quinta-feira, 30 de dezembro de 2010

Secret of management

The secret of managing is to keep the guys who hate you away from those who are still undecided.

domingo, 20 de junho de 2010

Assessment, school and payment

'Só me pagam para avaliar trabalhos e dar notas, porque tudo o resto eu gosto de fazer.'

quinta-feira, 29 de abril de 2010

Increasing teacher ICT value sense

Research tends to show that teachers’ opinions do not reveal total consensus in over time gains using ICT (Gooler, Kautzer & Knuth, 2000; Underwood, 2006; Woodbrige, 2004). It is quite common to find results that numerically express teachers complain about the lack of time to explore technology and integrate ICT in classrooms. In fact, in some countries there is a substantial number of teachers, who deny that there is much of a pedagogical advantage on computer use in class (Empirica, 2006). Trying to fight these negative conceptions, we must act in order to help teachers seeing technologies as worthwhile educational tool; something that can bring considerable time saving in medium and long term planning, if efficiently used.


In other hand, we also try to present web tools as something valid for teachers in their daily life. International discourses commonly present ICT competences as “something” that will be good and valid for students, but forget to present it as something also very important for teacher, as professionals, as present citizens, as persons of a world which is quickly and unexpectedly changing

sábado, 17 de abril de 2010

"if we know what we were doing it wouldn't be called Research"

It doesn't mean that research is developed without any clue of what people are looking for, otherwise that would meant that if they found it they weren't able to see it.
But it does mean that there are some parts of the way that you might not be absolutely sure about it, and sometime don't even have the slightous idea.
Reserach should ends and also begins with discovery. And discovering is knowing someting that we didn't knew before our wasn't conscious about, at least, in that particular matter or way.

From Vancouver Airport

Island Vulcano : stuck in Vancouver

I was supposed to flight from Victoria to Vancouver and from there to Frankfurt and from there to Lisbon today, but... There is a Volcano spreading an ash could over Europe. All airports are closed. BIG CRISIES!
When my plain arrived at the Vancouver Airports I try to find Lufthansa Airlines Office, that I know from their Website that was only open from 12h00 to 16h00, but this was what I found.


No one, and some little notes telling passengers to call a Free-call number which keep telling me that “All our services are busy now, please try again later”.I didn’t need them desperately, I truly was fine but it is not how an appropriate way to serve our customers. I would thought that this is when you get all your staff and amplifies your opening hours and also give costumers coffee. And make sure that all your costumers are listen, have their anxieties calmed down. You don’t need to give them solutions, just be there. Be empathic. Give them tea or coffee… Because when crises take place you have the opportunity of make a difference as a business corporation, or not!

terça-feira, 6 de abril de 2010

e-learning: found out what the 'e' is for

The 'e' in elearning was from electronic. Not a great discovery...
But today the concept of electronic learning doesn't seemed quite right. As the technology evolved the idea of electronic was abandoned and replaced by concepts as digital or virtual.
So e-learning presents to be a old-fashion concept.
Today I find a different word for the 'e', is enhanced. E-learning is for Enhanced Learning.
The question that immediatly emerge is so what technology has to do with it? Weel, I must say: everything. What kind of enhanced learning activities do not integrate, at some level, any kind of technology?

quinta-feira, 11 de março de 2010

The end of theoretical models

Only models, from cosmological equations to theories of human behavior, seemed to be able to consistently, if imperfectly, explain the world around us. Until now. Today companies like Google, which have grown up in an era of massively abundant data, don’t have to settle for wrong models. Indeed, they don’t have to settle for models at all…

http://opencontent.org/blog/archives/894

sexta-feira, 5 de março de 2010

Because we are always learning... another assessment tool for online presentations

For very interesting presentation, explore Prezi.
Here is an example of my present research interests.

domingo, 28 de fevereiro de 2010

E-assessment course: Final Project

The final project was develop on Wikispace and can be seen directly on http://e-learningcourse-fde-ieul.wikispaces.com/
It was a very interesting project to develop not only for the need to think about a course structure to function online but also for having to defined the students activities and the respective assessment tool to be used. The need for logic and coherence between learning objectives, activities and assessment tools is difficult to satisfy but also very important to achieve.
It was also a very important experience to create a rubric for each project. I have no experience in it, it is used in our educational system but I truly see it as very useful for students and, therefore, a requisite that teachers must get use to create and developed.

sábado, 20 de fevereiro de 2010

Pre-course survey

Developed on zoomerang this survey aims to collect some relevant information about students previous experiences and expectations about E-learning: theoretical perspectives and practical methods course.
All the information is totaly anonymous and confidencial.

