the items that are relevant to this course and which you find interesting.
Progressive Education Discussions
The call for change or reform in education is not new. View the following video, which presents a positive view of progressive education, although it begins with a parent complaining that children are not learning the fundamentals.
Progressive Education in the 1940s
Review the blog post People who like this stuff… like this stuff (https://www.harapnuik.org/?p=5198) and consider why people are resistant to change and what can be done about this resistance.
Instructions
Participate in a class discussion in which you begin by addressing the following issues/questions.
If you were to close your eyes and simply listen to the language, could you recognize some of the same verbiage used today?
As much as things change, they also seem to stay the same.
Why haven’t we seen more significant change in education?
Consider the People who like this stuff… post. Does it apply to your organization?
Please remember the list of questions are for your benefit and are intended to help you focus your thinking. We are not asking nor expect you to answer each question in your discussion–rather you should use these questions to help focus on how the insights gained through this discussion will help you to add another component to your innovation plan.
This assignment will be assessed as part of your course participation grade.
Literature Review
Assignment Value: 150 points
The Internet age has brought about an overabundance of literature on almost every subject. The challenge is no longer finding the information but being able to sift through enormous amounts of information and assess what is valuable and what is not. When you are looking for trends it is important to find longitudinal research and reports that help you identify patterns or trends that will reveal which innovations are truly disruptive.
Instructions
From the assigned module readings, compile a literature review that supports your innovation plan and that will help you share what you have learned with your colleagues and community. You will want to have a minimum of 10-12 citations in your literature review so you will need to supplement your readings with a minimum of 5 or more additional articles that point to technologies trends and reference these additional articles in your literature review.
We encourage you to use the traditional document format that can easily be updated and prepared for a potential article submission. The most important aspect of the literature review is to identify who your audience will be and why and how they will use the material. This literature review must be used to help identify innovation opportunities and support the innovation plan and implementation outline that you will develop in this course.
Academic writing is a rule-based process so please refer to and use:
The following templates can be used to guide your document formatting. Regardless of what template you use you must still refer to the APA guidelines to make sure that you work follows the APA standards.
The literature review is due on the third Sunday of the course so you have two weeks to complete your work. The most important part of the writing process is editing so make sure you get a different set of eyes (another person) to help you edit your work.
Submission Details:
This assignment is unique to you, your circumstances, and your organization so you need to determine who your audience is, why and how they will use this information, and what impact you are looking to make. Since you own this assignment, and more importantly the ideas within the assignment, you need to choose how you will format and present this information. Refer to Who Owns the Eportfolio – https://www.harapnuik.org/?page_id=6050 for a more detailed explanation of idea ownership.
Even though your assignment may take the form of a Google document, Word or Pages document, blog post or other digital format to submit the assignment URL you will be required to use the provided document template: Assignment2-EDLD5305-Submission.docx Click for more options
Download the document template,
Post the URL into the space at the top of the document template,
Add your name to the document,
Rename the file with your name and assignment identifier
Upload the file to Blackboard by or before the deadline.
If your assignment submission does take the form of a Word or Pages document then you can simply paste the content into the document template and complete the assignment submission as outlined above.
The School of Education is using this submission process in its online courses for two reasons:
We wish to provide you an offline copy of the assignment instructions that you can refer to.
We want to ensure there is a consistent and permanent record of assignment submissions that can efficiently be converted to hard copy.
Formats:
You can use a document, Google doc, Word or Pages doc, blog post or other format to present your ideas to your audience.
Use the APA format to cite your sources.
Use the assignment name, your last name and first initial (assignment name + last name + first initial) to label your assignment submission.
Add to ePortfolio:
Since this assignment is part of the course outcome of identifying technology innovations, embracing them as opportunities rather than challenges, and recognizing that they can proactively be used as catalysts to enhance your learning environment and organization you will also need to add this to your ePortfolio. In the final module you will be required to consolidate all the course assignments into a cohesive section on your ePortfolio, so we recommend that you add this to your ePortfolio as you go along rather than wait until the end.
