International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

An electronic publication, twice annually by Center for Excellence in Teaching at Georgia Southern University.

As a way to learn about various perspectives on teaching and learning, it will be greatly appreciated by educational theorists and practitioners. Visitors to the site can learn how to submit manuscripts, learn about the review process, and read details about the editorial review board. Some of their recent articles include “Dialogic Communication in Collaborative Problem Solving Groups” and “What’s It Really All About? The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning as an Authentic Practice.”

Ethics Challenges & Information

David Warlick posted the following questions to his readers and then posted his own response.

"What is your greatest challenge in teaching appropriate, ethical use of web-based media to your students?”

I totally agree with the opening of his response: Content is becoming increasingly networked, digital, overwhelming. Perhaps even more crucial to this discussion is the fact that information has become nearly impossible to contain. There is a critical difference between information and material goods. Information is information is information. Information itself needs a media before it can be manifested. The incremental cost of producing extra copies of the information is decreasing rapidly. Information cannot exist without a media. (Here, media refers NOT to the paper or the plastic of the CD. Media here refers to the community-built system of symbols that the information is used.)

One moral question which we, perhaps most teachers included, has to struggle with - and we can see lots of such discussion especially related to the notion "information wants to be free" - is the concept of Intellectual Property. Is information a property that one can own and hence can demand exclusivity of that property? How and what is the harm to the owner if someone else also enjoys an extra copy of the same information? More fundamentally, should there be an owner of information?

I am writing this post, so common law asserts that I own the copyright of this post. Let say I try to lock away this post so that you are NOT allowed to quote, copy etc... any of this post. So from now on, you are NOT allowed to use any alphabets that I have used in this post without my permission. (Ooops, I did not use the letter z, so you may use it. But now you can't because I have just used it!)

You might say, "No, copyright does not apply to the components of your post. You only have the copyright of your whole piece - the part that is original!"

OK, in fact I used the alphabets which already existed! The alphabets are not my original ideas and hence I cannot restrict others to use them. But is there ANY original idea here? I recycled words. If I have invented all new words in create this post, it will make no sense to you (because you won't know any of the invented words) and hence defeat the purpose of writing this post to communication. So does arranging words constitute originality? In fact, how many new arrangements of words are here? Probably not much, if any!

Strictly speaking, I cannot own any of this post! There is just no "original" parts here.

"I did work in writing this post and if you are enjoying my writing, should I be rewarded?", some may argue.

Right! If I don't want you to read this, I should NOT have published it in the first place. Now thst I have published it, I am demanding reward from you. I am enjoying multiple rewards - the joy of writing and joy of having a readership. My initial motivation to write is already satisfied. Asking for more, to me, seems to be too greedy.

Well, this piece may be too trivial. There are other information that represents a lot of work and they should be protected. OK, if that the case, keep it as a secret. It is unfair for you to plant an idea in my mind and then limit my use of the same idea! Once an idea has gone into my mind, there is no way to unload that information. I may even argue that the information "owner" should pay us to compensate for the damage (if loading a piece of useless information into our mind).

Without an understanding of "property" and how it may be applied to information, the ethical journey has hardly begun.

coop Top Level Domain

This is the first time I see a website with a top level domain of coop. I guess it stands for co-operation. http://energy.biofuels.coop/ The website itself is about energy use and sustainability.

Roleplaysim.org is up again

I did not realise that the resources on role play simulation were down, probably for a whole month. It is now up and running.

If you have published any paper on the use of role play simulation, please let me know. I would like to link to your paper if possible.

Never Discussed

via OLDaily

Like Stephen, I agree with Roger Schank's observation that many things are not discussed, or even forbidden to be discussed in school environment.

I understand and totally agree that "School as an instrument of indoctrination" should be made more transparent and acknowleged.

My question is, "Is there anything topic that *really* should NOT be mentioned?" E.g. the debate between evolution theory and creation theory. Should the latter, being totally rubbish, be allowed at all? (OK, this is not the best example! But I hope you get my point!)

The Eureka Moment

I was reading an article by Guenther Knoblich and Michael Oellinger of the same title of this post in the November/December 2006 issue of Scientific American Mind.

The opening paragraph is
Albert Einstein finally hit on the core idea underlying his famous theory of relativity one night after months of intense mathematical exercises. He had given himself a break from the work and let his imagination wander about the concepts of space and time. Various images that came to mind prompted him to try a thought experiment: If two bolts of lightning struck the front and back of a moving train at the same time, would an observer standing beside the track and an observer standing on the moving train see the strikes as simultaneous? ...

As a Physics students (I even named myself after Einstein), I am ashamed to admit that I have not read that original paper. Now with search so easily done on my desk, I googled and found the English translation of the paper: On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies. It was a delightful and satisfying reading.

During the search I also found an essay "'What Song the Syrens Sang': How Did Einstein Discover Special Relativity?" by John Stachel written in 1983.

How did Einstein's Eureka Moment occur?

The Eureka moment might have occurred, as described by Guenther Knoblich and Michael Oellinger in a night suddenly, but Einstein himself had said
"A new idea comes suddenly and in a rather intuitive way. That means it is not reached by conscious logical conclusions. But, thinking it through afterwards, you can always discover the reasons which have led you unconsciously to your guess and you will find a logical way to justify it. Intuition is nothing but the outcome of earlier intellectual experience."

