MachIanations

Back To Blogging... and Slogging!!

2011-09-26T22:22:00.001-03:00

I'm baaack!! With a little push from my friend bitdepth (check out his blog it's very cool!). Seems like forever since I have posted anything and turns out it has - no real excuse, I haven't run out of things to say or thoughts that make me go hmmm..., just never seemed to get around to it. Plus there were those whole Twitter and Facebook distractions - but I'm back - really, I am!...

So tonight thought I'd post about something I've been up to - as I sit here dripping on to the keyboard - I'm just in from what I affectionately call (well, not so affectionately when I'm actually doing it...) slogging - think of it as periods of walking interrupted by periods of very slow jogging (slow + jog = slog- elementary!! :-)). The good news is that I slog now more than I walk and I'm out about 45-60 minutes a slog - my city is a good one for slogging - pretty, with lots of hills and flat bits (I'm really good at finding the flat bits and downhills). I feel great and I know I'm fitter, so I'll keep it up until the snow flies and then I'll head to the gym for the winter...

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A new feature here is that I plan on ending with a link or site that I find useful or interesting or one that just makes me go Hmmm.... Today's site is Ron Berks's - Ron is Professor Emeritus of Biostatistics and Measurement at The John Hopkins University and a master of the use of humour in the classroom and of all things PowerPoint - check him out at LinkedIn too. Ron is amazing and very generous with amazing stuff (stuff is a technical term) and lots of wisdom for educators and presenters. Hmmm...

No More Anonymity...

2011-04-01T22:35:00.000-03:00

Hi folks - I love your feedback, but I've turned off Anonymous comments because of all of the spam - getting tired of people and sites posting unrelated, irrelevant, and frankly unsavoury feedback on a blog that is supposed to be about things that make me go Hmmm..., not Yuck!......

Sugata Mitra - the Child Driven Education

2010-09-07T12:54:00.009-03:00

This is from TED.com and is an amazing presentation from Sugata Mitra, on experiments and studies he has done on children in remote areas teaching themselves to use computers with NO assistance - amazing stuff and proof that children will learn what children want to learn - something as educators we can all keep in mind...

Hmmm...

Back Up Out Of The Twitter Rabbit Hole And Other Musings...

2010-06-07T21:34:00.004-03:00

Hard to believe that it has been almost six months since my last blog post - I truly did fall down the Twitter rabbit hole - was (and is) to type out that quick and witty (well I think they are witty) 140 charcter stream of consciousness than it was to sit down and think of something almost sensible to say...

Another advantage of Twitter is that with TweetDeck, I could kill two birds with one stone - tweet and post to Facebook (in fact other than Birthday greetings, I have not used the Facebook interface since I installed TweetDeck almost a year ago...).

While I find Twitter a good way to stay in touch and to get info - depending on who you follow it's almost a "headline" RSS feed - there is still very much room in my life for a blog and for other folk's blogs too (although I must confess I have not looked at Netvibes in months either - something I must get back too.

We're nearing the end of another full and busy academic year here at the College - convocation is next week and we are already in next year mode - seeing prospective students, looking at enrollment numbers (ours are great!), and all in all getting sorted out for another academic year - there is no longer any "down" time...

The two big pieces of tech news for me over the last few months are all Apple related - the release of the iPad and today's announcement of the new iPhone 4 - there is definiteky an iPhone 4 in my relatively immediate future, as for the iPad we have oredered some to try as teaching and learning platforms and to become more informed about their capabilities as we know students will strat showing up with them this fall.

I see the iPad as primarily a consumption machine, not a creation machine - Ira David Socol on his SpeEd Change blog has an interesting post on the iPad - check it out. I think the jury is still out on if the iPad can be successfully used as a learning tool in PSE - I suspect that in some programs it can and in some it cannot. I plan on using one this summer and fall as my " go to meetings" machine - note taking, file retrieval etc. I'll post on how it goes.

My cross Canada virtual trek continues - I think I'm somewhere in Saskatchewan I'll be updating those posts shortly - I did the Bluenose Marathon 5 KM walk/run this year for the third time - my goal was sub 50 minutes and I finished in a chip tine of 50:07.9 (shouldn't have tweetd at the 1 Km mark :-)). You can see my hard-earned medal above...

Well it is so good to be back up from deep in the Twitterverse - I've really missed that 141st character and all the ones that follow. Time to think and muse on what will be here next. Hmmm...

Looking Back 2009 - Looking Forward 2010...

2010-01-10T11:08:00.004-04:00

So here we are - the end of one year and the beginning of another - time to look back and look forward - the adventures and opportunities of the year past and the adventures and opportunities of the year ahead...

2009 was a full and busy year - I began a regular gym routine which has morphed into a six-day a week routine - I'm in much better shape now than I was a year ago and fully expect to be in even better shape by the end of 2010. My virtual cross Canada trek from Halifax to Vancouver has me somewhere around Winnipeg right now (more posts to follow on that) - I hope to be in Vancouver by October or November 2010. The gym and fitness has become part of my life - a big lifestyle change for me. In 2010 I plan on running (well slogging - slow jogging) the Bluenose 5K - I've walked it the last two years. Also plan on playing more golf in 2010 than I did in 2009, but that will be u to the Golf Gods...

On the technology front 2009 was the year where Twitter became my most used Web 2.0 tool and Facebook declined in use - in fact if it were not for the ability of TweetDeck to simultaneously post to Twitter and Facebook, I might never use Facebook - although it is still my preferred tool for tracking Birthdays etc. As it is I use Greasemonkey scripts to customize facebook and get rid of a lot of the superfluous stuff that seems to spring up all over Facebook these days.

I also blogged less in 2009 but plan on doing more in 2010 - Twitter took a lot of what I wanted to say, but some days I just need more than 140 characters. Twitter changed the way we look at and get news - look at the uprisings in Iran and the Haiti earthquake - Twitter got the news out to the world...

I'm still looking for that killer Web 2.0 app that will tie all these social media sites together - if you create it, you will make a fortune. I thnk in 2010 the desktop and operating sytems will become less relevant and the move to the cloud will continue. I wonder what impact that Google's Chrome OS will have? Google's influence will continue t0 grow - it will be a noun, verb, adjective, and who knows maybe even a preposition bythe end of 2010.

Devices will continue to shrink - more and more folks will use smartphones an netbooks to connect - I can't wait to see what Apple does with their tablet (iSlate, iTablet or who knows the Newton II?).

All in all 2009 was a great year and I'm looking forward to what 2010 brings. Hmmm...

Happy New Decade!!...

2010-01-01T19:06:00.003-04:00

Well here we are the beginning of a new year and a new decade - It will be interesting to see what adventures and opportunities await in the year (and decade) ahead.

My plan is to spend more time blogging this year than last - life got away a bit - ended up havong a very bust Fall and got absorbed into Twitter a lot too - while I've gotten good at expressing myself 140 characters at a time, I'm not yet ready to abandon this long form of getting my thoughts out about things that make me go Hmmm... My inner "wordie" just can't stand the limitations of microblogging - it's maxi-blogging for me!

Hope everyone has a wonderful 2010 full of fun, adventures, challenges and opportunities - enjoy!! Hmmm...

Looking Back - Looking Forward - The Decades...

2010-01-01T19:01:00.017-04:00

Well, here we are the end of one decade and the start of a new decade... Time to look back at where we were and look forward to where we are going.

In 2000 I was working as a facilitator at ITI - the Information Technology Institute, one of two private IT companies that were to go bust early in the decade while I was working for them...
In 2010 I'm now in my eighth year at NSCC and have found the best place to work for me. NSCC was just named one of the 50 best places to work in Canada - the only educational institution on the list...
In 2000 I loved my Handspring Visor gray-scale PDA, but still depended on my paper DayTimer to keep me organized...
In 2010 I use Outlook, my iPhone, Google Calendar, and text messages automatically sent to my cell phone to stay on track. Oh yeah and my DayTimer (some things never change...)...
In 2000 I was using "high speed" wired Internet access on desktop computers to look at mostly static information push sites - Altavista was my favourite search engine...
In 2010 I'm using much faster high speed, mostly wireless Internet access on my laptop, cell phone, iPhone, and iTouch using all sorts of Web 2.0 pull technologies delivering to me automatically the information I'm interested in (RSS, blogs, wikis....) and Google is my favourite search engine and so, so, so much more...
In 2000 Web sites were predominantly static, presenting information the way the developer put it on the site - tables were cool and there wasn't a lot of downloading of information...
In 2010 web sites are dynamic, customizable and present a user-centric experience allowing users to create an online experience that works for them. Downloading information is the norm...
In 2000 buying something online was not a regular occurrence for a lot of folks...
In 2010 many companies make more money from online transactions than they do from "brick" stores and in fact many are solely online - who hasn't heard of Amazon?...
In 2000 I watched my favourite TV shows when they were scheduled, or I recorded them on my VCR...
In 2010 I can choose to watch my favourite TV shows in high-definition, when they are scheduled or recorded on my DVR, time shifted, or not even on TV at all - watch them online or download them and watch at my leisure - even but them from the Apple Store to watch on an Apple TV or download them and show them on a Western Digital TV Live...
In 2000 my main sources of information were still the "old media" tools - newspapers, magazines, radio, TV - remember book? :-)...
In 2010 my primary source of information is the Internet and I'm giving my library away...

