The Flying Car...

The Flying Car Has Been Grounded

2006-08-15T22:24:00.000-07:00

It has been quite some time since my last post. I haven't missed it (blogging). I simply have been living life instead of cataloguing it for those who randomly bump into this site. For now, The Flying Car is grounded. Perhaps in the future, when the passion for the promise of technology returns, I'll dust off the car and take it out for a spin. Right now, I'm very happy with the promises of today.

Kick A** Learning Theory

2006-02-08T13:19:00.000-07:00

I love condensed, salient content. It appeals to the Cliff Notes part of my brain. With phrases like, "kick ass", "I rule!" and "WTF?"

this Crash Course in Learning Theory post from the Creating Passionate Users blog also appeals to the Jay and Silent Bob portion of my cerebrum.

The kids at the Center for Open and Sustainable Learning (COSL) will be happy to know that the work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 License.

Images from Creating Passionate Users

This entry linked to Wikispaces page (The Flying Car)

UnPhiltered Feeds

2006-02-06T14:19:00.000-07:00

I’ve been using SharpReader as my RSS aggregator, and I have no complaints. It’s free, familiar, and easy to use. The aggregator is great for personal use; however, it does make it difficult to share content with individuals who are not familiar with RSS, XML and aggregators.

I’ve been looking for an easy way to present RSS feeds in a simple HTML format. After all, sending someone a single web address is easier than getting them to download an aggregator and install an OPML file.

Via Abject Learning (Brian Lamb), I found an example of a blog that updated automatically with articles as they were discovered by Google News. Unfortunately, the source code was over my head.

Today I came across FeedDigest. This site allows you to create a digest of RSS feeds that can then be exported as HTML, JavaScript, RSS, Atom, or WML/WAP. The site allows you to create up to five digests, with up to five feeds per digest for free. For a price, you can increase the number of feeds or digests. I’m cheap, so I’ll stick with the free stuff.

I uploaded feeds from five instructional technology related blogs I regularly read; Chicken’s Don’t Have Armpits, Cool Cat Teacher Blog, iterating toward openness, shelleylyn, and Teachable Moment. With a click of the mouse, FeedDigest created a single line of javascript for my digest. I copy and pasted that line into a Blogger template. The result is UnPhiltered Feeds, a blog that should automatically update with posts from each of these five other blogs. Now I have a means to consolidate and share some of the incredible content I encounter each day.

Strong Bad's Guide to Writing a Paper

2006-02-03T12:07:00.000-07:00

A Well Thought-Out English Paper by Kyle "The Yellow Dart" Smith

(Also works for most graduate school papers)

Fun with Microsoft Word (Tech Pranks)

2006-02-01T15:59:00.000-07:00

Office-Wide Memo Mayhem

Microsoft Word Voodoo Curse

Wanna Wiki?

2006-01-30T09:12:00.000-07:00

Here's some nice wiki resources.

Using Wiki in Education

Free Wikispaces for K-12 educators (no advertising!)

JotSpot is another free wiki site. Actually, the free stuff is restricted to five authorized users and 20 pages, but there are plenty of free add-ons like, blog, feedback, discussion boards, calendar, directory, polls, and so on. Not a bad site to experiment.

RSS, Recommender Systems and Flatus

2006-01-25T16:36:00.000-07:00

Today I received an email from Amazon.com with new recommendations based upon ten items I purchased or told Amazon I own. I don’t recall giving Amazon any information on my private library, but they may have received that information via secret NSA wiretaps. So what were Amazon’s top three recommendations?

Rough Weather Ahead for Walter the Farting Dog

Mastering APA Style: Student’s Workbook and Training Guide

Write Your Dissertation in Fifteen Minutes a Day: A Guide to Starting, Revising, and Finishing Your Doctoral Thesis

I initially dismissed their suggestions, but as I was moving the cursor towards the delete button, I began wondering how Amazon’s recommender system identified these three books. The first book was easy. I mean, who doesn’t enjoy a book based on canine flatulence?

Last summer, I made a deal with my kids. I’d buy them a book, and if they read it and gave me a brief oral report, I’d buy them another. Madi and Sam were easy. They read the Hatchet series by Gary Paulsen, and most of the Lemony Snicket books. Haley was the tough one. She couldn’t find a book to get started. Then we found “Walter, the Farting Dog”. Thanks to Walter and his irritable bowel, Haley was able to improve her reading skills over the summer.

I’ve had the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 5th Edition since I started graduate school. But how did Amazon know that I really haven’t mastered APA style? Was it a lucky guess, or did they know that I’ve been using the same Mike Thompson authored, APA formatted paper as my guide for the past three years? After all, Thompson is the Dr. William Strong UCTE/LA English Teacher of the Year. I figure he knows how to format a paper.

The logic in Amazon's recommender system must have determined that anyone who would be willing to shell out serious coin on dry research texts is probably a doctoral student, hence the final recommendation. I won’t hold my breath for “Statistical Analysis: An Interdisciplinary Introduction to Univariate and Multivariate Methods” to make the Oprah Book Club list. The title alone gives most people a slight migraine. I bet the author would sell more books if he put a farting dog in the title.

The issue with any recommender system is does it broaden or narrow the exposure to relevant content? In other words, is there more to me than gaseous dogs and doctoral research? Sadly not, but there should be.

In the article, “The latest info – tailor made for you", the author talks about how RSS feeds will become the one of the primary ways people access information. While many Internet users have never heard of RSS, XML formats, or aggregators, new versions of web browsers, including Microsoft’s Windows Vista, will have RSS capabilities “baked in”. The use of RSS feeds will be as simple as book marking a Web page. Most users won’t even know they are using RSS. While RSS provides a real-time, generative method of collecting and sorting information, a question posed in this article, is similar to the one I posed about Amazon’s recommender system. Does the extent to which someone tailors their information environment reinforce their own views at the expense of exposing them to a more diverse perspective? In the search for more information, do we really just end up with farting dogs and dissertations?

Teaching: The Noblest Profession?

2006-01-20T11:12:00.000-07:00

During election cycles, those vying for public office frequently talk about the value of public educators. Perhaps they are simply trying to gain support from local and state education associations. With the start of the legislative session upon us, let’s see if there will be something more than mere lip service.

Thompson posted this great quote on his blog about teaching as a noble profession. How many of John Huntsman Sr.'s children are public school teachers? Teaching may be noble, but it doesn’t buy the Gulfstream jet or pay for gubernatorial elections.

RuneScape and More MMORPG's

2005-09-05T12:53:00.000-07:00

RuneScape is my second introduction to a massively (or massive) multiplayer online role-playing game or MMORPG. While I’m really not into online role-playing games (or offline role-playing games for that matter), I gained some exposure into the MMORPG world last year as part of a doctoral course titled, “Understanding Online Interaction.” Lineage was used in that course as an example of a MMORPG. It was a hard sell to convince my son that Dad was doing required homework when he was online killing goblins at 11:00 PM. Both Sam and I learned from our collective Lineage experience (old post), so it was no surprise when he called me with news of RuneScape.

While the graphics are nowhere near the quality of Lineage, the interaction is just as good, if not better. The initial tutorials are outstanding. It was nice to have an experienced, 10-year old around to protect his noob Father while I became acclimated to the environment.

While quests, hit points, armor, weapons, and magic are common to both Lineage and RuneScape, characters in the later must also develop skills in mining, smiting, cooking, crafting, fishing, woodcutting, firemaking, herblore, farming and even prayer (finally, a MMORPG for all the seminary teachers in the instructional technology program). In Lineage, you obtain weapons by purchase, trade or killing something. In RuneScape, you can mine ore, smelt them together and then fashion (smith) your own weapons. Perhaps the greatest affordance of RuneScape is its affordability. Unlike Lineage, which costs $15 a month, RuneScape is free.

Now if RuneScape could only teach statistics. Then we’d be talking significant transferability.

“Roehaun409, watch your variance! Your standard deviation may not be representative of an unbiased sample estimate. Hurry, take my cloak of normal distribution. No good, your sample size is depleted. I’ll watch your back while you use your ‘degrees of freedom’ enchantment and cast a student’s t distribution scale spell. Very good Roehaun409, now you are prepared to travel through the fire swamp and begin your final quest: the defense of the dissertation."

Virtual Dilemma

2005-08-28T08:31:00.000-07:00

Sometime last month I became a billionaire. Yes, a thousand million; a billion. It’s a classic tale of an impoverished educator who, in 8 months, turns 500 bucks into a billion ducats. That’s a nice patch of lettuce.

Of course the only problem with my billion (1.23 billion last I checked) is that it’s virtual. What can you do with virtual money? Apparently, virtually nothing. Sure, I could get the virtual mansion, virtual resort homes around the world, virtual cars, boats and planes and of course, the obligatory virtual trophy wife. But we all know how that would end. No virtual prenup and she takes virtually my entire virtual fortune. Damn virtual lawyers. I suppose my only real option is to just give it away...or sell it on eBay.

Knowledge Economy

2005-08-23T13:10:00.000-07:00

When I can’t sleep and I’m reduced to channel surfing, my late night fix is C-SPAN. There’s nothing like watching Canadian Parliament (where every other question/response must be given in French) or the British House of Commons Prime Minister's Questions (“The speaker recognizes the Right Honorable Alan Beith of Berwick-upon-Tweed who has a question regarding federal subsidies for mince pies.”). Months ago, I stumbled upon Bill Gates addressing the first-ever National Summit on High Schools. This blog post has been simmering every since.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not a Bill basher. I use and enjoy Microsoft products. The whole monopoly thing baffles me as well. The government didn’t make Coca Cola or Colonel Sanders give up their secret recipes. But if you’re adept at dominating a market, then you better give up your code. The last I checked, Microsoft employees were faring far better than Walmart employees.

So what’s my beef with Bill? The same issue I have with businessmen and politicians who purport know what is right for public education. Bill used the same mantra politicians’ use. In short, public education must change in order to prepare students for the workforce of tomorrow. Businesses and governments are concerned that public educators are not churning out enough of the right cogs for their economic machinery. The new phrase is “knowledge economy”. Having a highly trained, but cheap workforce is what every politician and businessman wants. It’s the dirty secret behind “economic development”.

Utah’s Governor Huntsman recently appointed some crony to the State Board of Education. In talking about this appointment, he said, “He will continue our goal of strengthening public education with a seamless and focused pre-school through college (P-16) strategy that prepares all students for the workforce of tomorrow via a sustained rigorous and relevant curriculum.” Perhaps we should rely upon the Division of Workforce Services and the Bureau of Labor Statistics to determine the needs of the workforce of tomorrow. Then the government could assess and assign occupations to students in the third grade. It’s efficient, economical, and everyone becomes a productive member of society. Right, comrade?

The panacea for our failing schools seems to be turning every student into an engineer. Charter schools specializing in math and engineering are in vogue. Public high schools fearing loss of enrollments and decreased funding respond by increasing math and science requirements and offerings. Of course, as long as the money is being taken from language and creative art programs, no one will notice. Shut down the drill team, football, or cheerleaders and there’s a moral outrage.

In his address, Bill touts San Diego’s High Tech High as the model. Their statewide academic tests are 15 percent higher than the rest of the district. Their SAT scores are an average 139 points higher. Is it the curriculum that makes the difference? Perhaps. I’m confident that the difference in test scores has to do with two primary factors.