Click Here to take survey

Cyber-coaching model: powerfull ideias to use on an online course

Coaching can be defined as a tutorial function of monitoring student progress in
order to provide feedback for improvement. It is materialized on the process of giving feedback in order to develop performance, confidence and awareness of the learning processes (Peterson, 2005).

Cybercoaching techniques focus on students’ continuous personal success and promoted the development of not only specifical, but also, transferable skills. It is built around a (online) close relationship that in cyclical sequences promotes effectiveness of performance. It requires equity and excellence of instruction, personalized feedback, quality of communication, quality and frequency of assessment, countinuous professional development, increased research about students expectations and ambitions, formative assessment, promotion of self-regulation and awareness of learning processes.

In summary what does cyber-coaching model highlights as important to notice and properly apply in an online course:
. work in order to give students continuous and just-in-time feedback, focused on progresses and not on faults, and explicitly useful (not nice but empty feedback) about what need to be done in order to get real improvements,
. see feedback and assessment as a two-way road, which can help students to improve but it can also help instructors to become more effective,
. promote personal reflection and self-regulation of learning,
. provide clear, analytical and objectives related rubrics
. foment activities where higher-order and transferable skills can be applied and developed;
. design flexible and personally meaning activities,
. don’t’ neglect students’ motivation and satisfaction.

_________________________________
Reference: Petersen, N. J. (2005). Cybercoaching: Rubrics, feedback, & metacognition, oh my! Paper presented at E.C. Moore Symposium on Scholarship of Teaching and Learning. Indiana University: February, 25.

sexta-feira, 19 de fevereiro de 2010

Analyzing Khalsa & Casey Courses

Focusing on activities the main differences between the 2 courses:

. Khalsa’ course is more focused on Continual Feedback about students’ progress and Personal reflection. The two concepts present to be 2 key-words in cyber-coaching process. In Khalsa’ course structure feedback and reflection are clearly enunciated as the keys element. Those are promoted in the Journaling activities. If we look at Casey’ course and use Acrobat Adobe “Find” tool and look up for the word ‘feedback’ we found out that it just doesn’t appear anywhere.

. Khalsa’ course express learning objectives that are focused on promoting opportunities for the development of higher-order skills in Blooms’ taxonomy, than Casey’ course. Looking for evidences is important. If we analyze Khalsa’ course goals we found, in greater quantity, verbs as “discover and discuss… evaluate… reflect and rethink…create… consolidate”(Khalsa, 2001, p.21). And if we do the same in Casey course learning objectives we found, mostly, verbs as “recognize and understand.. apply… seek… explore’ (Casey, 2004, p. 24-25).

. In Khalsa’ course there is a diagnostic-evaluation of students’ initial intentions, objectives and expectations, which reveals a profound concern of working in order to relate and stay near those intentions, objectives and expectations. That concern doesn’t seem to be present on Casey’ course.

. In Khalsa’ course it is clearly expressed the concern with students’ satisfaction and motivation, which are also truly relevant aspect in a cyber-coaching model. It can be seen in activities where students are stimulated to publish their products and ideas in online spaces where it can be read and comment by thousand of web-user. Other evidence of Khalsa’ concern about providing Flexible and personally meaning activities and project where students can develop their personal area of interest (e.g. photography).

quinta-feira, 18 de fevereiro de 2010

If Bloom was still alive

When we look to the work of a truly historical-relevant author, as Piaget, Bruner, Dewey or Bloom, we can find a lot of articles, books about the revision, evolution, up-dating of their work because times goes by and they couldn't be able to still be with us and analyze todays' reality with their clear eyes and brilliant minds.

Well I think that if Bloom was still alive today he would be very pleased with Andrew Churches Work.


domingo, 14 de fevereiro de 2010

Plagiarism

What is it?
Plagiarism is an act of fraud. It involves both stealing someone else's work and lying about it afterward. It is related to:
. to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one's own
. to use (another's production) without crediting the source
. to commit literary theft
. to present as new and original an idea or product derived from an existing source.
[Plagiarism.org]

About it, let me post a controversial idea:
When a student copies other persons ‘work and assumes it as being his own, the teachers do have some fault in it.

