The Interface Without The Mouse-Click

via Couros Blog

Don’tClickIt.com provides the interesting experience of a click-less interface.

I always have problem using a touch pad. For my laptop, I prefer the old fashioned thumb-push button. The interface presented by this website is both interesting and quite intuitive. You need to enter the site via a mouse click - the last mouse click. Then you can navigate through different part of the site by moving the mouse, but NOT clicking.

Such an interface would be great appeal for touch screen application in addition to studying GUI design.

League of Worlds: The International Conference on Exploring Virtuality

More information is now available for the conference to be held in Melbourne November this year. This is the conference mini website direct link.

This year's theme is Playing and Learning in Virtual Environments. Presenters should challenge participants to take a fresh look at the questions that arise when people meet in virtual territories to play, to learn, and to share. Participation is purposely limited and there will be no concurrent sessions. Instead, participants are encouraged to attend each presentation and integrate their own perspectives and expertise into the conversation.

There are still a bit of time left for submitting a paper to the conference.

The planning committee has a surprise to the participants. I believe this will be a cognitively very challenging, but fun conference to participate.

Teaching Mathematics using origami

I met an old friend (not that she is old, we just have a long acquantance dating back over 20 years) who is teaching mathematics in Melbourne here. She won several teaching awards over the year.

One of the most impressive thing I found is her insight expressed in the following equation:
S=e^t
where S is success, e is effort and t is time.

In plain English, success is the effort in the power time.

Very inspiring.

My recent posts in my other blogs

Here is a list of the post I have written recently that were posted to my other blogs:

Personal Memory Assistant in Learning for 2020

Education is about preparing future citizens. If this is one probable scenario, the big question to me, educationally, is how can we prepare ourselves and our kids for such a world. Estimated time of arrival of this scenario, I would say 2020.

Personal Memory Assistant in Conversation With My Evil Twin:

Trebla: Brother, remember that businesses are greedy. That won't satisfy they appetite! Then businesses will ask for charging content on per-use basis. Every time the PMA captures any content, the user has to pay for it. Every time the PMA replays the content, the user has to pay for it.

Albert: WHAT! Don't you think that kind of law can be passed?

Trebla: 100%. Big businesses have money. Money get people elected. The law will be made in the interest of the these businesses.

Albert: Trebla, you are so negative! There are a huge movement against digital right, e.g. Electronic Frontier Foundation and open source movement. If we don't want to see the scenario you describe, I need to act now to stop IP limitations on content today.

5 Steps for Turning Your Idea Into a Product in Corporate E-Learning

If we see invention as a business, we need to understand that out of a thousand ideas, only a couple are useful and ever fewer which can become a great product. The patenting process is expensive, very expensive indeed. The upfront cost of patenting has to be balanced against the potential additional revenue which can be generated by the patent. We also need to consider the alternative to NOT to patent. Instead of spending your effort and resources in patent process, what is the additional revenue that you can generate using the effort and resources that you intent to put into the patent process.

Learning and development in corporates
in Corporate E-Learning

If people is so important, spending time to choose the right people to fill a managerial role is linked to the success of the corporate. Providing learning and development for people to build the kind of attributes which can energize people is where learning can focus on.

Tags: other posts

How you SHOULD use blogs in education

Following the "should not", here is the "should way" of using blogs in education by James Farmer. I echo strongly with James words:

Blogs are by no means the answer to everything, they are very strong alternative communication tools but if you want to build quizzes, run polls, have near-synchronous conversation, do listserv-y kind of discussion or strictly manage just about anything then you’ll probably want to look at another tool.

I would also caution the need of a balance between focussing on skills and concrete content. I am not discounting the importance and value of the ability to learn independently, literacy skills, information processing strategies, thinking skills,..... As a general practitioner in the field, we tend to describe learning situation and strategy in a generic term without reference to any content or specific subject matter.

It is true that information is exploding. Sometimes I question the value of the time and effort that I have put in during my years in learning Physics. By now, I don't think I would be able to derive any of those equations which I have spent so much time to understand and memorize. I don't even able to remember the exact spelling of the names of these equations.

However, is that experience totally wasted? Let's use thinking skill as an example. Learning to think is one thing. Applying the thinking skill in solving problems in a complex situation is quite different. Subject matter presents a complex context to exercise the thinking skill. I have forgotten most of the subject matter in Physics, but my basic training means I can tackle complex situation using mathematical skills when I need to.

Coming back to using blog, or for this matter any tool. Not only we should recognise that none of them is the only tool available, such tool should be used in a meaningful way in the context of some subject matter.

Here is another quote from James:

One of the worst things you can do is mandate posting on particular topics with particularly rigid frequency… you’ll over-assess & kill off exactly what blogs are good for: personal expression & exploration.

Within the context of your subject matter, you must create compelling reasons for the learners to create and maintain a blog. Note, mandating posts as assessment is NOT compelling reason in any stretch of imagination! Create and demonstrate a passion in the subject matter, engage and ensure the students themselves are engaged in constructive discussion with the use of blog in the context of your subject matter.

How to start one? Here is a suggestion.

There are many great insights that are counter-intuitive. These can be used as triggering points for heated discussion, via the blog, may be.

Blog is also well suited as a personal log of the learning journey. If you can show yours and some good examples, students can follow.

We don't want to see yet another teenage-blogger writing about fashion or gossip as part of their learning, do we?

Tags: edublog

Response to "Playing to Learn"

Stephen Downes added a good point and linked to another post,how not to use blogs in learning by James Farmer on the issue of adopting a technology into teaching and learning. I am not going to repeat that. Please follow the links...

Stephen also raised another interesting point: making the fun activity as part of homework. That's a sure fun-killer. As soon as games or blog or anything, which a teenager enjoys, have become part of "work", the fun has gone! It has BECOME WORK! The approach will be totally different. There is a reverse psychology here.