So over the last ten years things have gotten faster, user-centric and dynamic - I've moved from bulky and comparatively slow desktop computer systems to laptops and handheld devices - I can do things with my iPhone that I could not do with a year 2000 desktop computer. The sea of information available on line has now become a tsunami of information and the decisions we make now are to be skimmers or divers, but probably not both - as an educator I notice students who know a little about a lot of things, but probably have less depth of knowledge that they did 10 years ago. That may not be a bad thing, providing we teach them the information literacy skills they need to find that depth of information when they need it...

So where will be be in 2020? Here are some of my predictions for the next decade:

The desktop computer as we currently know it will be gone - replaced by a multitude of highly customizable devices in a variety of sizes from pocket-sized handhelds, to information "walls" that will combine all forms of media - wires will be a thing of the past too - everything delivered wirelessly at speeds way beyond where we are today with Wireless-n or even Wimax...
Many of the current media and information sources will be gone or significantly altered to allow for user customization - it will all be about the user and what they want
Search technology will be real-time - this will have huge implications for education and the way we educate...
Most students will learn through online or blended deliveries using personal learning environments, PLEs, that work for them - many of the best educational institutions will have an online presence only
Technology will be less obvious and more immersive - whether that's holography, 3D (although I can't see running around with goggles all day), or a technology not yet considered, information will be all around us - simply just "there"
The sheer volume of information will reuire search algorithms and technologies that have yet to be created, creating significant paradigm changes in how information is delivered, searched and made sense of - information literacy will be the single most important set of skills a person can have...
The multitude of Web 2.0 tools that we are using today - RSS, blogs, wikis, Twitter, social media, Flickr and on and on and on will be consolidated into one-stop tools taht will do it all based on what you want it to do
Operating systems - Windows, OSX, and all the flavours of Unix/Linux will be consigned to history, replaced by instant on access to the cloud - guess that would be Web 3.0 or even Web 4.0...
Data storage will not be on the hard drives we use today - that technology will get exhausted sometime in the next decade - devices will be fast with some local storage, but most data will be in the cloud where it can be collaboratively accessed and used...

I have no idea if any of these things will come true - just my random musings. Will be interesting to see where we go over the next ten years - all I know is that it'll be an adventure. Hmmm...

(Photo - Janus Coin by Marco Prins)

The Joys Of Modern Air Travel...

2009-12-30T15:32:00.005-04:00

As I write this, I am sitting in the Maple Leaf Lounge at the Ottawa airport awaiting my flight to Halifax which departs in about 90 minutes (I was in Ottawa fro Christmas). I've already been here for 60 minutes, taking heed of the Transport Canada and Air Canada warnings to arrive three hours before my flight due to the new travels rules in place as a result of the aborted terrorist bombing in Detroit.

I have absolutely no issues at all with the new regulations (except for the one saying nobody could get out of their seat in the last hour of a US bound flight - luckily cooler heads prevailed - that one could have gotten messy...). I just find it somewhat ironic that it was a failed attack and yet seems to have had the desired result of increased delays and inconveniences.

I must compliment the security staff here at the Ottawa airport - they were friendly, courteous and professional - I can only imagine how hard that must have been to do with all of the reported delays of the last few days - it's the front line folks who take the abuse. Today there were few delays getting through security even though I was randomly selected to be patted down, so here I am spending 2.5 hours waiting for my plane (old military habits die hard - I spent a lot of years at military air terminals two hours ahead of departure and that was for flying on Yukons and Hercs!!...). All I can say is if you travel regularly by air these days and you do not have lounge privileges, GET THEM!, it's the only way to travel these days.

So wherever you may be off to, safe travels and get to the airport early. I'm off to have a free cup of tea. Hmmm...

And He Is Back!!...

2009-11-08T22:07:00.006-04:00

Hard to believe that it's been three months since my last post - where has the time gone? It's been a busy Fall in this part of the World, lots going on, but I'm back and ready to post on a more regular basis - here are some of the things I'll be updating and commenting on in the next while:

My Virtual Cross Canada Trek - now over 2000 KM in, not sure where that puts me exactly, but I'll update as I hit major milestones and cities
Things educational including information literacy, new skills for learning professionals, meta skills for learning professionals, and informal learning...
Must "read" audio books (or is that must "listen"?) Hmmm...
And anything else that makes me go Hmmm...

Stay tuned...

Adventure of a Lifetime...

2009-08-01T06:54:00.002-03:00

My friend and colleague Dave Jellicoe, has just launched the adventure of a lifetime - for the next year (at least), he will be teaching in Japan at the Hohoku School in Sendai . You can follow his adventure at his blog, The Uncarved Block.

Have a blast Dave and stay in touch! Hmmm...

Where Were You When...

2009-07-21T14:33:00.005-03:00

With all of the looking back and celebrations yesterday of the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission and man landing on the moon, I got to thinking about the "Where were you when..." events in my life and I have come up with seven of them:

Assassination of JFK - I was seven years old living in Bad Godesberg West Germany - I remember a cloudy dark day and everyone being terribly sad.
Assassination of Martin Luther King - I was 11 years old living in Soest West Germany - I remember lots of talk about racism and how Dr. King's death would set back the civil rights movement. We talked about it in school.
Assassination of RFK - I was 11 years old living in Soest West Germany - I remember thinking that the US was in trouble and that the next president had been killed - Nixon was the result...
Man on the Moon - I was 12 years old, and we were renting a cottage on Lake Milo in Yarmouth - we watched the moonlanding on my grandfather's old B&W TV - appropriate as the pictures from teh moon were also B&W. I will always remember Walter Cronkite's calm voice describing this amazing event
1972 Canada-Russia Summit Series - I was in Grade 11 at St.Paul's High School in Winnipeg - we shut down classes to watch the game, with the series being won by Paul Henderson's goal in the dying moments of Game 8 - the place went wild...
9/11 - I was facilitating a Visual Basic module team time at ITI Halifax when someone said a plne had flown into the World Trade Center - we all thought a small plane had gone off course and crashed - as we tried to get info the Internet literally crashed - eventually we got onto the BBC's site and discovered the magnitude of the event. People wanted to head home to look after their families - some thought a major war was starting...
The Election of Barack Obama - I was home glued to CNN watching the elections returns with far more intensity than I had ever had for and Canadian campaign. As the evbning progressed i kept in touch with friends and other political junkies through Facebook, Twitter and other Web 2.0 tools. Obama is the 2.0 president.

So where were you when and what events were they? Hmmm...

(Photo from HistoryCentral.com)

Vacation Blogging - My 21st Century Summer Reading List

2009-07-18T16:49:00.004-03:00

Remember getting those summer reading lists when you were in school - titles to be read for the next school year? Spent summers doing almost anything except reading what was on that list? Then later, after school was over, making up lists of bookd you wanted to read for pleasure while on vacation or just sitting outside enjoying the weather?

Well, my summer reading list has morphed into vacation blogging. I'm on vacation for the next few weeks and have a list of things that have been making me go hmmm... for a while. Now that I have time, I plan on getting these things posted. Here's the list:

New skills for learning professionals
Meta skills for learning professionals
Informal learning
Twitter signs of success - business and adult entertainment
Can Community Colleges Save the U.S. Economy? (or any national economy for that matter)
Twitter in the classroom - twitter clickers
OS X plug-ins
Sarah Palin's rant
Version numbers
Canadians and Traffic Shaping
Wal-Mart and the Environment
Must "read" audio books

And I'm sure there are more, but that's my list for now. Better get started, but I see the Sun - maybe a walk first. Hmmm...