I think that when teachers presents assignment proposals that make possible for students to go online and found a paper that answer perfectly to it, it is part of teachers fault that his student makes plagiarism.
I see as part of today’s teachers work to:
. create activities than do not promote plagiarism (How do we expect when we say to students: For today’s homework go online and explain the reasons behind Civil War!”
If we look and Blooms’ taxonomy we found that types of activities that relate to higher order levels skills (as analyze, classify, connect, explain, infer, combine, integrate, plan, create, design or formulate) do contribute to prevent plagiarism.
. clarify the concept of Copy rights, Plagiarism and intellectual property and justify why it can’t be accepted and what are its effects on author
. clearly identify the consequences defined in the law to plagiarism behavior and what will you do if you find it in your classroom
. show some (not all) of the strategies and systems that can be used to detect fraud.

The only way to find plagiarism is to prevent it!

Critical Education Vs Doutrination

“Are students unaware or are they simply brainwashed by a conservative government that is quietly but systematically taking away the rights of American citizens under the guise of protecting people from terrorism? Is the government selling the idea of protecting people by taking away rights to which students do not even realize they are entitled?” (Christine Casey)

This is stepping into a very risky zone. How do you protect people from being brainwashed by a conservative government with taking the risk of making those people being brainwashed by a stiffer opposition?’

Because no teacher is totally 'apolitical' and because his convictions are part of who he is, such this type of reflection be part of classrooms? Isn't anti-doutrination a kind of doutrination?
I don’t think that we promote students ability to deeply research and persecute the ‘real true’ just by saying “What you have been told, our reality is a lie, someone is lying to you. Use your freedom and power of expression and found what is hidden because what can be seen is not the truth.”

If Casey’s Class went online: 2 ideas

Just like in F2F classroom, in online learning environments, when you go late on your tasks you get advantage of having the opportunity of seeing everyone good ideas but the demanding for still being creative increases dramatically.
Most of you have given very good ideas for transforming the Caseys’ Journalism Course into an interesting online course. I loved the idea of using online discussion groups and online collaboration tools, like wikis, going to virtual field trips, exploring videos in streaming online systems (like Youtube), create presentations (with Glogster) or commercials.

I would like just to complement all your ideas with 2 more:
1) Inverse Blooms’ taxonomy
Sometimes it can be interesting to inverse Blooms’ taxonomy and to start with activities that explore higher order thinking skills and move back to lower skills. Because in real world, in very often in virtual environments, things do not happen in that specifically organized crescent order. And students need to be able to, sometimes, create, invent, construct, evaluate from scratch.
For example if you say to a student “Watch this piece of Fahrenheit 9/11 and answer to the question “How do the three basic defenses against libel suits work with such films that seem to slant the truth? in the discussion board”. You don’t need to guarantee that he totally understand the difference and the true meaning of libel, privacy, ethics and taste.

It can be difficult for smaller children but I always love the idea presented by Bruner that we can teach everything even Newton’s Law of Universal Gravitation, to a small children as long as we know how to structure the information in simple unit and, based on it, create new propositions.

2) Go international
One of my favorite aspects of www is its internationalization. In the internet I am all around the world. Also I like to see the online learning not just as one way for having access to new courses and materials but also as a way of develop things and do things that would be very difficult to do in the traditional classroom- approach .
Therefore, I think that in an online course Casey could promote that her students ‘go international’. This means, for example:
. research for journal articles, news, political speeches from different countries (make them think about the important of select reliability of the information that is found on trustworthy fonts all over the world);
. make students analyze legislation that regulates journalists in different countries and reflect on its implications if it was applied in the USA
. make them find, contact and online interview (through Skype) journalist of prestigious newspapers, not only in the USA but also in China, UK, India, South Africa, … make them create an script for the interview, applying in it the knowledge acquired about code of and then publish the interview (on Wordpress)
. find out another Journalism Class, let’s say, in other USA state or even in Mexico, Canadá, Germany, and develop an online collaborative project with that course instructor where both classes could discuss together the documentary “Media Hype: When News Coverage Goes Too Far” and then also collaboratively write (in a Wiki tool) a synthesis of a (collective) statement about it.

sexta-feira, 12 de fevereiro de 2010

The power of ICT

“In the short term, we always overstate the effects of new technologies. But in the long run, we always understate them. (Veen & Vrakking, 2006)

Blooms' Taxonomy

Applying Blooms' taxonomy to Christine Casey's Journalism Course

domingo, 7 de fevereiro de 2010

Group 1: Assessment tools

Although we were only 2, we were able to collect a good quantity of tools.