Adult is probably different. I was re-introduced into computing due to a "homework" during my Dip. Ed. course. As part of the course, we are asked to numerically solve a second order differential equation using a programmable calculator with only 36 programmable steps. I found that fascinating and spent a whole month's salary on my first programmable device (a programmable calculator). My journey into computing went past the point of no return from then.

Looking back, in that class, we have about 10 other people doing in the same subject. As far as I know, none of them has taken up computing or programming.

I think my experience taught me two things.

1. Do not kill joy by assigning some fun activities as homework. [That's based on my 20 years of teaching. Still applicable???]


2. Introduce fun activity via homework seldom works. [I am the odd man in the group.]

Another comment?

Tags: learning activity , kill fun , how not to

Playing to Learn

Here is another article predicting students are asked to play game as part of their homework assignment.

Whether homework is a necessary part of the formal education is another issue. There is an illusion that we can leverage the engaging power of games, and hope magically there will be transfer of skills learnt from games to real life. Not that it is not possible, but we must be realistic to remind ourselves that games are not designed with learning in mind. Games are designed to engage and kill time. Learning, if any, is only secondary. While educators can select games which have attributes positive towards learning, I would still like to ask if "playing game" is the best use of time of the students. For those who are motivated to learn, playing game may be considered a waste of their time. They can engage in much more direct learning activities which are designed to develop the skills they set out to learn.

The question, to me, is not to use game as a substitute of good design of learning activities. We have a lot to learn from the game designer, how games, some very difficult, engage the players. We should learn from game design. We should not use game as a substitute of good engaging learning activities.

Tags: games , learning activity , design

Virtual Apparatus Framework

In one of the early papers I wrote on this topic (back in 1997):

Why can't an academic producing courseware (online or otherwise) work like a science teacher producing a laboratory demonstration?

By that I meant:

when I design an experiment for my students, I don't need to worry about the design of an apparatus. I go to the laboratory preparation room, look at what kind of apparatus are there that I could use to illustrate the idea I would like to teach, hook the apparatus together, play with them a bit, get some sample data,...

I saw a need to create a technology solution so that teachers, those without sophisticated skill in software technology, to assemble an interactive web page from functional components similar to Physics teacher preparing an experiment set-up. I called that "virtual apparatus framework".

Since I left the University, the original project web-site has disappeared. I recovered an old backup, bought the domain name and put the copy online.

Virtual apparatus framework is based on a component-based software development blueprint. There are three major components in the model:

virtual apparatus - software components

virtual apparatus work bench - the hosting webpage of the components

virtual apparatus connection - mechanism to ensure the software components work in harmony

At that time, the main technologies to create animation/interaction are Java-applet, early flash movie and some active-X objects. The main "glue" for these components to work (or communicate) is via "Live Connect". The technology was in a flux, almost changing monthly.

The main reason I want to revisit this topic is that I see a more stable environment today. IE6 has been around for years. Firefox is gaining a lot of momentum. The DOM is now well defined. Javascript is the de facto lingua of the web. CSS is widely accepted. Techniques such as unobtrusive javascript is becoming common accepted practice. There is now much better chance to create re-usable component in a sub-page level for us to build better web pages. Any thoughts?

Tags: courseware development , virtual apparatus framework , sub-page component assembly

Ten Tips for New Trainers/Teachers

"Ten Tips for New Trainers/Teachers" is a post which we should print out, pin up and make sure that we can read it from our seat. These eleven things to know and ten tips (in fact, there are twelve things to know and eleven tips) summarize the latest thinking and practice in teaching and learning and they are all good advice.

I went into teaching about 30 years ago immediately after I graduated from my Science Bachelor degree. At that time, teaching was viewed as a transmission of knowledge, at least to me at that time. Kathy Sierra correctly pointed out that "because you've been a student, you can teach well" is devaluing the art of teaching and is a completely ridiculous idea. Unfortunately, the e-learning industry is still very much driven by this concept of learning today. Content is still king.

Just-in-time has nothing to do with learning. Just-in-time delivery of content is about job-support, providing information for someone to accomplish a task or a problem. Repeat after me: Just-in-time has nothing to do with learning.

I never learnt anything just-in-time. When I have a problem at hand, I need to solve the problem and I find a solution for it. How many times you found yourself in the same situation? How many times you go back and consult the same information which you used to solve the same problem not too long ago? Many, right?

When a piece of information is delivered to me to meet a task at hand, my focus is on solving the problem or completing the task. There is NO TIME to learn. Once the task is completed, I felt relieved and I forgot whatever that solved the problem AND move on to the next time.

After solving a task at hand, I can learn only if I have time to reflect, organise my "learning", and convert the experience into my repertoire for the next use.

So, next time when there is a group of people who have allocated a slot of time for learning. I will follow these tips AND will also leave some time for them to convert the learning experience into learning.

Tags: learning experience, conversion to learning

Slowdown of Activity in Australia

Thank you to Stephen Downes for mentioning that I have not been writing a lot lately. Please be reassured that I am not leaving e-learning. Starting a new magazine, keeping up the development work of Fablusi and all the other things I have been doing really is not easy. So Random Walk in E-learning took a random walk.

I am now at University of Wollongong working on an existing project. During discussion, Christine Brown mentioned about how important rewards are. I recalled one of my teachers when I was in secondary school.

At that time, Mr. Chow has already retired. He came back to teach only because he loved the job and loved the kids. He taught us Biology. Here is one of the "unique" things that is still very vivid in my memory.

We used to have tests. Whoever has the highest score was entitled to a special treat. Very special indeed. The highest scorer has the right to take off his cap and stroke his bold head three times and three times only.

Thinking back, it was nothing special about stroking an old man's bold head. But that was the "currency" at the time. We worked so hard just to have that three seconds of honour.