The first is size. Yes, size matters. High Tech High has an enrollment of 450 students. I doubt there is a smaller enrollment at any other high school within the San Diego City School District. Smaller class size means more individualized attention. The technology, I’m sure, is incredible. However, educational gadgetry will never compensate for the lack of personal instruction. The second factor to why High Tech High works is self-selection. Each of the 450 students applied to be there. Even more, their parents signed the application promising to support the student if selected, including providing transportation to the school. I’ve taught high school students. Guess what. If the student wants to be there, they learn more and get higher scores. If parents are involved and support their child, they learn more and get higher scores. I know. It’s really weird. Let’s recap. Small class size with individualized instruction, students that want to be there who are more likely to be motivated and engaged, and parents who support their children in their education. I’m shocked their test scores aren’t higher than reported.

There’s really only one way to determine if High Tech High is the school of the future. Take away the application process. Hold a random lottery of students who live within the San Diego City School District. Select 450 and provide transportation. Hold a similar lottery to select faculty from throughout the district. What would happen to scores then?

Saturday Activities

2005-06-26T15:49:00.000-07:00

I didn't make it to the Napoleon Dynamite Festival 2005. However, my friend Shelley did make the trip to Preston. Check out her pictures here.

Instead, I went to the Riverdale Seagull Book and Tape and scored me a few copies of Chickens in the Headlights (one for myself, and one each for my younger brothers). Buckley personalized each one and even let me take a picture of him with the family. The batteries in my digital camera were tanking and Buckley even offered to raid his geocaching bag for me. What a guy! As it was, there was just enough juice for one picture. When I get around to buying some AA batteries, I will download and post the photo.

Last night I went to South Ogden days and mingled among the unwashed at the carnival and huddled among the rednecks at the outdoor concert. The kids woke me up for the fireworks.

Death to Haloscan and Trackback

2005-06-26T15:43:00.000-07:00

My adventure with blog comments and trackback via Haloscan has come to a conclusion. My comments are so topical that they really don’t merit a trackback from anyone. Besides, I missed the email notification inherent with blogger comments. While I had to reinstall the entire blogger template, it did restore all of my pre-Haloscan comments.

Napoleon Dynamite Festival 2005

2005-06-24T14:11:00.000-07:00

It's South Ogden Days. What does that mean? It means I take the kids to the park near their school and pay far too much for them to ride poorly maintained carnival rides. I don't much like carnies...circus folk. Nomads, you know. Smell like cabbage. Small hands.

Why bother with South Ogden days when Preston, Idaho and the 2005 Napoleon Dynamite Festival is only 80 miles away (June 24 - 25). Talk about celebrities. According to festival literature here's some actors you could meet.

"We'll have the hot twins from the Happy Hands Club, Dale Critchlow - the man that shot the cow (and officiates at Kip and Lafawnduh's wedding), the bully - Bracken Johnson, the boy on the bus "what ya gonna do today Napoleon?" - Jamen Gunnell, and Patrick Zook from the Rex Quando commercial scene."

Just when you don't think it can get much better...it does.

The FFA is having a milk tasting contest (and you can have your picture taken in a real FFA jacket...I'm from Morgan, so I already have like infinity of those).

There's a tater-tot eating contest, a moon boot dance contest, tetherball tournament and football throwing contest.

Who wouldn't want to participate in the "Rex Kwon Dojo Tour & Learn How to Break a Wrist & Walk Away" activity or enjoy multiple performances by the Happy Hands Club. They are giving away a "sweet" bike and lots of other sweet prizes. There's going to be an awesome street dance tonight behind King's and the Cuttin Curral. All that's really missing is a delicious bass dinner.

If you can't make it, enjoy Napoleon Dynamite giving Letterman's Top 10 Signs Your Not the Most Popular Guy in High School.

Malan's Peak

2005-06-16T09:58:00.000-07:00

(Nope, not my dog, nor my picture. Here's the source)

Yesterday was my annual trek to Malan’s Peak. I take my 10-year old son with me to prove to him that his Dad can still conquer a strenuous hike (see map here). When it comes to hiking, Sam is part mountain goat, part gazelle. Regardless of the terrain or elevation, he has one speed…fast. I had him carry our backpack in hope of slowing him down. It didn’t work. Even though he takes two steps for every one of mine, he never seems to tire. It’s been this way since we started hiking together when he was five. Next time I will medicate him before we depart.

Sam is a great hiking companion. He’s patient, doesn’t complain, and notices everything. He was simultaneously cataloging wildlife, wildflowers and geological formations. He also asks me at least one question every ten feet. When you’re already gasping for oxygen, it’s not easy to respond and not sound completely winded.

The water coming out of Taylor Canyon is still pretty high. The trail is washed out in places forcing you to either walk through the creek or attempt to jump from boulder to boulder. Once you start up the south side of the canyon you notice another result of a late runoff; flies, lots of flies. Our Outdoorsman Insect Repellent didn’t seem to phase them. They were everywhere, including the peak.

Maybe as it warms up and dries out a bit more, the flies will subside. I highly recommend this hike. You get great views of Taylor Canyon that you can’t see from the city. You also enjoy a wonderful panorama of Weber County and the Great Salt Lake. The views of Mount Ogden and Ben Lomond peak are also great. Just remember to take your bug spray with you.

From Malan’s Peak, you can follow a trail down into Malan’s Basin. This is a depression between Malan’s Peak and Waterfall Canyon. There had once been a two-story hotel, sawmill, seven log cabins and a club house located here. All that’s left is a rusted boiler and a plaque placed there by the Malan family. It’s still a great place to stop, rest and have a bite to eat. Our tradition is to eat a Fuji apple that has been in the fridge overnight. There’s nothing like a cold, crisp apple as a reward for your endeavors...except, of course, a free helicopter ride off the mountain so your feet and knees don’t have to endure the return trip.

The creek running through the basin makes its way to Waterfall Canyon (it’s the source of the waterfall). Last year, I talked Sam into going from Malan’s Basin over to Waterfall Canyon. It was a dumb idea. There really isn’t a trail so you have to bushwhack it most of the way. Then there are a couple of rock slides to traverse before you make it to the slot that drops down south of the waterfall. My advice is to enjoy Malan’s Basin and return back through Taylor Canyon.

Chickens in the Headlights

2005-06-15T10:02:00.000-07:00

Buckley's book has been published and is ready for public consumption. Although I miss the original title, “Chickens Don’t Have Armpits”, this is a great book. Buckley was kind enough to let me preview a few chapters.

This would really make a great Father's Day gift. You can get the book online at Covenant or Seagull Book and Tape. Covenant is asking $14.95 and Seagull wants $11.96. This is less expensive than a tie and can you really put a price on laughter? I know you can put a price on laughing gas. My insurance doesn't cover nitrous oxide and I just paid for two of my son's cavities.

An even better gift would be a copy of the book signed by the author. The Chickens in the Headlights tour will be visiting a Seagull Book and Tape store near you in the next few weeks. Here's Buckley's signing schedule.

18-June- West Jordan Seagull- 11:00a-12:30p
18-June- Redwood Seagull- 2:00p-3:30p
25-June- Ogden Seagull- 10:00a-11:30p
25-June- Riverdale Seagull- 12:00p-1:30p
25-June- Layton Seagull- 2:30p-4:00p
9-July- Family Center Seagull- 11:00a-12:30p
9-July- Bountiful Seagull- 2:00p-3:30p
16-July- South Towne Seagull- 11:00a-12:30p
16-July- Fashion Place Seagull- 2:00p-3:30p
30-July- American Fork Seagull- 10:30a-12:00p
30-July- North Orem Seagull- 12:30p-2:00p
30-July- South Orem Seagull- 3:00p-4:30p

Here are the store locations.

The book is also available on CD. You can hear the first chapter here. You can get the CD from either Covenant, Seagull or the BYU Bookstore.

Banned books are always the best.

Thou bawdy idle-headed maggot-pie!

2005-06-09T12:01:00.000-07:00

Shakespearean Insulter

Who of us hasn't had need to say, "Thy kiss is comfortless as frozen water to a starved snake."?

Shelley, Trackback and Haloscan

2005-05-17T15:19:00.000-07:00

My colleague and personal interventionist Shelley emailed me and asked about trackback. Here’s a quick definition.

Trackback is a system [...] that alerts and allows a blogger to see who has blogged about posts on his or her blog. The system works by sending a 'ping' between the blogs, and therefore providing the alert.

In short, I can read something on Shelley’s blog, and comment on it on my blog. The trackback provides a link to her original post. Likewise, people reading her original post can see, via her trackback link, who else is talking about the same thing. I guess that really wasn’t that short.

Blogger itself doesn’t support trackback. However, Haloscan can be installed as an add-on to Blogger, and supports both comments and trackback. However, here’s what I failed to mention to Shelley.

If you install Haloscan on your Blogger.com web log, you will lose all previous comments. I don’t know if you remove Halscan if they will reappear.

You lose the automatic email notification function when others post comments to your blog. If someone comments on an older post, you may not be aware of it

Trackback is a nifty affordance to link related blog postings. Along with comments, it’s a valuable feature in developing an online community. It just seems to work better in non-Blogger web log systems. Unfortunately, those other web log systems lack my favorite affordance; affordability. In that instance, you can’t beat Blogger.

Education (Edukation Part II)

2005-05-01T10:27:00.000-07:00

I submitted an online form alerting the Registrar’s Webmaster of the grammatical faux pas. Within the hour, the Webmaster had made the corrections and sent me an email apologizing for the error. I need to send him an apology for being a smart ass. I won't even bring up the point that "self-service" probably shouldn't be capitalized.

Being the webmaster of a college intranet, I understand that spell check or grammar alerts don't exist in HTML editors. I had a web document in which I repeatedly used the word "posses" (plural form of posse) instead of "possess" (to have).

Maybe USU’s College of Education and Human Services really deserves to be ranked 35th in the nation.

Edukation

2005-04-30T11:07:00.000-07:00

"This system will began it's tenure in use at Utah State University Beginning April 11, 2005."

This is wrong on so many levels.

Why should anyone worry about the syntax? US News & World Report ranked graduate programs at USU’s College of Education and Human Services 35th in the nation. I suppose this should make me feel better about increased tuition, fees, and a burgeoning student loan debt.

Extreme Programming

2005-04-20T13:12:00.000-07:00

Buckley had a great posting regarding "randomly generated scientific papers". I had one created titled, "Improvement of Extreme Programming". Of course it's co-authored by many of my professional colleagues including Buckley, Thompson, Joseph Buber Roe, and Mary Bennett (formerly Mary from Delta).

This drivel is really indistinguishable from most academic papers I encounter. I've recently installed a little "emergency exit" icon at the top of my blog.

So, if someone walks in on you as you are reading my inane ramblings, there is no need to be embarrassed. Simply click on the emergency exit and you are whisked away to the very cerebral, "Improvement of Extreme Programming".

UnPhiltered Discussion Board – In Memoriam 2004 – 2005

2005-03-31T17:38:00.000-07:00

The UnPhiltered discussion board has given up the ghost. I went to check it out today, and found that it no longer exists. Nothing in life is free, and this is certainly true of free hosting services. Because the board was inactive for more than 25 days, the board was shut down.

Lost are the reactions to redaction. Gone are the virtual one fingered salutes that in Deweyian fashion said, “let’s stick it to THE Man” (that’s Dewey as in Dewey Finn, not John Dewey). Vanished is the image gallery of Buber and Buber-like variations. Irretrievable are the Bakerisms and his dialogue on movies, male sexuality and Ewan McGregor.

For a brief time, UnPhiltered was an active community unified in its indignation towards the dark overlords of pseudo-doctoral education. Then one by one, we either gained the wisdom and sense to leave the program, or became mollified, placated or otherwise appeased by our philosophical masters.

I had this grand hope that UnPhiltered would also be a place for an exchange of intellectual ideas. Apparently it was just easier to rant or talk about obscure cinema. I do miss the open exchange. Even with the ability to provide comments, blogging is still so unilateral. For most of us, it’s simply a message in a bottle cast upon the seas of ether.