The essay by John Stachel gave a good account of the earlier intellectual experience. The final Eureka moment might be [quoting John Stachel]:
[John Stachel] believe that the first principle, the relativity principle, recapitulates his struggles with the mechanical ether concept which led finally to the first crucial liberation of his thought - the abandonment of the ether. The second principle, the principle of the constancy of the speed of light, recapitulates his struggle, once he had definitely opted for the relativity principle, first to evade the Maxwell-Lorentz theory by an emission theory; then to isolate what was still valid in the Maxwell Lorentz theory after giving up the ether concept and abandoning absolute faith in the wave theory of light. The struggle to reconcile the two principles could only end successfully after the second great liberation of his thought: the relativisation of the concept of time.

As reported by Mark Jung-Beeman, Edward M. Bowden, Jason Haberman, Jennifer L. Frymiare, Stella Arambel-Liu, Richard Greenblatt, Paul J. Reber, John Kounios in
Neural Activity When People Solve Verbal Problems with Insight,
Functional magnetic resonance imaging [snip] revealed increased activity in the right hemisphere anterior superior temporal gyrus for insight relative to noninsight solutions. The same region was active during initial solving efforts. Scalp electroencephalogram recordings [snip] revealed a sudden burst of high-frequency (gamma-band) neural activity in the same area beginning 0.3 s prior to insight solutions. This right anterior temporal area is associated with making connections across distantly related information during comprehension. Although all problem solving relies on a largely shared cortical network, the sudden flash of insight occurs when solvers engage distinct neural and cognitive processes that allow them to see connections that previously eluded them.

Also as noted in the article in Scientific American Mind,
step by step problem solving took place mainly in the left hemisphere, through the conscious application of logical rules, which would rely on deliberate language. The right hemisphere, [snip] played a critical role in solving insight problems, which require restructuring - a spatial task. Individual would experience a eureka moment only when the right hemisphere sent the solution to the left hemisphere, thereby putting the solution into discernible terms.

Intrinsic Motivation Learning Design

Way back in May 2005, Scot Aldred posted this piece which is still 100% relevent today. How slowly has education/learning theory advanced?!!

Up until recently, the concept of external motivators has worked well enough for schools and universities who use the lure of certification to ensure that most of their students apply themselves and attain the institutions’ requirements for a qualification.

Scot suggested PBL (problem-based learning) as a potential candidate for providing a more intrinsic motivation. I see role play simulation as an enhanced form of PBL in which we have added game goals in order to give players a more enjoyable learning experience.

Recently, I have been thinking what are the essense of a game when used in a learning situation. I am now starting to converge to two key elements:
1. the underlying context model (simulator if you like, which provides the "content")
2. game goals which provide the motivation for the players within the game context.

The key to designing a good education game is matching game goals with learning objectives. Game goals should be achieved, or better achieved, if the requirement knowledge as specifiied in the learnig objectives have been mastered.

If we can take apart a commercial game and modify either the game goal and/or the simulator, we should be able to create more engaging games.

I think, this is a big IF!

OLPC to include Australia?

From today's Age:

The One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project aims to put low-cost laptops into the hands of impoverished children in the developing world, but work is already underway to trial them among indigenous populations in Australia.

Proponent acknowledges one major hurdle:

refining the software to a point where it is intuitive and bug-free^*, as it is unlikely there will be anyone living among the target populations with the technical expertise to troubleshoot configuration problems when they arise.

While providing affordable hardware to the hands of students may be necessary condition for participation in digital world, it is NEVER the sufficient condition to ensure effective use of the hardware. There are lots of promising uses of digital technology in learning, most educators are still stuggling to understand how digital technology can be fully integrated into k-12 schooling. Hope DEET can understand this and also put in matching initiatives to ensure any available hardware are put to good use.

^*Is it possible that a software can be bug-free?

Running is OK, standing is NOT

A strange behaviour of non-newtonian liquid (dilatants - fluids become solid when stressed).


Of course it will be good to be able to do this at a school laboratory. But if you are thinking this is too much, use this smaller version in the laboratory instead.


or this


Science is FUN!

Microformat & MetaData

Is the world going round and round?

When "IT professionals" discover metadata, everyone is going after it. Well the librarians have years of experience in cataloging information already! The debate, when covering a very diverse set of communities, has difficulty in standardising "metadata elements" and the allowed values in set of the "controlled vocabulary". Everyone has different needs and when politics take front set (and most politicians can code!), metadata is like dead-sea.

Microformat makes use of classes in tags to add "meaning" to the html elements. The class is like "metadata element". We need agreement so that it can inter-operate.

When will they ever learn? When will they ever learn? - I heard my CD playing.

This time around, microformat is driven by coders, people who actually put html elements together. Hopefully, it will not end up like metadata!

Physics problem: Poof and Foop

Mark Frauenfelder of Boingboing posted a Physics MC quiz:

This is a stumper. If a can of compressed air is punctured and the escaping air blows to the right, the can will move to the left in a rocket-like fashion. Now consider a vacuum can that is punctured. The air blows to the left as it enters the can. After the vacuum is filled the can will

a) be moving to the left
b) be moving to the right
c) not be moving

As always, the answers (including explanation) submitted are interesting read and review a lot about mis/concept of Physics. All the submitted answers are here.

