Technology Today

I recently was reminded how far we've come in technology in such a small span of time. A couple of weeks ago I was traveling in Seoul, South Korea. A lovely, vibrant country that exists a day ahead of us.  At 16 hours ahead of Arizona time it was challenging to make calls to home.  Among our morning rituals in Seoul we would wander down to a local coffee shop, depending on the time of morning.  One morning we found ourselves in a charming cafe very close to our accommodations.  I was sipping my cappuccino when I opened my computer and got immediately onto the free wifi and was automatically logged into Skype.  There I noticed my mom's name in green so I "dialed her" with the click of my mouse button.  Ring. Not but 5 seconds later, my mom, sitting in her home in California, appeared on my computer screen and my web cam turns on showing her - us, sitting in a cafe in Seoul.  Free. No long distance charges. No dialing even...country code? what is that? Who needs it?  Video enhanced - connecting us when we are literally on opposite ends of the world. "Good evening" I say...she replies with a "good morning" back and we talk as if we are in the same room.  I turn the computer and give her a tour of the cafe we are sitting in, my husband leans in and says hello.  My mom pauses momentarily and says to me, "now this is amazing, you have to understand when I was young a local operator used to manually connect us to our neighbors and calling across town was an accomplishment, now with the click of button, my daughter can video conference me halfway around the world for free! That is simply not something I could ever have imagined and am simply awed that we can do this."  Truth be told...I'm only as old as rotary dial but still, I find it amazing.  Click...anyone home?

To release or not to release, that is the question...

I teach online.  Not only do I teach online, but I teach, teachers, how to teach online - which is always an adventure. Here is the question I got this week, that, after teaching this course some 6 times now, is a first for me. The request goes something like this:

"I have some free time coming up and would like to work on the class, when will the rest of the content be available?"  

At first I was confused, I went to see if my module was "hidden" or if I was missing content, that is when I realize I think this person was requesting for the rest of my course to be displayed?! Hmm...interesting. At first I was appalled, I'll be frank, I'm no different than most people...when I hear a new idea my first reaction is to find fault with it! ha ha! But...I've been pondering it now for almost 24 hours and I'm starting to think it can't hurt...or can it? I just can't decide to be honest.  I have the rest of course designed...I've been teaching it now for a bit of time, so what is the harm? Here is my quandry, I do not teach a "correspondence" course. The course is designed to leverage the experience and expertise of a class full of other educators, some with experience teaching online, some with out, from a variety of different disciplines...when else to teachers get a chance to really engage with professional educators outside their department and really grapple with the dynamics of teaching online or hybrid? Practically never. The course is designed around interaction. You cannot pass the course if you don't engage, on a weekly basis with the content AND with the others students.  It is the "anti-correspondence" course. Still, could they benefit from doing some work ahead of time? I can't decide. Just because I release my content, does that mean the student will no longer be engaged on a weekly basis? What do you do? Why? Should I release the rest of my course? 

Tell me, how much content do you release?

Defining Innovation

I've discovered this is a challenge. Defining Innovation.  In education, it honestly does not have to have anything to do with technology.  Innovation in teaching can for many involve exploring new pedagogies  but even "new" is relative. Or so I've discovered.  If you are a "new" professor, then all forms of teaching are new.  Hence what is innovative to me; can in fact be old school to you.  So how then do you define innovation?  Is it necessary? Is it important?   Consider though, for a moment, that we want to constantly "innovate" and we want to be known nationally for our "innovation"?  Assuming this, then I suppose it does necistate a defintion...doesn't it? Or no?

I'm reminded of a favorite book of my 3-year-old son written by Jamie Lee Curtis titled "Is There Really a Human Race?" the narrator asks so cleverly "Is there really a human race? Is it going on now all over the place? Who says ready, set, go?" and since I'm doing this from memory I'm skipping around here "Who decides who wins? Is winning or loosing something I choose?"   This is only part of it obviously, I highly recommend the book - its fun!  That aside though - replace Human Race with Innovation in Education and all the same questions apply!  Who decides? Who wins? Who judges? Sure there are "committes" and "awards" but maybe we need to look closer to home? Possibly we need to look to our students? Curtis concludes something along the lines that possibly the best thing to do is "live and love well, make bold choices, and for those who can't speak for themsevles, use bold voices and live well and bring art to this place and make the whole world better for the whole human race."

How do you define Innovation?

True Confessions of a BRAT

I have a confession.  I'd be embarressed to admit this except I've reached the age in my life where I no longer feel the need to make apologies for my taste.  So here it comes....I follow Disney actors.

Its true.  Every day, I follow actors like David Henrie, Demi Lovato, Selena Gomez and Ashely Tisdale.  By follow, of course, I'm referring to Twitter.  Hello!?!  I'm not a psycho!  Come on GenXers keep up with me here...Twitter. I follow many different people on Twitter...my Follow list is very ecclectic to say the least. 

Why bring this up? David Henrie TweetPhoto'd this morning and it got me thinking (see how multi-deminesional Disney can be! :o)  Here is his image: http://tweetphoto.com/p6y6avye 

If you Follow any of these actors you will know they have stirred quite the Twitter controversy lately. Of course, they are actors so "life tweeting" has a different impact than when I do it. No one cares when I'm sitting in a room with my collegues (sorry guys!) but when Selena Gomez does that is news! Millions love to hear that David Henrie is playing pranks on her or that taping is going badly.  