Perhaps, in the future, there will arise a time when UnPhiltered will again be needed to fight The Man. Either that, or we need to talk about Ewan McGregor some more.

Dante's Inferno Test

2005-03-30T13:30:00.000-07:00

In response to my last post , Kami (the lexiconic legend) commented on her own statistical nightmare. In her dream, she was cast in Dante's third level of hell.

I took the Dante's Inferno Test and only scored a lame Level 2: Lustful. Lustful; that is so pedestrian. I mean, who isn't? Maybe being a dental hygienist gives her extra infernal points.

When Theology & Statistics Collide

2005-02-24T10:44:00.000-07:00

The other night I dreamt I died. Upon arriving in paradise, I was informed by a heavenly being, that in order to enter the Celestial Kingdom I needed to determine N, n, sigma, mu, EV and SE for a counting box that contained zeros and twos with a sample of 25. I asked, “Is that with or without replacement”, hoping to get some sort of clue. The angel rolled its eyes and said, “Unless stated otherwise, it’s always with replacement.” I couldn't do it.

The angel had pity and said, "Well, you can still make it into the Terrestrial Kingdom if you can tell me the probability of flipping a fair coin 8 times and getting at least 6 heads." I asked my guide, "Is getting 6 heads the same as 1 minus not getting six heads?" He answered, "It's really a matter of nuance and I'm not permitted to answer. Besides, while I’ve got eternity, you’ve only got 30 minutes to answer." I tried in vain to determine if N choose K would work and gave up.

Being dead and tired (dead tired) I asked, "What's a guy got to do to get into the Telestial Kingdom?" The angel replied, "Define Variance". I said, "Go to Hell!" and then woke up.

Seven Layered Dip

2005-02-07T19:01:00.000-07:00

Can a person have a precise understanding of the classes of technical knowledge and perfect application of the seven layer dip...I mean the seven layers of instruction and still produce inferior or just plain bad instruction?

I venture that a master instructor can mediate all kinds of failings in technical knowledge (if it is knowledge), layers, classes, models, and so on. However, it is the naive instructional designer (engineer, architect, fabricator) that relies of the perfection of design layers to compensate for anything less than a superior instructor. I already hear the argument. "But Jim, the master instructor intuitively applies the correct layers of design." That argument is very deductive, and dare I say, scientific. That just won't do for those who advocate inductive classes of technical knowledge.

Is it the design or the instructor that is at the crux of good instruction? For me, instructional technology is the process of improving the instructor, not the instructional design process. Argument #2 will be, "But Jim, improving the instructional design, does improve the instructor." Does it? The more time I spend with instructional design, the less valuable I find it. I suppose one of the dangers of become a doctor of philosophy is rejecting the prevailing philosophy. Kind of like losing my religion.

I will pit my instructor against your model, classes or layers anytime. By the way, my instructor is Mike. Any takers?

Provisional Matriculation

2005-02-06T11:16:00.000-07:00

Last week I received a letter from the School of Graduate Studies informing me that "my status as a graduate studnet has been reviewed by the Department of Instructional Technology and by the School of Graduate Studies." They were pleased to inform me that my status has been changed from "provisional matriculation" to "matriculated" in the PhD degree program in Instructional Technology.

The tuition wasn't provisional. The student loans weren't provisional. The coursework wasn't provisional. I wonder if the grades were? No matter, now that I'm a matriculated PhD student, my grades will probably tank. We were informed by the stats professor that the mean score for the first quiz was 50. I was going to ask the professor if I was one or two standard deviations below the mean. However, since I'm clearly below the mean, I wouldn't be able to figure it out anyway. But I am matriculated. So I got that going for me.

Layers

2005-01-24T16:11:00.000-07:00

So begins another semester of doctoral studies. This semester I have the double pleasure of EDUC 6600, Measurement, Design and Analysis I and INST 7200, Quantitative and Design Research in Instructional Technology.

The foundation for INST 7200 is Andy Gibbons’ work in layers of instructional design as applied to Vincenti’s classes of technical knowledge. While I enjoy discussing technical knowledge as distinct from scientific knowledge, the layers approach to instructional design seems well suited for simulations and CBI, and less practical for day-to-day educational technology applications (the world in which I live).

Having had Gibbons twice during my Masters program, the information is not necessarily new. However, its abstraction makes it conceptually difficult to master.

The instructor is an ABD who I had only known via lengthy Instgrad postings, usually relating to zombies. He is using the yo-yo as an instrument to apply both the layers and classes of technical knowledge into something you can wrap your mind (and hands) around. He dished out seven yo-yos to each student this past week.

I’m a skosh behind in both classes. Should I be reading the Introduction to Univariate and Multivariate Methods or practicing string tricks on my bevy of yo-yos? Frankly, I’m struggling to concentrate on either.

December 17th...A Great Day

2004-12-17T09:36:00.000-07:00

What a great day in history. Dicken’s A Christmas Carol, was first published on this day in 1843. Orville and Wilbur Wright conducted the first successful flight of a powered fixed-wing aircraft on December 17, 1903. The Simpson’s made their debut as an animated series on the Fox Television Network, December 17, 1989.

I can imagine life without the airplane. I’d even get through Christmas without Scrooge and Tiny Tim. But where would life, yea the very fabric of civilization, be without Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, Maggie, and friends.

Finally, it’s been exactly a month since I started with my meager B$500 in BlogShares. Today, December 17, 2004, I made my first B$10,000,000 . Let me tell you, it’s the first million that is tough. After that, the money really works for itself. If only I could translate this success into something less virtual and something more tangible.

Synthesis (7150 Signing Off)

2004-12-15T02:10:00.000-07:00

Grade Gruber: “So what's the assignment? Where's your grading rubric?”

Dr. Référence: “Using Pierre-Joseph Proudhon's Philosophy of Poverty, develop a theoretical framework for the economy of scalable instructional design systems. Your synthesis will be in the form of an 8-10 page, APA formated paper, suitable for publication.”

Jim: “What does a 19th century French anarchist have to do with scalable instructional design systems?”

Dr. Référence: “It has everything to do with instructional design systems. Apparently you have not spent an appropriate amount of time with the course readings. Do you have some sort of problem with the French? Besides, you must write to think. This is the essence of graduate education.”

Jim: “OK, that still doesn't answer my question, and yes, I have a problem with the French. So let me try another question, what makes something suitable for publication?”

Dr. Référence: “Original ideas that are well supported by other seminal works.”

Jim: “Well, if my ideas are truly original, wouldn't they, in and of themselves, constitute a seminal work.”

Dr. Référence: “You can't be that original, you'd never get published.”

The 8-10 page, APA formated paper. It's the currency of graduate education. I'm not sure why the range is 8-10 pages. Why not 4 – 12 pages? There must be something significant that occurs in only 8 to 10 pages. I suppose the key is to synthesize volumes of information, place a somewhat unique bend on the topic and then provide dozens of references, that when taken out of context, seem to support your postulation. As a result, we produce cycles of variations on the same tried and true themes.

In contrast, why not encourage the learner to publish original content first and then elicit comment from professional and academic pauper alike. Yes, publish first without constraint on format. Now this is writing that demonstrates thinking over regurgitation. Sure, blogging sounds like the disgorging process, but provides the medium for the development of original thought, reflective practice, mediated understanding and, perhaps there is even room for learning.

With the APA paper your ideas can be supported by those entrenched within your field of study. Your paper is eulogized with pages of reference no one, not even you graduate chair or mother, is going to bother looking up. With the blog, your ideas can be supported, challenged and refined by those who are at the leading edge of innovation, as well as those that are simply on the edge of reality. Your comments and their responses can be linked providing a thread for others as they pursue similar concepts.

The APA paper is usually written in isolation and evaluated by a single source. How often do others share their papers with anyone other than the professor requesting the diatribe? How often does the learner seek alternative evaluation by someone other than the professor? Blogs allow for the creation of a dynamic exchange with almost limitless input and evluation of the content as applied to multiple contexts.

Why is there such a demand to publish? Is it validation? Does publication enhance reputation? Could a similar reputation and validation be derived from blogging? One measure of blogging reputation is the number of incoming links from other blogs. Clay Shirky has attempted to apply the Power Laws of wealth (80% of the wealth is held by 20% of the population) to incoming links on blogs. In essence, 80% of all incoming links are found in 20% of the blogs. What causes people link to this 20%? How are these blogs different? Are there enough similarities in this select group to develop a taxonomy? How did they develop reputation and identity? Is their reputation dependent or independent of their blog?

Could I answer all of this in 8-10 pages? Yes. Could I get it publish? Maybe. Would I learn more initiating my research questions within the context of my blog? Absolutely.

Just follow your heart. That's what I do.

2004-12-07T11:00:00.000-07:00

Marion: Hey, Jim. What did you do last week again?
Jim: I told you! I spent it with my uncle on NetLogo modifying the sniff-threshold of turtles and the turn-angle of birds!
Marion: Did you extend any models?
Jim: Yes, like 50 of 'em! They kept trying to attack my schema, what the heck would you do in a situation like that?
Marion: What kind of computer did you use?
Jim: A freakin' Compaq, what do you think?

Marion: And here we have the correct OSOSS model. A must have for this season’s open-content fashions.
Jim: I already made like infinity of those at instructional design camp.

Marion: It’s o.k., Wiley offers you his protection.
Jim: Thanks, I caught you a delicious bass.
Marion: Sweet!

Meet the Flockers

2004-12-06T11:27:00.000-07:00

How can we help people learn better?
How can we help more people learn?
How can we help people want to learn?

If anything, this course has demonstrated (without having to suspend belief) that people with common interests can self-organize and provide an autonomous learning environment. As a result, online interaction can facilitate “better learning”, and because of scalability, can increase the number of people involved in learning. The question remains, “Does online interaction motivate people to learn?”

Flocking and No Child Left Behind

In the flocking model, if you decrease the minimum separation and increase the maximum-align-turn, you end up with virtually the entire flock flying in a straight line, in the same direction. The number in the flock doesn’t matter. Twenty or two-hundred, they will end up flying in a linear fashion.

Isn’t this is the nature of public education? Within grades, there is minimum separation, with few variables for turning. "Here are the NCLB outcomes, now straighten up and 'fly-right'". "It doesn't matter if you are teaching twenty or two-hundred, this is the path you will follow for learning."

If you can see in the image, there is one bird flying solo in the opposite direction. Is this a misguided special needs bird? A home-schooled bird? Or simply a bird who realizes there is a better way and a better direction?

Slime and Motivation

In the slime model, the sniff threshold is the minimum amount of chemical that must be present in a turtle's patch before the turtle will look for a chemical gradient to follow. The sniff threshold is “motivation” for the turtle to follow a certain path.

When there is a sufficient population of turtles, they will cluster with relative ease and there is an exchange of individual turtles between clusters. These turtles, in essence, can be members of multiple clusters as they see fit.

With a lower number of turtles, you have to lower the sniff threshold and increase the sniff angle to induce clustering. This takes a much longer time with fewer turtles, but it does occur. However, it also results in virtually no exchange between clusters.

If this were to apply to an online environment, the motivation threshold seems to be less of an issue with a greater number of participants. Returning to my question, “Does online interaction motivate people to learn”, I would have little motivation to learn non-Euclidean geometry. Actually, I have no motivation to learn any type of geometry, Euclidean, non-Euclidean or otherwise. However, if my motivation is to simply get through the content, then access to a larger pool of individuals experiencing similar motivation (or lack thereof) may assist me. Who knows, I might find a relative context for geometry and become associated with another group of learners with yet another motivation.

