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E-Reading isn’t a threat to the Humanities–Relevance and motivation are

Dwayne Harapnuik — July 14, 2014 — 2 Comments

http://chronicle.com/article/How-E-Reading-Threatens/147661/?cid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en

How E-Reading Threatens Learning in the Humanities – Commentary – The Chronicle of Higher Education via kwout

The timing on this Chronicle of Higher Education post by Naomi S. Baron professor of linguistics and executive director of the Center for Teaching, Research & Learning at American University, could not have been more fortuitous. It is fortuitous in two ways. First, I have been reflecting on the importance of creating learning environments that help foster intrinsic motivation and provide the necessary context and significance for learning. And second, I have been lamenting receiving an exceptional book as a gift in print format because I am not able to add virtual highlights and notes which I use extensively in all the books that I read using an e-reader.

I will deal with the second point first. In the past I had extensively used adhesive book tabs, notes in the margins and highlights to mark and identify important passages and as result some of my most heavily used books are messy and cluttered.

While the tabs were intended to help me find the important thoughts and ideas in the books they really didn’t help because the more tabs you add the more difficult it becomes to find what you are looking for. In addition, as you can see from the picture above, the tabs get curled and mangled the more you use the book. Virtual highlighting and note placement not only eliminates this problem you can also search the entire book, notes or your highlights looking for the that key term or passage. In addition, many e-readers enable you to export all your highlights and notes to a text file which allow you to work directly with the most important sections of the text.

The final frustration with receiving a print based book is that I no longer carry any of these adhesive tabs in my briefcase or have any on hand in my office so I am not able to mark the important sections of the book. I will just have to purchase an electronic copy of this book I received as as gift.

While this convenience aspect of using an e-reader is important it may not be as important as my first point–reflecting on the importance of creating learning environments that help foster intrinsic motivation and provide the necessary context and significance for learning. Professor Baron argues that “deep reading” is not possible on an a digital screen because digital reading encourages distraction because most people have the tendency to engage in some form of multitasking. She also points to survey results that reveal that some students still view reading in print as “real reading” and that reading in print forces a student to read more slowly and carefully. Baron also points to anecdotal evidence of students asking for shorter version of the text, article or other form of summary like SparkNotes because they can’t be bothered to read the full text.

In the prelude to the actual statement of her argument, Baron also laments that students just don’t have the motivation to read deeply. I would argue that this is the actual problem and digital text made available on an phone, tablet, or other digital devices simply escalate the tendency to look to something more interesting or meaningful. I recall having to slog through too many devastatingly dry, boring and irrelevant books in my many years as student and even though I didn’t have access to the books in a digital form I still found many ways to distract myself from the mind-numbing reading of material that was given to me without any context or obvious purpose. OK, the purpose was to know the material for the test–unfortunately that was and is still not enough for most students.

The challenge that we have as educators is to create a learning environment where students understand and appreciate that they can learn so much from the work of others. The “deep reading” that Professor Baron argues is so important to the humanities only happens with the right motivation. The format of the material is really irrelevant. If learner understands why the material is important, where it fits in their life’s journey and how it will help them to become who they wish to become the deep reading, and I would argue deep learner, will happen using text or other materials in any format.

In Learning, Uncategorized Creating Significant Learning Environment, digital, e-reading, ebook, motivation, purpose, reading, relevance

Practice Change by Living It

Dwayne Harapnuik — October 31, 2013 — 2 Comments

I have been reflecting on the positive aspects of change for several months/years now and in my post Catching the Openness to Change I indicated that as a result of our many moves and life in different cultures my boys have become much more adaptable, appreciative, accepting, resilient and open to change. I also reflected on how my boys have expanded their comfort zones, explored new opportunities, developed new relationships, acquired new mentors and learned how to deal with a wide variety of physical challenges. My grand experiment in becoming an Intentional Father and helping my boys grow into positive young men appears to be working and the past five months have confirmed that practicing change is necessary if you expect to your children to continue to grow in the attributes that I listed above and to also learn how to set priorities and discern what is genuinely important and what is not.

This past weekend my family and I moved from Chilliwack to North Vancouver. Since this was the fourth major move we made this year we have a lot of practice so the move was virtually stress free and went off without a hitch. Marilyn and the boys left Edmonton at the end of June and moved into a condo in the Silver Star Resort in Vernon for the month of June. The next move was to Chilliwack to stay with family for just under a month and then the move to Whistler for almost two months and finally this past weekend, after a couple more weeks in Chilliwack, we all moved into a house in the Lynn Valley area of North Vancouver. Everyone is quite excited to finally stay in one place for the next five months. That is right; we only have a five month lease and we are considering several options for the next year so there will be a few more moves to come. I also need to add that while my family has been moving from mountain to mountain, I have also maintained a very small apartment in Burnaby on the edge of the BCIT campus where I am currently employed, so in addition to moving my family I have also had to move. If you haven’t had the chance to follow our story in my previous posts I encourage you to review the post in the Intentional Father category of my blog.