My Virtual Cross-Canada Trek 2009 - Montreal and Beyond...

2009-07-18T16:11:00.007-03:00

It's been a crazy weather year, like summer hasn't really started yet - lots of wet and rain and fog with the odd sunny day tossed in as a teaser of a summer that hasn't shown up yet.

My cross-Canada trek continues - I'm about 100 KM east of Ottawa - in fact at one point I thought my virtual and real selves might have met his week as I am actually in Ottawa right now, but heading home tomorrow. Just as well - wouldn't want to be messing about with that whole space-time continuum thing anyway :-).

Montreal is one of my favourite cities in the World. I lived in Montreal many years ago and love it every time I go back. It's city full of life, and culture, and always something to do, and the food is amazing. From Dunn's for cheesecake to Schwartz's for smoked meat, you never need go hungry in Montreal (and both are MUST stops during any trip to Montreal). Old Montreal is an amzing collection of restaurants, boutiques, and artisans - a very cool place. If you like vibrant, mult-cultural cities with lost to do and see - head for Montreal.

Hard to believe I'm almost 1400 KMs into my yomp across Canada - next stop is Ottawa, then up over Northern Ontario for Sudbury and Thunder Bay. Now if only the weather would cooperate and allow summer to start...

Maybe NOW You Will Pay Attention to the Pre-Flight Safety Demonstration...

2009-07-11T20:50:00.013-03:00

OK admit it - you get settled into your seat on board yet another flight and bury your head into the newspaper, magazine, or book you brought on board with you while you completely ignore the flight attendants who are waving their arms about like hyper traffic cops doing the pre-flight safety demonstration.

Well that may be about to change. The folks at Air New Zealand have taken a whole new approach to the pre-flight demo - with smiles and body paint:

Too funny, but gets the point across - pay attention to the pre-flight demo - I know I will next time I fly, just in case...

And here is the blooper reel which might even be funnier:

Enjoy! Hmmm...

RIP Compuserve...

2009-07-05T15:55:00.005-03:00

AOL has terminated the CompuServe Internet service. For those of us who have been on the Internet since the days of Betty, Veronica, Archie, Gopher, and Lynx remember CompuServe as one of the first commercial Internet services - it's been around since the 70s - sort of a private Internet almost - well it's gone now.

I will always fondly remember the hundreds of unsolicited floppy disks (5 1/4 and 3 1/2), and later on CD-ROMs offering connectivity through CompuServe (and then later on AOL after AOL consumed CompuServe - anyone still have CompuServe or AOL beer coasters?). I will even admit to having a CompuServe account for a few months (yep, I actually installed one of those hundreds of floppy disks :-)...

CompuServe hasn't been the same since the advent of high-speed access and has now been relegated to the halls of the Computer History Museum.

RIP CompuServe...

Shambhala ALIA Institute 2009 - Some Additional Thoughts and Images

2009-07-01T21:10:00.002-03:00

It's been almost a week since ALIA 2009 came to a close and I'm still pondering and reflecting - one of the highlights of the week for me was the focus on self, the reflections of just what my skills were when it came to hosting and facilitating. I learned a lot, met some incredible people and have taken away some amazing stuff that I will be sorting through for some time to come.

I have come to some conclusions though:

for me ALIA 2009 was a great experience - it was both relaxing and restorative after a very long academic year, yet stimulating and challenging. I was definitely forced out of my comfort zone several times during the week and I think that stretching was good for me.
I am a very good educator and facilitator and have added to my tool kit and practice through what I have seen and participated in at ALIA 2009
There is still a ton of stuff out there to learn and distill
There is a place for the arts - music, dance, art, and more in education - we need to expres what is in us and for many that is through the arts - amazing people at ALIA
My reflecting and analyzing of my experience at ALIA 2009 is far from over...

I've also posted some photos from the week on my Flickr site in a Photo set called "ALIA Institute 2009".

I suspect that I will posting additional thoughts on my ALIA 2009 experience. Stay tuned. Hmmm...

Happy Birthday Canada!! Canada Day 2009

2009-07-01T05:43:00.010-03:00

Happy 142nd Birthday Canada!! You may be a young nation, perhaps barely a teenager, but you are still the best place to live in the World. May you have the greatest of days wherever you may be - East, North, West, or South... It is July, so one of the two days of summer should be appearing shortly (of course we don't really have summer in Canada - just two seasons - Winter and Construction - ask any Canadian driver that :-)). As Canadians it is our national heritage and birth right to complain about the weather, so here is something to help you cool down if your part of the country is having one of the those days of summer today (actually with Global warming, I think we are up to four days of summer):

I can feel the snow and sleet and freezing rain already (now where did I put my boots and parka? Hmmm...). Despite our complaints about the weather being too hot, too cold (must be all that oatmeal we eat) it really is just right, "it's a dry cold" (I'm sorry -40C is cold wet or dry), or "just wait 10 minutes it'll change" (from wet and miserable to truly rotten :-)), Canada is still the best place to live - wide open spaces, beautiful scenery, a social support network, complete with its good and bad, multiculturalism, a democracy that believes in and supports basic rights, and so, so, much more....

I'd like to send a special Canada Day Happy Birthday!! to all the members of our military, especially those in harms way in Afghanistan and other spots around the world - thank you so much for what you do for all of us every day. Shakespeare was right - you truly are a "Band of Brothers", true heroes, and I am so proud to have served with you...

Now speaking of the weather, it's pouring here today, so it looks like fireworks are out, so for all of my fellow Maritimers and for anyone else with gray skies and low ceilings, here are some Canada Day fireworks from Ottawa, Our Nation's Capital:

Happy Canada Day to all Canadians wherever you may be...

(Canada_Flag_Sunset from Cynergy Diva)

A Pop Star Dies, A Nation Disappears...

2009-06-28T11:12:00.003-03:00

Now THIS is social commentary - for the past weeks Iran has been the number one story - now it's faded from the headlines over the death of a washed up, and apparently drug-addled and financially ruined pop-icon who the media have spent the past 20 years vilifying - what's THAT all about? Guess they are mad they won't have him around to kick anymore.

CNN dedicated the whole night Thursday to Michael Jackson, the proclaimed "King of Pop" - Iran was reduced to ticker status. The Iran posts on Twitter dried up, replaced by RIP MJ...

What does it say about our society when a nation is in revolution, trying to free itself from oppression, that world economies are near ruin, and we forget that completely so we can mourn a musician? Yes admittedly a musician who in his prime changed the music industry (some would say saved the music industry with "Thriller" - I own one of those 100 milion copies sold) and pop culture, paving the way for a generation of stars.

Michael Jackson will probably be the last of the great icons - there will be no more Elvises, or John Lennons, or Michael Jacksons - those stars who many remember where they were when they died. Here is an interesting article on that subject from the New York Times carried by my local paper - Fame Will Never Be The Same.

I give Michael Jackson full dues for who he was and what he did, but he was at best a shell of himself when he died and the media revelled in that, spending most of their time the last twenty years vilifying him as a child molester and for being just plain weird - now all of a sudden he was a genius and an icon who will be missed - that's the real story - the hypocrisy and gnat-like attention span of the media, and of society as a whole.

And what of Iran? Has it disappeared from Western consciousness? Is it yesterday's news? Even the Twitterverse has dried up and the number of green avatars is shrinking. Yes, much of the drying up of news is likely due to everything being shut down in Iran, but where has the World's outrage gone? Oh yeah, it's been put aside for MJ. Rest in Peace Michael - maybe now you will have the peace and joy that seemed to elude you in life.

Let's mourn for Michael Jackson and his family, he will be truly missed and remembered by millions of people. But let's not forget the millions of people strugglingto be free either. Time for the media to get their eyes back on the stories that matter - Iran, climate change, the world's failing economic systems and so many more that will impact us in the following days, weeks, and months. Hmmm...

(Map from Iran Tours)

Shambhala ALIA Institute 2009 - A Few First After Thoughts...

2009-06-28T09:27:00.011-03:00

It's been a couple of days since the end of ALIA 2009, and my head is still full of "stuff" ("stuff" is the universal technical term :-)). Thought I'd spend some time getting some of that stuff down here along with some of the links and resources shared by others during the week.

One of the benefits of going to ALIA this year is that it brought me back to being people-focussed. It's not that I am not people-focussed, I mean as an educator if you are not people-focussed, you have issues. It's just that after a long academic year, working with processes and policies, and procedures, the people-focus can at times become a little fuzzy. Mine is now sharp and crystal-clear - good timing as we move into the summer and planning for next year - hiring, enrollments, academic advising - all people-centric activities. At its core ALIA is about people, as any form of leadership should be - it's about the people around you and how they all best fit together.