Research-Based Learning Blogs

First of all, thank you for including this blog as a "research-based learning blog". Frankly, I only do desk-top research and look at data from Fablusi implementations. But I blog a wide range of subjects of interest to me.

I share with Doug that there are several "walls" dividing educational researchers and education partitioners. Presenting research results in conferences is too expensive and targets only the same group of people. Publishing results in journal can only reach those in univerities, likely to be teachers-to-be rather than real teachers. Blogging, again is blocked by unnecessary firewalls and filters. The practising teaching professionals, unfortunately, working in isolation, do not provide a good environment to advance this field.

Is this indicative of the attention span of web-reader?

[Disclaimer: I was accused of skip-reading years back and I am a serial committer of the same crime. The following is completely speculative!]

Boingboing pointed to a post Female beauty: Ruebens - today which is itself a summary from Dissastifaction with our bodies/eating disorders by Lillith Gallery. The former is a series of photos with minimal description whereas the latter (using the same photos as illustrations) is a lengthly piece. The latter (original as clearly indicated by the former) does not allow comment, so I don't know if the readers would have the same reaction. The interesting thing is the first few reactions from the readers in the former post.

For a short history, yours seems to be quite revisionist. The women shown in the first two paintings aren’t typical ideal women from the 1600’s & 1800’s at all, my guess is you simply chose them to illustrate your rather flimsy “point”.

Since when does boingboing link pages with less merit than a bad grade school essay?

I’m going to have to go ahead and say HIGHLY doubtful.
First of all, you have no proof on whether the Rubens and Renoir represent “ideal” female form of the time, or if they were merely the only women they were able to get to pose nude.
Second, you COMPLETELY skipped the 30’s and 40’s and only giving one example for every other decade.
Last, If you look at examples that actually represent the ideal female form to males (pornography), from the 50’s on to present day the “ideal” female form has pretty much stayed the same.. curves and breasts. If you’re talking the ideal female form to females (fashion magazines) then you’ll find the slender, slim, stupid skinny sharp feature girls pretty much from the 70’s on to present day. Since when was Karen Carpenter’s anorexia EVER considered an ideal female form by anyone? I know more guys that would have chewed off their own leg to sleep with a Russ Meyer girl or Farah Fawcett. I’ve never heard of anyone that thought Karen Carpenter was hot, female or male.

I am going to have to say this is probably one of the most disappointing articles/websites boingboing has ever linked to

Here are my speculative summary:
Web-reader reacts, like me, to the immediately presented information without too much thought given to what s/he wants to say.

Web-reader forgets about the original purpose of the website once s/he gets used to the website (here, I am refering to Boingboing) and switchs back to the way s/he always percieve information. What I am trying to say here is that the two readers who left the two quoted comments above come from an academic background and forget that "BoingBoing is NOT the pinnacle of information, but just a pool of interesting web savvy."

Discussion is where the learning really occurs. A few comment down, here is an example:

Just because the author used only two examples of the weight of women in the 1600 and 1800 doesn’t mean that was the artists preference. Being thin during that time was a sign of poverty. It meant you didn’t have enough to eat or the nutrients to gain and maintain weight. Just as in that time as well women were ideally never tanned. If a woman was tan it meant she was also poor. She worked in the fields. She didn’t have servants to care for her SHE was the caregiver.

In addition I believe the author’s use of Karen Carpenter and her Anorexia is simply to show how women and society has grown towards women should be these thin, whisper of a being. Anorexia is one of the biggest problems facing young girls today. There are advocates and websites devoted to advocacy of it.

Discussion is triggered by stupid responses at the beginning. I doubt if there were no such response at the beginning, there would have such lively discussion later on.

The power of A-list website is also clearly demonstrated there as well. The original post was posted on 12.27.2006 (What!! there is no month 27th! Sorry it must be the American.) 27th December, 2006. The flood of comments started on January 5, 2007. The two comments I reported here at the beginning belonged to those coming from Boingboing.

Roger Schank, an educator or not?

Here are some quotes from his blog Education's Place for Debate

[All emphasis are mine.]

On November 03, 2006 he wrote,

Universities dictate curricula to high schools to make professor’s lives easier. If everyone takes physics and calculus and most never use it, well, professors claim it was good for the students anyway when in fact it was only good for making sure professors didn’t have to teach it in college. As long as professors don’t have to teach the basics it is okay that high school students are forced to study stuff they will never use in their whole lives. We have ruined an entire generation of high school students who don’t like learning and think the subject matter is irrelevant because professors only want to teach the good stuff.

We sacrifice the joy of learning for an entire generation so professors can have an easier time teaching incoming students.

On December 15, 2006 he wrote,

we need to make education exciting and interesting. ... If we did all that we would get more Americans interested in math and science because we would get more Americans actually interested in being in school.

This quote is also true if we remove the reference to "America".

