Case Study II

For this project I learned to use Google docs.  I helped a group that had a need to collaborate on a spreadsheet. 

 
 

You can approach collaboration in Google docs three ways

1)  You can set read/write privileges and the users could login to Google docs

2) You can set read/write privileges and email the link.

3) You can set read/write privileges and then paste the link in the website.

 
 

In this case it was determined that the web site approach would work best.  I set up a Google site that anyone who wants to see how collaboration through a link on a website works. Go to http://sites.google.com/site/eipt6143/ to view.  Feel free to open the document, spreadsheet, or presentation and practice editing.

The World is Open

We began reading The Word is Open by Curtis Bonk. These articles were refreshingly engaging, written from a practitioner's point of view rather than a theorist's point of view. I read chapter 6 and 7 which provided multiple examples of innovation collaboration and practical applications of web 2.0 tools. I look forward to listening to Dr. Bonk speak tomorrow at OU.

Digital Identities and Zombies in Education

I recently attended the Instructional Technology Council Conference in Fort Worth. Much of the conference was centered around respecting that students have digital identities before they enter school and ways schools can promote true collaboration. There was suggestion that the LMS should do more to allow students to publish from the Web 2.0 tools that they use before they become a student and that may have more value than the tools ion the LMS.

The opening keynote speech was well done. It was presented in the format of the Late Show and had several clips. The presentation as streamed and can be accessed at http://salesdemo.mediasite.com/mediasite/Viewer/?peid=1c13bc753bfe4040aec4a67aba5f01f1 If you do decide to watch this make sure you get to the segment at the end that has a description of the three types of zombies that exist in higher ed. It is one that people trying to deliver truly collaborative learning situation should know about.

Connections

I think I am starting to make some connections about the purpose of some of our assignments and the objectives of the class. Maybe all of my peer's have understood the need to look at the articles from a theorist's perspective, but until recently I have been looking at them in a more pragmatic manner and attempted to find immediate clinical value.

This week we picked two articles from the Carrying Forward the Conversation textbook.

The first article I read was titled Participatory Simulations: Building Collaborative Understanding Through Immersive Dynamic Modeling. It was written by Vanessa Colella. In this study the student the student's participated in what is called Participatory Simulation. The Simulation was carried out and then studied to see if it met John Dewey's principles of experience. Dewey's principle stated that learning occurs through continuity and interaction.

The simulation consisted of 10^th grade students wearing small computerized badges to participate in a simulation that involved scientific inquiry. The badges were used to simulate the spread of disease. The badge kept track of how many people the student came in contact with and indicated if the student had the disease or not. The simulation was carried out 6 times. The students worked together to determine how the virus was being spread.

Data was collected through video tape and was then analyzed to identify the presence of immersion in the simulation, identification and analysis of evidence, experimental design and predication, and negation about scientific vocabulary. The immersion of simulation this compared to Dewey's terms of continuity and interaction. This was met as participants felt as if they actually had or did not have the virus. The date indicated a high level of emersion and interaction.

 

The Second Article I read was titled Using Mobile Computing to Enhance Field Study by Gay, Rieger, and Bennington. In this study students use hand held computers to supplement field activities. This study examined the initiation of technology through Activity Theory which we studied this week during our live session and in an article titled Activity Theory as a Framework for Designing Constructivist Learning Environments by Jonassen and Ronrer-Murphy. Within activity theory you, understand the motivation of the participants, understand the context of the activity, define the subject, define the relevant community, define the object, define the activity, and then analysis and application. Activity theory has been used to explain human/computer interactions. This study looked specifically at the activity changed with the insertion of PDAs. The lines of authority changes as students did not need to rely on the expertise of the instructor which changed the activity. Participants valued the information provided from the hand held computers but in some cases felt it diminished the hands on experience.