Learning is truly a creative act, because we are creating meaning, and learning meaning as we create.  It’s a concomitant process.  As young children, we teach ourselves who we are with our own hands on a pencil, drawing and interpreting ourselves in relation to our families, our world, with our scribbles and doodles. We enjoy making videos of ourselves whipping our hair back and forth like Will Smith’s daughter Willow; we check ourselves out, and learn who we are by watching our bodies dance.  It is not a matter of self-expression as much as it is a matter of self-exploration.  We create ourselves as we learn, we learn about ourselves as we create.

This blog is dedicated to the concomitant process of self-expression and self-exploration, and to whipping your hair back and forth.

Digital Native Stereotype

The Problem…

The Millennials are here:young people born after 1981 (Howe & Strauss, 2000). Also referred to as Generation ME, the Millennials are the most ethnically and racially diverse generation the U.S. has ever seen, also the most politically progressive, the least religiously observant, and the first generation to be born into an era where information and communication technology advancement and use are considered part of the norm (Keeter & Taylor, 2009).  The Millennials are not the problem. 

In 2001, Prensky coined this generation as Digital Natives, and deemed their brain pathology and learning mechanisms to be vastly different from that of their Digital Immigrant parents and teachers (Prensky, 2001).  Prensky describes teens as having hypertext multitasking minds that think and learn in parallel patterns.  He posits that teens are bored by aged teachers who do not speak their language: teachers who sequentially communicate, teachers trapped in static linear patterns. Unfortunately, the Digital Native versus Digital Immigrant paradigm has generated a mythical stereotype: all young people are highly skilled in information and communication technology (ICT). Yet, when comparing a student whose internet is limited to the school’s antiquated library computer, to a student whose Internet is unlimited with persistent access on their Wii, smartphone, and desktop; it is obvious that exposure, not age, proves to be the qualifying variable defining Digital Natives. Exposure comes with financial contingencies however, and disenfranchised Millennials lacking ICT skills suffer a ternary disadvantage:

1) the financial repercussions of limited information and opportunity,

2) insufficient education provided by instructors who conflate youth with ICT skill, and,

3) the subsequent low self efficacy, stigma, and marginalization that accompanies failure to meet society standards.

The digital divide between those who are exposed to technology and those who are not; this is the problem.

Kuhn’s Scientific Revolution

Published in 1962, Thomas Kuhn’s book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, is reputed to be “the most influential book on the nature of science in the second half of the 20^th century—and arguably, the entire 20th century” (Fuller, 2004, p. 12).  Why?  Because a young, forty year old Kuhn challenged the rigors of what was thought to be a waxing body of scientific theory-on-theory.  Kuhn challenged that science does not simply expose its veracity to humanity, growing by the accretion of bits of theory; rather, some “robust” older theories are drastically changed–if not abandoned–for new theories.  Kuhn’s science is not exposed to humanity; it is interpreted by humanity, and in so doing, competing paradigms fall subject to the hands of human idiosyncrasy.  For Kuhn, fields of productive normal science or paradigms (these he considers to be epistemological commitments held by a group of scientists) dismiss contradictive anomalies as error, until these anomalies accumulate to the point where a new paradigm must be considered.  “That is, the profession can no longer evade anomalies that subvert the existing tradition of scientific practice—then begin the extraordinary investigations that lead the profession at last to a new set of commitments, a new basis for the practice of science” (Kuhn, 1962, 1970, p. 6).  The shift from one robust paradigm to another is labeled by Kuhn as a scientific revolution.

Harmonious or Obsessive Passion

Though the concept of passion may be new in theoretical psychology, it is by no means a new topic.  Philosophers like Plato (429-347 BC) and Spinoza (1632-1677 AC) referred to passion as a maladaptive loss of reason.  On the contrary, Hegel (1770-1831 AC) referred to passion as having adaptive, useful functions (Vallerand, 2012).  Vallerand adapted these two ideologies to create a dualistic psychological model of passion, where passion is classified as either being harmonious or obsessive.  Harmonious passion affords feelings of joy or happiness both during the activity, and after. Obsessive passion, on the other hand, leads to personal feelings of joy only during the activity, but not after; a person with obsessive passion operates with social acceptance and self-esteem contingencies attached to the activity (Vallerand, 2012), and may exhibit remorse or shame. These people have uncontrollable urges to partake in activities they deem enjoyable.  “They cannot help but engage in the passionate activity, as the passion comes to control them”(p. 47). Conversely, persons with harmonious passion are intrinsically motivated to engage in an activity autonomously; they are not coerced or pressured, or acting out of a need for social acceptance or desire for an external incentive.  Individuals are motivated to engage in activities of passion because “…an autonomous internalization occurs when individuals have freely accepted the activity willingly and engenders a sense of volition and personal endorsement about pursuing activity” (p. 47).

