Search Results For "making connections"

If someone needs directions, don’t give them a globe. It’ll merely waste their time. But if someone needs to understand the way things are, don’t give them a map. They don’t need directions; they need to see the big picture (Seth Godin, 2017 para. 1).

In order to do well in the ADL, you need to see the bigger picture of how this program works. More specifically you need to see the bigger picture of how we have created a significant learning environment in which we give you choice ownership and voice through authentic learning opportunities.

The following pages and videos have been designed to help you understand why and how we use CSLE+COVA in the ADL and what that will mean to your learning experience. We recommend that you use the following pages in sequence but as you will see in the ADL program we leave that choice up to you:

Change in Focus
You will find that these two videos (Part A – 7 min & Part B – 4 Min) will help you to recognize how a simple change in focus can help you and your organization stay focused on helping your learners to realize their full potential and grow into future leaders who will help improve our world.

COVA
The short page and video (2 min) provide the overview and context for COVA and will help to reinforce how important it is to have choice, ownership, and voice through authentic learning opportunities.

CSLE+COVA Framework
The short page and video (2 min) provide the overview and context for CSLE+COVA.

Why CSLE+COVA
Since people don’t buy into what you do but buy why you do the CSLE+COVA Why, How and What page and the short 4 Keys to CSLE+COVA (5 min) provide the foundational starting point about how to use technology to enhance learning.

What to expect from the ADL
Constructivists hold that people learn by making meaningful connections between what they already know and what is new. Therefore, it is our hope that the What to Expect video (6 min) which compares and contrasts the CSLE+COVA to the traditional information transfer model will help you to understand how to deal with the differences you will experience in the ADL program

What you get from the ADL
Since the ADL program uses authentic learning opportunities that are core to the constructivist CSLE+COVA approach this page points to all the authentic, plans, strategies, and related resources that you will create in the program.

ADL Program Map
The ADL Program Map page and related video (8 min) will give you a detailed explanation, and a visual representation of how the ADL program works and how each of the courses works together to help you build, implement and measure an innovation plan that will help you succeed as a digital leader.

CSLE
Once you have gone through the above pages and videos going back to the CSLE page will help to reinforce how important it is to look at creating significant learning environments.

Research
We encourage everyone to always look at the research and supporting ideas and theories behind what you read. The CSLE+COVA and the ADL program are based on well-established constructivist theories and research so we encourage you to explore these foundational ideas further.

References
Godin, S. (2017, January 8). Maps and globes [Blog]. Retrieved from http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2017/01/maps-and-globes.html

ADL links:
Applied Digital Learning
DLL Evolves to ADL
CSLE+COVA
ADL Why & Principles
Assessment OF/FOR/AS Learning
ADL Program Map
What You Get From the ADL
How to Succeed in the ADL
ADL Course Goals
ADL Tips & Perspectives

Revised on August 16, 2021

ADL Why & Principles

Dwayne Harapnuik —  January 9, 2021

The Master of Applied Digital Learning (ADL) at Lamar University is a collaborative learner-centered program that embraces technological innovation through collaboration, active and authentic learning, and the creation of significant learning environments. The fundamental principles of the ADL include:

Why: We believe that we must inspire and prepare our learners to lead organizational change using technology innovations as a catalyst for enhancing learning.

How: To do this, we create significant learning environments (CSLE) which give our learners choice, ownership and voice through authentic (COVA) learning opportunities.

What: We prepare leaders who can lead organizational change and drive innovation in a digitally connected world.

While technology is continually used to enhance the learning environment in the ADL, it isn’t just relegated to being another tool that teachers put in their instructional toolboxes. Innovative technologies are used as catalysts to enhance learning and when effectively employed, the technology disappears into the learning environment.

The ADL program is grounded in the approaches of Dewey, Bruner, Papert, and Piaget who advocate that learning is an active, dynamic, and social process in which learners construct new ideas or concepts based upon their current and past knowledge and experiences. The making of meaningful connections is key to the learning and knowing.

