No, it isn't the lasted slang word from urban dictionary floating around the halls of your local high school. YouTwitFace is the result of a joke at a dinner party reaching the mouth of Conan O'Brian and then going viral in the summer of 2009. YouTwitFace will be a website where all of the great aspects of YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook are all rolled into one website. According to Conan in the year 3000 these three webistes will combine to create one giant time wasting website known as YouTwitFace.
There is no question that YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook are three of the largest wasters of employees time. The question is, what is it about these three websites that people enjoy so much? The ability to watch entertaining short videos? The ability to follow friends and celebrities in 140 characters or less? The ability to update the entire world on the fact that you are wasting your employers time while tending your virtual farm? Yes, these are three reasons why people are drawn to these three websites, the question now is how to get YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook to be a part of students time while being on task at the same time.
David Thornburg, an award winning futurists, stated (2009) "If we who care about education truly take the time to examine emergent technologies, we can perhaps anticipate some of the changes that can take place in our schools to help students learn more effectively. The sooner we know what may be coming down the line, the more time we have to think about the implications of these technologies, and to plan on their eventual adoption when they do come to the market" (p. 2). It is clear that YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook have emerged and become a regular part of our daily interactions with technology. The challenge with these three websites is not figuring out educational aspects that can be included in the classroom, the challenge is the fear of coming across material that is not appropriate for students. In response to coming across inappropriate material on these three very public websites, similar services have been created that offer social interaction with an educational focus. Edmodo is a social media website that looks and feels similar to Facebook, but with the protections that a teacher needs. TeacherTube is a educationally focused video website that is similar to YouTube, but again with the safety protections that a classroom needs. Twitter can be an educationally safe resource as long as the students create accounts specifically for class and are only subscribed to each others tweets.
Between TeacherTube, Edmodo, and Twitter a teacher can create a safe environment where students can interact using social media. Through including these three websites into the daily classroom a teacher can demonstrate to students that these types of websites are not just for entertainment, but can also be used to collaborate and interact in way educational ways. It also demonstrates a unique way to stay connected with each other, as well as provide a different way to share ideas with each other. These types of connections through the Internet are the types of connections that businesses are trying to create and want their future employees to be able to participate in.
There are several ways that these technologies could be improved. One improvement would if these three services all being replaced by one website, like the fictitious YouTwitFace. One website would mean one username and password that the students would need to remember, as well as the ability to access all of the resources in one place.
Enjoy ~SJ
Showing posts with label Walden University. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Walden University. Show all posts
Friday, March 11, 2011
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
And The Winner Is.... Basic Human Instincts!
Global teamwork is critical to the further development of new ideas. In an abstract on total quality management Schonberger (1994) stated the following about teamsmanship versus leadership:
Total quality management sharply modifies management itself. As teams and teamwork take root, leadership idolatry fades in importance.Teamsmanship requires breaking vertical and horizontal barriers that stand in the way of quick, high-quality customer service. Management tools helpful in barrier-busting include team-building, cross-training,job rotation, cross-careering, project teams, and re-engineering. While these tools are in wide use, companies often misapply or weakly apply them. Examples are given of how some companies use these tools in ways that effectively enhance teamsmanship. Teamsmanship also feeds on information, which must be widely shared. In most Western cultures,however, people tend jealously to guard their own knowledge and personally acquired information. Organizations must employ systematic devices that promote information sharing. Among the better known such devices are benchmarking and quality function deployment. Also useful,but less familiar, are common files and the "star system". As applied by a small number of organizations, these techniques can become effective tools of teamsmanship.
Rheingold discussed humans instinct to work as a group to accomplish a common goal. This basic human instinct is what will lead to greater accomplishments in the future. Through the collaboration of a team larger scale projects can be accomplished. The critical difference between leadership and teamwork is that in a teamwork setting each person on the team brings a different set of skills to the table. With the increasing amount of knowledge in the world to know it is no longer possible to know how to do everything well. Through a team collaboration setting each person does not need to be an expert in all of the fields necessary to complete the project.
Take the project Wikipedia. It is a vast amount of knowledge continuously updated and growing on almost any topic imaginable. It would be impossible for one person to be updating this database, managing the technical end, and staying abreast of new knowledge. Through the teamwork model no one person has to be an expert in everything, but rather a group of people come together to accomplish a common goal.
The growth of technology has even further enhanced humans ability to work as a team on a common goal. Through Skype, Google Docs, Webspiration, and countless other collaborative web 2.0 tools people are able to come together seamlessly to work on the common goal. As technology grows more in the future, this ability to collaborate will grow even more.
Through the use of teamwork unimaginable goals can be accomplished.