On January 02, 2007 he wrote,

* To teach someone to reason one does not have to teach about congruent triangles.
* To teach someone to write effectively, one does not have to ask them about themes in Shakespeare.
* To teach someone about daily economics one does not have to teach about tariff acts.
* To teach someone to be a good citizen one does not need to know about Lincoln or Washington but about how to analyze for truth in what current Presidents are saying.
* To teach someone to be employable, one does not have to teach nearly any subject required by colleges for admission.


Let’s think again folks. Education is about teaching people how to live and how to make a living (to paraphrase John Adams.) We have plenty of intellectuals. Feeding the colleges is not the priority of the modern day high school -- making high functioning citizens is.

I think he is a greate educator!

Attention of the world leading thinkers

via BoingBoing

The Edge Annual Question — 2007

As an activity, as a state of mind, science is fundamentally optimistic. Science figures out how things work and thus can make them work better. Much of the news is either good news or news that can be made good, thanks to ever deepening knowledge and ever more efficient and powerful tools and techniques. Science, on its frontiers, poses more and ever better questions, ever better put.

What are you optimistic about? Why? Surprise us!

Of the 157 responses, the following are related to education/learning:

HOWARD GARDNER (Psychologist, Harvard University; Author, Five Minds for the Future): Early Detection of Learning Disabilities or Difficulties

KEITH DEVLIN (Mathematician; Executive Director, Center for the Study of Language and Information, Stanford; Author, The Millennium Problems): We Will Finally Get Mathematics Education Right

JAMSHED BHARUCHA (Professor of Psychology, Provost, Senior Vice President, Tufts University): The Globalization Of Higher Education

DAVID DALRYMPLE (Student, MIT's Center for Bits and Atoms; Researcher, Internet 0, Fab Lab Thinner Clients for South Africa, Conformal Computing): Technology in Education

CHRIS ANDERSON (Editor in Chief, Wired Magazine; Author, The Long Tail): Metcalfe's Law of Minds

LEON LEDERMAN (Physicist and Nobel Laureate; Director Emeritus, Fermilab; Coauthor, The God Particle): The Coming Revolution in Science Education>

and the following that may be somehow linked to education/learning:

DANIEL EVERETT (Researcher of Pirahã Culture; Chair of Languages, Literatures, & Cultures, Professor of Linguistics and Anthropology, Illinois State University): Humans Will Learn to Learn From Diversity

ROGER SCHANK (Psychologist & Computer Scientist; Engines for Education Inc.; Author, Making Minds Less Well Educated than Our Own): The End of the Commoditization of Knowledge

REBECCA GOLDSTEIN (Philosopher, Harvard University; Author, Betraying Spinoza):We Have the Capacity to Understand One Another

TERRENCE SEJNOWSKI (Computational Neuroscientist, Salk Institute, Coauthor, The Computational Brain): A Breakthrough in Understanding Intelligence is around the Corner

GARY MARCUS (Psychologist, New York University; Author, The Birth of the Mind): Metacognition For Kids

Since the original question is asking "WHAT ARE YOU OPTIMISTIC ABOUT?", the answer is inclined to be speculative. However, the number 6 out of 157 does indicate the "mind-share" of this non-representative group about the importance (or lack of) of education/learning.

Top 100 Education Blogs

This blog is very proud to be included in the Top 100 education blogs under the learning category : "The focus of these blogs is on learning theory, informal learning, and knowledge."

Thank you.

Informal Learning - an oxymoron?

I searched and posted a short list of various definitions I found on the web on "informal learning" because this term just seems to be wrong in some way.

I always believe that learning is an effort, an explicitly executed effort by the learner. To me, one of the most important measure of the effect of learning is whether [the result of a previous learning] can be called upon [in the future] to service a need.

This does not mean that the "effort" must be great and hard. It can actually be very enjoyable and satisfying. Just like the effort I am putting in now to try to understand what is "informal learning" and hence will improve the way I teach (not likely any more) or design my learnware.

Of course, such a definition of learning will post a problem for unintentional learning. Can unintentional learning really happen?

To me, informal learning refers to learning that is not officially organised. "Official" here refers to your employer, or if you are a student your school.

---
A note on just-in-time learning: Again I think there is something wrong with this term. When we face a problem, we call upon our "search skill" to find the information needed to solve the problem. The information is NOT just-in-time learning. The information is the result of an action which we have learnt before - the search skill. How many times we search for the same piece of information to solve the same problem? It is because we DID NOT MAKE an effort to take in that piece of information (ie we did not learn) so that we need to search for the same piece of information over and over again. The learnt skill that was used in this situation is the "search skill" which has been learnt before!

Informal Learning - some definitions

Informal work-related adult education activities that take place without an instructor. Examples of such activities include on-the-job demonstrations by a supervisor or coworker; on-the-job mentoring or supervised training; self-paced study using books, videos, or computer-based software; attendance at brown-bag or informal presentations; and attendance at conferences, trade shows, or conventions related to one’s work or career. [nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/glossary/i.asp]

Informal learning: Refers to learning resulting from daily work-related, family or leisure activities.
[www.oecd.org/document/25/0,2340,en_2649_37455_37136921_1_1_1_37455,00.html]

Occurs in everyday life and may not even be recognized as learning by the individual.
[www.nald.ca/adultlearningcourse/glossary.htm]

links to explorations of learning through participation in the life of a group or association (also talks about "informal learning as an administrative concept")[www.infed.org/biblio/inf-lrn.htm]

