Is time the biggest challenge in learning?

As I've mentioned before, a great many of my students honestly believe that they can multitask while learning -- use Facebook, text, surf, etc.

It's been my experience that these distractions do not lead to success, so I work hard to minimize distractions when I'm trying to get some work done. I'm not always successful (is that my phone?) at this attempt (look at that bird on the tree outside!), but I try.

Where I'm really struggling with this is time to work on my MA courses -- I've got job tasks, family and home responsibilities, etc. intruding on my coursework. I find myself running short on time.

Now, nobody held me hostage and forced me to take this program. It was my decision -- my commitment. I have to remind myself that I chose to do this program, so I have to chose to prioritize the work.

Great plan. How am I going to do it? Good question -- I'm still working on it! Maybe you have some suggestions and if so, I'm all ears!

Understanding each other

        Today I was forwarded this gem of a comic (source: http://www.stanleycolors.com -- fair warning: not all of Pablo Stanley's comics are safe for work) and it reminded me of one of Stephen Covey's key principles of effectiveness: Seek First to Understand (Covey, 2004). Specifically, where Covey points out though we may all speak the same language we all have different understandings of the same ideas.

        This made me think about how many Hermeneutical inquiries I have already embarked on during my career as I tried to understand the place where others were coming from as they defined requirements, stated preferences, lodged complaints or heaped praise. Recognizing that you have to establish context for the communications from others is key to the process of understanding and is a practice I have attempted to follow for many years. It's amazing how strongly your own history (background, education, experiences, etc.) can influence your interpretation of what you read and hear.

        I'm curious if anyone else has noticed this effect as well?

References

Covey, S. R. (2004). The 7 habits of highly effective people: Restoring the character ethic.

        New York: Free Press.

News flash(card)! This just in!

The other days I posted to my Professor page about this useful site that students and teachers alike can use to create highly functional flashcards. A nice plus is that you can access these cards both from your computer and from your favourite mobile device using free apps for iOS and Android (Blackberry and Windows Phone users can use their mobile browsers to view the cards but, admittedly, it's not as "nice" an experience).

What I particularly like is that you can share your flashcards with others -- this might make a great class project! I can easily imagine having different teams create flashcards for assigned topics and then having the remainder of the class "study" from them!

I'd love to hear about any successes you may have had with flashcards. Perhaps you've used this very site (or a similar one) and you've got some observations and ideas you could share!

Post by Professor Simon Galton.

How can we leverage this tech in the classroom?

I recently read about this fantastic development and, as I said in my posting on my Professor page on Facebook, I'm really looking forward to this coming to Canada. After all, it really does make you think about how we throw away things because of the loss of a small part.

Further, it makes me wonder how this technology could be leveraged for my classroom? Could I challenge students to come up with a design to solve an assigned problem, then let them experience using it by having it printed?

Perhaps some of you have already found a great application for 3D printing in your own educational space! Does anyone have any good suggestions for a project which I could use in my classes on computer subjects such as Operating Systems and systems administration, Wireless Networking, etc...?

Post by Professor Simon Galton.

Interesting fact about engaging blog readers

      I run a "Professor" page on Facebook so that my students can connect with me in an "appropriate" manner.

      I've been tracking engagement with my posts based on Facebook's statistics system and I've noticed an interesting trend: to retain readership I have to post something "purely fun" at least one ever three weeks -- more than that seems like I'm trivializing the channel, less than this amount garners reader dropoff.

      I decided to test my observations with a micro-research "project". My recent post about a well-edited video featuring an "Imperial Starport at the Frankfurt airport" (see below) had ten times my normal readership, but the readership on following posts was up 10-20%.

Post by Professor Simon Galton.

      So, what does this tell us? Blog experts encourage you to include images and video (Clark & Vahab, 2013) and to cover a variety of topics relevant to your audience (Cohen, 2014). That's fine -- but my micro-research effort demonstrates again that sometimes you have to add something that's going to catch their interest and encourage them to return. Most of my longer posts have poor readership and they definitely result in less engagement later, as you can see from this small snapshot of the page's engagement statistics:

      When I create a post that has more general appeal a short "long tail" is visible for a couple of weeks. If, during that period I also post something with heightened appeal the tail can be lengthened slightly. Well reasoned, critically written posts don't tend to sustain readership as strongly.

     It may be worth conducting a formal study of various blogs to see if this trend holds true for other fields of interest and/or blogs written by other types of authors. Does anyone have any ideas for taking this to the next level?

References

Clark, D., & Vahab, D. (2013, November 1). How To Drive More Traffic To Your Blog.
      Retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/sites/dorieclark/2013/11/01/how-to-drive-more-
      traffic-to-your-blog/

Cohen, H. (2014) heidicohen.com

Interesting comments on MOOCs

The other day I ran across this blog post from last year entitled "The Big Problem for MOOCs Visualized". It's a quick rundown of findings from various examinations of MOOCs (Massive Online Open Courses) which reveals completion rates of between 1.7% and 3.5%.

In short, the post discusses the cost and effort of preparing and delivering a MOOC but rather than weighing in on this surprising completion rate, it asked readers to supply insights. This was a terrific plan. I read more useful, insightful and engaging commentary about MOOCs in this one place than I've encountered over the last six months!

One oft-repeated comment which I found particularly interesting was the observation that most of the video content was "boring". I understand this comment -- I too have found many "talking head" or "recorded lecture" videos hard to get through. I find a video longer than about ten minutes just isn't effective (at least, of the type of videos I create or watch) -- does anyone have a differing perspective?

The other day I encountered a great article at the Educational Technology and Mobile Learning site where they discussed a terrific list of so-called transferable skills that students could feature on their resumes to add punch and personality. I'll paste an image of that list below, along with a link to the source at the utoledo.edu website.

What really caught my eye is that the article highlighted nine that they felt were the "most important skills", and here are the first two that they selected:

1- Research skills

• Know how to find and collect relevant background information
• Be able to analyze data, summarize findings and write a report

2- Critical Thinking skills

• Be able to review different points of view or ideas and make objective judgments
• Investigate all the possible solutions to a problem, weighing the pros and cons

Given that this blog was created in support of my Intro to Research course it was interesting to see these skills as numbers one and two!

Here's the full list, along with the link to the source:

Source: http://www.utoledo.edu/success/career/pdfs/transferable_skills_checklist.pdf

I wonder how well this infographic from OnlineCollege.org would go over with my students? They truly believe they can use Facebook, look at their phone, play a game and absorb a lecture or lab at the same time.

Thanks to my classmate Keith for finding this. It's a gem!

    
         Please Include Attribution to OnlineCollege.org With This Graphic