ALIA and the Shambhala movement are definitely people-centric and in many ways self-centric too - it was good to rediscover some of that self through the meditation practice, through calligraphy, and through the modules and rich conversations - for me ALIA was like a spa for my mind...

Lots of resources and links available for anyone looking to learn more about ALIA or thinking of attending next year (I highly recommend it). The ALIA Web site does a great job of describing the institute. The best resources though are the ALIA Community (a Ning site I think), and in particular to ALIA 2009, the Summer Institute blog. If you want to know more about ALIA, the ALIA Community is a great place to start. Sign up and engage in the conversations...

One of the most interesting people I met at ALIA 2009 was Thomas Arthur - juggler, filmmaker and coach, he was the videographer and photographer for the week. Here is the video harvest he compiled that was shown at the closing ceremony:

Shambhala Summer Institute 2009 from ALIA on Vimeo.

Amazing stuff - the original video is at the ALIA Blog (lot's of great pictures of the week from Thomas too), and at Vimeo. Also, check out Thomas's company Woven Essence. He is a unique individual who would bring something special to your space.

Still more "stuff" to reflect on, so I suspect that this will not be my last post on ALIA 2009. A great week and now it's back to the campus and seeing where all this "stuff" fits. Hmmm...

Shambhala ALIA Institute 2009 - Day Five

2009-06-27T06:34:00.006-03:00

Can it be Friday already? The past five days have literally flown by - hard to believe that ALIA 2009 is over. Well, the institute might be over by the thinking, reflecting and general going Hmmm... is just beginning, so I guess this would be the end of the beginning...

A great end to a great week. The principle today in our last module session was Clarity - bringing things together - we did a circle of younger-elder-middle - very powerful stuff - each takes that role and says a word or phrase of what comes to them. Interestingly enough younger and elder are very close as both are about self, while middle is different as the middle is about others - cool stuff and a very neat exercise. Think that may be why youngers and elders get along so well - they are asking the same questions (look at the relationship between a grandchild and their grandparents...).

Ended the session with Barbara getting us to make a last mark using a big brush - all done in silence and very powerful (one of my big "takeaways" from this week is the power of silence - something I will incorporate into my practice). I drew an open circle representing the importance of community and being open to invite more in.

Then in probably one of the most spiritual and intimate moments of the week Barbara was asked to make the final brush stroke, but before she did, each of us in turn took a moment to touch her - a way of adding some of us to the stroke - a wonderful moment. The picture above is her stroke, or perhaps it is our stroke? Lots of hugs as we ended and lots of picture which I'll get up on Flickr this weekend...

After lunch was a wrap-up of the wealth discussions started at the world cafe and what can tangibly be done - it took a turn away from leadership and more into the Shambhala spirit I thought, which was not a bad thing , but for me, not what I came to the Institute for. The closing event was really nice, with a video of the week and the presentation of a Shambhala pin and its significance to all first year attendees got a - done with great sincerity and reverence. I admire those who follow the Shambhala principles and spirit and I think that there is (and I have) a lot to learn from them.

The institute ended from my perspective, the only way it could with Barbara Bash making one final mark - here it is and you can get from it what you will - it is rich and full of meaning and I am sure that everyone who attended ALIA this year saw something unique in the brush stroke.

So what does it all mean? The full answer will take a while, but here is some what I've got so far:

Silence is powerful, and rich, and full of thoughts and deeds - in many ways better than voice or sounds
I am very good at what I do - I had a lot to offer and I did - I think it was appreciated by many as evidenced by the hugs and comments as we parted
I like calligraphy - I am not good at it yet, but that does not matter, and I love the spiritualism, the quiet, the mystery of the stroke, and the relationship with the brush. The only thing that I have found in my life that comes close is hitting that perfect golf ball through a morning mist...
Questions are the key (which is great because my colleagues, friends, and learners will tell you that some days all I do is ask questions - no answers, just questions) - just need to be better at crafting and asking
In many ways, answers are not as important as we make them out to be - sometimes the best answer is another question
It's not about the tools, it's about the hosting - letting go and checking your ego at the door
Give up control to the field or community
The module hosts this week were beyond amazing - I spent a lot of time watching them and how they interacted with us and each other - they had a plan, but were also flexible and open to allow us , the field or community to go where we needed to be. So if your group or community wants to do some exploring or learning you need to get Chris, or Tim, or Barbara to help you with that journey. And many thanks to Caitlin Frost too for her insights and for sharing Chris and her children with us this week - the brought some cool things to the mix. Thanks to you all, I learned so much from each of you and from all of us - thanks all!!

I know there is a lot more and as I review my notes and thoughts over the next few days and weeks that there will be more to say here - I loved the exercises we did and I will be bringing them "home" with me to add to what it is I do (and when I have that figured out, I will know where they all fit too :-)).

I will be back at ALIA next year - the modules and sessions were amazing and it was a transformational experience - I would recommend the experience to anyone looking to do some stretching and expanding of their comfort zone. I got a lot of validation from the week too - I know I'm very good at what I do, but rarely think of it that way in comparison to others - it was nice to see that a lot of what I do is OK. I'm not ready to be a Shambhala warrior anytime soon, but they do offer a lot of things to think about and that is never a bad thing. Hmmm...

Shambhala ALIA Institute 2009 - Day Four

2009-06-25T20:47:00.006-03:00

Another full and amazing day at ALIA. I missed meditation this morning because there was a bunch of us in a great conversation about everything and nothing - what to see in NS, education, fishing, we were all over the place - very cool people :-).

The module session principle today was ? (or the principle formerly known as ? with apologies to Prince :-)). The practice of asking questions. I was in my glory :-) - I LOVE questions :-). One of the first things we talked about was what makes a powerful question? Here's the list:

Simple & Clear
Thought Provoking
Generates Energy
Focuses Inquiry
Challenges Assumptions
Creates New Possibility
Evokes More Questions
Fearlessness (came from the group)

Also came to the conclusion that when hosting or facilitating don't work alone, work with all - helps with the hard questions and avoids ego. We then did a neat exercise around elder, adult, and younger - what kinds of questions do each of the groups ask - very cool - at the end could have switched the title of the Younger questions sheet to Elder and they would have been relevant (if you think about that explains the close relationships many of us have jad with grandparents and why your kids may get along so well with their grandparents - they ask the same questions :-)) - very cool.

I took pictures of the sheets and will get them up on Flickr this weekend. Questions should change and shift and cause more questions. I got a lot of value from talking about questions - and again silence came up as a good tool for use with questions - key I have found with questions is that in many cases it's not the answer that is important, it's the next question, and the one after that that gets everyone engaged in the journey...

We then did an open spaces exercise - would love to try one at the College - I see some real practical uses for the technique to get learners and others involved in solving problems and making issues their own. I love the principles of Open Spaces:

Whoever comes are the right people
Whatever happens is the only thing that could have
When it starts is the right time
When it's over, it's over

The Law of Two Feet - when you don't like it use your two feet and leave :-). Lots of great open space resources at Chris Corrigan's Web site - (in fact check out his whole site along with those of Tim Merry and Barbara Bash - all are simply awesome and very useful).

The afternoon session was our second calligraphy session with Barbara - we got big brushes and ink today! :-). Drew four different characters and all done in silence - a very spiritual, relaxing, connected, wonderful, anxious, amazing experience - felt like you were in a relationship with the brush (sometimes you drew what you wanted and sometimes the brush drew what it wanted :-))- so relaxing - I may have to investigate further. Hmmm...

BTW I have been saying "Heaven, Heart, Human" all week and it's actually "Heaven, Earth, Human" - that's OK because my Heart is my Earth - my grounding, and my centre - it's a very neat and spiritual way to look at things...

Last session was a world cafe on what we can do about the world and wealth and community etc. - actual solutions to problems. Run simultaneously in three places - at ALIA, in Second Life, and on Skype (I'm a big fan of both - been in Second Life (SL) for over 3 years - I'm hondomac Dalgleish in SL , and I've had a Skype account even longer - no more long distance charges...). I thought they might have better integrated them all with voice, but they just read the transcripts from SL and Skype - a good start though, and proof that you can use virtual worlds and other technologies to connect with people. Next step would be live interaction between the three technologies to have one slightly larger world, complete with two-way voice and video - the technology exists to do that now...