Current Events

2004-12-01T14:20:00.000-07:00

Last week, Japanese scientists explaced... placed explosive detonators at the bottom of Lake Lochness to blow Nessy out of the water. Sir Godfrey of the Nessy Alliance summoned the help of Scotland's local wizards to cast a protective spell over the lake and its local residents and all those who seek for the peaceful existence of our underwater ally.

Lineage Learning

2004-11-29T11:43:00.000-07:00

It took me two weeks and far more than 12 hours to become a Lineage, Level 12 Knight with an armor class of -3. It took my nine year old son, Sam, 2 ½ unassisted hours to become a Level 8 Knight with an armor class of -1. Why? Is it because Sam comes from the X-Box/Game Cube/PlayStation generation with an inculcated understanding of gameplay, keyboard control, and simulated social interaction? Why was my learning curve much steeper than Sam’s?

My Lineage Learning

Lineage afforded me self-directed, individual learning as well as group, collaborative learning. There were benefits to both associations. While I enjoyed group hunts with other members of the 7150 class, I didn’t want my inexperience to be a burden to the collective. As a result, I spent extensive time learning the nuances of the game on my own. Against my nature, I did the gaming equivalent of “pulling over and asking directions”. I asked other participants for help and hints. Most were more than willing to help. I even resorted to printing and reading much of the 183 page, “quick guide” to Lineage.

Learning is Facilitated When Demonstrated to the Learner.

In contrast, Sam’s first experience with Lineage occurred Friday evening as he watched me interact with fellow 7150 knights, elves, and dark elves. Not only was he observing my play within Lineage, he was examining how I interfaced with the game. He saw how I used the keyboard, how I opened up various menus, created shortcuts, and interpreted data. He asked questions about armor and weapons. Through me, he asked other 7150 members about their armor and weapons. He quickly referenced these in the Lineage guide. He noticed patterns in play. Go out and hunt; return to the village and sell what you can; upgrade your weapons and armor; buy healing potions and food; drop what you can’t sell or trade; receive enchantments, and return to hunt.

Learning is facilitated when existing knowledge is activated as a foundation for new knowledge.

As a result, Sam was able to absorb the entirety of my weeks of learning in a few hours. By the time he began to play Lineage on his own, he had a significant framework of the environment which to build upon.

Learning is facilitated when new knowledge is applied by the learner.

Sam quickly discovered which healing potions were best to have when going into the dungeon. While lesser healing potions were cheaper, you had to purchase more of them to keep your hit points up when going into battle alone. The extra lesser healing potions increased the overall weight and slowed the Lineage character down. He also noted that if you used the regular healing potion, you had to hit the short-cut key less often, allowing you to focus on the battle. He also determined that he should wait until his hit points dropped into the 20’s before employing a healing potion. This not only maximized available hit points, it conserved healing potions. Not bad for a 4th grader. Who am I kidding! Not bad for anyone, including doctoral students.

Learning is facilitated when learners are engaged in solving real-world problems and Learning is facilitated when new knowledge is integrated into the learner's world.

While the Lineage environment afforded learning for both me and my son, the question becomes, “to what end?” What real-world problems are solved by killing goblins and underground ramia; upgrading armor and weapons, and trading goods? The readings for this week focused on the “social simulation”, “social network”, and “understanding relationships” aspects of MMOs. While these cognitive and affective experiences can be applied to “real-world” problems, the validity of any MMO as an effective teaching/learning tool is dependant on the integration of the experience into the learner’s world. If the new knowledge remains within the Lineage world, then it is not effective learning. It is simply an entertaining diversion.

Efficient or Effective Technology

Christopher Dede has said, “With new technologies we’ve tended to do the same things more efficiently, when what we need is to do different things more effectively.” Is the teaching/learning power of an MMO based in efficiency or effectiveness? By exhaustive trial and error or sheer determination, an individual could learn from an autonomous technology. In isolation, this neither seems effective or efficient. However, when the technology is mediated by human interaction, such as my son’s interaction with my own gameplay, then learning is enhanced, guided and holds the potential for assessment of integration of new knowledge.

For me, the real question becomes, “Is there something that my son could learn within the MMO environment, which he couldn’t obtain more effectively from real experience?” In a recent post, Thompson provides an analogue to this question.

“Studies show that you can teach a kid (with a computerized program, if you want) how to identify nouns in a sentence. You can do that every year for five years, but in the sixth year, in a new context, he still won't be able to identify nouns because the formal part of the instruction ignores the fact that the only reason it might be important to know nouns is because it will help you communicate something you care about more effectively. Nouns in isolation are meaningless, and most formal instruction requires that the concept to be learned is isolated (through analysis, design, etc.). There is no formula for bringing it all together into a real life experience or purpose. The principal of my school is currently considering spending our technology budget for the next three years on a computerized reading program that will benefit 60 kids out of 1100. My recommendation is that we hire two new reading specialists to work with the struggling readers in small groups; it would cost the same, and I am willing to bet the results would be much better."

Blogging From Hell

2004-11-23T11:04:00.000-07:00

For those of you dabbling in BlogShares, David's blog was finally indexed and shares are available for purchase. The analyst report indicates that the blog is growing and is underpriced. Both are great conditions to buy. At the time of this post, shares are only $0.83. They were $.044 when Marion began buying shares this morning.

As I've mentioned before, when you sign up with BlogShares (it's free!) they start you out with $500 blog dollars (B$). With that kind of scratch, you could pick up 500 shares of Wiley stock and still have B$85 left to invest elsewhere.

Since blogs can also be catagorized by industry, it's interesting to note that David's blog is already number 8 on the top 100 blogs in the "graduate school" category (please note that blogs can belong to multiple industries).

I just scored 100 shares of Mason's blog. After the purchase, the price of shares went from B$0.74 to B$1.05. Mark's blog has a good source of incoming links, so I think this is a good pick. Kami's blog is also doing well at B$1.12 a share.

Power Laws and Blog Reputation

2004-11-22T13:54:00.000-07:00

Social networks, power, collusion, alliances, intrigue, and strategy. No, I’m not talking about Lineage. I’m talking about BlogShares. For the past week, Marion (a.k.a. Matthew Buckley) and I have been buying and selling virtual stock in blogs. In one week, we’ve manipulated the stock price of the Chicken’s Don’t Have Armpits blog from $0.20 to $1.18 a share.

Since the underlying value of a blog is based upon incoming links, you find yourself looking at who is linking to which blogs. Even if you aren’t interested in playing BlogShares, the search features alone are a great tool in researching blogs. Once you locate a blog, the top 100 incoming and outgoing links are listed as hyperlinks.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I think the analysis of incoming links is an interesting way to look at blog reputation. What makes people link to other blogs? How do bloggers build a reputation that would elicit incoming links?

The creator of BlogShares stated that his overall objective was the “exploration of an emerging social network”. The other purpose was to see if the Power Law theory could be applied to blogs. Part of this theory is based on the fact that 20% of the population holds 80% of the wealth. Seyed Razavi, the creator of BlogShares, maintains that this site proves that 20% of the blogs contain 80% of all incoming links. Again, what causes a blog to be in that upper 20%?

(Article by Clay Shirky that talks about Power Laws, Weblogs and Inequality)

Lineage

2004-11-22T09:05:00.000-07:00

Character’s Name: MactSagairt

This is an abbreviatiated version of my family’s original Gaelic (Irish) family surname, “Mac an tSagairt”, which means “Son of the Priest”. Why the priest has a son should tell you something of my lineage.

Class: Knight

Level: 6

Armor Class: 1

Weapons:

Dagger
Dwarvish Short Sword
Short Sword
Mace
Trident (my favorite)
Short Bow
Silver Arrows (7)
Arrows (297)

Favorite Creature:

I’m not sure I have a favorite. I guess if I have to pick I’d have to say the Underground Ramia (it doesn’t have anything to do with the fact that she is topless). My least favorite is the Sewer Vakuuk. I hate those freaking cockroaches. You can’t attack one in the dungeon without being swarmed. Plus they can bite you and inject poison.

Did I Die Frequently This Week?

Oh yeah. When I ventured into Silver Knight Town, it took me a while to figure out who and what I could kill by myself. This is not the game for loners. To be successful you have to work with others. Otherwise, it just takes too long to build your level or get anything accomplished.

Most Embarrassing Way I Died

Not wanting to read the 184 page Lineage Guide Book, I was navigating around Hidden Valley trying to find the Training Area. I didn’t realize that I had to arm myself with the dagger. I saw that I had one, so assumed I was holding it. I started attacking goblins with apparently my bare fists. After bashing a couple, they ganged up on me and killed me.

Embarrassing Way I Almost Died

After fighting three orcs, my hit points were almost depleted. A beagle runs up to me. I'm thinking, "nice doggy". At first I thought I had accidentally attacked it because I could see blood. Then I realized this demon Snoopy was attacking me. I had to bludgeon the poor thing.

Reflection

I spent about a 1 ½ hours on Lineage before we met on Thursday. I think I learned more in the first 15 minutes of our group activity than I did in the previous 90. Even though four of my peers were sitting in the same room with me, I found myself calling out their Lineage character name when I asked questions. It was interesting to try to find out which other characters where part of 7150, and if so, who they really were. Three hours went by quick. This weekend, I've spent time getting better armor and weapons to prepare for what I hope is another group outing. I think for next week, someone needs to go the Prince/Princess route so we can band together and do the open content blood pledge.

The Virtual Value of Your Blog

2004-11-17T07:11:00.000-07:00

Have you ever wondered about the value of your blog? Well, your friends at BlogShares have figured out a way to quantify it.

What is BlogShares?
BlogShares is a fantasy stock market where weblogs are the companies. Players invest fictional dollars on shares in blogs. Blogs are valued by their incoming links and add value to other blogs by linking to them. Prices can go up or down based on trading and the underlying value of the blog.

How's Your Stock?

Peer Blogs
Sesquipedalian Solipsism
Chicken's Don't Have Armpits/Buckley's Blog
Murat Ozoglu
Shelley's Blog (Her old one...before the URL change)
Road to PhD
Hello World....Kami's Blog
Technologic/Virtual Theology/LDS Thought
Dawson's World
Heather's Blog
John Dehlin's Blog
deblog
Nomadic Thoughts/De-In-structional Experiments
Curt's Big Blog
Xin's House
Radiation City
Parker Productions
First
dclittle
Wader's Blog
Flying Car
eidosabi
Gulfidan's Blog
John W. Roe
(Couldn't locate IT Reflection and Bing Howe's blog on BlogShares)

Other Blogs
David Wiley's Stuff (Not yet indexed. Not yet available to trade)
Abject Learning
OLDaily
The Daily Rant
Martindale Matrix/IDT Matrix

Sesquipedalian Solipsism is the only peer blog I could find with shares that have been bought and sold. This is why the price of Mike's shares are $29.92 while the price of shares for my blog are $0.20. What a bargain! Now's your time to get in on the bottom floor. Think Microsoft 1986.

Want to raise your stock? Get people to start linking to your blog. Incidently, Stephen Downes' OLDaily trades for $3,305.06 a share. The Virtual Value of OLDaily is $66,350.33. In comparison, the value of The Flying Car is $1,517.54.

Take a look at BlogShare's listing of incoming links on the Martindale Matrix (Scroll down to the bottom of the page). You will note that most, if not all, of the incoming links originate from the 7150 class. You will find multiple incoming links from this class on the Daily Rant, Abject Learning and OLDaily blogs as well. In fact, I'm certain that Virtual Theology (now titled Technologic) is the Kevin Bacon of incoming links.