Enjoy ~SJ
Total quality management sharply modifies management itself. As teams and teamwork take root, leadership idolatry fades in importance.Teamsmanship requires breaking vertical and horizontal barriers that stand in the way of quick, high-quality customer service. Management tools helpful in barrier-busting include team-building, cross-training,job rotation, cross-careering, project teams, and re-engineering. While these tools are in wide use, companies often misapply or weakly apply them. Examples are given of how some companies use these tools in ways that effectively enhance teamsmanship. Teamsmanship also feeds on information, which must be widely shared. In most Western cultures,however, people tend jealously to guard their own knowledge and personally acquired information. Organizations must employ systematic devices that promote information sharing. Among the better known such devices are benchmarking and quality function deployment. Also useful,but less familiar, are common files and the "star system". As applied by a small number of organizations, these techniques can become effective tools of teamsmanship.
Rheingold discussed humans instinct to work as a group to accomplish a common goal. This basic human instinct is what will lead to greater accomplishments in the future. Through the collaboration of a team larger scale projects can be accomplished. The critical difference between leadership and teamwork is that in a teamwork setting each person on the team brings a different set of skills to the table. With the increasing amount of knowledge in the world to know it is no longer possible to know how to do everything well. Through a team collaboration setting each person does not need to be an expert in all of the fields necessary to complete the project.
Take the project Wikipedia. It is a vast amount of knowledge continuously updated and growing on almost any topic imaginable. It would be impossible for one person to be updating this database, managing the technical end, and staying abreast of new knowledge. Through the teamwork model no one person has to be an expert in everything, but rather a group of people come together to accomplish a common goal.
The growth of technology has even further enhanced humans ability to work as a team on a common goal. Through Skype, Google Docs, Webspiration, and countless other collaborative web 2.0 tools people are able to come together seamlessly to work on the common goal. As technology grows more in the future, this ability to collaborate will grow even more.
Through the use of teamwork unimaginable goals can be accomplished.
Enjoy ~SJ
Monday, June 28, 2010
Not Everything Is A One Size Fits All
The debate between the two educational learning theories cognitivism and behaviorism educational learning theories is an age old discussion in the educational realm. The challenge of these two learning theories is that neither of them fit into the one size fits all model. Two blog posts debate the differences between these two theories. The blog posts include comments from three important thinkers of today: Kerr, Downes, and Kapp. Kapp supports both theories and prescribes to the idea that a melding of these two ideas creates a well-balanced learning environment. Through an in depth understanding of both of these schools of thought, an educator can develop an optimal learning environment.
The Encyclopedia of Educational and Leardership Administration lists the following characterisitcs essential to cognitivism:
Behaviorism embodies the concept that people learn through the environment around them. The Encyclopedia of Educational and Leardership Administration characterizes behaviorism as "the result of environmental stimuli that “condition” behavior responses. Behaviorists assume that human beings and animals learn in the same way, so principles derived from research with animals are applied to human learning. Learning is studied by observing and measuring an organism's responses to environmental stimuli". Skinner, Pavlov, and Hull are three educational theorists who fit the behaviorists model.
In our every diversifying society it is become more challenging to develop one idea and have it fit all situations. Learning environments is one such place where this phenomena proves challenging. In order to best reach our learners it is critical to be well read in a large variety of theorists and then be able to apply their theories in the appropriate setting. One size does not fit all, but there is the right t-shirt, or theory, out there for all situations.
Enjoy ~SJ
The Encyclopedia of Educational and Leardership Administration lists the following characterisitcs essential to cognitivism:
- "People and animals may not learn in the same ways. People possess abilities unique to the species.
- Mental events are central to studying learning.
- The study of learning should be objective, and learning theories should be based on evidence. However, inferences can be drawn about the nature of internal mental events that produce observed responses.
- Individuals are actively involved in the learning process and control their own learning.
- Learning involves the formation of mental associations not necessarily reflected in overt behavior changes.
- Knowledge, beliefs, attitudes, and emotions are all associated and connected, that is, organized.
- Learning involves relating new information to previously learned information".
Behaviorism embodies the concept that people learn through the environment around them. The Encyclopedia of Educational and Leardership Administration characterizes behaviorism as "the result of environmental stimuli that “condition” behavior responses. Behaviorists assume that human beings and animals learn in the same way, so principles derived from research with animals are applied to human learning. Learning is studied by observing and measuring an organism's responses to environmental stimuli". Skinner, Pavlov, and Hull are three educational theorists who fit the behaviorists model.
In our every diversifying society it is become more challenging to develop one idea and have it fit all situations. Learning environments is one such place where this phenomena proves challenging. In order to best reach our learners it is critical to be well read in a large variety of theorists and then be able to apply their theories in the appropriate setting. One size does not fit all, but there is the right t-shirt, or theory, out there for all situations.
Enjoy ~SJ
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
How Good Is Your Plumbing?
Does learning take place inside a brick building with students sitting in neat lines of desk? Does learning take place by a stream bed classifying organisms? Does learning take place in a public library reading room? Does learning take place in the car on a trip across country? Does learning take place on a Internet website? The answer to all of these questions could be yes!