Here's a look at the world cafe, Second Life style...

Many thanks to LoriVonne Lustre (in SL) for the postcard. If you are ever in Second Life, track down LoriVonne - she will greatly enhance your SL experience...

The week is drawing to a close, but I think much of my learning is just beginning - there has been a lot of great information and discussion this week - now the distilling, reflecting and actual using of those principles, tools, and techniques that work for my situations begins. Welcome to the end of the beginning. Hmmm...

Shambhala ALIA Institute 2009 - Day Three

2009-06-24T20:31:00.009-03:00

Another interesting day at ALIA - I even managed to keep my eyes open for most of the meditation session this morning :-).

Today in the module we looked at emergence, what is starting to emerge from our discussions on hosting etc. There was a lot of silence today - my God I never realized how powerful silence was - I plan on using it a lot more - again in the circle we were asked to say what had emerged for us - I said a deeper awareness and the knowledge that silence was as powerful or more powerful than voice or noise. The power and energy of the shared thoughts in the circle and in the room were quite palpable

We did a very cool exercise working with limiting beliefs. We were asked to pick a group (I picked learners), and to write down beliefs about them that were negative or limiting - so I wrote down things like frustration, lack of effort, not coming to class etc. The one I chose for the exercise was "Learners work hard at avoiding work". We then paired up (I got lucky and was paired up with Chris Corrigan - amazing guy...) and went through a facilitated discussion that was almost completely silent except for some guiding questions and gentle facilitating - I think it would be amazing to try with faculty or even learners. Some of the guiding questions asked were:

Is it true?
Can you absolutely know it is true?
How do you react - what happens when you believe that thought?
Who would you be without that thought?

Then we turned the thought/belief around - very powerful stuff.

Balanced rocks - what do they mean to You? Balance, synergy, community - connectedness? Hmmm...

We were then sent on a 10 minute silent aimless walk after which we came back and made an ink stroke on a piece of paper - mine was a diagonal line across the page - meant journey and two sides and a lot more to me :-)

Had an interesting session this afternoon on complementary currencies - some of teh examples include LETS Local Exchange Trading Systems (here is a link to a list of LETS worldwide) , the Onion River Exchange, Global Community Initiatives, and LASER were some of the resources mentioned - brief economics lesson on the difference between currency and money and then a look at different types of complementary currencies - there are a lot of them around - seen by some as the salvation of the world economies (complementary currencies are not new - depression-era "scrip" was one of the examples shown). Annapolis Royal has set up a complementary currency. The concept of the various kinds of complimentary currencies and the power and stability they can bring a community are some things to think about. How would the introduction of complementary currencies in Canada (besides the business ones we know like Air Miles, Aeroplan, and Canadian Tire Money...) effect our economy? Or do we already have large scale use of complimentary ecomonies hhere - we just call is volunteerism? I like the idea of a time bank as a way to increase community activism and engagement.

Another great day at ALIA - I think I'm starting to get the big picture of "Heaven, Heart, and Human" and how I might apply it to parts of my life. Another full day tomorrow...

(Currency and Community Image from Gwendolyn Hallsmith)

Shambhala ALIA Institute 2009 - Day Two

2009-06-23T22:07:00.004-03:00

Another wonderful day at ALIA. Started this morning with 45 minutes of mindful meditation - went better than yesterday - almost kept my eyes open the whole time :-). I found the experience restful and at the same time difficult - lots of adjusting to find my centre and trying to clear my mind - it's obviously a life-long practice that requires a lot of commitment and practice.

The module session today was good - some very cool exercises to build community and we went through both an appreciative inquiry and world cafe exercise. One of the exercises involves putting people in a circle then selecting someone who folds their arms over their chest, closes their eyes and is launched into the circle by someone - they keep walking until someone on the edge of the circle stops them and sends them off in a different direction. You then slowly add more blind walkers to the mix and watch the fun happen - people on the edge holding walkers so they don't collide and sending off in a clear direction - I think it would be a great ice breaker for classrooms, and at our own faculty and staff development program.

The afternoon session on calligraphy was amazing - who knew drawing lines could be so spiritual and involve the body as much or more than the mind... We weren't trusted with ink today - a very good thing :-) (we get ink on Thursday :-)), so we drew lines with water on paper - a very cool, focussed, and yet relaxing exercise. Also did some body movement to get the feel of how the body moves through calligraphy - Tai Chi based. Barbara Bash was the facilitator and she is amazing - she has such a calma nd commanding presence. She passed on a poem about calligraphy from one of her mentors:

Bone Heavy
Spirit Light
Heart Even
Intention Far
True Interest
Self Expressed
Upright Energy
Dives and Swirls

(Professor Chong Man'Ching - translated from Chinese)

It captures the art and life of calligraphy perfectly for me.

So much is floating around in my head after the first two days of ALIA - I'll keep twittering and blogging my thoughts, but some of the things I've captured so far are:

Heaven, Earth, Human
Do everything with intention
Wealth is all around us and in many ways has nothing to do with money
Silence is as important as noise
Let communities form themselves from within - guide, don't direct (already knew that one!)

I've taken a few photos of what we've been creating together and I will eventually get them posted to my Flickr photostream.

Another day full of ideas, and notions, and intentions and a lot of things that made me go Hmmm...

Shambhala ALIA Institute 2009 - Day One

2009-06-23T21:06:00.007-03:00

Day One of the ALIA institute was thought provoking, active, and a little overwhelming too - 7:15 AM - 6:00 PM - what a day! and it flew by! This is going to be a transformational week.

A great group of people - very eclectic and interesting - the Shambhala followers are very calm, very centred and very, very smart - they speak softly, almost in a whisper - slow talkers - you really have to pay attention to them - an interesting technique. It initially came off to me as pretentious, but that's not the case - very genuine and caring...

Silence seems to be valued almost more than speech and noise (although there was lots of that and movement too :-). Everything has a purpose and all has meaning - very significant and a different perspective for sure. The following guiding principles are the foundation of the ALIA Institute:

Authenticity - there is a depth and clarity of attention and intention (this word has been used a lot at ALIA - intention is fundamental in any word or deed) as a foundation for leadership
Clear Seeing - effective leadership begins with seeing situations clearly and directly
Inherent Capacity - building on the inherent intelligence and creativity of people and groups. The module I am in "The Art of Hosting Conversations and Collborations Across Generations" speaks a lot to thsi inherent capacity in people, groups and communities
Transformative Learning - leadership development is seen as an ongoing journey of personal and collective transformation. This has been my experience so far. The ALIA institute combines art, music, meditation and other techniques and disciplines out of my current comfort zone, resulting in quite a transformative experience for me so far
Transformative Action - no sense having learning without action - it is an ALIA Institutre guiding principle that the programs and acticvities we are seeing this week will enable us to put into action items of change - I think that this will bevery true...

I have seen ecidence of these guiding principles in everything I have participated in so far.

After the opening address we began with a session of Mindful Meditation that went well except I couldn't keep my eyes open (I need practice). I found it to be a balancinga nnd centriung exercise, one that I will do every morning of the institute and possibly beyond.

There was series of "getting to know us exercises" - we were arranged in a circle by age (16-68), we went to the four points of the compass based on where we had come from (Hungary to Australia, to California to South Africa and back to Nova Scotia), and then joined in a dance of head, heart and hands - got warmed up and met some great people. I can see a great use for these exercises with any froup or classroom. Again the words intention, inquire and learn came up - a banner of intentions was created. My intention for the week is to inquire and learn...

One of the main themes of the week is wealth (in all its shape and forms) - we had a learning cafe on several questions around wealth and most of the discussions had little to do with money - the focus was on community and the wealth of the spirit and other forms of wealth and poverty - being rich and poor in many ways at the same time. An interesting perspective on complementary currencies as well. Some great stuff on complementary currencies here. Heard from Silas Louie from Zimbabwe on teh use of a complemetary currency that brought economic stability and a sense of community to his community

The afternoon was dedicated to the module sessions - mine as I said is "The Art of Hosting Conversations and Collborations Across Generations" hosted by Chris Corrigan, Tim Merry and Barbara Bash who are all great facilitators - at first I thought they were going to do all the talking, but they were just setting context - we did a talking circle - we were asked what our source was and who we served - my source was my passions, particularly my passion for learning and I serve my learners, faculty and staff, but also the economy and people of NS - several people were brought to tears by their stories - I think there will be a lot of tears and laughter before the week is out. Also got into a conversation about Choas and Order - I mentioned that I loved chaos over order in my classrooms because it caused learning - got lots of good feedback.