# Formal learning takes place in education and training institutions leading to recognised diplomas and qualifications
# Non-formal learning takes place alongside the mainstream systems of education and training and does not typically lead to formal certification, e.g. learning and training activities undertaken in the workplace, voluntary sector or trade union and through community-based learning
# Informal learning can be defined as experiential learning and takes place through life and work experiences. It is often unintentional learning. The learner may not recognise at the time of the experience that it contributed to the development of their skills and knowledge. This recognition may only happen retrospectively through the RPL process, unless the experiences take place as part of a planned experiential, or work-based learning programme
[www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2004/04/19205/35608 The same text is also referred at
www.elearning-reviews.org/topics/pedagogy/educational-principles/2004-straka-informal-learning-genealogy-concepts-antagonisms-questions/]

People don't learn - informally or otherwise - when they are not doing anything. Informal learning isn't 'water cooler learning'. People learn when they are doing something. Informal learning is the learning you do while you're in the process of doing something else. [OLDaily - Stephen Downes]

Open Educational Resources – anonymity vs. specificity

via OLDaily

The term "OER" may be new, the concept is nothing but new. Teachers use resources everyday, in every lesson, under every situation. Some of the resources used are specifically developed for educational use, but many are just resources that are conveniently available at the time. The former is called "educational resource" and the latter are also "educational resource" because they are used educationally! [Photo caption: Yesteryear, we have blackboard and chalk (educational resources), ages ago, Chinese mother taught her children using stick to write on sand!]

Under most copyright regime, educational use of resources are covered by exceptions (fair use in most countries, and exceptions in Australia).

The paper correctly points out a commonly known problem to educational resource:

the specificity of educational resources, which are usually made to fit into a specific teaching/learning context

By comparing to OSS (Open Source Software development), the author identified the inherent difference between OSS and OER:

OpenSource initiatives show a very centralistic attitude regarding the communication between the contributing 'hackers'. Responsibility for the coordination of one project is clearly given to one person and so called forking, i.e. looking for different solutions to the same problem, is held as an exception and needs very good reasons to be accepted by the community (Raymond 1998).

With such centric structures of communication the medial conditions of the Internet foster the production of common goods....

In contrast, the production of OER though based on the same Internet-technologies is highly dispersed....

I may also add that the learning context of every learner is unique and hence "common goods" is not necessarily good for learners as there is just no such learner called "common learner".

I like the author's conclusion:

The main resistance to the flow of OER is rather to be found in their dispersedness and the need for adaptation to a new local context. Both in the field of their production and usage OER have to counterbalance this 'disadvantage' in relation to existing and successful open networks, because as long as the effort for finding suitable resources is expected to be higher than the expected effort to create them oneself, the network will not gain critical mass and the potential of OER for global learning is not used optimally. Neither institutional backing nor strong community attitudes will gain sustainable success otherwise.

So what is the future of OER, I wonder?

[Photo from flickr. If this post has helped anyone understands a bit more about the use of resources in educational circumstances, this post may be considered an educational resource. My use of this photo is just because it was conveniently available to remotely illustrate a point.]

Season Greeting

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* The wishee may not without wishor's prior written approval disclose to any third party the results of any benchmark test of the performance of the greeting.

* The wishee expressly acknowledges and agrees that in order to protect the integrity of certain third party mechanism of enjoying the wishes, the wishor may provide for security related updates that will be automatically downloaded and installed on your holiday itinerary. Such security related updates may impair the movement, enjoyment (and any other activities during your holiday which specifically depends on the said wishes) including disabling your ability to laugh and/or smile, i.e. certain way of enjoying a holiday protected by digital rights management.

* The wisher reserves the right, at any time and from time to time, to update, revise, supplement, and otherwise modify this Agreement and to impose new or additional rules, policies, terms, or conditions on your use of the wishes. Such updates, revisions, supplements, modifications, and additional rules, policies, terms, and conditions (collectively referred to in this Agreement as "Additional Terms") will be effective immediately and incorporated into this Agreement. The wishee's continued enjoyment of the wishes following will be deemed to constitute the wishee's acceptance of any and all such Additional Terms. All Additional Terms are hereby incorporated into this Agreement by this reference.

How to Exercise an Open Mind

Simply put, doing unique, random, different, and ridiculous things is a good way to exercise the mind and promote new ways of thinking about the world around us. One hour of increased brain activity via thinking a lot or experiencing new stimuli can make you smarter, more energetic, more creative, more sociable, and more open to new experiences and ways of thinking. Here are some of the endless numbers of activities that can stimulate your brain. The key ingredients are to to be open to new experiences, and changes in previous ways of thinking about these experiences.

Not sure how sure (or scientific) are these claims, but fun anyway to follow some of the suggestions such as:

[2] Stimulate your eyes in new ways. Look at different art sites such as deviantART or Seventh Complex Digital ArtWorks. Go to a cheap or free art gallery. Even if you think it's bad art, it can still be stimulating and thought provoking.
[4] While waiting (in line at the bank, a coffee shop, a restaurant, the grocery store, or waiting for someone to pick you up, or a show on TV to start), ponder things, calculate, memorize. You can, for example, memorize digits of Pi (you can get to 50 in a matter of hours, 200 in a matter of weeks),...
[5] Take unusual classes. Find a community college or community-based educational program near you, pick up a catalog, and open your mind to learning things like Art History,...
[10] Learn how to write backwards. Leonardo DaVinci, the quintessential Renaissance man and a jack-of-all-trades, wrote all of his notes backwards so that they could only be read with a mirror.
[16] Try foods you have never tried.

and many more. [The list suggested 42 things you can do.]