Siemens (2004) stated "the pipe is more important than the content within the pipe". The pipe that he was referring to is a persons ability to learn, and the content of the pipe is knowledge. Siemens was predicting that future learning theory needs to take into account that with a rapidly changing world with exponentially growing amounts of knowledge, a person needs to know how to find the information that they need more often then have the information memorized. Shift Happens is a group that has been producing short videos on the rapidly changing world that we live in, and the career and educational challenges that our students face.
From the Ebbinghaus, to Thorndike, to Pavlov, and Gestalt the way that humans learn how been theorized and hypothesized. The difficulty with these learning theorists is that they did not create their learning theories with the 21st century challenges in mind. Siemens (2004) even suggests that with the current technology trends the way that humans learn could be changing. In today's 21st century with schools quickly adapting a larger variety of educational technology it is critical to look towards the suggested skills listed for the 21st century. 21st Century Schools is a website that clearly outlines what these skills are, and the differences between today's traditional schools and those that encompass 21st century skills.
People learn best once they have spent time learning in a variety of ways. Gardner, and other psychologists, have outlined in his multiple intelligences theory people all learning through their own unique combination of effective means. Once a person has spent time learning through a variety of styles they are able to determine which style is best for them. If a person is only exposed to a limited variety of ways to learn, then they may not have the chance to find their best learning style.
Learning theory is critical to education. Through learning theory controlled scientific experiments have proven a variety of elements crucial to providing the best learning environment for learners. Learning theory and educational technology are important with the rapidly changing world that we need to prepare our students for. Through the 21st century skills and what we already know about learning theory from Gardner, Thorndike, Pavlov, and Gestalt we can create a learning environment where the needs of the students and their learning needs meet. In this environment both the students pipe and plumbing will be fostered.
Siemens (2004) stated "the pipe is more important than the content within the pipe". The pipe that he was referring to is a persons ability to learn, and the content of the pipe is knowledge. Siemens was predicting that future learning theory needs to take into account that with a rapidly changing world with exponentially growing amounts of knowledge, a person needs to know how to find the information that they need more often then have the information memorized. Shift Happens is a group that has been producing short videos on the rapidly changing world that we live in, and the career and educational challenges that our students face.
From the Ebbinghaus, to Thorndike, to Pavlov, and Gestalt the way that humans learn how been theorized and hypothesized. The difficulty with these learning theorists is that they did not create their learning theories with the 21st century challenges in mind. Siemens (2004) even suggests that with the current technology trends the way that humans learn could be changing. In today's 21st century with schools quickly adapting a larger variety of educational technology it is critical to look towards the suggested skills listed for the 21st century. 21st Century Schools is a website that clearly outlines what these skills are, and the differences between today's traditional schools and those that encompass 21st century skills.
People learn best once they have spent time learning in a variety of ways. Gardner, and other psychologists, have outlined in his multiple intelligences theory people all learning through their own unique combination of effective means. Once a person has spent time learning through a variety of styles they are able to determine which style is best for them. If a person is only exposed to a limited variety of ways to learn, then they may not have the chance to find their best learning style.
Learning theory is critical to education. Through learning theory controlled scientific experiments have proven a variety of elements crucial to providing the best learning environment for learners. Learning theory and educational technology are important with the rapidly changing world that we need to prepare our students for. Through the 21st century skills and what we already know about learning theory from Gardner, Thorndike, Pavlov, and Gestalt we can create a learning environment where the needs of the students and their learning needs meet. In this environment both the students pipe and plumbing will be fostered.
Thursday, June 3, 2010
Educational Tecnhology Time Line & Podcast
Walden University Educ 8840Evolution of Technology in Society, Education, and WorkplaceTime Line Assignment
Part 1 of this project can be found here, and Part 2 here
Part 1. Create a time line from 1900 to the present, and select three decades that fascinate you the most since 1950 for your analytical paper or podcast.Develop the time line using technology using time line software, a multimedia presentation, a word processing document, or another technological presentation of your time line. Color‐code or use some identifying element for each strand of the time line.
Strand 1: Toffler’s three waves and the next wave, if you believe we have entered one
Strand 2.: Key technological advances and innovations for each decade
Strand 3: The nature of work: Business and corporate philosophies
Strand 4: Educational theories of learning and instruction
Strand 5: Nature of society and culture: What key events determined the thinking of the decade?
Strand 6: Any strand of your choosing, I chose Trends and Fads
The planning templates organizing the information be strand can be downloaded by clicking on each of the above strands.
Part 2. Once the time line is completed, write a paper or create a podcast explaining the interrelationships of the events selected for each of three decades. In many cases technology has an influence on other factions in society, and in return, they have an influence on the ways that technological innovations are developed. Select any three decades from 1950 to the present for the analysis.
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