Walden EDUC 6177 Week 8 Blog Post

This week we are looking back and reflecting on the variety of educational technologies we have discovered as a class.  Each week we have individually investigated and researched various technologies and shared our findings on our blogs.  This week we have been asked to review our classmate’s blogs and choose three that we think would work well in our particular adult education setting. 

The first potentially beneficial technology that caught my eye was one the GraceSinda Duran shared on her blog (http://gracesindaduranedtechblog.blogspot.com) during week 6.  It is called Open Learn.  

According to Ms. Duran, OpenLearn (http://www.open.edu/openlearn/) “allows students to have free access to over 8,000 hours of materials to use for their studying as well as getting expert opinions on various topics available thru English Open University courses.”  I reviewed the sight and found it very interesting and useful.  There are many learning resources readily available that could be utilized in the types of courses I teach.  Additionally, students can sign up for courses and get a certificate for completing courses.  Although these courses will not earn a degree, the learning is visible and could be put on a résumé if desired.

I envision possibly using this site to find learning resources I can use to augment the textbook and materials already used in my courses.  Additionally, I could identify it as a resource when assigning my students to research certain topics. 

    

The next technology I believe may benefit my teaching efforts was shared by Ms. Samantha Whatley, also during week 6 (https://technologysamanthawhatley.wordpress.com).  Ms. Whatley shared the MIT Open Courseware site (http://ocw.mit.edu/index.htm) 

Ms. Whatley describes the site as, “…a whole world of education that I did not know I could access. This opens up so many possibilities for my future learners to access addition materials to add to their self-directed learning. In addition, I can use it as a means of research to add to prior knowledge or to enhance knowledge for my students.”

After reviewing the site myself I noticed a very distinct difference between this site and the Open Learn site.  The MIT site made all the course materials available for download right away.  Unlike Open Learn, one does not have to “enroll” in the course to gain access to the course resources.  Also unlike Open Learn, there was no certificate or other credential offered for course completion. 

The benefit of the MIT Open Courseware site is that, as an instructor, I can pull resources from the site into my own classes, making them even better by adding perspective and diversity.  I envision using the materials available on the MIT site to add to my list of student learning resources.  I will also use it to develop lectures and presentations to my class.   

The final technology that I believe I will use a lot in my classes was shared by my classmate Jim Schooler on his blog, (http://jimschoolersedtech.blogspot.com).  Jim shared his thoughts about TED Talks during week 4.  According to Jim, “TED (www.TED.com) is a nonprofit devoted to spreading ideas, usually in the form of short, powerful talks (18 minutes or less).”  Jim went on to state that “As an educator, by simply identifying and locating a video on the TED site (which is easily searchable), I could easily use this tool in my own role to provide video content to support the learning topic being presented, either as a function of presenting to my class or as pre-work/homework in preparation for classroom discussions.” 

I reviewed this site and I am in total agreement with Mr. Schooler, I can definitely use this resource in my role as an adult educator.  TED stands for Technology, Entertainment and Design, and there are over 2000 video talks on hundreds of subjects available for viewing.  I plan to use this resource, as Jim indicated, to provide my students with some multimedia options to support my presentations and lectures.  I will also assign my students the task of researching this site and YouTube for videos that they feel are relevant to the subjects we are discussing in class.   

I want to take this opportunity in my blog, to thank my fellow classmates for their excellent research and willingness to share so many high quality educational technologies.  To me, this has been an excellent example of collaborative and social learning. 

Cheers!

Ron N.          

Walden EDUC 6177 6177 Week 8 Discussion Post

This week we are tasked with exploring the future of technology in education.  Our learning resources focus on the future and include predictions of technologies and potential impacts on education.  Our assignment is to describe a prediction and the role it may play in adult education of the future.

In video interview titled Adult learning in the information age (Dede, 2011), Dr. Chris Dede explains the nature and background of some of the changes occurring in our collective understanding of adult learning.  For example, in addition to our understanding of traditional learning styles such kinesthetic and visual, there are more complex individual learning styles that are derived from the media being used.  For example, most of us are familiar with the desktop interface with technology, such as using the Internet and emails, etc.  There are also distinct literacies associated with participation in virtual technologies or using ubiquitous computing such as smartphones.  The important point for teachers to understand is how these new technologies will affect collaborative learning.  In other words, as educators we need to know when and how to employ particular technologies to achieve specific learning outcomes.   