Once, a naughty boy took off his hat suddenly and touched his head. Ohhh! That was a terminal crime. He got so angry that nobody would dare to try again. However, if you got the highest score, you still could do that and he was smiling and was enjoying the touch as well.

I don't and did not know how that currency was started. But it was just such a memorable experience that I was telling Christine all about this yesterday and I felt I was back at my teenage.

Tags: memorable experience , reward currency

Proposal: Chat and Discussion Interchange Datamodel

via Stephen Downes' OLDaily, I am pointed to this interesting proposal. This is a very good first step towards a data model for inter-operability between discussion forums and chat applications. Here are a few comments:

• I don't understand why it is necessary to define the term "entity". As a vendor-neutral data model, we should not be concerned with implementations. The addition of "entity" does not contribute any additional useful concept in the data model.


• The proposal has identified "role" as an important concept to be captured by the data model. However, this has not been further linked to the concepts of "rights". Typically discussion forums, list servers included, have moderator or administrative roles. [Administrative role needs not be captured in this data model if this role is solely concerned with the assignment of rights of participations.] Moderator typically have rights such as blocking participant's expression (using the term as proposed which is the same as message). Other typical rights include read-only participation for some participants.


• Two typical features in many implementations which have not been captured by the data model are:
  
  
  • channel - e.g. in chat, many implementations allow "whisper" between participants
  
  
  • threading in discussion forum.

Tags: standards , data model

Rich Text Editors

Prompted by Jon Udell's last two days weblogs on Innovative rich editors and local datastores and Life in a TEXTAREA, I like to point out a wonderful cross browser pure HTML and Javascript implementation of a rich text editor by Kevin Roth.

Kevin is kind enough to make his implementation open source. It also supports multiple rich text editing area on the same page.

It does have a bug: If you have a html source with an image loaded into Kevin's rich text editor, the document will not be editable. You can still view the document in its full rich format.

Tags: richTextEditor openSource

AusWeb 05 - 1

It has been a while since my last post. Usual excuses....

I just came back from AusWeb05 conference, tons of work needed my attention. However, I still want to write this post now. One of keynotes at AusWeb is Brad Kasell (Asia Pacific Engagement Manager, IBM's jStart Program) on "Emerging Technologies and the Web: Finding a Balance Between Possibility and Reality". Among all the great ideas, he talked about Web 1.0 (the publishing web), Web 2.0 (the interactive web) and Web 3.0 (the programmable web).

Here is my view on programmable web. Using an OO paradigm, any website can be viewed as an software object. For, the static websites (publishing web), the interface is the URL. A call to this interface will return the information (as a web page).

The technical community has been developing the web service interfaces for quite some time (many major web sites also publish their API too). The "glue" for making a number of web services to work together is, of course, XML-based HTTP communication. The result of any web service call is usually returned as XML-coded information for further processing by the calling object. These have proved to be too heavy for some application, hence the AJAX and other similar technique. (In Fablusi, I used a variation of AJAX, but instead of using XML, I used JSON).

What about those interactive web sites which do not support web services?

The answer is YubNub. This is a blending of "social networking" and "command line" for the programmable web.

To explain what is a command line for web, let use the following command as an example.

xe -amount 100 -from USD -to EUR

xe is the command for finding the currency equivalent between two currencies. Those in orange are parameters. So the last command will find you the amount of EUR for 100 USD.

How can I find the command I want? YubNub.org has list of commands.

Where do I type the command? Go to YubNub.org website. Or more importantly, you can install it on your browser, desktop, as bookmarklet, an application for window, .... the list go on.

So, you may ask, this is just another application, why I said it is the glue for programmable web?

Any command, as you may know, is the short hand for a number of lines of codes conveniently grouped together as a subroutine, a function or a batch file of commands. Someone somewhere must have provided the programming in order to make the command does what it supposes to do. It just happens that web command line passes the command to some website which will "execute" your command and return the result to you. Cool!

And even more cool, you can create your own command.

And even more more cool, a spontaneous community has found around this and the community is growing fast. Go to the group if you like and feel for yourself.

Imagining the World: The Case for Non-Rendered Virtuality - the Role Play Simulation Model

This paper, which I posted earlier, has a permanent home now. The presentation is not ready yet. Comment welcome.

Tags: rolePlaySimulation pedagogy

eLearning Magazine

The eLearning Magazine will be sent to the printer in about 2 weeks and should be available by the end of June. For those who like to subscribe, please visit the web site's subscription page http://www.elearningmagazine.com/corporate/subscription.php to take advantage of the pre-publication special rate. The payment is handled via Paypal. Please note the difference in rate for Australia and the rest of the world. This is due to the cost of postage.

For the advertisers, if you can support us, please take advantage of the current 30% discount off the rate. We desperately need your support. Please contact our sales representative, Sandy Warren. Her email address is sandy dot warren at elearningmagazine dot com. We shall scale down the distribution and the size of the volume for the first issue. The tentative table of content is at the end of the post.

We have adopted a modified license for all the articles. All articles will be available on the web under a restricted creative common license two months (or when the next issue is published whichever is earlier) after the publication. The online version will be supported by context sensitive advertisement or sponsorship.

Table of Content of the first issue of eLearning magazine

Editorial
What is the Future of e-learning?

Feature Articles
Web-based Search and Resource
Taxonomy or Folksonomy?
Access For All: Adaptability of Digital Resources and Services

Interview
CEO of HarvestRoad – an Australian Success Story

eLearning Business Review
Don't Waste your Talent, One Resignation at a Time

Standards Circle
Dummy Guide to Metadata
Who is doing what in Metadata?

In & Between
Edublogs are go!

Chalkface
What is Learning?

News and Conferences
Glossary Part 1 of 3
Freebies
eLearning Rant

Tags: eLearningMagazine printed magazine

Draft Craft Manifesto

by Ulla-Maaria Mutanen via BoingBoing

As noted, the author is interested "what is driving the increasing popularity of crafting" and listed her finding in the 12 points in the Manifesto.