In the ADL program, we create and model significant learning environments (CSLE) where the learner takes control and ownership of their learning. Through authentic projects, ADL students learn how to purposefully assemble all the key components of effective learning and create their own significant learning environments that will then, in turn, help their learners to learn how to learn.

Research and experience confirm that we learn most deeply through effective collaboration and feedback from our peers. ADL collaborative activities are structured so that students can bring their ideas to their group, examine and test those ideas, and then apply those refined and strengthened ideas to their own projects.

Collaboration is not used as a consensus driving process, rather it is part of the significant learning environment where learners are immersed and engage in productive thinking and problem solving and emerge with enhanced knowledge and skills that they can apply in their own classrooms and professional development. Discussion forums are used in the ADL to foster collaboration and to provide a forum for students to help each other with their innovation projects. Evaluation of collaboration shifts from the instructor to the student. Self-evaluations are based on an assessment as learning model where students self-assess their contribution to their own learning and to that of their core learning community.

In ADL the student will not be asked to sit and get professional development but will be required to go and show what they have learned through the creation of their own learning ePortfolio. The ADL ePortfolio reinforces learner choice, ownership, voice through authentic learning (COVA) which the ADL students are then able to share with their learners and their learning communities.

What is the COVA?

C The freedom to choose (C) their authentic learning opportunity and how to organize, structure and present their learning experiences.
O Ownership (O) over the entire learning process – including selection of authentic projects and their eportfolio tools.
V The opportunity to find and use their own voice (V) to revise and restructure their work and ideas.
A  Authentic (A) learning opportunities that enable students to make a difference in their own organizations and learning environments.

See the COVA page on this site for more information.

As the primary developer of the ADL program Dr. Harapnuik will be continuing research into the ADL and the CSLE+COVA approach that will explore student perceptions on how choice, ownership, voice, and authentic projects impact their ePortfolios, learning, and learning environments. The findings of this ongoing research will add to the growing body of research into how the CSLE+COVA learning approach will contribute to the continued use ePortfolios as learning tools beyond the program of study, how the CSLE+COVA approach can be used to impact student learning, and how this experience transfers to students’ learning environments.

Sinek, S. (2009, September 28). Start with why — how great leaders inspire action. [Youtube]. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/u4ZoJKF_VuA

ADL links:
Applied Digital Learning
DLL Evolves to ADL
CSLE+COVA
ADL Why & Principles
Assessment OF/FOR/AS Learning
ADL Program Map
What You Get From the ADL
How to Succeed in the ADL
ADL Course Goals
ADL Tips & Perspectives

Revised on August 16, 2021

Applied Digital Learning (ADL)

The Master of Applied Digital Learning (ADL) at Lamar University is a collaborative learner-centered program that embraces technological innovation through collaboration and active and authentic learning that will prepare learners to create meaningful change. In creating significant learning environments (CSLE) by giving learners choice ownership and voice through authentic learning opportunities (COVA) we help our learners grow into digital leaders who can embrace the opportunities of the future. We refer to this as the CSLE+COVA framework or the COVA approach.
CSLE+COVA

While technology is continually used to enhance the learning environment in the ADL, it isn’t just relegated to being another tool our learners put in their instructional toolboxes. Innovative technologies are used as catalysts to enhance learning and when effectively employed, the technology disappears into the learning environment. This online program is designed to develop both your digital knowledge and your leadership abilities and give you tools, skills, and knowledge to empower those in your educational community to step outside their comfort zone and into the digital future.

The ADL program is grounded in the learning approaches of Dewey, Bruner, Piaget, Papert, Jonassen, and other constructivist theorists who advocate that learning is an active, dynamic, and social process in which learners construct new ideas or concepts based upon their current and past knowledge and experiences. The making of meaningful connections is key to learning and knowing.