See them here: http://newassessmentapproaches.wikispaces.com/

Reflecting about incertanty

Looking for all that online surveys systems and exams-building software made me think about the urgence of change and the incertanty of the future.
Today the space of learning is here, anywhere, and the time to learn is today and always. Technological changes are becoming more and more fast and full of opportunities but also unpredictable and full of uncertainties.

The future learning environments will necessarily be open and flexible, interactive, combining different modes and styles of learning and that requires that evaluation methods will also be it. We need to propose to students broader approaches to learning and assessment. We need to prepare them to deal with world uncertainties, to be adaptative and to deal with ambiguity and diversity and in order to do that we need to let them experiment diverse learning tasks and diverse assessment tools.

Diverse tools = systemic assessment approaches

Todays’ reality requires a shifting in assessment paradigms. Schools and employment have being gaining the notion that academic knowledge and performance based tests don’t necessarily give the best evidence about learners’ skills and competences to act in real-world situations.
Simultaneously, the internet was been presenting different software and web-based tools that can be used to support different learning activities and, consequently, different methods of evaluation and assessment: Quiz & test builders, Reflection Assessment tools, Peer – to – peer collaboration tools, Course tracking tools
The approaches for learners’ assessment and the tools to do that have been changing and multiplying yet few differences can be found in classroom assessment practices, both in schools and university contexts.

"It's a system of assessment, not a single instrument " (Ann Cook)

But for the future assessment practices a systemic approach is necessary. Systemic assessment refer to 4 aspect on assessment:
. what is assessed = in a systemic assessment approach there is not only knowledge that is assessed, it is also skills, learning processes, developed products, teaching methods, courses structures, collective progresses and individual pathways.
. who is assessed = in a systemic assessment approach there is not only students performances that are assessed. Teachers, resources, teaching strategies, courses and institutions are also assessed;
. how assessment takes place = in a systemic assessment approach a diversity of assessment tools are used, not only end-of-semester test or final exams. And in this particular aspect online systems and software can assume a relevant role. As more wide and full of different assessment tools is the assessment toolbox of a teacher/instructor the bigger will be his probability of being able to access to learners different knowledge, competences and abilities;
Diversity in assessment tools, can also be complemented with diversity in assessment methods (self-assessment, peer-to-peer assessment, team assessment, …) and in assessment scheduled-moments (summative evaluation, formative evaluation, diagnostic evolution, …);
. and for what purpose does assessment takes place = in a systemic assessment approach, evaluation doesn’t only happen for grading, serialization, selection or accountability. It also intends to contribute for growing, development, individual and collective progress and to accomplishment certification. Assessment in itself is seen as part of the learning process and therefore it contribute positively to the learning experience as a all.

terça-feira, 2 de fevereiro de 2010

Concept maps: lesson-learned

Most valuable information learned about Concept maps:
They are not only relevant to young children; there are very relevant examples of how it can be useful for higher education students. Mostly for activities related to planning and organizing complex information or tasks. The graphical representation is one of the most powerful features of concept maps; it is very enlightful.

How to use the leasson-learned:
For my online teaching classes I pretend to use it in the beginning of the semester to make my students organize their work in the courses, considering the courses objectives but most specially their personal objectives for the course (what they aim to develop and accomplish, how they intent to do that, what tools will they use, how will they see if they are getting there, how will they get the notion that they have got there).

Reflecting about concept maps

Concept maps appear as personal tools for organizing information in a meaningful, valid and useful way for its author.
The information is organized in concepts, some more central and other more peripheral. These concepts are put in a hierarchical relation with each other through expressions or ideas (connecters).
Concept maps are graphical diagrams that can be used to organize knowledge in meaningful ways (Novak & Gowin, 1984) and are generally attributed to Ausubel work whit children in the process of understanding scientific knowledge.
For him human brain organizes information based in the pre-existing mental structures. Every information was organized in concept and these new concepts was connected to previously existing concepts (by comparation).
The primary process of learning is referred as subsumption (of the newest to the oldest information in the cognitive structure).
Therefore, learning is seen as being based on representational, superordinative and combinatorial processes that occur during the reception of information
(Ausubel, 1960, cit. by Lawton, 1977).
Concept mapping was originally developed to facilitate student learning and in Ausubels’ theoretical approach they function as advance organizers of information, by organizing key-concepts into a structural and complex cognitive framework that assumed a graphical representation.