I am yet to do something similar about why students find it interesting, engaging and absorbing to learn via role play simulation. I have been looking at "gameness" and try to find characteristics of games which may drive learning motivation and effectiveness. So far, my conclusion is still the "genuine ability to make choice and face the consequence of the choice made" [see earlier post] is the greatest factors for players in role play simulation.

Tags: rolePlaySimulation game motivation

What is Learning?

An upcoming article for the eLearning magazine. This is a draft only.

Data is individual statement. Data is the kind of thing we found using the search engines. Data is external to my being. Information is a network of coherent data. It may be stored externally (e.g. I can search for some information on the web) or memorized. Information may include procedural know-how or my favourite recipes. For example, September 13 is just a piece of data. I also know that my wife was born on September 13. These two pieces of data connected to become an information, “my wife’s birthday”. Again, “Albert’s wife was born on September 13” is also a piece of data, an irrelevant piece of data to most of you.

Let’s say we have agreed that “Albert’s wife was born on September 13” is an important knowledge that all readers of eLearning magazine needs to master. What does this mean?

There are several assumptions made. We have agreed, implicitly without further negotiations, that time is divided into intervals called “years” and there are 12 months in a year. One of the months is called September and 13 is the thirteenth day of that month. We also have a common understanding of “wife”. Somewhere, some time ago and somehow, we have come to a common understanding of the concept of “wife”, so without seeking explicit clarification, you may have correctly assumed that my wife is a female human being.

The key words in the last paragraph are “knowledge” and “understanding”. Knowledge is an understanding of a network of information. This understanding is community based. It may have been explicitly negotiated or implicitly “learnt”. Understanding is anchored on information and language. Without them, there is no common ground to build a community of practice who shares the understanding. Every single word is the result of some common understanding. Words may be ambiguous, but overall, any effective communication and building of common understanding depend on mutually agreed meanings to the words.

Understanding is part of our being. Understanding of a body of knowledge is coherent within a larger framework within each individual self.

Unlike information, knowledge and understanding cannot be externalized. When externalized, knowledge becomes information. Its utility depends on the understanding of the words making up the information. When meaning and sense can be made out of the information, the individual who makes such meaning and sense acquired the knowledge related to that information. In other words, when information is interpreted basing on all our previous knowledge and our language, the information becomes part of our knowledge.

What is “know-how”, e.g. the procedure to fill up the tank of our car? Is it knowledge or a piece of information? In a written form, it is information. But if I know what it means and can follow the procedure to achieve the objective of making my car move again after running a long distance, it become a knowledge, a knowledge to me alone.

So, what is my definition of learning? To me, learning is the process that builds understanding and coherent network of knowledge. This process occurs within me. You cannot stop me learn, nor make me learn. You can present me with information. You can introduce me to a community of practice. You can show me how to do thing. It is me who learns.

I had been helping people to learning. I was a Physics teacher for nearly 20 years. I presented information to my students. Some might be sitting closer to me, others not so. They could all hear me and see my writing on the board. But some obviously “picking” up the concepts much better than others. Why? If teaching is equal to presentation of information, all my students should have exactly the same performance! Teaching is obviously not just presenting information. Teaching is the act of helping others to learn. We can motivate the learners so that they are more ready to. We can present the information in some sequence so that the information can be integrated and understood more easily, at least to a broader group of learners.

Education is the business of providing learning. Training is a special case of education. The kind of learning that is occupationally oriented, with specific outcome which trainees would be able to demonstrate.

What is e-learning? E-learning is learning at which technology has played a role. At eLearning Magazine, we look at the technologies that purport to support learning. We reports on good practices that individuals, companies and communities learn and learn better. Future articles in this column will describe different “art forms” of teaching. We hope that you may pick up some tips. Other sections in this magazine cover important aspects of the business of providing learning (i.e. education and training. We also cover “informal” learning, how technology may help us develop ourselves.

Side Notes:
Philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein argued against “private language”. Basically, there is not any language which is used by only one individual. Language is always negotiated to create a common understanding within a group which James Paul Gee called “Semiotic Domains”. Here we are using “community of practice” in a general and less vigorous way. See Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations (Macmillan, 1958) and James Paul Gee, What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy (Macmillan, 2003)

Tags: learning

ps Please also see a new post in Conversation With My Evil Twin on Apple's Colossal Disappointment

Multiple default homepage in FireFox

The link is in Chinese. If you can read it, go ahead.

Otherwise, read on.

To have Firefox opens multiple default home pages in different tabs, put multiple URLs into the Tools|Option|General|Home Page. Separate each URL using a pipe character "|".

Alternately, open your homepages in different tags. Go to Tools|Option|General|Home Page, just click [Use Current Page].

Tags: Firefox multipleHomepage

Netscape 8 bugs

Once the biggest name in web browser, Netscape released version 8, but according to TechWorld, over 40 bugs were discovered within hours of its release.

One of the most important bug which may affect my work is the rendering of xml. While it nice to be able to choose between Gecko or IE rendering engine using a little icon at the left of the status bar, it also makes IE's XML rendering returns a blank screen, not only within Netscape 8's own IE mode, but the IE itself. The current work around suggested is to uninstall Netscape 8 AND remove an entry in the registry. (see MSDN blog entry)

As noted earlier, Fablusi is heavily dependent on client-side processing. I have chosen to use a JSON-like protocol between the server and client. I would have chosen to use xml. If it were the case, Fablusi would have been broken under Netscape 8 and would have caused it to break when using IE after its installation.

I was composing this post using IE 6 (after verifying the bug reported above). However, just before I post, I right-clicked to do a spelling check. To my greatest horror, no spell checking was available.

I now realise how useful all the extensions in Firefox have been. This post is now copy and pasted into a firefox browser ... (I am happy ever after).