We, commoners, have smaller Follow numbers...by millions in fact.  Yet I can still completely see this same sign outside a classroom. Can't you? Or in a syllabus? Hanging on the walls of our classrooms?  "No blogging, no texting, no videocasting allowed...I say add audio and we have an educational setting so:

BRAT in education: No Blogging, No Releasing video, No Audio recording, and No Texting allowed."

This photo comes two days after the Chronicle shared this story on Twitter backchanneling: http://chronicle.com/article/Conference-Humiliation-/49185/ 

So it got me pondering the bigger question...do we put policies in place to stop the BRATs, such as myself? Do we need big signs? Or, do we, such as myself also, need to question that which we are doing to cause the blogging, twittering, and texting from occuring? Can we really stop this from happening? Should we? Or do we need to find a way to embrace the movement? Motivate the BRATs to stop backchanneling and be engaged?

Follow me here for a moment....might there be a reason someone is texting or twittering during (y)our lecture, presentation, meeting, and so on?  Do we need a sign or do we a mirror?

Mirror, mirror on the wall whose the GenXer of them all?

As a Gen X Instructional Technologist I've always considered myself a some what "NetGen" living in the body of a GenX'er.  I compare myself my other Gen Xer's...and I am more immersed in technology than most.  I laugh at my GenX friends who think FB is ridiculous and don't even talk to them about Twitter. By far the easiest way to get in touch with me is texting or IM and even those I don't always feel the need to address.  Email?...forget it...its getting up there with my Voicemail that I check, maybe once a month.  I mean really, let's face it I've always considered myself a NetGen living in the body of a GenXer and I have the 10 email addresses, 5 IM accounts, Twitter, iPhone Apps, and unlimited data plan to prove it!

Alas, this weekend I was handed a mirror and lo and behold...there I was...definitely NOT a NetGen(Gen Y).  It would seem accounts and data plans aside, the wrinkles have won in the end! Turns out, no matter how tech savvy I may be...it seems I am NOT a NetGen living in the body of a GenXer...I am not caught between two generations...clearly I am a full blown GenXer. 

The mirror was handed to me by two 13 year olds at a bowling alley.  It revealed the photoshopped; delusional existence I have been living under.   The mirror shattered when I heard myself saying things like "really?", "why?" "isn't it just easier..." and the worst comment of them all "that doesn't make any sense!"   I heard myself saying it to these two young teenagers and I cringed as I said them but I couldn't help it...I simply could not!

There we were, 8 of us...in a busy bowling alley.  TV's, bowling, food, kids running around screaming, cheering, music, etc ...all the while these two girls, sat, side by side, fervently texting, not uttering a word to anyone.  There they sat texting away, fast as can be...with a giggle or laugh here and there...when their turn came, they got up bowled and sat back down and resumed texting away.  While this undistracted activty was amazing in itself, the biggest shock came when I said to a mom..."are they texting boys or what?"  Mom turns to me and laughs. "No! They are texting each other."  I was stunned silent.  This zoomed through my mind and all I could intelligently retort was "what?!"  Mom continued "yeah, this is what they do, all the time, they sit and text each other."  I stared, dumbfounded.  I watched for some time...sure enough, not a word was issued, mutual laughing maybe, not even a look to each other, they were 100% focused on their text conversation, I don't think they ever uttered a word to each other until I interrupted them.

"So, excuse me?" I interrupted their texting....
"are you two texting each other?" I'm sure my face was not shy about my disbelief.
"Yeah" I got, completely uninterested in talking about it.
"Wait, really? Why?" I cringed as I said it but it  just came out.
"Why not? We're bored."  They said barely looking up.

Bored? I thought? I looked around me...there were some 10 TV's on the walls, they both had plates of food they hadn't eaten, their sister was bowling, and my adorable 3 year old was cheering her on, bored? Really?

"So, but wouldn't it just be easier to..I don't know, talk to each other?"  Again, I cringed as I spoke.

I could hear my parents from way back when in the back of my head back when my brother and I would play each other in Frogger for hours on end and my parents would shamefully say "don't you want to go outside?" "how can this be fun for you?"  Yet there I was compelled by this completely foreign sense of boredom and bizarre interpersonal activity. 

They laughed at me and awkwardly looked at each other..."this is more fun." 

There you have it...it is more fun.  I stared. Humbled by lack of understanding. 

As I'm sure they fervently texted about the old lady totally "not getting it." I have to say...they're right. I don't. Turns out "all the time" meant all the time...when they go to each others houses to "play" they sit on the couch and text each other, when they go out with friends, they travel in packs and text each other.   I knew texting was in...I just didn't realize it was in replacement of all interpersonal activity, even when sitting shoulder to shoulder in a social environment.  How old do I feel? I thought was was so hip in my texting...and I have occasionally texted my husband from another room but never while sitting next to him on the couch!  Conversation, apparently, is so last century! I had no idea.

I watched and imagined years ahead on their prom dates as their date sits next to them in the limo and texts "your dress looks nice" or years further along when they are married and at the dinner table...a text chimes in "can you pass the salt dear?"  Yes, I definitely don't get it. 

Amazement aside, if all bowling at Dave & Busters as an activity finds them bored...what hope have we in education? Truly I wonder? Hand me that mirror again, I need to look and see what else I've been missing.