Why all the moves? Levi and Caleb have been involved in DownHill (DH) mountain biking for the past eight to ten years and last year they decided that they would like to race DH and work toward becoming professional racers/riders. Since there aren’t any mountains in Edmonton, and the type of commitment racing and turning pro require, we realized that we would have to move to either the interior of BC, or the North Shore/Whistler area to enable the boys to ride and train year round. This past summer the boys raced in the BC Cup circuit and gained some valuable experience and by the end of the season both had top ten finishes so the dream of riding full time is a not too distant reality. Over the past five months we traveled the province of BC to attend all the races and also explored living in Vernon/Silver Star and Whistler and now we are exploring the North Shore of Vancouver. We have learned that you can’t just vacation or visit a place. You need to have to have an extended stay where you actually live in the location to really understand the culture and the dynamics of the community.

A couple of days into this latest move the boys have their guitars and amps set up, the living room has been set up as a bike shop, because their high-end bikes require extensive daily maintenance, and they have started riding Mount Seymour and Fromme North Shore trails in pursuit of a good place to practice their skills. Can’t forget to mention the fact that the boys are also working daily on their high school studies. The last couple of weeks have been a bit more challenging because of two moves so close together and Levi’s latest results on a Physics exam were a little disappointing but his attitude–that he just has to work harder and be more disciplined means that he is on the right track–this attitude is a result of encouragement from one of Levi’s new mentors. Similarly, Caleb has learned that hard work and discipline is necessary for all things that are important. The life of an extreme athlete and in particular a DH racer is a life of constant travel and change so the boys lives are only going to get more complicated and there will be even more change in the years to come. Learning how to deal with and adapt to all this change now is extremely important.

Learning how to deal with change in a positive way is fundamental to being a productive part of society and is something that my boys will have to master but it is not something that our society promotes or embraces proactively. We (society in general) have been talking about the fact that the world around us is constantly changing and that we need to be able to adapt to all this change ever since Heraclitus a 500BC, greek philosopher argued: “The Only Thing That Is Constant Is Change”. And yet the resistance to change, significant change, is rampant in the world around us. The reason I stressed the point of significant change is to differentiate between the actual change that makes us uncomfortable or forces to to adjust to new circumstances from change that many of use to distract ourselves with when we strive to satisfy our common desires for the latest and greatest technological gadgets, toys, cars, houses or items that we use to make our lives more comfortable. I believe we busy ourselves with the constant pursuit of latest technology as a distraction so that we don’t have to face genuine change.

The resistance to change, or at least dealing with the resistance to change, in the workplace has spawned an entire industry filed with books, workshops, webinars and an endless parade of consultants and experts who offer the 5, 8 or 12 key factors to limit or counter the resistance to change. I have played the role of change agent in several organizations and have worked with several different leadership teams on dealing with this major challenge and in my experience and research I have come to realize that we may all be attempting to deal with the symptoms of the problems as opposed to dealing with the problem itself.

The problem is our society, for the most part, is change averse and we simply do not practice change–we talk about it and research it, but we don’t practice it–at least not nearly enough. Furthermore, rather then embrace change as an opportunity for growth we have tendency to do whatever we can to limit the uncertainty and the discomfort that change demands. We strive to create a safe and secure environment for our children which in and of itself is good but as a result we may be sheltering them from the positive aspects of change. Children are no longer allowed to walk to school or to explore their neighbourhoods and communities for fear that something may happen to them. Our learning institutions which should be the fundamental proponents of change have become mired in tradition, security and stability–see my post Pick Two – Innovation, Change or Stability for details thoughts on this sticking point.

In his book Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the age of the quick fix, Edwin Friedman uses history and the example of the European discovery of the New World as an allegory of the human experience of getting unstuck. Friedman argues:

when any system is imaginatively gridlocked, it cannot get free simply through more thinking about the problem. Conceptually stuck systems cannot become unstuck simply by trying harder. For a fundamental reorientation to occur, the spirit of adventure which optimizes serendipity and which enables new perceptions beyond the control of our thinking process must happen first. This is equally true regarding families, institutions, whole nations and entire civilizations.