Using Cmaps to define learning objectives

This concept maps represents the main purpose and the 3 learning objectives defined for an online course related to "E-learning principles and methods".


For each learning objectives a free web tools in pointed out to be used by online students to explore and to develop a learning outcome with it.

quarta-feira, 27 de janeiro de 2010

Concept map

An example of a concept map that evidences on of its main features...

for the learning purpose the process of building it is more important that the product in it self.
This concept map tries to organize some ideas,authors and principles related to Cultural-Historical Activity Theory. I know that it is very difficult to understand all the connections that link the concepts but the process of construction this map was truly enlightfull and clarifying for me and my research group.

segunda-feira, 25 de janeiro de 2010

About blogs as an assessment tool

Trying to reflect on it:

Most valuable information learned:
Teachers can use meaningful and personal webtools to promote learning and it innovative approach doesn't need to be dissociated for assessment. For many time, teachers (even the most innovative professionals) tended to engage students in very 'high-techn' projects. But when it turns to evaluation, the innovative practices tended to be more difficult to find. Social representation of school grades and national standardized-tests seams to keep evaluation and assessment as a 'resisting-change'-part of todays' educational reality. Maybe it can start to change now, even in slow motion. (We will see)

Applying the lesson-learned:
Faculties have been use learning management systems for quite some time for organizing online students work and although this LMS truly works effectively, managning all the resources and the information in one easy-to-use environment, it keeps inside all the learning process and all the learning outcomes developed by the students that after the courses ended are only available for the institution.
Next semestre a blended approach will be used:online discussion will be kept in LMS but personal reflections and assignments can we developed on a blog, a wiki, any personally-selected system.

More information/practice needed:
I truly need to learn who to grade and assess products developed in blogs and/or wikis.

domingo, 24 de janeiro de 2010

Big concern: but how to do evaluate a blog?

Reading Wang and Fang (2005) experience and also following the examples bring out by Davi, Frydenger and Gulati (2007) make emerge one big concern that has followed me for quite some time now.
“How can we, on heart, evaluate with reliability in this new assessment approaches and tools? How do I assess a blog? How can we give a grade to something so personal and so self-referred?”
Research papers normally talk about post analyses associated with questionnaires (likert’s scales) but they are not transparent enough about how that post analyses happen and how are those students answers in the questionnaires used to give grades.
I truly believe in all the benefits, in all the advantages that blogs (an other Web 2.0 tools) can bring to the learning process and to student competences. I see blogs (an other Web 2.0 tools) to be very powerful not only for the present but even more for the future. But I have serious difficulties to see how a teacher/instructor can clearly define collectively applicable aims and metrics for such personal product.
[I have great hopes that this course can help me settle down these disturbing questions]

Blogs: organizing promises and pitfulls of its use for learning purposes

In order to sistematize some of the advantages and disadvantages related to blogs use in education and training contexts, a graphic representation of it.








Take some time an explore Bubbl.us

Advantages wins disavantages but this don't mean that blogs will be an apropriate tool to use in every educational situation.
Also their is some features on weblogs that some times are blogs' advantages but that can also became big disadvantages, so the inicials 2 categories (positive and negative) were transformed into 3 categories.

sábado, 23 de janeiro de 2010

Millions of futures

A very interesting idea... must see all questions!
http://www.millionfutures.org.uk/

segunda-feira, 11 de janeiro de 2010

O conceito de realidade aumentada

O futuro mostra que não muito distante do dia de hoje poderemos aprender sobre o mundo directamente no mundo e não fechado numa sala de aula.
"Augmented reality"

sábado, 9 de janeiro de 2010

Important: truly listen

O testemunho de uma professora que não consegue falar, ensina-nos a todos a ser melhores professores:

"I became a different kind of teacher than I had ever been—I became a teacher who actively listened," she wrote in a recent essay for the university's alumni newsletter. "I had in the past often confused listening with waiting for my students to stop talking so that I might resume the very important business of performing," she added. "I learned that if I listened carefully, thoughtfully, generously, and nonjudgmentally, my students would delight me with the complexity of their thinking, the depth of their insight, the delicious wickedness of their humor, and with their compassion, their wisdom, and their honesty." (ler mais)