An amazingly full and eventful day that just flew by - it's taken me this long to digest things for this post - an amazing start to what wil be an amazing week. Hmmm...

Shambhala ALIA Institute 2009 - Day One - Opening Address

2009-06-23T06:18:00.005-03:00

Day One of ALIA started bright and early with breakfast at 7:00 AM (I was fashionably late at 7:45). The opening keynote was "Bringing Authentic Leadership Into Action", by Michael Chender, a consultant and member of the Shambhala community. He spoke of several themes that will be explored throughout the institute - authentic leadership, complexity, and wealth.

Authentic leadership is a path or process not an ideal and will not be defined by ALIA - it's part of the journety of bringing the best to a situation and our current uncertain times demand authentic leadership. As you can see, lots of food for thought right from the top of the institute. I'm just starting to define authentic leadership for myself, but I think it inckudes being aware of everyone and including them in the process. There is more, but that's yet to clarify...

Complexity is ever increasing - the immediacy of the use of technology and the Web - authentic leadership is the essential ground from which to interact or work with complexity. ALIA is a relatively technology-high conference - it is being filmed and photographed, the site is tech-friendly with wireless and wired access, and several people in the audience were using Flip and similar style video cameras. In fact Michael specifically mentioned that he expected his address to be on the Web within the hour - more complexity and immediacy.

He talked about wealth and the need for appreciating natural wealth - I think there will be a lot of talk this week about wealth and most will not be about money.

Michael ended his address talking about meditation - the practice of doing nothing, and the ALIA approach of meditation and the arts bringing mind, body and action together - for me this will be the most interesting part of the journey this week as it is out of my comfort zone (not a bad thing). Finally, he wished us an unnerving week and I think it will be just that.

An interesting start to the week - lots to ponder on and lots to look forward too. Hmmm...

Shambhala ALIA Institute 2009

2009-06-22T22:52:00.004-03:00

This week I am attending the Shambhala ALIA (Authetic Leadership in Action) Institute at Mount Saint Vincent University.

The institute started Sunday evening with an opening banquet and guest speaker. I had a great time - some absolutely fascinating people. Sat at the same table as Susan Szpakowski, the Executive Director of ALIA - a very calm, sure, centred woman - there may be something to the Shambhala way if she is an example - a very caring person - when I spoke with her it was like I was the only person in the room, and she was the busiest person in the room too!

The guest speaker at the opening banquet was Shauntay Grant, Halifax's Poet Laureate - very powerful writer and a great storyteller - there is a real story telling theme to the conference and one of the major themes is wealth - not just monetary wealth, but wealth of mind, and spirit, and knowledge, and sharing - it is going to be a very cool week.

I plan on Tweeting the conference when I can- I'm hondomac on Twitter and will be using the #alia hashtag. Here is the schedule for the week - http://www.aliainstitute.org/programs/2009summer/schedule.html.

I'm looking forward to an interesting, thought-provoking, challenging, and maybe even a little bit of an uncomfortable week - a week full of learning options and opportunities. I'm going to try and post at least once a day, but there is a lot here that makes me go Hmmm... so may not be a daily event...

Image - ALIA Logo from the ALIA Institute Web site.

Britain's Got Talent - The Winners

2009-05-30T22:35:00.008-03:00

Susan Boyle came second in the Britain's Got Talent final to these guys - the dance group Diversity:

Amazing performance...

Here is Susan Boyle's performance in the final:

I'm sure we haven't heard the last of Susan. You decide who the real winner is...

My Virtual Cross-Canada Trek 2009 - Bienvenue Au Ville de Quebec

2009-05-30T21:50:00.005-03:00

Now 929 KMs from home, just passing by Quebec City. Quebec City is on eof the oldest in Canada - full of great sites, sounds, and tastes, including La Citadelle, regimental home of the legendary Vandoos - Le Royal 22e Regiment of the Canadian Army.

As the weather gets better I'm making greater daily progress as I keep walking across Canada. Next major destination is Montreal, a mere 272 KMs down Autoroute 20. I prefer the scenery along the South shore of the St.Lawrence River to that of Autoroute 40 and the North Shore.

The trek continues...

Seal Clubbing - The True Story???...

2009-05-26T06:43:00.004-03:00

Sometimes the best way to deal with the uninformed and hysterical is with humour and satire. Graphic design and digital animation learners at CONA (College of the North Atlantic) in Newfoundland and Labrador, have done just that with an amazing;y well done rebuttal to the European Union's ban on seal products due to the EU's perception of the seal hunt being barbaric and cruel (how barbaric would it be if seal pups were ugly? Hmmm...). Here is their amazing video "The Shame of The North Atlantic" (pay close attention to the name of broadcast company...) - enjoy!

My Virtual Cross-Canada Trek 2009 - Bienvenue Au Riviere-Du-Loup!...

2009-05-19T20:24:00.005-03:00

With the weather getting better, I've sailed right on through New Brunswick, passing through Edmunston and now find myself in Riviere-du-Loup PQ, 820 KMs from Halifax.

Several people have remarked that I am looking thinner although I've only noticed minor changes so far - I'm in one more hole on my belt, clothes are fitting a little better and I definitely have more energy. Still a long way to go...

I have no idea how much I weigh and probably won't weigh myself until the Fall - for me it's not about how much I weigh, but rather how well I feel and I am feeling good. Looking forward to a long summer of walking, with the next two big stops being Quebec City and Montreal. Bring on the hot weather and the miles!...

The Bluenose 5K 2009

2009-05-17T20:50:00.006-03:00

I took part in the Bluenose 5K walk/run earlier today for the second straight year. The 5 K is one of several races run on the Bluenose Marathon weekend. The 5k was actually called the "Ben's Smart Walk/run" after the title sponsor Ben's Bakery and their Smart bread.

The day was cool, cloudy, drizzly/misty, and a little windy - apparently almost perfect race conditions (there is a long tradition of the Bluenose race day having terrible weather). Things got started at the Metro Centre where race bibs and t-shirts were picked up.

Interesting start – the Metro Centre was a ZOO! They need to do a better job of organizing – I checked in and they did not have my size t-shirt (despite registering in January), so I ened up with a men's large which may cover one arm (I usually wear XXXL t-shirts). What happened apparently is that people asked for sizes bigger than they registered for and they were all out of XL and XXL (what I had asked for as it was the biggest size they had made).

There was also little evidence of Bluenose hospitality – two women swore at me when they ran into ME!! What’s that all about? I did notice a significant improvement in attitude after the race, so I will attribute the lack of friendliness to “race face” :-). It was a sea of humanity, verging on a mob :-)...

The weather was perfect once we got started– cool, cloudy, a little breezy, and misty – I was cool all the way (but still SWEATY!!!). Did not see a single person from NSCC, but did run into others I knew including John O'Donnell. John was my padre when I was commanding officer of 33 (Halifax) Service Battalion. For the last several years he has been one of the driving forces behind L'Arche here in Halifax. They just opened their Halifax home after many years of hard work.

I twittered my progress on the walk/run (I mostly walked) - it was so cool tweeting the whole thing (you can follow it using the hash tag #bn5K or checking out my Twitter stream)– hopefully I didn’t go overboard – I think I am truly a twitterholic now – the sense of immediacy and community that you get with Twitter is just too cool. I actually felt like I was being supported by people coming along with me. I also posted some pictures at Flickr.

I felt great after the walk and am already thinking of next year - perhaps the 5K run? Hmmm...

Update: Even with all of the Twittering and conversations along the way, I finished the 5K walk/run in 54:15, almost 4 minutes faster than last year - the 1008th finisher. Next year I'm gunning for the top 1000...

CNIE 2009 Ottawa - Some Final Thoughts...

2009-05-17T20:22:00.008-03:00

Well, CNIE 2009 in Ottawa has been over for a few days now and I'm home and back to work in Halifax. This post is just a few final thoughts on the conference and my experiences there, and some lessons learned and thoughts for the future.

First, let me say that CNIE was a great conference for me - with it's focus on innovations in education it was right where I wanted to be, talking to a lot of like-minded people doing some amazing things with education, teaching and learning, and learning technology. Along with my collegue and friend Carolyn (Randommind), we gave our first presentation at a national conference and it went extremely well - I will be presenting at conferences again (in fact I cannot see myself going to a conference in teh future without presenting - it just adds so much richness to the experience. I plan on attending future CNIE conferences - CNIE 2010 is in St. John NB, a car drive away for me.