BlogShares & Reputation
A key indicator of the virtual value of a blog is the number of incoming links. The more people who provide links on their blog to your blog increases your value. Couldn't this be one way to measure "reputation"? It certainly is an interesting way to find out who is linking to your blog.

Real Learning

2004-11-16T09:36:00.000-07:00

Sesquipedalian Solipsism (JesterMike) sent me an email that was so good I pleaded with him to post it to his blog. After I sent him a money order, he graciously complied with my request. It's a great read (so read it dammit!). Here's a tag line from the post, "ALL REAL LEARNING IS SELF-GENERATED AND INFORMAL."

If you are involved in public education in anyway (teacher, researcher, professor, administrator, counselor), Sesquipedalian Solipsism is a blog you will want to add to your aggregator.

Who Am I? I am Jean Valjean!

2004-11-15T09:24:00.000-07:00

(In Utah we pronounce Jean Valjean as Gene Val Gene.)

A few weeks ago, Kami asked me, “Where’s your blog?” Although my blog was in her aggregator, the fact that I omitted my name and used a picture of Kevin Smith in my blog profile threw her off. Conversely, last Thursday, when I met the Cache Valley contingent of INST 7150, they had little clue of Jim Taggart. But when I said I wrote the “Flying Car” blog, I got more of a response. In both cases there was a disconnect between my real life and online identity.

UnPhiltered

UnPhiltered is a discussion board I created last spring. I will save the rationale of this board for another posting (It will be titled, “Revenge of the Redactor, Episode IV”). Although the momentum for this board has waned (fine, it’s dead), UnPhiltered has become an associated part of my online identity.

Blogs, Identity and Reputation

While the Donath article focused on identity and deception in a Usenet environment, I found it interesting to look for parallels in blogging. As Donath points out, the primary information exchange in Usenet groups is the request for information. In contrast, individual blogs are rarely used for this purpose. Unless you are assured your blog pulls a large enough audience, your request will go unnoticed and unanswered.

Stephen Downes could post to his blog the question, “Why is identity important in a virtual community? or even “Who makes the best toaster oven?” and he could be confident of multiple comments, trackbacks, and links. A blog titled UnPhiltered, posting the same questions, is casting a “message in a bottle” out into a vast virtual ocean in hopes that it will wash up on someone’s computer. Why?

Who is UnPhiltered? A lack of disclosure of identity certainly does little to establish a reputation. From Donath, “No matter how brilliant the posting, there is no gain in reputation if the readers are oblivious to whom the author is.” On the other hand, Downes already has a significant reputation. It wouldn’t make sense to hide identity.

Without an established off-line identity, how does someone with a blog create an online reputation? According to Donath, reputation is enhanced by contributing remarks of the type admired by the group. Blogs are written with some sort of audience in mind. Even web journals are written with the idea that someone may read it. This blog, Flying Car, is written with fellow INST 7150 students and David Wiley in mind. Since I post questions to the course website under my real name, why not use my real name (and picture) on the blog associated with the same class? I have a fair idea who reads the blog and the kind of reputation I’m attempting to establish.

Who Am I?

I freely admit that this blog is written for a specific audience while trying to develop a specific reputation. However, is this really me? It’s certainly the compliant doctoral student side of me. The more unabashed side of me is found on a different blog where my identity is not explicit.

The guise of anonymity gives me the somewhat false security to voice my real opinions about doctoral education, institutions, this class, my employer, and life in general. It is written for a very select few who have similar blogs. If someone were to stumble across this other blog, I could always plead innocence. Like Britney, I’m not that innocent.

When this class is over and postings to this blog are not adjudicated as part of some scoring rubric (that was the other side of me speaking), I will probably merge the two blogs. It will be interesting to see how many of the INST 7150 blogs continue and if the tenor of their postings will change as well.

Internet Relay Chat

2004-11-08T09:53:00.000-07:00

Networks

DALnet
GamesNET

Channels Most Visited

#Chataholics
#triva
#newbies
#Chat-World

IRC and LambdaMOO

In most IRC channels I visited, I found the chat very similar to LambdaMOO. It was a group of people who had established some sort of rapport who had contextual discussions. Some discussions I understood. Others where so contextual, I didn't have a clue what they were saying. Like LambdaMOO, I found it difficult to find a point in the conversation in which I could join. I would enter a channel, say “hello”, observe the conversation, try to join in, be ignored and then leave. In this milieu, how does anyone present enough of a voice to establish an on-line identity or rapport with others?

Chataholics and the Bot

Chataholics is a channel based upon a series of 40,000 trivia questions moderated by a bot. The bot is an independent program that randomly posts the question, gives a series of three hints, and eventually provides the correct answer. If you are the first to answer the triva question correctly, the bot (named Mungo) identifies your nickname, gives you some positive reinforcement, lists the correct answer and how long it took you to get the answer. For each question you get correct, you earn a point. The bot will tell you your point total, where you rank, and who (by nickname) you rank behind and their score.

Click here to view a screen shot

What makes this channel unique is not the bot, but what the bot facilitates. It affords newbies the ability to begin interaction as soon as they enter the room. There is no need to observe the conversation for ½ hour waiting for a point to jump in. The questions are diverse enough to encourage greater participation than if the channel were based on a single subject. Correct and even incorrect responses to the trivia give some insight into the user. These affordances give the user a voice, an identity, a reputation and the foundation to build rapport with others.

Chataholics also has the benefit of very good operators who model the channel etiquette they desire for users. They are usually the first to congratulate the user who had the correct answer with a, “wtg, vg, gj” and so on. The operators also a quick to kick anyone remotely inappropriate or anyone who interferes with others. John Roe would be safe here.

After spending sometime on this channel (fine, I spend a lot of time on this channel), I began to notice some unwritten patterns of conduct. The bot asked the question, “Managua is the capital of _________.” I quickly typed, “Nicaguragu”, then “Nicargua”. It was obvious I knew the answer, but couldn't figure out the spelling. Instead of other users jumping in and answering the question (which is something I would have done), they began to give me spelling hints until I got “Nicaragua”. The other unwritten rule is not to answer questions you have seen before. You leave those for others.

This channel has a very detailed website that provides a discussion board and statistics about the channel. These stats include daily activity, when people are most active, who is most active, who writes the most lines, personal stats on frequent users, and even “who uses the most words no one else uses”.

Application (Reuse of What Works)

If I were to design an IRC channel for instructional technology, I would borrow many of the facets I feel makes Chataholics work. The first key is to provide frequent opportunity for new users to express themselves and join in the discussion, thereby establishing their own online presence on the channel.

On many channels I would see a topic of the day posted. Of course, this was usually being ignored. An alternative would be a bot that posted a topic that would be discussed for the next 10 minutes. Occasionally the bot would give a count down on the time remaining. The bot would also give the opportunity for the discussion to continue if the majority of those on the channel selected that option. When time expired, the next topic would be presented and a new discussion could begin. An associated discussion board could continue the discussions on IRC and provide a sounding board for the selection of new IRC topics.

While I'm not smart enough to create the scripting for such an IRC bot, I bet there are a few of my colleagues that are. Any takers?

Frank and a Couple of Witches

2004-11-01T10:35:00.000-07:00

MOO! Did I Scare You?

2004-11-01T10:14:00.000-07:00

LambdaMOO vs. Lambda-Mu

In 1984 classic Revenge of the Nerds, the only fraternity that will sponsor the nerds is Lambda Lambda Lambda (Tri-Lams). Their sister sorority is Omegu-Mu. Together they are Lambda-Mu. Everything seemed to work out for the nerds. Gilbert went on to become Goose in Top Gun as well as Dr. Mark Green on E.R. Louis became Lizzie McGuire’s Dad. So what does this have to do with Multiple User, Object-Oriented Dimensions? Perhaps it is nothing more than a disturbing look into my schema.

MOO vs. Usenet, Blogs and FanFiction

Unlike the other social interactions we have encountered this semester, MOOs have both synchronous and asynchronous capabilities. Like most MOOs, Usenet and FanFiction are text-based. While the main architecture of blogs is text, they can also incorporate graphics and sound. However, blogs, newsgroups and FanFiction are all asynchronous. The social interaction is rarely simultaneous.

In contrast, MOOs offer the affordance of synchronous, real-time communication. The asynchronous component is found in the creation of objects (artifacts) that other users can interact with regardless of your presence. It is the ability to create artifacts that make the MOO interesting. Otherwise, it is simply a decentralized chat room.

Taxonomy of Users and My MOO Experience

After an hour of Zork, I felt fairly comfortable with the idea of entering the LambdaMoo environment. I printed off the LambdaMoo map so I could navigate and I read LambdaMoo: An Introduction. During my first hour in LambdaMoo, I felt like a turd in the punchbowl. There were many commands I didn’t have a grasp of. When I tried to create my own character, I ended up sending my email address to everyone in the Living Room. As I moved from room to room, I felt as if I was intruding in the middle of private conversations. It found it difficult, and frankly uncomfortable to join in conversations.

I started using the “help” functions and completed a tutorial. This helped me create a list of commands as well as garner some rules of etiquette. When I returned to exploring the rooms, I would always say, “hello” when entering and “goodbye” when leaving. This increased my synchronous interaction somewhat, but not a great deal. Again, I felt very much as an outsider. I’m not sure the “guest” designation does much more than identify you as a lurker and someone who is not yet part of the community.

Returning to Bartle’s Taxonomy of Users (Player’s Who Suit MUDs), I could clearly identify with the “exploration” user. I wasn’t interested in socializing with other users as much as I was in exploring the various rooms and objects. If I wanted to socialize online, I’d rather go to a chat room. At least there you can use your backspace key to correct entries.

Objects are the Object of a MOO

As I stated earlier, I find the creation and interaction of objects the key ingredient to a MOO. The synchronous socializing is simply an extra. The idea of creating an object for others to interact within virtual space is interesting. The idea of creating an object that others can build upon is exciting. As such, I spent at least an hour inside the Rube Goldberg Contraption. Unfortunately, as a guest, I could not create new motions and interactions.

I found myself looking for new objects to interact with as opposed to socializing with other users. Perhaps I’m just antisocial. I ended up under the hot tub in a mechanical room. The description of the room included a view of the underside of the hot tub with a plug. I couldn’t resist. I pulled the plug out. The mechanical room was filled with water; I was electrocuted and was transported to the Cinder Pile. This was my first experience in an area off the LambdaMoo map. I dug down through the Cinder Pile (apparently made of other fried users ashes) and encountered “Rugged Skeleton” who was digging. I learned that this skeleton was created in 1998 as an AHaB (almost human bastard) AI-Puppet/RPG-Monster. I’m not sure what all that meant, but someone created the skeleton six years ago, and I was now interacting with it. This off-the-map area was perfect for me. It contained few users and lots of objects to interact with.

Object Feedback

As I would interact with an object I would always try to learn about the creator. One of the drawbacks is providing feedback to the artifact creator. I would try to see if they were connected to LambdaMoo, but that was unsuccessful. Unlike FanFiction, where you can elicit and provide feedback about your creation, there didn’t seem to be a way to provide feedback about the object interaction in the LambdaMoo environment. I suppose one mechanism would be to create and attach a note to the object. I think it is the feedback mechanism that would allow the objects to play a greater role in mediating action between users.

Autumn in Manchester Township, New York

2004-10-25T22:01:00.000-07:00

Synthesis I

2004-10-25T10:42:00.000-07:00

Cooperation as Incentive for Good Behavior

Each day, I drive ten miles to work passing through dozens of intersections. Some of these intersections are controlled by a traffic signal, some are not. Occasionally, I see a police officer, but virtually all intersections are unmonitored by law enforcement. As I drive to work, I trust that other drivers will follow established patterns of behavior, such as stopping at red lights, signaling when changing lanes (it could happen, even in Utah), slowing down in school zones and stopping for pedestrians in crosswalks. Because of this established trust or confidence in other drivers, I know that it will take approximately 20 minutes to get to work.