By the way, I have installed a GreaseMonkey "Technorati Tags for Bloggers" which allows me easily add the tags to this post.

Tags: browser bugs

Personal learning

Have come to appreciate the role, value and importance of social learning, situated learning, learning in community and culture. That more is learned on the playing fields and in discourse with peers than from the sage on the stage. Even in very structured training situations, it is the break time conversation, the second-hand explanation from a colleague that situates the new concept, validates its importance and sanctions its legitimacy.

The post itself is a good read. I won't be able to express any better than Denham Grey.

I just want to pick up one point of this wonderful post. I don't understand what Denham means by second-hand explanation and I failed to find further explanation.

I have written about different types of experiences. Briefly, first person experience is experience that one has lived through. I also include simulated experience as first person experience. Second person experience is the experience you gain as a vicarious observer of an event. Third person experience are the stories that we hear from a story teller telling another person's experience. (Here I use the word experience and story almost interchangeably). When we were young, we generally learn via first or second person experience. However, formal education mainly concentrates on providing third person experience. Even the so-called experiments in science classes were more like verification of the theory we have learnt in class than real discovery of the theory itself.

In structured training session, during break time, I seldom see people explaining what has been told again to another participant. (I.e. I don't see second-hand explanation happening). However, there were many ocassion that we exchange our previous first/second person experience to validate or question the material put before us during the training. Such validations ARE not second-hand explanation. This also happens a lot in face to face conferences.

I suppose "blogging" is a good way of taking that face to face validating story telling into an online situation. While I am writing this post, reflecting on the ideas, I AM LEARNING.

You, as my reader, may or may not learn anything. It depends on whether these words will cause you to link this concept to your previous experience, or cause discomfort. Both cognitive resonance and cognitive dissonance may trigger learning. However, whether you learn anything depends on whether you are willing to reflect on this, and "file" this concept somewhere you can access later when you need it.

Tags: experience learning taxonomy

p.s. see my other new posts: Alternate Business Plan needed for Higher Education and Corporate e-learning trend written today.

Digital Divide, an update

My first post about digital divide pointed out that I did not believe there would ever be a satisfactory solution to equality in terms of digital access to information and resources.

Although theoretically, digital information can be reproduced at marginally zero cost, the access to these bits and bytes still depends on physical equipment which must be produced at a cost with a finite production capacity. Hence my argument was that there will always be differences in different stages of availability at different communities.

Chasing the Dragon's Tale has a post asking what "If computers become inexpensive, really inexpensive..." and raises the issue of power even if computers are in the price range (about AUD400) of current mobile phones.

I did a bit of search on the average power consumption of PC and would happy to settle at 220W (150W for the desktop computer + 70W for the monitor). The cost of providing such power to remote area using alternate energy source (say solar panel) would be around AUD2000 (using 4 1000 x 4000 mm panel with an output of 60W each would cost around AUD500 in Australia). This is still far from within the range of most under-developed countries. Although solar panel have a service life of 20 years, it is still a significant investment. If such money were available, there would be other competing needs for the scarce electrical power resource in the remote areas.

Another important point about digital divide is the assumption of ubiquity of the communication network. Yes, once an optical fibre is laid, the cost of communication is almost next to nothing. Yet, the initial infra-structure investment is huge and demanding. Again, if any fund is available, there would be competing needs for the fund for other more urgent infra-structure expenses, e.g. fresh water supply (although there is an exciting Australian invention which may help solve this problem in remote villages) or medical services.

While I like to see more equality in terms of providing digital access to communities, I don't see any chance of getting any better in a long time.

Tags: digital divide

Two of my recent posts

Please see
Dissected lies of a Canadian recording industry shill

and

Setting limits on the number of posts by students in discussion forum

Imagining the World: The Case for Non-Rendered Virtuality - the Role Play Simulation Model

This is a paper that I am going to present in AusWeb05 (co-authored with Roni Linser). Comment welcome.

Both role-play simulations and Virtual Worlds as pedagogy have now been around for some time and are both considered to be highly effective in creating effective and memorable experiences for learners. But whereas the rendered gaming model of virtual worlds seems to have captured the imagination of trainers, educators and researchers, the role-play model seems to have languished somewhat. This paper explores some of the pedagogic and psychological issues for learning associated with the rendering or non-rendering of virtual worlds. We argue that while rendered environments can contribute to learning, they are often too shallow for purposes such as fostering strategic thinking and problem solving. In such cases, non-rendered virtual worlds may be better in using and fostering the required imaginative capacities of learners.

League of Worlds: The International Conference on Exploring Virtuality

League of Worlds: The International Conference on Exploring Virtuality

2nd Annual Conference on Online Simulations, Role-Playing, and Virtual Worlds
November 14 – 18, 2005
University of Melbourne
Melbourne, Australia
Call for Papers

ABOUT THE LEAGUE OF WORLDS

The League of Worlds annual conference brings together people engaged in the creation of virtual worlds and real-time simulations for educational, artistic and creative purposes. Our mission is
(1) to stimulate and disseminate research and analysis regarding the theoretical, technical and curricular developments in; and
(2) to contribute towards the development of coherent frameworks for the advancement, application and assessment of creative, educational, and social uses of role-playing, simulations and virtual worlds.

Our primary areas of interest include:
a. theoretical analysis
b. the development of practical applications
c. the documentation of framework projects and case studies

ABOUT THE CONFERENCE

The League of Worlds symposium is a paperless conference. Works and contributions will be distributed electronically and notices will be posted on a web-based conference discussion board. This year's theme is: "Playing and Learning in Virtual Environments." Presenters should challenge participants to take a fresh look at the questions that arise when people meet in virtual territories to play, to learn, and to share. Participation is purposely limited and there will be no concurrent sessions. Instead, participants are encouraged to attend each presentation and integrate their own perspectives and expertise into the conversation.