But for that type of change to occur, the system in turn must produce leaders who can both take the first step and maintain the stamina to follow through in the face of predictable resistance and sabotage. Any renaissance, anywhere, whether in marriage, or a business, depends primarily not only on new data and techniques but on the capacity of leaders to separate themselves from the surrounding emotional climate so that they can break through the barriers that are keeping everyone from “going the other way”.

The type of leader that Friedman is talking about is one who practices change by living it. They have the adventurous leadership qualities required to breakthrough the imaginative gridlock we are facing in our society today. It is my hope that I am raising young men who have this spirit of adventure who can embrace change and make the most of it. Right now their life of change is self serving and they are pursuing their dreams of racing professionally. The sense of purpose, passion, spirit of adventure that they need to succeed in their personal pursuits can easily be focused on broader pursuits that they will inevitably pursue as they continue to grow and mature.

My boys are practicing change by living. It is my hope that this will help them in all their future endeavours. Time will tell.

In Change, Intentional Parent life, principled life, priorities

If today was your last day…

Dwayne Harapnuik — August 15, 2012 — Leave a comment

Been doing a bit of reflecting while running these past few mornings. Chad Kroeger’s song If Today Was Your Last Day has been on my iPhone playlist repeatedly. Living each day as if it was your last means you must live a principled life and as the author states: Going against the grain should be a way of life. I have come to realize living this way does come at a cost everything worth while does. I am reconciled by the fact that you only live once and this realms is only temporal–the eternal is yet to come.

http://youtu.be/K95SmpWwAgA

If Today Was Your Last Day – Chad Kroeger of Nickleback

My best friend gave me the best advice
He said each days a gift and not a given right
Leave no stone unturned
Leave your fears behind
And try to take the path less traveled by
That first step you take is the longest stride

If today was your last day
If tomorrow was too late
Could you say goodbye to yesterday
Would you live each moment like your last
Leave old pictures in the past
Donate every dime you have
If today was your last day

Going against the grain should be a way of life
What’s worth the price is always worth the fight
Every second counts cause there’s no second try
So live it like you’re never living twice
Don’t take the free ride in your whole life
If today was your last day
If tomorrow was too late
Could you say goodbye to yesterday
Would you live each moment like your last
Leave old pictures in the past
Donate every dime you have
And would you call old friends you never see
Reminisce old memories
Would you forgive your enemies
And would you find that one your dreaming of
Swear up and down to god above
That you’ll finally fall in love
If today was your last day

If today was your last day
Would you make your mark
On ending a broken heart
You know it’s never too late
To shoot for the stars
Regardless of who you are
So do whatever it takes
Cause you can’t rewind
A moment in this life
Let nothing stand in your way
Cause the hands of time
Are never on your side

If today was your last day
If tomorrow was too late
Could you say goodbye to yesterday
Would you live each moment like your last
Leave old pictures in the past
Donate every dime you have
And would you call old friends you never see
Reminisce old memories
Would you forgive your enemies
And would you find that one your dreaming of
Swear up and down to god above
That you’ll finally fall in love
If today was your last day

In Video - Wednesday Watchlist live, principled life, values

Leadership, Innovation & Change

Dwayne Harapnuik — April 4, 2011 — 2 Comments

Over the past few months I have been teaching two online courses that deal with change and innovation and as I re-read all the course material and work with my students in these course I am continually reminded that change and innovation within an organization is dependent upon leadership. More specifically, I am reminded that leadership or the lack of effective leadership can severely limit innovation. In his book A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix, Edwin Friedman argues that leadership has such a significant impact that:

When creative, imaginative, and self-starting members of any organization are being sabotaged rather than being supported, the poorly differentiated person “at the top” does not have to be in direct contact with the person being undercut. In fact, neither even has to know that the other exists.

Most of us at one point have worked in such an environment, and as I encourage my students to consider Friedman’s writing in the graduate course EDUC 651: Leading Continuous Improvement of Digital Learning I am also convicted that I do not want to be the type of leader in this course who gets in the way of the creative, imaginative, and self-starting learners.

Friedman draws parallels between families and organizations and points to the similarities in the roles of leaders in both places. He argues that leadership in ones family will have a direct correlation to ones leadership in a broader setting so I am further convicted into considering how well I am leading my family.

The exciting part of taking students through ideas like Friedman’s is that I get to reconsider how well I am functioning as a differentiated learner and over the next several weeks I will be reflecting on these thoughts in my blog.