I plan on talking to the leadership at NSCC about becoming a member of CNIE - I think it is an organization that is in line with a lot of the things we are trying to do, particularly with blended and online delivery of learning.

The other major activity I engaged in at CNIE 2009 was tweeting the conference. The sense of immediacy and community that I got from twittering "live and in real-time" added so much to the conference plus I got to meet some amazing people who were doing exactly the same. I am truly and completely sold on Twitter now as a teaching and learning tool and I see all sorts of application for it in both face to face classroom and alternate deliveries (I think it would be very cool to add a Twitter stream to an online course - I feel another post coming on...). I certainlly plan on continuing to Twitter at future conferences and events...

Ottawa is a great city for a conference, and the Chateau Laurier is an amazing and elegant hotel, but holding CNIE 2009 in a hotel that basically had no wireless network and inconsistent Internet connectivity was a mistake. I can't remember the last time I used a network cable in a hotel room - it's been a while. If the Chateau Laurier is going to continue to host tech conferences, it needs a reliable wireless network throughout the hotel. I know this might not be that easy in such and old and well-built edifice, but at $13.95 a night for Internet service, cost should not be a factor (hint - join the Fairmont President's Club like I did and the Internet is free).

For me the following were the highlights of CNIE 2009:

Presenting at the conference
Twittering the conference
George Siemen's keynote
The Westminster College presentation on project based learning and competency-based assessment
My NSCC Colleague's presentation on the Chemo Prep programme
The Red Deer College Presentation on redesigning computer learning
being there with my NSCC colleagues and meeting a lot of mazing educators doing some very innovative stuff (and stuff is a technical term)

All in all a great week in the Nation's Capital - even had time to meet up with old friends - thanks again for supper Jason! Check him out, he's brilliant...

CNIE 2009 Ottawa - Day Three

2009-05-14T21:56:00.021-03:00

The first session I attended on Day Three of CNIE 2009 was "BOLD - Blended Online Learning Design - An International Research Initiative". The study Web site is BOLD-Research.org. The study was conducted at two universities ("X" and "Y"). Several things came out of study:

A mix of synchronous and asynchronous online delivery was best - a psychological and sociological connection develops with faculty and learners
Flexibility was a key element liked by faculty, learners and others surveyed
Equity of access was important (comparing F2F and online)

Instructional Designer feedback included:

Potential to create more active learning environments
Important for ESL learners - can re-read and review multiple times
Easier to monitor learner participation

Learner Feedback included:

Flexibility
Quality
Group Reflection

Faculty Feedback included:

Ease
Flexibility
Everything at their fingertips

There was lower attrition in synchronous courses as compared to asynchronous course - learners wanted a synchronous component to foster group and community.

An ongoing study, BOLD validate a lot of my thoughts on what works in any delivery method - we really do need to be delivery agnostic - focus on strong outcomes and course development that creates the best course possible that can be delivered in multiple ways. Hmmm...

The second session of the morning was "Computer Learning 2.0 - A (Re)Design" This seesion was presented by three librarians from Red Deer College. The team, resonsible for computer learning at Red Deer College moved to a project-based multiple modes of delivery system of computer training at RDC. They shifted to projects with rubrics - learners needed to apply learning and higher level thinking to complete projects as opposed to completing "Menu" style assignments. They came up with some really innovative projects that not only allowed learners to grasp and obtain the technical skills that they needed, but also developed critical thinking and problem-solving skills too.

They have developed a series of online "Lib Guides", including one for this presentation - very cool stuff.

The closing keynote, "Fuelling Innovation Through Millennial Entrepreneurship" was by Andrew Fisher, Executive VP at Wesley Clover, an investment vehicle for Terry Matthews, founder of Newbridge Networks and Mitel among other companies.

Much of his presentation had to do with how innovation and entrepreneurship went together and that as innovative educators there was much we could do with regards to commercialization etc. of our innovative ideas and products.

An OK presentation, but I felt that he didn't really "grab" the audience, probably not always an easy thing to do on closing a conference. He did have a valid point - as educators we do nee dto at least think about entrepreneurship and commercialization and organizations like Wesley Clover who could support further innovation. Hmmm...

CNIE 2009 Ottawa - Day Two Sessions

2009-05-13T15:25:00.011-03:00

The first session the day that I attended was " Canada's e-PhDs". It was a review of current e-PhD programmes online - their challenges, retention and professional socialization. It is anticipated that the growth of e-PhD programmes will be exponential which is a great thing for someone like me who is currently exploring online doctoral programme options (if anyone know of an online EdD programme that costs less than $40 K, please let me know).

Interestingly enough, a quick comparison was done with residential PhD programes. Residential programmes have the following charateistics:

No formal prep for teaching, service, or positions outside academe
50% completion rate
7-8 years to complet
4-5 years to withdraw
Distance ed completion rate 60%

Some food for thought. All in all an interesting survey of online programmes from a retention perspective, but not the information session that I had expected.

The next session I sat in on was presented by my NSCC colleagues Carolyn and Kelly - An Online Chemo Prep Programme for Cancer Care Nova Scotia - this was an amazing programme delivered online to a total of 75 pharmacy technicians around NS on chemo preparation, to ensure standard approaches and practices in the mixing of these toxic medicines.

The program was delivered using Elluminate and a discussion board with a hands on "playbox" - inexpensively made up of the tools and equipment used in chemo prep. Learners used the playbox to practice and the theory was delivered and discussed through Elluminate and the discussion board. All participants got together face to face once to take an OSPE - and Objective Standardized Practical Exam.

This was an amazing programme that sets an example for delivering any intensive hands on course online through the combination of a "playbox" and an OSPE - very very cool and I will be definitely looking at this model for delivering such courses as IT hardware and networking. Great job Carolyn and Kelly!!...

The next session was "Developing a Community of Inquiry in a Mobile Learning Context" and was delivered by a team from Athabasca University. Much of the world (China was mentioned with over 500,000,000 mobile devices) is going directly from little technology right to mobile devices and this team has developed a model for mobile learning. One of the questions they are investigating is how is learning the same and different on a mobile device? To date there has not been a lot of research done on mobile technology and mobile learning, but as Clarke (1994) said - "learning doesn't change because the medium changes". Hmmm... I wonder if that is really true?

The remainder of the session discussed their evolving model of mobile learning which includes a device aspect, a learner aspect, and a social aspect with an information context (it's represented by a complex Venn diagram). Interesting stuff and something to think about. They did provide a great rubric and it's located here - http://galileo.org/research/publications/rubric.pdf - check it out...

The last session of the day was "Project-Based, Competency-Based Blended Program Innovation" by Dr. Michael Sutton of Westminster College in Salt Lake City.

This is an amazing accellerated professional degree completion program for business people looking for a BBA - no courses, but a series of competency assessed projects that run in project streams, each stream a major competency. a totalof over 40 major comptencies were identified in conjunction with business leaders and they were grouped in sets.

Learners need a miniumum of six years of business experience tp get in and the programme takes approx 18 months to complete if done in contiguous semesters.

This is the way adult education should be delivered - not hung up on courses and grades but focussed on applied project learning an competencies - a very cool presentation and a great way to deliver adult education...

Day Two was a little more mixed in the quality of the presentations, but the information was great and very thought provoking - a lot of learning that will take some time to reflect upon. Hmmm...

CNIE 2009 Ottawa - Day Two Keynote

2009-05-13T14:59:00.005-03:00

Day Two of CNIE 2009 brought another full day of sessions and twittering. The day began with a keynote from Dr. Thierry Karsenti. A copy of his keynote will be available on his Web site. He talked about "ICT and Education - Information and Communications Technologies in Medical Education - The Major Challenges". Interesting method of presentation - most of the keynote was in French with English slides (and simultaneous translation) - a truly Canadian approach.

Dr. Karesnti identified four main challenges:

Preparing physicians for the changing behaviours of Internet savvy patients
Patients can readily interact with healthcare professionals without leaving home
To motivate physicians in training to use ICT to find information, learn, and develop
To change medical education practices

Patients are changing - now much more participative in their own healthcare and medical knowledge is no longer the perogative of health care experts. ICT needs to be seen as a way to get patients more engaged in their health care not as a nuisance - this creates serious challenges to the way initial and continuing medical education is done.

Telemedicine is becoming increasingly common, as are digital patient files and the increased use of handheld and other mobile devices. There is a need to raise the awareness of the benefits of ICT to physicians in training - ICT training should be manadatory in initial and continuing medical training (in any professional training for that matter).