Presentation Categories
The League of Worlds conference is designed to support sharing and meaningful reflection. Presentations should allow participants the opportunity to share experiences, to demonstrate technologies, and to think critically. To facilitate these activities, the conference review committee is interested particularly in the following types of activities:
• Posters/Demonstrations
• Panels
• Roundtables
• Symposia
• Tutorials
• Workshops

All accepted papers and demonstration descriptions will be posted online by September 2005 so participants may read them before attending LoW2 (see below for deadlines). Presenters should plan for between 1-2 hours for their sessions.

Proceedings

Conference proceedings are peer-reviewed and will be published on the conference website. The proceedings will contain all accepted papers, a list of attendees, and the conference program. Papers should be between 2500-5000 words (4-8 pages). All others should be between 1250- 3500 words (2-5 pages).

Important Dates
Abstract June 1, 2005
Draft August 1, 2005
Final version September 1, 2005

Proposals
Please submit the following by June 1, 2005:
1. A title and an 80-100 word abstract/description
2. A presentation format (e.g., panel, demonstration, symposium, etc.).

Notification of acceptance will be made by JUNE 30, 2005. Accepted presentations will be required to submit the following by August 1, 2005:
1. A draft of the paper or a detailed description of the demonstration.
2. Pertinent information about the presenter(s) including:
a. Names of lead presenter and co-presenters, if applicable
b. Contact information for each
c. Affiliated institution(s)
d. Job Title(s)
e. Experience with virtual worlds, simulations, and/or role playing technology

To be included in the final program and conference proceedings, please submit the following by September 1, 2005:
1. The complete paper or demonstration description
2. Registration and full payment.
3. An indication of any special requirements related to diets, equipment, or other pertinent needs
Submit all proposals in Word, RTF, or HTML format to:
Dr. Stephen Bronack, Ph.D. at bronacksc _at_ appstate dot edu
FOR CONFERENCE INFORMATION, please contact:
Mr. Roni Linser
Director, 2005 LoW Conference
E-mail: roni _at_ leagueofworlds dot com OR simplay dot net _at gmail dot com
Website: http://www.leagueofworlds.com

Reuse, Standardisation and Calcification

As we embark on the development of something, anything in fact, we no doubt will find ourselves in situations where we are reusing part of previous work we have done. Programmer uses the technical term "function" to encapsulate a block of code which is used in several occasions (reuse). Later, of course, we have methodologies such as object-oriented development etc. This post is not about such technical details.

When we write our lesson plans (is there anyone still doing this?, ok, assume we do), we found ourselves repeating several patterns which we are comfortable with. May be it looks like "revision of previous lesson, introduction of new idea, details, examples, more details, more examples....". Again this is a re-use, a reuse of the pattern.

The conversation style I am using in Conversation With My Evil Twin has a template behind it. I always have a "background" section and a boilerplate passage "Once upon a time, on a sunny evening ...."

When a team starts to work collaboratively on a project, we begin to introduce guidelines, rules etc in order to make the reuse more efficient, ie minimise the re-invention of wheels. (Ok, the guidelines and rules are also introduced for other reasons too, but here we focus on those guidelines and rules which are related to re-use). When the team is small and close, these guidelines and rules are negotiated and formed informally. As the collaboration team grows, with more members from more diverse background joining the team, this process of articulating the guidelines and rules starts to have a life of its own. This is called the standardisation process. As long as this process is driven by the active users (members of the collaboration teams who actually use the guidelines and rules in their daily work), these guidelines and rules are fluid, changing as needs arise and continuously re-negotiated. However, when the process is taken over by "managers", this is then driven by a completely different set of motives and agenda. "Political" considerations become more and more important. These start to surface and enforced: "stability of standards", conformance and examples where organizations attempt to 'refocus' anyone who is perceived as doing any innovative work 'out of the box' because this is perceived as either 'non corporate', 'off message' or just plain inefficient (Derek Morrison, World's largest deployment of Moodle? (part 2)) James Gosling call this calcification in an 1990 online article (http://www.java.sun.com/people/jag/StandardsPhases/index.html) which is no longer available online.

Once certain "standards" are recognised as important and strategic by the upper management, the power of negotiating, modifying, extending etc of these standards are taken away from the actual users. Actual users are typically disconnected from the standard process (may be the users of standards are not interested in the political battles of setting standards, or they are deem as not representative enough from the organisation's point of view that their representation are replaced by more "senior" members who have no hand-on experience of the "product" they are trying to standardise.)

I will stop here and let you imagine what will happen next ...

Does this sound familiar to you? I hope not.

Postscript to "The Psychology of Games"

By Thomas Nocera, registration needed to read the article.

In an earlier post, I reported on the "gameness" and concluded that these "gameness" elements are equally applicable in the design of learning activities. Thomas further points to a number of theories that

astute game developers can benefit from mastering

What Thomas is referring is "interpersonal communication". As he puts it,

The theoretical knowledge of what keeps humans engaged in relationships is important. Relationships are fundamentally dyads - where 2 people are engaged in 2 way communications in an ongoing, satisfactory, even if not completely pleasurable way. Understanding the motivating reasons why we remain in communication with each other is an essential component of game developer knowledge.

Two theories are highlighted:

"the exchange theory". As it applies to interpersonal communications: people will stay in relationships (or, communicating with each other, or playing a game)as long as their individual perception is that they are getting more out of it (the relationship, or the game) than they are putting into it.

The other is his own called Nocera's Law: Everything communicates!

When I was theoretising the underlying design of Fablusi, the role play simulation platform, I stated that human interactions are communicative events. The whole Fablusi platform is about modelling different types of human communications and relationships. I called Fablusi as a glorified conferencing system. Instead of providing choices for players to choose (and response), Fablusi enables *real* human players to exchange free form text behind of masks of persona as designed by the simulation designers, hence enabling the players to step in the shoes of another stakeholder.