Tagged!

Karyn Romeis has tagged me with the five things meme. So here it is.

1. I was born in Hong Kong, studied Physics and had taught Physics at Senior Secondary Schools for almost 15 years. (Yes, I still remember quite a bit of Secondary school Physics - although I have forgotten most of my University work.) I worked at Hong Kong University at a Senior Computer Officer at a distributed teacher support system for English language teachers before I migrated to Australia.


2. Albert is NOT on my passport. In my Secondary school, my English teacher, Mr Clifton Chan, asked everyone to make ourselves a Christain name. At that time, my surname was actually spelt as Yip¹, so I wanted a name which would move me into the front of a name list. I admire Einstein so much that I named myself after him. (At that time, I don't know there is a name called Aaron! But I guess I may have still called myself Albert - naming after Einstein should have a highly priority at that stage of my life.)


3. Before I came to Australia, the only one who would regularly calls me Albert is my girl friend / wife. (Of course besides the long lost classmate and Mr. Chan)


4. We arrived Melbourne in July. With my experience in Physics teaching and that Australia needed Science teachers, I thought I should be able to get a teaching job quite easily. After sending over 300 application letters and scoring not a single interview, I landed three jobs on Christmas eve that year, all related to Computer which I have no formal qualification; a help desk support, a teaching job in Computer Science and a developer job for multilingual project.


5. I am a very dull and un-fun human being. I don't like sport. I don't listen to music. I don't drink, gamble nor smoke. I watch TV only when I am VERY VERY tired. I read Physics journal as my bedside reading. But I am curious. I like anything new and different. I like to read anything that stimulates my mind. I surf (not on water) most of my wake up hours.

Here is my five victims (blogs) for the five things meme in the order of my reading list:
Artichoke
Christopher D. Sessums
EdGames
e-Learning Acupuncture
E-Learning Queen

Sorry for all those good bloggers lower than what I have reached here on reading list, I am reading you, but only you are not the victim of this meme. Think of yourself being lucky!

¹Yes, my immediate family (my natural father and natural brother and sisters all have different spelling of our family name) all have different spelling of our family name. At that time, I was following the spelling of my father's family name (naturally). It is only when I entered University that I discover the family name on my birth certificate is Ip and hence had changed to Ip since.

Chinese, traditional or simplified

Keen readers may notice that "Random Walk in Learning" had no post at the beginning of December. It was because I was in Beijing and Hong Kong.

There was no posting not because of Internet connection. In fact in Beijing, the hotel I was staying had free broadband Internet in every room (yes, some rooms' connection were not working). In Hong Kong, I was staying with my sister who had very fast broadband as well. There was no posting during that time because I was overwhelmed with all the experiences that I needed time to absorb.

My last visit to Beijing would be over 20 years ago. This time, my impression of Chinese capital has totally changed. It is modern, fast moving and lively. People are much nicer too. Girls are beautiful, modern and well dressed. Weather was cold and with high wind-chill factor.

I spent one day alone in the Forbidden City (currently the national museum) and sometimes in a local book store. These two visits formed the most heart-arching experience I have for a long time.

As I walked slowly pass the historical display of work in the Forbidden City, I found that I can read the words on these thousands-year old document, word by word. Although some of the usage may seem strange, but I can read them and understand what was written on these historical records. Chinese written form has been stable for the last 3 to 4 thousand years.

When I was flipping books in a local book store, my heart sunk. Books are in simplified Chinese. As I look around, I was wondering how many of the young people who were also browsing would be able to read the historical work in the Forbidden City.

Traditional Chinese has about 56,000 characters. Simplified Chinese has about 3,000 characters. Hence it is necessary that several traditional characters be mapped to a single character. Just from an information entropy angle, a huge amount of information has been lost in such a mapping process.

I want to start a project. A project to estimate how much Chinese culture has been lost due to the use of Simplified Chinese. If anyone can help, please contact me.

It's virtual social interaction

via Mary Noggle by STEPHEN MAJORS

Computer simulations, which have for years been used by the military and airlines, increasingly are finding their way into professions such as teaching, policing, sales and other fields that depend more on interpersonal skills than technical proficiency.

The STAR Classroom Simulator [snip] mixes computer technology and a human role-player.

[snip]

Computer simulations, which have for years been used by the military and airlines, increasingly are finding their way into professions such as teaching, policing, sales and other fields that depend more on interpersonal skills than technical proficiency.

If I have read the article correctly, basically what these simulations have done is to can responses by human actor in an attempt to provide a wider range of responses than the current AI can support.

My question: Why do developers always think of developing an application for "solo" learners? Why don't we leverage on the knowledge of peer learners - let's role play!