What is the basis of this trust? Do I personally know each of the other drivers I encounter on the road? Do I encounter the same drivers each day? Can I determine by their age, gender and vehicle type their driving expertise, insurance status and their reputation for following traffic rules? The answer is no. Yet, without thought, I climb into my vehicle each day with the expectation that I will arrive at work about 20 minutes later.

Why, on a daily basis, am I willing to place myself in a potential steel death trap and hurtle myself towards other hurtling potential steel death traps? It is not my trust in driver education programs. It's not my faith in traffic laws or the enforcement of those laws. It's my trust in mutual cooperation to meet a specific need. That need is getting from Point A to Point B, efficiently and safely. When everyone follows traditional traffic standards, everyone can meet their goal of getting from Point A to Point B.

While there looms the threat of fines for non-compliance, enforcement is limited. Accomplishing the goal of driving (that whole getting to where you are going thing), creates its own incentive for good behavior. Is it perfect? No. There are still those who violate mutual cooperation resulting in impeded traffic, property damage, injury and even death. Yet, the number of people using motor vehicles to get where they are going has not decreased.

Online Social Interaction and My 1991 Toyota 4Runner (186,000 miles)
So what does driving to work have to do with trust in an online environment? I think we are talking about the same thing. It would be much safer, cheaper and healthier if I walked to work. However, the convenience of using my vehicle outweighs the risk of an accident and the cost of maintenance, insurance and fuel.

The Internet, if anything, is the epitome of convenience. Just like driving to work, online interactions include random interactions with people going from Point A to Point B. The affordances of the online interaction (contact with a larger group of people, access to broader base of information, acquisition of goods and services without regard to time and space) outweigh the risk of untoward actions as a result of use. If large numbers of online users were to take unfair advantage of these affordances, the convenience of the Internet would be mitigated and use would be self-limiting. Mutual cooperation, as an incentive for good online behavior, has less to do with the social mores of the users as it has to do with sustaining the viability and affordances of the technology. We play nice, so we can keep on playing.

Reputation (Should I Get One?)

The bulk of this week's readings dealt with the employ of reputation systems primarily in online exchanges of goods and services. User rating systems also are employed by online communities where the primary commodity is information. Slashdot uses “karma” and Open Learning Support uses “kudos”. Surprisingly, online relationship services have been slow to add reputation systems. Perhaps they are waiting for hotgradstudent.com to take the lead (Incidently, www.hotgradstudent.com is an unregistered domain name. Probably for good reason).

While a reputation system (positive and negative) can mediate certain interactions, I don't find it to be the primary constraint in the overall behavior of online users. Reputation systems are only as valid as the belief that the user holds in the system. As Resnick and company points out, it's not how the system works, but how the participants believe it works.

Going back to my driving metaphor, what would happen if drivers could rate each other resulting in a reputation system that was affixed to their front and rear bumpers? Would this alter my driving habits? Would I be worried about how others rated me? Would I alter my route based upon the rating of other drivers around me?

While you would think that this affordance would improve my safety, would this actually improve my ability to get from Point A to Point B? I think I would spend too much time looking at bumpers instead of concentrating my actual task at hand. Instead of relying on reputation systems, I think the experience (whether it's driving, posting to a Usenet group, or making an online purchase) is more efficient based upon the accumulated trust of others in mutual cooperation to meet individual goals.

Educhaos

2004-10-18T16:21:00.000-07:00

In response to my “Things I Learned in San Francisco” post, Marion replied,

Interesting comment there towards the end. I'm going to have to think about that one. My sons are still in the early stage, looking around with wonder. How do I keep them there?

I think it’s easier for parents to keep their kids in discovery mode. I think back to family vacations. My Dad was one to stop at every historical marker; my Mom was one to talk to everyone and anyone. They were both fully engaged in curious discovery.

It's quite another thing to apply this to formal, industrialized, and sanitized education. Mike Thompson has often said that perhaps a better alternative for 8th and 9th grade is one extended field trip. I like that idea. Public education has been boiled down to competencies and benchmarks. What does our future hold if we get everyone to a minimum competency in math and science? Where is the joy of simple discovery? We already have a generation of adept test-takers, do we want another?

One of the sessions I attended during my time in S.F. (it wasn’t all about the seafood) talked about Educhaos. I think we need more chaos and less “highly qualified teaching”. I like the idea of instruction being less prescriptive. I know, this is all very anti-Magerian and flies in the face of decades of instructional system design. I say it's time to fly.

Fan Fiction: Organic v. Contrived

2004-10-18T09:25:00.000-07:00

I spent majority of my Fan Fiction time in the Seinfeld genre with side trips into Star Trek. Here are the Seinfeld submissions I read and reviewed.

The Scared by Goody Ace (My Review)
The Halloween Party by Dojo56 (My Review)
The Popcorn Business by Father Hulk (My Review)

Here is my submitted story, The Jumpsuit

Why Fan Fiction is So Popular?

Like Usenet groups, fan fiction is popular because it provides an opportunity to express and share a common interest. Based on the stories I read, most participants are not necessarily trying to become professional writers. They are trying to share their passion for the genre they are writing about.

I think this is similar to fantasy football. People don’t play fantasy football because they have hopes of being a general manager in the NFL. They play it as an additional manifestation of their passion for the game. Fan fiction gives the author the ability to bring back to life TV shows long cancelled and authors who are long since departed.

How Can These Factors Might be Harnessed to Improve Formal Instructional Uses of Technology?

They can’t! Fan fiction works because it is organic and self-sustaining. It’s not contrived by learning objectives and grading rubrics. Participants have a personal vested interest in their subject. It works because it is informal.

Once submissions become assignments, then the subject matter, content and reviews come under scrutiny external to the community. For example, while I was free to choose the genre for this week’s assignment, my posting of a story was framed by the course, not by any innate desire to become part of a larger community. Will I follow up with the reviews posted on my story? Maybe, but it’s not very likely. How many of us have followed our comments made on Usenet?

The reality is that not everything that is successful can be replicated in the classroom. Flash mobs are very successful for those who choose to participate. Because they are successful, should they be used in an educational setting to build collaborative learning experiences?

Things I Learned In San Francisco

2004-10-15T10:59:00.000-07:00

I had this grand idea that I would post a daily synopsis of the sessions I attended at the Training Fall Conference. It turns out that I'm too cheap. The Internet connection in the hotel was $12.99 a day. The CyberCafe on-site at the convention turned out to be very popular. So much that they limited your time to 10 minutes. I still have my notes, so perhaps I will get around to posting some conference related reflections. In the meantime, here are some things I learned while in San Francisco.

Law Enforcement

In San Francisco, just because someone is wearing a motorcycle cop uniform, don't assume that they are a sworn law enforcement officer.

Things Not To Say While At The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

"My six-year old draws better than this."
"Seriously, how do you know it's not hanging upside down?"
"I must of had some bad seafood last night, because I think I'm going to Pollock."

Speaking of Seafood

The Killer Crab at the Crab House on Pier 39 was good.

The BBQ crab at Joe's Crab Shack was better. Besides, who doesn't want a, "I got Crabs at Joe's" t-shirt?

Most Romantic Spot

Top of Coit Tower at sunset. Sure I was there with the another manager, who is married, and is male. But hey, when in Rome. (Ok, I'm not gay. Not that there's anything wrong with that).

Most Original Panhandler Signs

1. "Please help fund my alcohol research"
2. "Please give to the United Negro Pizza Fund"

Ghirardelli Chocolate

Why go all the way to Ghirardelli Square to purchase Ghirardelli chocolate? It's sold in every store, newspaper stand, and kiosk in the city. It's also available at every Albertsons and Smith's store in Utah. It's not even made in San Francisco. It's made in San Leandro.

And while we are on the subject, it just doesn't seem right to go to Chinatown and buy a Chinese silk robe made in Malaysia from a Pakistani shop keeper (not that there is anything wrong with that, either). Isn't this one time you actually want the product to say, "Made in China"?

Ditch the Rental Car

The best way to see the city is to walk. You get to see a lot more of it, you don't have to worry about parking and you find lots of little gems. If you are in San Francisco, walk from Union Square, through Chinatown, into Little Italy and North Beach and then head for the wharf. If you get tired, you can always ride the cable car back to Union Square.

Tourists and New Learners

I like to stop and watch people. It didn't matter where I was in the city, I could always pick out the tourists. It wasn't the cameras or maps in hand that tips a tourist off. It's the fact that tourists are usually looking up and around. They are in discovery mode. In contrast, natives are looking straight ahead or down. Their discovery is over, they are just trying to get from Point A to Point B.

I think that new learners are like tourists. They are looking up and around. What do we usually do as instructors and instructional technologists? We give the learning objectives, outcomes,defined assignments and content. We make them look straight ahead or down. We just want them to go from Point A to Point B. What a loss for both the student and the instructor. What a waste for the designer.

Training Fall Conference and Expo

2004-10-11T15:31:00.000-07:00

Today is the first full day of the Training Fall Conference and Expo in San Francisco. I will provide a more complete update of the sessions I attended later. The Cyber Cafe is a little crowded. It was a bit sureal to be from Ogden, Utah, attending a conference in San Francisco and participating in a session with David Merrill who was in Hawaii.

Dr. (Elder) Merrill looks very good. He's got some sun and was wearing a green floral print shirt (no tie) and a missionary name tag. It was classic Merrill. He was going 70 miles faster than his PowerPoint slides, but as always, his comments were concise and provoking (thought and otherwise).

I see that we are having our first InsT 7150 mixer at Roosters this Thursday. I'm a bit crushed. How could Shelley do this? No gifts from Chinatown for you. I thought that was our special place...along with Lori and Marion of course. I think Shelley is getting a kick-back from the Rooster's people for scheduling meetings there. Maybe in a previous life she was a hostess. I don't know.

I hope some Logan people show up. David made it clear that he didn't want to come down here if only the "Davis people showed up" (email). I understand that he was trying to stress that our party should allow face-to-face interaction to support online interaction, and that interaction needs participants from both campuses. However, this statement taken out of context could be interpreted another way. I see this as a negative for text-based online social software. How do you make the text based conversation more than one dimensional?

Edublogging

2004-10-10T09:25:00.000-07:00

What this you ask? Jim is posting his assignment prior to 10:00 AM on Monday? Yes, it's true. I'm leaving this afternoon for San Francisco to attend the Training Fall Conference and Expo.

In going over Dr. Wiley's list of edubloggers, it's interesting to note that as a group, they seem susceptible to the same foibles of other bloggers. I found a lot of abandoned or inactive sites. I found the blogrolls to be the best source to find a larger group of edubloggers. Here are the five blogs I followed this week, posting comments to each one.

Situativity (Rovy F. Branon )
comment

mamamusings (Elizabeth Lawley)
comment

Many 2 Many (group weblog)
comment

David Davies' Weblog
comment

blog.IT (Evan Straub)
comment

Topics That Interested Me and Why

Gmail was a topic of interest in a couple of these edublogs. I'm interested in the phenomenon of using pseudo-exclusivity (invitation only) to promote a product. Without debating Google's motivation, what would happen if this were applied to a learning environment?

Given my other class is semester is in qualitative research, I found a post on “contextual inquiry” beneficial. Given AECT's predilection for defining the field of instructional technology, I found the idea of IT being “education informatics” intriguing.

The remaining areas of interest were primarily tools based. There were multiple discussion on Furl and furlesque products and RedLightGreen, a tool that will automatically generate APA citations during a database search.