After reading the response to Postscript to "The Psychology of Games", I am now more convinced that a good learning activity should encourage learners to express freely and receive authentic response to the expressions. Isn't Laurillard's conversation theory based on the same premise? However, what about extending the conversation partner beyond a student-teacher dialogue to include peer conversation?

Two of my latest posts are out now

Chain Letters from the Boss - cont'd in Corporate E-Learning

Bill Gate's Solution to American High Schools being obsolete in Learning for 2020

Comments welcome.

Chain Letters from the Boss

I have written a post about a typical corporate scenario in my Corporate e-learning blog.

I am at a loss as to how to handle the onslaught of junk email that is routinely sent internally throughout my company by fellow employees including the executive staff and mostly the CFO, my boss.

This morning I received yet another "John 3:16, Jesus Loves You, forward this to ten people" chain letter email with the animated graphics and all that crap.

I think I have a better solution:

From a corporate learning point of view, is there a lesson that we can learn? If there is any HR people reading my post, you should think about the consequence this may have.

Any better solution? I think there is at least one. I will reveal that tomorrow.

Visit Corporate e-learning blog tomorrow to find out. Meanwhile, what do you think?

The Psychology Behind Games

by Anders Hejdenberg, free registration needed to read the article.

Citing from Roger Caillois's book Man, Play, and Games the following is

a useful system of classifying the different types of experiences that are present in games. A game can include just one or all of these different types of experiences.

1. Competition

Activities where players use their skill to overcome the challenge that their opponents offer. The pleasure lies in developing your skills to outmaneuver the opposition. Football and chess are examples of such activities.

2. Chance

Activities where elements of chance can have an impact on the outcome of the game. The pleasure lies in finding ways to minimize the impact of the element of chance, and the excitement of trying to guess the outcome. Games that are based on chance can also give players the illusion of being able to control or foresee the future. Slot machines and lotteries are examples of such activities.

3. Vertigo

Activities that alters the state of mind by disrupting the normal perception of the world, resulting in a pleasurable state of dizziness. Roller coaster rides and skydiving are examples of such activities. [Albert's addition: The preception of time also changes when you are engaged in pleasurable experience. "Time flies"!]

4. Make-Believe

Activities where we create alternate realities in which we are not bound by the constraints of the real world. The pleasure lies in assuming various characteristics and abilities that we do not possess in our normal life. In this state of make-believe we can feel as if we actually possessed the powers of what we have chosen to assimilate. Role-playing, theatre and reading books are examples of such activities.

I believe these are also important elements in designing experiential based learning activity.

The author continues to give us 8 characteristics of "gameness":

1. It's an activity that we feel that we can perform – a challenge that requires skill
2. We need to be able to concentrate on what we are doing
3. We need to have clear goals for our activity
4. We need to get constant feedback on our progress
5. We act with a deep involvement that frees us from our everyday worries
6. We need to exercise control over our environment
7. We become less self-absorbed
8. Our perception of time is altered

This list looks almost like a checklist we would use to evaluate whether a learning activity is good or not. The only exception may be number 6 in the list. I don't think many educators realise that the ability of giving learners control over their environment is critical to the engagement. Most learning activities are designed to give learners limited choices (e.g. multiple choice??? )

The following paragraph is the first paragraph of the summary of part one of the article, with my modifications to make it looks like a summary for an education paper. The original words are deleted and my words are inserted as shown.

Games Learning activities are activities that we have specifically designed to maximize the amount of pleasure and learning we get from them. Games Learning activities are our way of having fun and extending our ability, regardless of our current life situation. In games Learning activities, we do not have to abide to the restrictions of the ordinary world allowing us to make mistakes to test our understanding. We can create our own rules discover where our specific talents can be recognized and rewarded – talents that would perhaps otherwise go unnoticed.

The above paragraph may feel strange. For example, the reference to fun, and current life situation. However, replacing Learning activities with role play simulation as used in the Fablusi role play simulation platform, this would be an almost prefect paragraph to describe the potential learning outcome and benefits.

Does MSN Search Favor IIS-Hosted Sites?

A study by Ivor Hewitt initiated a discussion among the SEOs (Search Engine Optimisations) about whether MSN search results favour IIS-hosted sites. While the early methodology of Ivor's study is far from perfect, it does show a tendency of MSN search result returns a larger portion of IIS-hosted pages.

Should educators care about such discussion? Probably not as much as the SEOs. But if we are promoting our students to understand information search, resource discovery in particular, then it would be a good topic to monitor.

Principles of experiential education practice

Adopted from the outdoor experiential programs, the US Army War College's Strategic Experiential Education Group has put the theory into practice through the use of role play simulations.

The principles are:

Experiential learning occurs when carefully chosen experiences are supported by reflection, critical analysis, and synthesis.

Experiences are structured to require the learner to take initiative, make decisions, and be accountable for the results.

Throughout the experiential learningprocess, the learner is actively engaged in posing questions, investigating,experimenting, being curious, solving problems, assuming responsibility, being creative, and constructing meaning.

Learners are engaged intellectually, emotionally, socially, soulfully, and/or physically. This involvement produces a perception that the learning task is authentic.

The results of the learning are personaland form the basis for future experience and learning.

Relationships are developed and nurtured: learner to self, learner to others, and learner to the world at large.

The educator and learner may experience success, failure, adventure, risk-taking, and uncertainty, since the outcomes of experience cannot be totally predicted.

Opportunities are nurtured for learners and educators to explore and examine their own values.

The educator's primary roles include setting suitable experiences,posing problems, setting boundaries, supporting learners, insuring physical and emotional safety, and facilitating the learning process.

The educator recognizes and encourages spontaneous opportunities for learning.

Educators strive to be aware of their biases, judgments, and pre-conceptions and how they influence the learner

The design of the learning experience includes the possibility to learn from natural consequences, mistakes, and successes.