Educators explore 'Second Life' online

In a special series on "Welcome to the future", CNN reports on educators using 'Second life'. The story talked about

The three-dimensional virtual world makes it possible for students taking a distance course to develop a real sense of community, said Rebecca Nesson, who leads a class jointly offered by Harvard Law School and Harvard Extension School in the world of "Second Life."

Frankly, I don't see the value of holding a regular class in 'Second life'.

A real good use of 'Second Life' I know of is by Lars Lundsten (I hope I have remembered the name correctly. If not, my sincere apology) in Helsinki, Finland. He taught a course in Department of Commerce where the entire course was run within 'Second Life' and course participants ran virtual organisations and businesses within 'Second Life'. 'Second Life' is NOT used as a classroom, but a space where simulated business practices were run and experienced.

In parallel, a multimedia course by Owen Kelly, partnering with Lars Lundsten created all the virtual campus, houses, companies headquarters etc. in 'Second Life' as "virtual contractors" for the commerce students.

That's creative use of the new technology. Yet-another-classroom is definitely a poor use of 'Second Life'.

Issue-enquiry Approach

It seems to me that this term is used mainly in Hong Kong education discussion. When you do a Google search, the document 4. 課程內容 is a good introduction to this approach. [Don't be intimated by the Chinese title, the article is actually in English.]

From the document:

(a) The issue-enquiry approach implies a learning/teaching methodology in which a learner searches for relevant solutions to a problem and can argue reasonably for and against the possible solutions. Its techniques encourage students to be inquisitive, to develop solutions by questioning and research and to find possible solutions for themselves.

(b) The approach centres on the development of skills that enable students to identify, investigate, understand, evaluate issues and offer solutions for them. Pre-determined positions on the part of students might be modified by discussion, and consensus may evolve but is not a necessary outcome. They should be encouraged and be given opportunities to gather essential information for these purposes. Strongly held, reasonable non-consensual views should be respected.

The following are some of the basic questions to be considered in order to make the issue-enquiry approach effective:

(a) What is the issue?
(b) Why does this issue arise?
(c) What areas are covered by this issue?
(d) What kinds of questions do students wish to raise about the issue?
(e) How might they obtain the basic information?
(f) How can they distinguish between facts and opinions?
(g) Are there different approaches to this issue?
(h) What possible solutions seem to arise from research and analysis?
(i) How viable are the alternatives?

This looks like a good approach to teach subjects which have no black and white answer.

Educational Games and Serious Games

I attended a workshop in Beijing during ICCE2006 on using games in education. My position has been written up. That did not mean that I was against using games in education. I was saying that for "formal" education, using commercial off-the-shelf games to teach specific learning content IS not possible NOR a good approach.

During the discussion at ICCE006 , there was a consensus (most of the participants were from education, except a game developers focusing on delivering games for education) that research was needed to understand more about the use of games in education. I reminded the audience that game designers are also interested in developing games for education, which they call "serious games".

Given that we have two communities approaching a problem from two directions, I suggested that we should start to bridge the gap. An identified gap would be the linkage between "game goals" and "learning objectives". I was reminded that "there are Learning objectives and there are Learning objectives". I totally agree. Similarly, we can also say "there are game goals and there are game goals".

Both learning objectives and game goals are heavily debated and are evolving within respective community. However, they would at least provide a stable link between the community if we can accept the following definitions:

Game goal is the position a player wants to achieve at the end of the game within the context of the game. It is the “winning” position. Learning objectives are things an external institute (one who provided the games in the first place) wants the players to acquire during and/or after playing the game.

[from Why Commerical Off the Shelf Games Will Not Work in Education? And What Is The Alternative? ]

Frankly, I don't know how these communities can collaborate/co-operate to come to a mutual beneficial understanding to develop this field.

Your reaction required

[from http://carabassa.org/elbloc/node/362]

The above picture shows a boiled egg, in a special cubric form. What is your reaction?
Cool
Uh, why?

The above question divides the people into two categories: those who can survive in the new age and those who won't. Which category are you?

[The way I see this: The new world needs people who are curious about new thing. We no longer need people who just follow old rules - may be except in developing countries where and when you are part of a production line.]

All e-learning should be entirely templated.

via OLDaily.

I especially like Stephen's summary, reproduced entirely here:

In this article, [author] presents an [article type] on [technology type]. The point of the article is [conclusion]. This is similar to something I said in [previous article], which of course [is now|is not] mainstream. [Edublogger] once also said [comment], but was [wrong|deluded]. In my opinion, [author] is right when [he|she] says [something I said], but misses the point when [he|she] says [something I never thought of].

Since I started my research in creating learning technical systems, I have realised that there are at least three communities involved in this process, listed below in reverse order of importance .

1. Technologist which produces technical platform in which learning may occur. Examples include web servers, discussion forum, blogging software, Fablusi online role play simulation platform, etc.
2. Educator/Learning facilitator who uses the technical platform to deliver the learning. This includes customising the content of the platform (e.g. using blogging software in the learning process, creating/putting subject matter specific content into the platform,...)
3. Learner who uses the technical platform to learn.

The lowest level is "reading" material created by [2] in [1]. (Think first generation web: lecture notes on the web in which web is [1], the lecture notes is by [2] and [3] reads.) We have since moved from this model. For example, [2] may identify a specific [1] implementation and ask [3] to use [1] to post learning episodes.