What I believe Makes an Educational Use of Technology Interesting, Plausible, Pointless or Unbelievable.

Instructional technologists have always looked at new and emerging technologies to determine if their affordances can impact learning. While this discovery is interesting and even plausible, I find that we continue to apply new technologies on top of the framework of an antiquated educational system; both in public and higher education. I'm skeptical that we will see the full impact of the affordances of technology (this is the pointless part) until we see a change in the institutional structure and delivery of education.

Social software is amazing and intriguing. Unlike other educational technologies, it's primary purpose is to promote connectivity. I don't think it can replace the connectivity of face-to-face caring human interaction. However, it certainly can enhance and broaden that interaction.

Total Time Spent Reading Edublogs: 7

Is Wikipedia White?

2004-10-04T17:10:00.000-07:00

While immersed in group blogs last week, I came across an article that discusses “Systemic Biases in Wikipedia”.Here’s a brief quote from the blog.

Amazing though it is, Wikipedia is not flawless. It's got a problem common to almost all peer production projects: people work on what they want to work on. (This "problem" is probably the secret sauce that makes peer production projects work... which is what makes it such a difficult problem to tackle.) Most of the people who work on Wikipedia are white, male technocrats from the US and Europe. They're especially knowledgeable about certain subjects - technology, science fiction, libertarianism, life in the US/Europe - and tend to write about these subjects. As a result, the resource tends to be extremely deep on technical topics and shallow in other areas. Nigeria's brilliant author, Chinua Achebe gets a 1582 byte "stub" of an article, while the GSM mobile phone standard gets 16,500 bytes of main entry, with dozens of related articles.

When we talk about blogging being a distinct culture, is it a culture that mirrors society or is it primarily a culture dominated by white, Eurocentric males? Do the affordances of social software bridge the “digital divide” or do they, by their very nature, widen the gap?

Aren’t we being naïve in thinking that social software is some great panacea in giving democratizing power to individuals? I wonder if Paulo Freire would view blogging as emancipatory or simply a shift in power from centralized institutions to decentralized groups of white technocrats. Hello? Is thing on?

Egogooglebombing

2004-10-04T13:09:00.000-07:00

At first glance, following five blogs for an hour each day seemed to be a very simple exercise. The first challenge was to find blogs that had frequent postings. I found lots of abandoned blogs (I’m the author of at least two), with the most recent post being months or even years old. Many other blogs were simply stubs. While not expressly defined by David, I wanted to look at individual blogs as opposed to group weblogs (a bulletin board for blogs?) such as Corante or Freerepublic. However, the group weblogs were a great source for finding individual blogs.

Here are the five blogs I tracked during the past week.

Joi Ito

Chocolate and Vodka (Suw Charman)

Just Cassa...Welcome ot My Head

What Do I Think About?

WebEagles Education

Summary and Reflections

I’m guessing that David realized that we would stumble across blogs like Joi Ito’s. If you follow Joi Ito’s blog, you are in actuallity reading dozens of blogs each day. I found Joi Ito and Suw Charman’s blog from a group weblog titled “Many 2 Many, Group Weblog on Social Software”. Joi Ito’s blog is filled with relatively short narration with lots of links. If you follow the links, you will invariably end up returning to Joi Ito’s blog. It seems to be the equivalent of a blogging web ring. Ito’s blog and those on his blogroll are connected by Trackbacks; a system that links comments between blogs. With Trackback, I can respond to one of Ito’s posts on my own blog and Ito’s original post will show a list of individual who are commenting on his post. This blog is not a, “This is what I did today”, as it is a, “This is my ideology today”.

Suw Charman’s blog, Chocholate and Vodka, contained many of the same affordances as Joi Ito’s blog including Trackbacks and an extensive blogroll. Chocolate and Vodka is more infused with personal reflections including Suw’s fascination with comic books and the soon to be released Shaun of the Dead movie (Is she a female, Welsh version of Darin Olsen with a pathological fascination for zombies?). Suw talks about “egogooglebombing” in which a blogger googlebombs a specific person or idea. Then when the person goes egosurfing (come on, we’ve all typed our name into a search engine, just to see if anything will come up), that blogger will show up at the top of Google’s page rank. Suw points out that prior to her September 28th post using the word, egogooglebombing, a Google search of the word would have returned empty. Six days later, a Google search of “egogooglebombing” gives four pages of results. Both Ito and Suw make significant social commentary on the impact of blogging on culture while using their blogs to shape their online culture.

The next two blogs, “Just Cassa” and “What Do I Think About” are what Jill Walker calls, “epistolary diaries”. Both authors post daily about things going on in their lives. The subject of Just Cassa’s postings deal exclusively with her “love-life”. She doesn’t talk about work, politics, or the weather…unless it has something to do with her romantic life. Cassa usually has comments from the same two people on her one-dimensional postings. Initially, I got the impression that this is a “therapeutic blog”, but you also see, as Trey Martindale pointed out at the IT Institute, a person who “shapes words by who may be reading your blog”. Cassa uses pseudonyms for people in her life, such as “Mr. Man”, “Jeep Guy”, and “Trojan Guy” (maybe he’s a USC fan).

“What Do I Think About” is exactly that, it is a personal diary that includes family, politics, healthcare, religion and pop-culture. I want to have Thanksgiving with this person. They are planning a menu based solely on food items mentioned in Seinfeld episodes. In contrast to “Just Cassa”, or as I would often yell out loud to my PC, “Just Get A Life”, this blog gave a more holistic view of the blogger.

The final blog, WebEagles is essentially an individual’s attempt at blogbombing. All the posts (158 of them) have the same content; “If you are looking for information concerning education, the surfing is over! Here you will find the best education links the Net has to offer. Whether it be a private school, public school or home school this is the site for you.” What differs is the title of the post. This blogger will post 30 + times a day with variations of different post titles that will draw people using search engines to their blog. I’m not sure what they will do once they are there, because there are no other resources on the blog.

Analysis of Blogging Culture

Much has been written about the impact of blogging in relation to Dan Rather and CBS News Memogate (Wired News: Blogging the Story Alive). In this article, a “CBS apologist” is quoted as saying that bloggers are, “…little more than journalist-wannabes, sitting in their underwear in front of their PCs, typing whatever thoughts/opinions/rants they had between trips to the refrigerator.” The article continues, “My first thought was if bloggers had no credibility then why was this guy on my television, defending CBS?”

In reference to this week’s question, it is clear that blogging exists as a distinct social culture and one that is now being recognized for its impact on society as a whole. Politicians, musicians, and organizations maintain blogs (I wonder who does Kerry and Bush's ghost blogging?). However, like Usenet and bulletin boards, there exists a plenitude of blogging subcultures with different traits, values and attitudes.

Outside of format, I didn't note a specific practice that cut across all five blogs. However, if I divide the blogs into "personal diary" and "social/economic/political commentary" you can see patterns. The sophistication of Joi Ito's and Suw Charman's blogs denote that they are widely read by a specific section of society. They are very comfortable with the technology and utilize the latest affordances. They are more likely to use the same technophilic jargon. A review of their Trackbacks provides a glimpse into the demographic they appeal to and perhaps cater to in their blog posts. The use of trackbacks, links and blogrolls give me the impression that the author feels the need to validate their post. I found these blogs to be the equivalent of an APA paper with citations and references. It is as if they are saying, "This is what I think, and here are twenty other people who think the same way". These type of blogs are more likely to be linked or referenced by a group blog.

In contrast, the "personal diary" blogs are not as sophisticated. They are not replete with links or even comments to their posts. The postings are more contextual and insular. They seem to be written for an audience of perhaps a few if not one (the author). As a result, it is difficult for these bloggers to form large communities based upon common practices or ideas. These glimpses into a person's life and thoughts seem to be filled with partial disclosure. As a result you see the use of pseudonyms and veiled references. It is as if the author wants to publicly state something, but still remain anonymous and maintain plausible deniability should they be discovered.

Total Hours Reading Blogs 09/27 - 10/03: 8
Total Hours Editing and Republishing this post: 3

Zoning with Vygotsky

2004-09-28T10:39:00.000-07:00

In Raymond’s “Cathedral and the Bazaar”, he says,

Human beings generally take pleasure in a task when it falls into an optimal challenge zone. Not so easy as to be boring, not too hard to achieve.

Maybe it’s the word, “zone”, but isn’t this what Vygotsky is saying in his Zone of Proximal Development? Learners thrive in that gap between our current level of understanding (Lev used the term development) and our potential level of understanding and discovery. As humans, we stretch for that which is just out of reach.

Perhaps online social interaction allows us to extend our reach much farther by tapping into the collective understanding and curiosity of others.

Disney: Opiate of The Masses

2004-09-27T08:48:00.000-07:00

Last year I mentioned to one of my colleagues that I was planning to take my kids on a trip to Disneyland. She told me that I should talk with one of our drafting instructors who, “knows everything about Disneyland.” Since this instructor teaches at one of our off-campus locations I emailed him. Over the course of the next few weeks, this instructor sent me volumes of information, tips, and ideas via email, hard-copy and by phone. To say he was a Disney zealot would be an understatement. His evangelical approach to Disneyland was both startling, and given my vacation planning task, very appreciated. When I returned from the trip (this guy new my itinerary better than I did), he called my office and wanted a full report.

I’ve always been curious about his passion for Disneyland. In searching the Google Group archives, I figured there had to be more like him. There are indeed many more like him, and they reside at rec.arts.disney.parks.

“Disney’s College Program or Attn: Mark Fendrick!”

This is the title of a thread containing 35 articles that I found very intriguing. In summary, the author of the original article, MickeyC, asks Mark Fendrick for the URL to his son’s web page regarding Disney’s College Program. MickeyC also asks if, “anyone else knows about websites or other sources of information” regarding the Disney College Program because his daughter is interested in applying.

In an hour, Mark Frendrick responds to MickeyC’s inquiry with URL’s from both his son’s and daughter’s experience with the Walt Disney World College Program (WDWCP). Soon, others begin to add URLs detailing personal experiences with WDWCP.

Analysis

In analyzing this thread, the initial thing I noted, and the reason I selected this discussion, is that the author first makes a specific request to Mark Fendrick, and second a request for information to the rest of the group. The author, MickeyC, obviously knew that Mark Fendrick would respond to his question with the material he requested. Not only did Mark respond in short order, he tells MickeyC, “If you have specific questions, e-mail me.”

As others begin to post URLs related to the Walt Disney World College Program, I note that they are all individual web sites detailing participants personal experience with the program. At no time did anyone post the URL to the Walt Disney World College Program web site. It may have been assumed by the group that MickeyC had already looked at the official web site. However, I got the impression that since MickeyC was asking on behalf of his daughter, they wanted to show him the unbiased opinions of individuals who had participated in the program. The group sensed that a father doesn’t want to hear the official Disney discourse; he wants to hear the unsolicited truth from individuals who have gone through the program. This is why the author specifically asks Mark Fendrick for his son’s URL.

There is a point in the thread that I felt was going off-topic. An individual, Sandi, posts a response that says, “How cool”. This begins a brief discussion between Sandi and Mark Fendrick that I felt should have been conducted via email. However, soon this branch of the thread began to include some first hand insight into aspects of the Walt Disney World College Program that may not have been included in any of the URLs posted. I suppose as Paul Kirchner would say, “Off-task interactions do not exist”.

Last week I offered a poorly constructed taxonomy of Google Group posters. I surmised that there were three types of posters; message in a bottle posters, contrarians, and needy/helpers. In thinking about this taxonomy, I returned to notes I took during the Instructional Technology Institute. Erin (Edwards) Brewer gave a presentation on her research into Yahoo Groups and online self organizing social systems (OSOSS). She offered a “Taxonomy of Resources”.