The educator and philosopher Mortimer Adler suggests that:

teaching is a very special art, sharing with only two other arts — agriculture and medicine — an exceptionally important characteristic. A doctor may do many things for his patient, but in the final analysis, it is the patient himself who must get well — grow in health. The farmer does many things for his plants or animals, but in the final analysis, it is they that must grow in size and excellence. Similarly, although the teacher may help his student in many ways, it is the student himself who must do the learning. Knowledge must grow in his mind if learning is to take place (p. 11).

In the ADL we create and model significant learning environments where the learner is given choice ownership and, voice through authentic learning opportunities (COVA).

ADL students learn how to purposefully assemble all the key components of effective learning and create their own significant learning environments that will then, in turn, help their learners to learn how to learn.

Research and experience confirm that we learn most deeply through effective collaboration and feedback from our peers. ADL collaborative activities are structured so that students can bring their ideas to their group, examine and test those ideas, and then apply those refined and strengthened ideas to their own projects.

Collaboration is not used as a consensus-driving process, rather it is part of the significant learning environment where learners are immersed and engage in productive thinking and problem-solving and emerge with enhanced knowledge and skills that they can apply in their own classrooms and professional development. Discussion forums are used in the ADL to foster collaboration and to provide a forum for students to help each other with their innovation projects. Evaluation of collaboration shifts from the instructor to the student. Self-evaluations are based on an assessment as learning model where students self-assess their contribution to their own learning and to that of their core learning community.

In the ADL program, the learner will not be asked to just learn the theory or sit and get professional development but will be required to go and show what they have learned through the creation of their own authentic projects that they will create in their own learning environment. Because the projects need to be authentic in the ADL program we require that ADL students are currently employed in PK-12, higher education, not-for-profits, or corporate settings where they are able to implement their authentic ADL projects.

The ADL program also reinforces learner choice, ownership, and voice through authentic learning through the development and use of a personal/professional ePorfolio. ADL students document and share all aspects of their authentic projects with their learners and their learning communities through their ePortfolio.

References

Adler, M. J., & Van Doren, C. (1972). How to read a book: The classic guide to intelligent reading. New York, NY: Touchstone.

Bruner, J. S. (1960). The process of education. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Bruner, J. S. (1961). The act of discovery. Harvard Educational Review, 31(1), 21–32.

Dewey, J. (1916). Democracy and education: An introduction to the philosophy of education. New York, NY: Macmillan.

Papert, S. (1993). The children’s machine: Rethinking school in the age of the computer. New York, NY: Basic Books.

Papert, S. (1997). Why school reform is impossible (with commentary on O’Shea’s and Koschmann’s reviews of “The children’s machine”). The Journal of the Learning Sciences, 6(4), 417–427.

Piaget, J. (1964). Development and learning. In R.E. Ripple & V.N. Rockcastle (Eds.), Piaget Rediscovered: A Report on the Conference of Cognitive Studies and Curriculum Development (pp. 7–20). Ithaca, NY: Cornell University.

ADL links:
Applied Digital Learning
DLL Evolves to ADL
CSLE+COVA
ADL Why & Principles
ADL Program Map
What You Get From the ADL
How to Succeed in the ADL
ADL Course Goals
ADL Tips & Perspectives

Revised on Dec 12, 2022

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

Connecting the Dots vs Collecting the Dots
Learning is all about making meaningful connections.

The video version of Connecting the Dots vs Collecting the Dots

Learner’s Mindset Discussion on ePortfolios

Taking Ownership of the ePortfolio

My 5 Biggest ePortfolio Mistakes

This Will Make You Rethink Learning Styles – https://www.harapnuik.org/?p=7074

Reconsider the Use of the SAMR Model – https://www.harapnuik.org/?p=7235

WP Plugin 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.

EDLD 5303 Week 4 Learning from Leaders Tips

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.

OR

If you are a teacher who believes that learning is the making of meaningful connections and your role is to create a significant learning environment in which you give our learners choice, ownership, and voice through authentic learning opportunities to help them make those meaningful connections than you will have no fear of being replaced. You are preparing your learners for a life filled with innovation and exploration.

Is your teaching future in jeopardy?

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