This is very much the same principles behind role play simulation.

Tagged as experiential learning good example role play simulation

GreaseMonkey + Flickr = Lickr

Lickr removes the need for Flash. It runs within the web browser Firefox, stripping the Flash before the user can even see it, and replacing it with an equivalent interface in pure HTML and Javascript.

Why? The webstie said

• you often use operating systems where Flash doesn't work, or doesn't work well.


• speeding up pageviews noticeably is important to you.


• you're a web developer and you are interested in this bleeding-edge Ajax stuff.


• using Flickr beta isn't extreme enough for you. You want to run some amateur code, triggered by a brand new framework, in an alternative browser, that tries to modify an often-changing beta interface.

In fact Lickr is the combination of three important concepts:
Flickr - a community for the photo addicts
Greasemonkey - a framework for intercepting the DOM of a website and modify accordingly
Ajax - an intermediate between the webserver and the user.

Instead of loading a webpage, at the start of the session, the browser loads an Ajax engine — written in JavaScript and usually tucked away in a hidden frame. This engine is responsible for both rendering the interface the user sees and communicating with the server on the user’s behalf. The Ajax engine allows the user’s interaction with the application to happen asynchronously — independent of communication with the server. So the user is never staring at a blank browser window and an hourglass icon, waiting around for the server to do something.

Tagged as GreaseMonkey tool

"Conversation With My Evil Twin" blog

Some people found my conversation format interesting. OK, if you like to converse with your evil twin in public, you are welcome to share this blog so that we have all the evil twins at one place. Just send me an email: [albert.ip.w.c _at_ gmail dot com] and I will add you as a contributor to the blog.

Tagged as Blogging

Is eLearning the $500 Toilet Seat of the Technology Industry?

Guess what Brendan Tompkins was talking about - shoveling model of e-learning examplied by Microsoft eLearning site. With a 50" Sony Plasma WEGA High Definition TV, it is the same.

The e in e-learning is NOT the electronic gadget that is being thrown in to help you motivated!

Tagged as elearning bad example

Blocking VoIP Calls: Foreboding Harbinger or Benign Fluke?

See my twisted response in "Conversation With My Evil Twin" blog.

Tagged as Blogging bad example

How Software Patents Actually Work

via Groklaw
It's an animated film by Gavin Hilltrying to explain the dangers of software patents.

Tagged as elearning Patent good example

Massive Multiplayer Online Gaming: A Research Framework for Military Training and Education

via OLDaily.

Like Stephen, I am drawn to the topic of this study because my involvement of online role play simulation. I also share Stephen's view that I don't find this report exciting to read.

Massive Multiplayer Online Gaming sounds good for training and education. First, it is massive multiplayer - implying a collaborative type of learning. Second, it is gaming which seems to solve the motivational factors in training and learning. Third, being a virtual environment, the instructional designer may create an environment conducive to learning.

I would say that these are superficial benefits. We need to look closer and deeper to really understand the critical factors in each of these claims.

Collaborative Learning is not the same as locking a group of learners in a room, throw them a question and magically, these learners will come up with a solution to the question. A massive multiplayer environment is akin to a room with a lot of people inside. Will learning happen automatically? OK, here is where the instructional designer can come in and create an environment conducive to learning. Learning what? How do we organise "massively" many learners to learn the same thing from ALL different prospective without making the environment as dull as drills of marching soldiers?

As noted in a previous post Learning to Play to Learn - Lessons in Educational Game Design, the "gameness" of a game is more than "fancy graphics, well-written stories, or point-based rewards". One of the important factor I have identified was the genuine ability to make choice and face the consequence of the choice made. To see the effect of the choice you made, you need to see changes in the behaviour of the other players (as in the role). When you are in a "massive" multiplayer environment, such effect will have a big rippling effect on the whole system. This will make experimentation much more difficult than in a smaller role play simulation environment.

Am I still interested in Massive Multiplayer Online Gaming as a teaching and learning environment? Yes, I am. But, I am yet to figure out how to use such an environment. Pleae enlighten me.

Knowing When to Log Off

via Stephen Downes' OLDaily.

Stephen correctly pointed out that switching off from the Internet is not a good strategy.

Seasoned Internet veterans know that this just makes information overload worse, because the information doesn't stop piling up just because you've logged off. The key (in my mind) is to stop treating information like a thing, stop treating it as though it were a pile of required reading, but to sample and filter and redirect, to taste and digest and manipulate as needed.

I envy Stephen's ability to filter through evidently huge amount of information daily to bring us the gems.

As I read the article myself, I feel that some of the people out there seem to want to dig their heads in the sand and assume that the world will stop and wait for them. I agree that we need quality time to reflect and reason. I also feel that creativity and innovation are stimulated when I see new ideas (or new application of ideas). If I always read the same person, I can basically predict what I am reading. If I read messages or articles in new domains, I may find application for my own area of interest. Then stop, reflect, try, experiment, further research, talk to peers and make incremental innovations.

Reflecting on my own past, my first significant "invention" is the local area network for Apple ][ computers using its game port. Several different "domains" of knowledge were pulled together. Earlier that year, I heard a presentation about the ISO layer network architecture. Being a Physics student and teacher, I had electronic and digital logic training. I played games on Apple ][ and had experience using the game port as an interface with school Physics experiments for my students (again, that was something I read about from the Scotland Physics projects). At that time, I was fascinated by the CPU designs, OS design, computer algorithms and so on. I also knew how to extend the Basic in Applesoft.

All these seemingly diverse interest pulled together and with the help of four of my brilliant students, we managed to create a local area network connecting those Apple ][ I had at my school laboratory using our own cable and connectors, network software and server software.

Yes, in the 80's, information overload was not as serious as today. Stephen's suggestion, together with a sense of knowing when to stop and encourage in serious thinking, will be a pre-requisite for survival in the new information era.