I like the idea of utilizing a taxonomy based on resources as opposed to my taxonomy of “posters”. Erin’s taxonomy deals with the actions of the post. If my notes are correct (and they seem to be in line with Stephen Downes’ notes), Erin described six primary taxonomies of resources.

-Personal Experience (anecdotes/stories)
-Substantialities (copied materials)
-Referrals (outside sources)
-Opinions
-Offer future help
-Encouragement

As such, the taxonomy of this thread is predominately personal experience with referrals to URLs. The formation of opinions is largely left to that of the reader.

LDS Home Teaching Done Online

2004-09-20T12:53:00.000-07:00

Last night, wait…it was actually this morning at 12:30 A.M., I was trying without success to access the class website to post my question. This is what happens to procrastinators who assume that technology is always reliable. In between attempts, I went to the Google Group, soc.religion.mormon. I saw that Dorothy Little had posted a couple of times, so I thought I would bait my religious educator colleagues with a simple posting they could respond to.

I asked why seminary teachers who get a divorce lose their job with the LDS Church Educational System. I thought I had started a new discussion thread. However, this group is moderated. The moderator took my question and tacked it onto the end of a discussion of nine articles that began and ended in 2000. While the year 2000 articles talk about divorce, they don’t talk about divorce in the context of seminary teachers.

Maybe this is why people don’t flock to moderated Usenet groups. New comments get attached to the bottom of a 4 ½ year old discussion thread. Perhaps I should have put, “How to Get Your Home Teaching Done Online” in the subject title.

Plonk and How I ended Up in Several Usenet Kill Files

2004-09-20T08:09:00.000-07:00

I began my foray into Google Groups last Tuesday, spending 2 ½ hours searching for a topic that I might find interesting and a group that was active in the discussion of that topic. The first thing I noted was that the criteria of “interesting topic” and “active discussion” are not always mutual factors.

Initially, I tried to stay clear of religion, politics and music groups. Unfortunately, it appears that these are the very issues Usenet discussions find most dynamic.

The first group I visited was alt. movies.kevin-smith. For the uninitiated, Kevin Smith is the writer-director-actor for movies like Clerks, Mallrats, Chasing Amy, Dogma, Jersey Girl and my favorite short, "The Flying Car".

I was surprised that this group was not very active. There were two posts in August and at that point, only one in September. Smith host a very active discussion board on his website . Perhaps this is where all the discussion has migrated. Later in the week, someone posted an article titled, “Anyone left in this group?” I had to respond to that one (here’s the post).

I ventured into bit.listserv.edtech hoping that I would find some educational technology discussions. Most of the articles dealt with ed tech issues in a K-12 setting. I also noted that there where a lot of one article postings with no replies. The articles that seemed to get the most responses were technical questions relating to PowerPoint or some other application. I didn’t’ find a lot of theory based discussion and debate occurring. On Sunday evening, I posted a question to this site asking the group, “how to set up a wiki”. This group is moderated, and as of now, my article has not been posted. Maybe I should have asked a PowerPoint question.

As a technical (vocational) educator, I hoped I would find a group discussing career and technical education. I found bit.listserv.vocnet but there had only been 3 posts in all of 2004 and two of those were ads. I looked into their archive and found that up to 1999, this group had been very active. What changed in 2000?

Here is where I speculate. I struggle with Usenet discussions. The nested threads are difficult to navigate. After an hour, I find I have incredible eye strain from sifting through the content. In comparison, I frequent two discussion boards. The content is easier to follow, read, and reply.

By 2000, the proliferation of message boards allowed multiple options for discussion. With vocational educators initiating and participating in other discussion venues, the critical mass needed to sustain vocnet dissipated. It is not as if vocational educators make up a large group to begin with. When Usenet was the only option, there were enough individuals to sustain discussion.

Which brings me to religion, politics and music (which for some is politics and religion combined). Why are these groups so active? Why are there more people willing to discuss the musical influence of Debbie Gibson as opposed to a discussion on the role of technical education in society? This brings me full circle to David’s question for the week, “Why do people congregate online?”

After a week in Usenet groups, I found that there are basically three types of individuals posting. The first group is, “message in a bottle” users. These are people who need an outlet to say something. They cast their virtual message out into the Internet Sea but really don’t seem to care if anyone finds the bottle or responds. They find their satisfaction in tossing the message out, so they just keep sending out more bottles.

The second group is the contrarians. This group thrives in debate. These are the people who go into the alt.sports.football.pro.phila-eagles Usenet group and post, “Abortionists or God. Who is More Evil?” This is a football forum! What’s shocking is that lots of people responded.

The final group are the needy/helpers. This is a symbiotic relationship between those who have questions and those that are willing to answer them. If I need to know how to switch out the tumblers on the ignition of my 1991 Toyota 4Runner, there are lots of people who will respond to my inquiry. I get information and those that respond can show off their mastery of the topic.

In all, I spent 7 hours in Usenet groups. I even learned what “**plonk**” means.

Personal History of the Use of the Internet

2004-09-12T16:18:00.000-07:00

Last Week
I open the door to my office and sigh at the stacks of papers strewn over my work area. Maybe I can get some of them cleared off today. I can see from the red light illuminated on my phone, I have voice mail messages. I choose to ignore that for now. First things first; turn on the computer. Why do I have to change my network password every three months? I'm running out of profanities to use. Swear words make the best passwords. They are usually the first thing that comes to mind when I can't log in.

OK, merde will have to work for the next 90 days. Time to check my email, read Thompson's blog, check the UnPhiltered discussion board and WebCT. Why isn't my homepage opening in the browser? Time to call IT. I have a lot of work to do today. I need Internet access!

“What do you mean, listen to my voice mail? I'm very busy and need Internet access. I don't have time to listen to phone messages. Oh the Internet is down. Something is wrong with the T-1 line coming from Weber State and you don't know when it will be up again.”

How am I going to get anything done today? Merde.

-FLASHBACK-

1995
I'm given an email address. I only use email to communicate with people at work because I don't know anyone outside of work who has an email address.

1996

I'm sitting in my friend Tracy's office. It's down the hall from my classroom. He has a clear acrylic human head on his desk with a can of SPAM inside representing the brain. As we are talking about the virtues and villainy of SPAM (the luncheon meat), he clicks away on his computer and shows me an electronic bulletin board for SPAM recipes. You type in something (a question, a comment, even a recipe) and hit send. Then, if you keep checking back, someone from somewhere, may respond to the stuff you typed in.

This is incredible. Why don't I have access to stuff like this? You mean only certain people on campus are allowed access to the SPAM recipes? Why is “the man” trying to keep us shielded from canned meat recipes? What else is out there that I'm missing?

1997

I have a list of people off-campus that I e-mail on a regular basis. Some people are work related, but most are friends. After signing a three page Internet Usage Agreement, I now have web access in my office.

1998

I install AOL 4.0 at home. Hey, it comes with 100 free hours of Internet access. That should last the family for months. Two weeks later, no one can call us. The line is constantly busy. During the NBA Finals, I discover chat rooms. I learn to really dislike Laker fans. They aren't even in the finals!

1999

Almost all my friends and family have email. When I call home and the line is busy, I pull up AOL Instant Messenger and send a quick note. I can also see when my other friends are online. My classroom now has two computers with Internet access. I make a list of websites for my students to visit.

2000

I take an online class from Weber State. Essentially, the syllabus and course outline is online, but all communication, including assignment submission, is via email. I do a lot of my research (inquiry) for the class online.

I buy things online, do my banking online, and plan my vacations online.

2001

I begin the M.Ed. Ed Tech program at USU. The first course is a “tools” course from Dr. Andy Gibbons. Dr. Gibbons has the cohort post “reflections” using a threaded discussion on WebCT. I use the internal email function of WebCT to communicate with cohort members from around the state. People continue to post to the discussion board after the class is over.

Dial-up access is too slow at home. I get a cable modem.

2002

I sign up for space on the USU web server. While pretending to pay attention to the EDNET floating head, Mark Mason downloads WS-FTP onto my laptop and shows me how to create a simple page in Notepad and "upload" it to the USU server. I now have my own URL.

I take Kevin Reeve's HTML class online. I develop the first of several web-based courses.

2003

I add a discussion board to one of my online courses used by open-entry students. Depending on the number of students enrolled at any given time, the board has alternating periods of success and vacancy.

2004

Started an alternative discussion board for “advanced graduate” students. At it's peak, postings were generated around a set of “crisis” events. Once those events were resolved, the need for the board has waned.

Hello World!

2004-09-07T13:22:00.000-07:00

Hello World!

Three Amigos

2004-09-07T13:21:00.000-07:00

Thompson, Mary from Delta and Me

In August 2001, I drove to Logan to attend the ED TECH, Cohort III, orientation. I had been accepted to USU's Instructional Technology M.Ed. program. I wasn't certain what Instructional Technology was (It seems I'm not alone. AECT has a penchant for redefining the field every decade). What I did know was that I only had to go to class once a week for five hours. I was oblivious to the other 30 hours a week I would spend working on assignments. That evening, at the Coppermill, I sat across from Mike Thompson and Mary Preston.

I was destined to meet Mike Thompson. It was just a matter of time. We had lived not far from each other during elementary school. Our fathers were both educators, and we both vowed never to become teachers. In the Kevin Bacon scheme of things, there was never more than two degrees of separation.

It was Cohort III, the endless hours of watching the disembodied floating head of EDNET, and the Summer from Hell (13 semester hours) that aligned our paths. Now I have to ask his beautiful wife if Mike can come out and play.

In Cohort III, we didn't learn last names. We learned locations. "This is Patrick in Park Valley, "This is Al from Altamont....we have a nine second delay", and, "This is Mary from Delta". While I spent limited time with Mary during the orientation, it was EDNET, email, and discussion boards that allowed us to collectively rant, experience and learn from each other.

The Flying Car...

The Flying Car Has Been Grounded

Kick A** Learning Theory

UnPhiltered Feeds

Strong Bad's Guide to Writing a Paper

Fun with Microsoft Word (Tech Pranks)

Wanna Wiki?

RSS, Recommender Systems and Flatus

Teaching: The Noblest Profession?

RuneScape and More MMORPG's

Virtual Dilemma

Knowledge Economy

Saturday Activities

Death to Haloscan and Trackback

Napoleon Dynamite Festival 2005

Malan's Peak

Chickens in the Headlights

Thou bawdy idle-headed maggot-pie!

Shelley, Trackback and Haloscan

Education (Edukation Part II)

Edukation

Extreme Programming

UnPhiltered Discussion Board – In Memoriam 2004 – 2005

Dante's Inferno Test

When Theology & Statistics Collide

Seven Layered Dip

Provisional Matriculation

Layers

December 17th...A Great Day

Synthesis (7150 Signing Off)

Just follow your heart. That's what I do.

Meet the Flockers

Current Events

Lineage Learning

Blogging From Hell

Power Laws and Blog Reputation

Lineage

The Virtual Value of Your Blog

Real Learning

Who Am I? I am Jean Valjean!

Internet Relay Chat

Frank and a Couple of Witches

MOO! Did I Scare You?

Autumn in Manchester Township, New York

Synthesis I

Educhaos

Fan Fiction: Organic v. Contrived

Things I Learned In San Francisco

Training Fall Conference and Expo

Edublogging

Is Wikipedia White?

Egogooglebombing

Zoning with Vygotsky

Disney: Opiate of The Masses

LDS Home Teaching Done Online

**Plonk** and How I ended Up in Several Usenet Kill Files

Personal History of the Use of the Internet

Hello World!

Three Amigos

Plonk and How I ended Up in Several Usenet Kill Files