Birdie in the Genetics Lab

Working in genetics while getting my Ed.D

I am working per diem in cytogenetics…funny to be back in the lab!  Today I spent 8 hours looking at chromosomes that originated from a leukemic patient’s bone marrow.  Different leukemias present themselves with specific rearrangements of genetic material.  Oncologists use my results to determine what type of cancer the patient has, which informs them of the best treatment.

“Serious Games” Defined?

Reblogged from Birdie Champ:

Clark C. Abt, an engineer,  was an early pioneer of computer simulations; he simulated air battles, space missions, disarmament inspection systems, and antiballistic-missile defense systems in the 1950s and early 1960s.  His work proved to him that “no satisfactory defense was feasible” (Abt, 1970, p. xiv).  Abt returned to education to study social sciences, studying with Kissinger at Harvard and Pool at M.I.T. 

Read more… 124 more words

Changing a Stagnant Education System

The National Center on Education and the Economy say we must change the education system if we do not want to continue on our path to becoming a thirdworld country.  Before we can do this, they say we must first face these 11 facts about our current situation.

1. We recruit a disproportionate share of teachers from among the less able of the high school students who go to college.
2. We tolerate waste, not spending $ in the early years and wasting too much $ on remediation of our initial failures in the later years.
3. The system is becoming inherently inefficient.
4. The growing inequity of family incomes is contributing heavily to the growing disparities in student achievement.
5. We fail to motivate most of our students to take tough courses and work hard.
6. Teacher compensation is designed to reward time in service, not the best teachers, not attracting the best and brightest college students.
7. The testing system rewards routine work, not creative or innovative work. 
8. The bureaucracy of skills mandates that the people who have responsibilities to not have power, and those few with the power do not have the responsibility.
9. Most of the people who will be in our workforce are already in it, and if they cannot master the new literacy at high levels, it will not matter what we do in our schools.
10. We have an elaborate funding mechanism to provide funds to send young people to college, but we have done a very poor job of making this a possibility for adults who have full-time jobs and family responsibilities to get the continuing ed, or training to survive in the world that is coming.
11. This is deemed the most important by the group:  We do not need new programs, reform, more money, or new educators.  We need a new system, and leadership with the courage to facilitate this change.

I have highlighted those I agree with the most .

Educating for an Innovation Economy

30 years ago, the United States could boast that 30% of the world’s college-educated population was American; today, this number has dwindled to 14%, and continues to decline (NCEE, 2008).  Is this because fewer Americans are college bound?  Not likely.  An educated workforce once meant a well-paid workforce, but as the economy has globalized and ICT has improved, our international counterparts took notice of the educational trends, and followed suit.  Not only did other countries increase their secondary education, they improved primary education as well.  Where once American students ranked high internationally on generalized tests, we now place anywhere from the middle to the bottom amongst advanced industrial nations (NCEE, 2008).  To get a good job in the U.S., all you needed was a degree, but education is no longer the sole solution.  Even if Americans succeed in gaining high level skills, the cost of that education is proportionately enormous, considering that equally skilled global counterparts will work for a 75% less.  When a typical American skilled engineer earns $45,000 a year and an equally skilled Indian engineer earns $7,500 a year (NCEE, 2008), it’s no wonder employers turn to other countries to satisfy their bottom line.

What was once a mere push for education has evolved.  What matters now it what kind of education we have, how it was delivered, and whether or not it produces creative thinkers.  It’s not enough to learn facts; information is persistently available at the push of a button.  It’s not enough to know skills; any routine job (even those that are of a high-skill dependency) can be algorithmically mapped and automated.  Today, the most successful in the workforce are the creative innovators.  As stated by the New Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce, “those countries that produce the most important new products and services can capture a premium in world markets that will enable them to pay high wages to their citizens” (NCEE, 2008, p. xxiv).  Welcome to the innovation economy.  It’s not just a catch phrase for politicians, it is a global reality.

Professional Development for Educational Technologists with a qARG

My submission to display a poster at the Immersive Education Conference held in Boston this June (500 words or less!).