Note: "ask [3] to use [1]" is somewhat an action of [2].

Speaking possibility requested

I tried to plan for a round-the-world trip last November and did not eventuate. I am planning a trip for March to June time in 2007 again.

I intend to leave Melbourne and travel East. The first stop may be Samoa visiting National University of Samoa, time to be confirmed pending any other proposal in the West coast / middle USA. I will be presenting at The International Conference on College Teaching and Learning with Mary Noggle on Rapid Creation of Innovative Online Role Play – Two Case Studies in USA East coast (Florida) on April 2-5, 2007. This stop is now fixed in my itinerary and the rest of the trip will have to work around this.

Then, I hope I will have opportunity to stop over in UK or Europe before paying a visiting to Chinese University of Hong Kong in late April or early May.

If you like to provide me an opportunity to talk on role play simulation, game-based learning, learning technology standards and (you know what I am interested in), please contact me. (albert dot ip dot w dot c at gmail dot com)

Is the world flat?

According to the statistics displayed/animated by GapMinder.org, it is. See a "worth-more-than-the-time-you-spent-watching"¹ presentation (20mins).

Gapminder.org hosts a number of flash files which allows you or your students to look at available data in new and exciting ways. This would definitely stimulate much more informed discussion about the world we are living in.

¹We can read much faster than people can speak/show. I found podcasting a step backward because I am forced to get in the information at the speed dictated by the presenter/podcaster instead of my ability! So I decided to refer to all future recommendation based on whether it is worth the time you spent watching. Here is the first one I categorise multimedia in this way.

Deaf culture

I have normal hearing, so I don't know what is "deaf culture" and don't know whether such a culture is worth keeping.

The culture war is started by Richard Dowell at the University of Melbourne showed that 11 profoundly deaf children who received cochlear implants before the age of 1 had entirely normal language development at least up to age 4 to 5. There is a general agreement based on research that the earlier the deaf child has a cochlear implant, the better, or more normal, the language development of the child will be.

From NewScientist.com:

"The idea of operating on a healthy baby makes us all recoil," says Harlan Lane, a psycholinguist at Northeastern University in Boston. "Deaf people argue that they use a different language, and with it comes a different culture, but there is certainly nothing wrong with them that needs fixing with a surgeon's scalpel. We should listen."

Is this objection reasonable? Who has the right to decide whether a deaf child, before one year old, should or should not recieve a cochlear implant? Is deaf "nothing wrong"?

Global Warming: Early Warning Signs

The site shows a map illustrating the local consequences of global warming.

There is a section for educators.

Pictures of $100 laptop

via Boing Boing


more

Beautiful Animated Periodic Table

Get it here

11 tips for managing a good blog entry

Vincent Maher listed 11 tips which Stephen Downes disputed each and every one of the 11 tips. Sally Falkow joined by pointing another 10 guidelines from Phil Lesly.

I started blogging because Stephen Downe's OLDaily.

However, everyone blogs with different reasons and motivations. To me, my blog is more like a journal documenting my "random walk" in the sphere of "Learning". Care to join me, welcome. I am equally happy to walk my own way.

I like to walk this journey with a friend who meet in the cross road. If we happen to walk in the same direction, I will enjoy a chat or two with you. If you have to leave, I will happily say goodbye and wish you all the luck.

When I stop and sing and shout and day dream and blog, I like to have an audience to share, but I will still blog even if nobody is reading this. Sometimes I try to sing and shout and day dream and blog with an imaginary audience. Sometimes I just enjoy doing this for myself.

I put Google Adsense around my blog. I like to make money out of this. But the money that really come in won't buy me the coffee I need to keep awake in order to write this post.

My blog(s) are the externalised manifestations of my inner world; part of my inner worldview, never my complete worldview which actually is changing all the time. But I don't delete my blog in big chunks, because it is my journey.

The 10 Commandments of Web 2.0

If you are stressed and your boss is NOT behind you, click the title and have a smile. Amen.

Australian Copyright law gone too far

According to Lisa Murray in Soon recordings will be a crime

HUNDREDS of U2 fans used their mobile phones to record Bono belting out their favourite songs at Sydney's Telstra Stadium over three concerts ending last night. Little did they know that under planned changes to copyright laws, they would be committing a criminal offence, attracting a maximum fine of $6600.

From the Channel 7 morning program Sun Rise, I learnt that Bono actually asked the fans during the concert to hold up their phones and asked to pleach their support to the "Stop World Poverty" by texting a number. All the received SMS messages were displayed on the big screen and each sender also recieved a thankyou SMS from Bono.

Good artists and reasonable rational people will embrace the technology and come up with creative ways of tapping such a wonder. Whose think of all these stupid laws to ban Australian to use the device?

Australia is definitely lossing its position as a creative nation - the boardband speed is a disgrace (according to News Ltd Chairman), the copyright law sends us back to the pre-Internet age, reluctant to join the Kyoto Protocol ignoring the climate change, investing in long term storage of CO₂ gases, introduce nuclear power plant instead of utilising solar energy.... Plus the cut to high-education funding when the Howard Government first came into power. The future of Australia is bad unless some dramatic change in policies take place after the next Federal election!