Dr. Dede believes that the educator’s role has evolved from information dispensing to role modeling information literacy.  This sentiment is echoed by Dr, David Cavallo in his podcast titled The Future of Education (Cavallo, 2012).  Both scholars agree that we must be able to show our students how to evaluate, interpret, and synthesize information.  Furthermore, both educators believe that blended learning may the most effective approach to teaching as both distance learning and face-to-face learning have various strengths and weaknesses.   

The prediction I believe will play a significant role in adult education in the next 5-10 years is that learning in the future will continue to become more collaborative and less individual.  Dr. Dede posited that the problems our students will face are much bigger than any one person can be an expert in.  Today’s problems, and the types of products and services organizations are producing today, are so big and complex that they can only be addressed by multiple people with multiple perspectives that have the ability to work together to arrive at a solution or way forward.  He is a strong believer that every college student should be taught how to work effectively as part of a virtual team.  As a member of an organization that accomplish many complicated tasks and provides many complex services; and as an adjunct professor for adult education courses, I wholeheartedly agree.  I believe the future of technology will manifest as producing more effective ways for students and society in general to collaborate and work together to learn and make sense of the experiences we all share.

Cheers,

Ron N.       

References: 

Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2012a). The future of education. Baltimore, MD: Dr. David Cavallo.

Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2011). Adult learning in the information age. Baltimore, MD: Dr. Chris Dede.

Walden EDUC 6177 Week 7 Blog Post

This week were we asked to consider digital citizenship, ethics, and netiquette as it relates to our own adult learning environments.  Our task is to investigate various technologies related to the subject and comment on two of them in our blogs. 

As an adjunct professor at a local university that offers online courses, and as a student participant of online learning, two concerns I am very familiar with are plagiarism and cheating on tests.  Merriam-Webster (What Is Plagiarism?, n.d.) defines plagiarism as:

• to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one's own
• to use (another's production) without crediting the source
• to commit literary theft
• to present as new and original an idea or product derived from an existing source

Stephen Downes (2011) further describes plagiarism as “a breach of trust between the plagiarizer and the reader of the plagiarized work.”  I personally believe that students do the most harm to themselves when they plagiarize other’s work.  They cheat themselves of learning by formulating their own thoughts and they do irreparable harm to their reputations when they are exposed.  I have had the personal experience of discovering a fellow student in an online class plagiarizing an internet document and passing it off as his own.  To prevent that from happening in a class I’m teaching I plan on using the Turn It In software available through my university (Turnitin, n.d.).  When a student submits a paper in to turnitin, the paper is compared to millions of internet articles and previous works of other students and scholars.  The resulting comparison to the turnitin database results is a numerical score.  The higher the score, the more likely there may be some plagiarism occurring.  However, there is no direct connection or absolute score that proves plagiarism has occurred.  If, for example, a student uses a lot of direct quotes and properly sites each one, the score will still be comparatively high since there was so much common verbiage.  In this the student would have to do more paraphrasing in order to lower their score.  This is important as many schools have a certain acceptable score and will not accept student work that exceeds it, even if proper citations were used.

As a professor of online courses, I will require my students to use turnitin for selected academic papers and discussion posts.   

Another concern for many online instructors is preventing students from using internet resources to help them achieve passing scores on online tests.  According to Bonk (2009), anyone can learn anything on the internet.  So what is preventing a student who did not study the course materiel from simply typing the test question into Google and passing the test?  In my university, the answer to that question is Respondus LockDown Browser software (Respondus, n.d.).  Respondus integrates with the Blackboard LMS and prevents the test taker from opening any other website while the test is open in blackboard.  Other features include:

·      Assessments are displayed full-screen and cannot be minimized

·      Assessments cannot be exited until submitted by users for grading

·      Task switching or access to other applications is prevented

·      Print, Print Screen and capturing functions are disabled

·      Copying and pasting anything to and from an assessment is prohibited

·      Screen capture, messaging, screen-sharing, virtual machine, and network 

     monitoring applications are blocked from running 

·      Right-click menu options and function keys are disabled

·      Browser menu and toolbar options are disabled

So what is preventing the industrious cheater from using a different computer to google answers during the test, or from having his smart girlfriend take the test for him?  That would be the Respondus Monitor.  This feature used webcam technology to monitor the test environment.  The result is the instructor’s ability to virtually proctor a test.  The sessions can even be recorded so the instructor does not have monitor the testing in real-time.