Consider how Silas Marner (George Eliot, 1861) was deemed an outcast with his whirling, magical technology: the weaving loom.

Educational technologists have a daunting job:  to encourage and assist educators to integrate technology into their curricula.  Why is this so daunting?  Because many teachers are resistant (if not oppositional) to using technology in their classrooms.  Like the early 19^th century Luddites who smashed mechanical looms, some educators view technology as a transitory hindrance to their craft of teaching, and it’s no wonder.  Teachers learn about technology from their school’s educational technologists, who have been misperceived as merely well informed “AV techs” since the 1930s (Simsek, 2005).  What is omitted in this AV tech stereotype?  Educational technologists are also educators.  Like teachers, they need the pedagogical skills necessary for creating safe learning environments, and for motivating teachers to be self-directed learners of technology. 

Unfortunately, much of the professional development for educational technologists is overtly girded with techno “bling”, i.e., the newest, shiniest technologies, and the newest, hippest ways of using them.  There is little regard for the social and pedagogical skills necessary to promote these technology skills to teachers.  A quick survey of professional development opportunities for educational technologists shows classes in mobile device learning, Google Apps use, and freeware (COSN, ISTE, Google Teacher Academy, 2012).  There is little concerning methodologies for creating autonomous, competent teachers for example, or ways to acknowledge a teacher’s efforts toward self-determination regarding technology use (Ryan and Decci, 2000). 

To alleviate this dearth of pedagogical training, we have designed a quasi alternate reality game (qARG) with a process knowledge goal of teaching and motivating teachers, coupled with a content knowledge goal of using accessible, common technologies, such as mobile devices, blogs, project management systems, social media, and websites.  Last of the Luddites has been accepted by the Technology in Education Partnership of Massachusetts, and will be played with an estimated 300 participants at the Technology in Education:  2012 Conference and Expo, to be held in June.  It is serious game (Abt, 1970) with a goal-based scenario (Schank, 1994) framework.  The cover story is that of a fictitious business that hires consultants to assist teachers with their technology issues, through use of video.  A player earns professional development credits in this alternate, yet realistic reality, as they play the role of consultant for this company, assisting teachers in various ways.  Although the game is anchored in a blog, players travel throughout the Internet, picking up clues and collaboratively problem-solving with fellow players.  However, finding solutions for the teachers is not the only task.  Players are also rewarded for their method of delivery; the way they respond to the teacher determines whether or not the teacher actually takes their advice and applies it, as opposed to just saying “OK”, when in actuality they are too proud to admit they do not understand the advice.   Our poster will illustrate the epistemological underpinnings of the instructional design, the methodology and execution of the game, and our reasoning for calling it a qARG rather than an ARG. 

Fool on the Second Life Hill

Well done art by Annasue Barzane.  Enjoy!

Passion for Video Games

Most of us can recall the cooling of a hot summer day as it faded into night, playing tag or hide and seek for hours, strategizing with friends where to hide, running as fast as possible, laughing through exhaustion.  We lost track of time, fatigue went unnoticed; we experienced passion.  Passion is a strong desire to engage in activities we enjoy or that we deem important, activities worth devoting large investments of our time and energy (Vallerand, et al., 2006).  The most passionate of us eventually internalize our passion as part of our self-identity (Fredricks, et al., 2002).  As educators, we know that if we can spark passion within a given domain, students will devour what we teach them, and still be hungry for more.

But where is the passion in academia for a typical sophomore college student?  Sadly, research by Fredricks, et al. (2010) has illustrated that typical academic settings are not only devoid of passion, they undermine it.  Students do the minimum work required by traditional classes, because these classes do not satisfy their three basic psychological needs: a need for autonomy, a need for relatedness to others, and a need for competency (Ryan & Decci, 2000).  As mediocrity is the celebrated norm in school and work, 72% of American households are passionately applying their underutilized smarts and talents in places where their skills are valued most, playing video games (McGonigal, 2010; ESA, 2011).  A growing number of adult women accounts for 37% of all gamers (as opposed to teen males at 13%), with 55% of today’s games being played on cellphones or handheld devices.  Interestingly, the market share of games sold belongs to intelligent games of strategy, with 65% of games played in person with other gamers (ESA, 2011).  In McGonigal’s words, “we are creating a massive virtual silo of cognitive effort, emotional energy, and collective attention lavished on game worlds instead of real worlds (2010, p. 4).