In Learning, Learning 2.0 Change, Innovation, leadership

About

Dwayne Harapnuik — July 20, 2009

I am the husband of my wonderful wife Marilyn and the father of two amazing sons, Levi and Caleb. I am a learning theorist, a learning innovation consultant, a virtual professor, a perpetual student of inquiry, and the former Vice President Academic of Concordia University of Edmonton. I am currently serving as a Clinical Instructor/Visiting Professor and developer of the Applied Digital Learning Masters of Education and co-developer of the M.Ed. in Digital Learning and Leading at Lamar University. I aided the School of Health Sciences at British Columbia Institute of Technology (BCIT) develop their Learning Innovation Strategy. I am also teaching in the Provincial Instructor Diploma Program at Vancouver Community College.

This is my personal website, blog, ePortfolio, and part of my learning environment. It is focused on learning and learning environments. My primary goal is to change the world one learner at a time. To do that I strive to help you all to understand and build significant learning environments that will serve all learners. To fully understand why I believe it is crucial for everyone to have a personal learning environment read my post Why Learners Should Blog. Because this blog is part of my learning environment it will never be fully finished.

I write/post regularly on all aspects of the Learner’s Mindset, significant learning environments, leadership & change, disruptive innovation, instructional technology, mobile and web-based learning, constructivism, and instructional design. As of the summer of 2013, I also started writing and reflecting on Becoming an Intentional Father. On occasion, I write about stuff that doesn’t fit neatly into one of these categories. You will also notice that I am an advocate for new media–especially video and infographics and I believe that we should be incorporating media into everything we do (see my… Embedding Media into all Programs post for a full justification). On Wednesdays, I add to my Wednesday Watchlist where I post an amazing video I found at TED, Youtube, Vimeo, RSA, or one of the many other sites that I monitor on a regular basis.

The following videos provides a snapshot of my thoughts on school and learning:

My Top Posts

If you are new to my site, you might want to start with my posts on the following topics.

Learner’s Mindset

Creating Significant Learning Environments

Leadership and Change

Teaching & Learning

Learning Innovation

Mobile & Web-based Learning

Instructional Technology & Design (enhancing learning with technology)

Intentional Father

My Full Bio

I received my PhD. in Educational Psychology from the University of Alberta and am currently serving as a Clinical Instructor/Visiting Professor and developer of the Applied Digital Learning Masters of Education and co-developer of the M.Ed. in Digital Learning and Leading at Lamar University in Beaumont TX. I have worked as an educational consultant for many years and aided the School of Health Sciences at British Columbia Institute of Technology (BCIT) develop and their Learning Innovation Strategy. I am also teaching in the Provincial Instructor Diploma Program at Vancouver Community College.

I have also provided Instructional Design and Technology Integration support as an Instructional Development Consultant at BCIT. Prior to working at BCIT, I served as the Vice President Academic of Concordia University of Edmonton. Concordia’s priority is to prepare its learners for a future that is very difficult to predict and my responsibility was to provide the leadership that ensured that Concordia developed learning environments that utilize innovation to stimulate critical and analytical thinking and that equipped its graduates to effectively communicate as they tackle global challenges.

Prior to joining Concordia, I was the Director of Faculty Enrichment at Abilene Christian University in Southwest Texas. As the Director of Faculty Enrichment my primary responsibility was to help the faculty to develop active and engaging learning environments and to provide strategic direction for Mobile Learning; instructional design; faculty development; teaching, learning, and Technology; and the Researchers in Residence, and Scholars in Residence programs.

My previous professional appointments include Manager Educational Technology at Lethbridge College and Adjunct Professor for the Department of Educational Psychology in the Faculty of Education at the University of Alberta. As Manager Instructional Technology, my primary focus was to provide vision, leadership, expertise, and creativity to support and develop the use of educational/instructional technology at Lethbridge College.

While at the University of Alberta I was involved in pioneering web-based instruction in the Faculty of Education. In my work on online and web-based learning and I developed an approach to learning called Inquisivistism. My research has demonstrated that Inquisitivism is an effective approach for web-based instruction as well as most other forms of inquiry-based learning.

This approach is at the foundation of many web-based courses that have developed, facilitated, and instructed in a blended or fully online format at several institutions across North America. In addition, to my research into adult learning, I am also researching the application of the Project Approach in Elementary and Early Childhood in a homeschool and/or tutorial-based learning environment.

As an advocate of practical hands-on learning, I put theory into practice as a consultant and have served as a Director of Information Technologies for one of the largest private Residential Real Estate firms in North America and also served as a volunteer Chief Information Officer for a global mission and relief organization.

I strive to find a balance between my academic and professional career by regularly volunteering at a variety of community-based programs and by focusing on my family.

Revised September 1, 2021