As a professor of online courses I will use Respondus software to help prevent cheating on test and quizzes. 

Cheers!

References: 

Bonk, C. J. (2009). The world is open: How web technology is revolutionizing education.  

San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Downes, S. (2011). Free learning: Essays on open educational resources and copyright. 

Retrieved from http://www.downes.ca/files/books/FreeLearning.pdf

Respondus LockDown Browser (n.d.)  Retrieved August 13, 2015 from    https://www.respondus.com/products/lockdown-browser/  

Turnitin Overview (n.d.)  Reteived August 13, 2015, Retrieved from        http://turnitin.com/en_us/features/overview

What Is Plagiarism? (n.d.) Retrieved August 13, 2015, from             http://www.plagiarism.org/plagiarism-101/what-is-plagiarism/

Walden EDUC 6177 Week 7 Discussion Post - The Nine Themes of Digital Citizenship

The Nine Themes of Digital Citizenship:

This week we were asked to review the nine themes of digital citizenship and comment on the one that we feel is most important to us, based on our adult learning situation.  The nine themes are:

1.    Digital Access - The ability to access technology, opposite of digital exclusion.

2.    Digital Commerce - The electronic buying and selling of goods.

3.    Digital Communication - The Electronic exchange of information.

4.    Digital Literacy - The process of teaching and learning about technology and the use of technology.

5.    Digital Etiquette - Electronic standards of conduct or procedure.

6.    Digital Law - Electronic responsibility for actions and deeds.      

7.    Digital Rights and Responsibilities - Those freedoms extended to everyone in the digital world.

8.    Digital Health and Wellness - Physical and psychological wellbeing in a digital world.

9.    Digital Self-Protection - Electronic precautions to guarantee safety.  

Of the nine themes presented here, Digital Access is the one that I feel needs the most attention in my particular adult learning environment.  Digital access refers to one’s access to technology and the ability to use that technology as much as the next person.  I work in an organization that does overhaul maintenance on aircraft.  The workforce is composed of mechanics and support personnel, such as payroll and management.  The majority of the workforce is mechanics, who tend to work on the flightline (outdoors or in large hangers that house large aircraft).  The mechanics do not have routine access to computers during the workday.  The support personnel routinely do their work on computers and have access to technology all day long.  This can result in a form of “digital exclusion” that could potentially negatively impact the blue-collar workers, and organization as a whole.

A recent example of how digital exclusion could have been an issue is when the organization recently modified their promotion policy to place increased emphasis on the employee’s résumé.  Policy was formulated that required certain information be included on the résumé and in a certain format.  Support workers could make time at work to update their résumés while technicians and mechanics could not.  To help prevent digital exclusion, management arranged for the use of several computer labs and other facilities with accessible computers and utilized the Training Scheduling System (TSS) to schedule time for the blue-collar workforce to have access to a computer and receive some training on the new résumé requirements.

Another example of the organization overcoming limited access to digital technology for the workforce deals directly with my position in the Training Office.  There are several subjects of required training that every member of the workforce must take annually.  With only limited access to computers, mechanics and technicians would have to leave the jobsite and travel to computer labs to receive computer based training.  This adversely affected the production of the organization because much of the work done by mechanics and technicians is done by teams.  When even one member of a team is out, the effectiveness of the work process is reduced.  To reduce the downtime, the organization instituted mass training sessions where all the members of many teams gathered in an auditorium and viewed the training on a big screen.      

While these examples highlights the organization’s attempt at good digital citizenry, the potential for limited digital access and possible digital exclusion still exists for the portion of the workforce that works outdoors, in hangars, and on aircraft.  It is simply the nature of the work.  Management must remain vigilant to increase access and decrease exclusion whenever possible.

If I could modify these nine themes I would add a section about digital information protection.  Many of us have heard the recent news stories of Sony’s email servers being hacked and sensitive emails being released to the public domain.  As a government worker I was recently notified that millions of names and other personal information were stolen by hackers.  I believe good digital citizenship should include a heavy emphasis on protecting personally identifiable information for people associated with organizations.   

                

          

Ribble, M. (n.d.). Nine elements: Nine themes of digital citizenship. Retrieved     May 30, 2012, from http://www.digitalcitizenship.net/Nine_Elements.html