Virtual communities and blogs are on the increase in medicine - Ask Dr.Wiki for example - that are directly targeting medical students and practitioners.

To better prepare physicians to deal with patients who may be better informed of their condition than the physician, ICT training needs to be compulsory inmedical education.

An interesting keynote that while not only pointing out the need for ICT training and skills in modern medicine, made the point that these skills and knowledge are pretty much required universally in all walks of life. A great start to the day...

CNIE 2009 Ottawa - Learning Is A Team Sport

2009-05-12T21:43:00.019-03:00

This post is about the presentation that my colleague, Carolyn (randommind), and I gave at CNIE 2009 Monday afternoon (right after lunch in fact). The subject was "Learning Is A Team Sport, Or a Conversation About Learning In The New Millennium". Our presentation can be found on SlideShare if you want to take a look.

First just let me say that both of us had a blast presenting. This was the first time presenting at a national conference for both of us and quite frankly, I cannot wait to do it again. Much of the credit for that has to go to the incredibly engaged audience we had - the room was full and they played along with us.

The genesis of our presentation came out of a roundtable discussion that I had about a year ago at NSCC's Festival of Learning - many of our faculty come from a learning environment that was based on the individual - test, the term paper was king, a teacher told you what and how to learn, and that this is no longer where we or our learners are. As faculty we need to understand that learning is now in fact a collaborative process - between faculty and learners and between learners and learners and that we need to figure out what that means.

The presentation was interactive and participative, probably a good thing for right after lunch. I began with a simulation of the old classroom - "Sit down! Be quiet! Put your books away, pay attention to me, you are going to learn!". That seemed to get everyone's attention and allowed both of us to introduce ourselves and begin our conversation about learning as a team sport.

From there we moved on to a sorting exercise where my co-presenter asked a series of questions to separate the audience and to also get the audience to begin to know and understand each other. It's an amazing way to get learners to know each other and to get to know your learners. Carolyn did an amazing job of the sort - she owned the room and she was getting compliments well into today. For many of our audience it was the single biggest take away.

We then posed two questions:

Does this impact the way we teach?
What does all this mean to you?

The audience then did a Think-Pair-Share for 10 minutes (we only had one hour for the presentation). Once the time was up we asked for people to share their answers to our questions and the answers were quite amazing.

We heard the following:

How do I do this with little or no support from my organization?
How do I assess learning that's collaborative? (Maybe that's next year's presentation.)
Lots of comments on how they could use the sort activity in their courses both face to face and online. The sort was the highlight of the presentation

There were several more absolutely amazing comments, but we were both so absorbed in the conversations that neither of us took any notes. Next time we get pwople to tweet :-). The line of the conference may have come out of our conversations around the questions when one of the audience referred to the old style teacher-centric model as "full frontal teaching" - it was an apt description and was quickly twittered across the conference and beyond.

The presentation was over before we knew it - what an amazing hour and thanks to everyone who attended for being so collaborative and giving - you all clearly demonstrated that learning is indeed a team sport. I learned so much that I will "collaboratively re-purpose" and use in my own practice. The greatest thanks though must go to my co-presenter - together we did an amazing job that we could not have done alone. Thanks so much Carolyn...

CNIE 2009 Ottawa - Day One And Twitter

2009-05-12T20:53:00.005-03:00

Day One of the conference started off with a keynote from George Siemens. His keynote was titled "A Firm Foundation", and was quite interesting and thought-provoking, with some thoughts on education needing to be rethought and restructured. Some interesting numbers, including the facts that young users are not the greatest users of the Internet and that the 70-75 year old segment is the fasting growing sector (Pew Internet).

One important thing for me that came out of this keynote is the affirmation of the need to develop information literacy skills - the use of information literacy and information is critical and skills need to be developed. There is an issue where physical aspects haven't changed to meet the way information is being used - that is so true - just look around at information sources and how they are changing regularly.

Check out the presentation - very interesting.

Perhaps the single most important thing I have done at this conference was engaging in active twittering of the conference (tag #cnie) - it added such a dimension of richness and inclusiveness, along with immediate feedback and community - it was and is a spectacular way to engage in a conference (or I suspect any live event). Not to mention a great way to engage in conversation and get others' perespectives on what is happening around you.

Sat in on a presentation about critical thinking online - lots of good demographic numbers on internet use from the Media Awareness Network, a great resource on media and information literacy for K-12 (with some PSE application too). Talked aboutthe dominant reading pattern online is in the shape of a "F", and that a lot of really good content gets missed if it's outside the "F". One thing that was recommended to foster critical thining online was to separate entertainment from content and on eof the examples given was the Field Museum. Learners need to develop skills to successfully navigate and search he Internet - again that theme of information literacy came up.

The next presentation I attended was on "Web-Based Tools - The World Beyond The LMS" - much of the conversation was getting to the idea that Web 2.0 tools provide services beyond the ability of many LMSs, but that there needs to be a value add to use them - if the LMS will do most of what is wanted, then movingtos trange and unfamiliar Web 2.0 tools might not be the best. Ther needs to be a value-add to make the move. I am a strong believer of using Web 2.0 tools for learning, but like anything, use the right tool - the one that does the job and allows effective teaching and learning to occur.

The presenter also talked about how to train faculty in the use of Web 2.0 tools and build their comfort in their use. Web 2.0 has to be about ease of use and having the technology fade into the background. Personally I think that is the great advantage of Web 2.0...

The last presentation of the day was from Martha Burkle, the Cisco Chair in e-Learing at SAIT. It was a "Journet Through Second Life to Facilitate Hands On Learning". What SAIT has done is take their Robotics Lab and recreated it, along with other elements of their programs in Second Life - the SL Robotics lab is connected to Moodle through SLoodle and is a fuly functioning facility complete with testing and evaluation components - an entirely hands-on experience. I am quite sure that an entire online course could be developed and run this way.

Also took us on a tour of a TV studio set up for learners - they had full control rooms and camera setups allowing for simulated brodcasts and programming a great adjunct to their real world program. SAIT has creayed an engaging and creative learning environment in SL, but like a lot of them it has been driven more by "champions" that universal acceptance and adoption. Hmmm...

All in all an amzingly engaging and absorbing day - some incredible presnters and a lot of enaged attendees - twittering really was the icing on the cake. I can't s

Publish Post

ay just how much more it adds to the conference experience - you have to try it!

For me the overwhelming themes of the day were information literacy - just how critically important it is, and that innovation in teaching and learning needs to be supported, but also needs to be done with an understanding of the effects of innovation on faculty and learners and that the supports must be there for both. Lots of Hmmm... from Day One...

CNIE 2009 Ottawa - The Crackerbarrel

2009-05-12T20:40:00.003-03:00

My apologies for not blogging sooner, but between a wonky Internet connection (very little wireless in the hotel. Note to self - travel with a network cable...) and a very busy and interesting CNIE 2009, it's been an effort to post.

CNIE 2009 has been a great conference so far and I'll describe it in detail in future posts. The conference got off to a great start with a crackerbarrel - a combination opening ceremony and round table discussions. Some of the tables I sat at included:

Web 2.0 - The Dark Side - an interesting conversation around what is difficult or bad about Web 2.0 - for me very little, but for many of the K-12 ecucators attending, the issue of cyber-bullying has become a big one. I wonder, is this something that we as PSE eductors have to be concerned about? Hmmm...
Is Your Avatar Student Better Than the Real One? Learning Opportunities in Virtual Environments - a lively discussion on teh efficacy of Second Life as an educational and learning tool (I think it's an amazing educational opportunity).
Graduate Study Online - Teaching and Learning Persepctives - we talked about graduate level education online - does the same rigour and scholarly work occur in an online programme - the consensus was that they did (which I agree with having an online graduate degree myself).

A great way to start off the conference and get to start that networking process that I always find so energizing...

CNIE 2009 Ottawa

2009-05-09T06:44:00.005-03:00

I'm off to Ottawa later this morning to attend CNIE 2009. CNIE, the Canadian Network for Innovation in Education, is a national organization of professionals committed to excellence in the provision of innovation in education in Canada.

I am also co-presenting at the conference with a colleague - this will be my first presentation at a national conference and I'm really looking forward to it. We are presenting on "Learning is a Team Sport - Or a Conversation On Learning In The New Millennium". It should be a lot of fun.

I'll be blogging my conference experiences, and for the first time I'll also be twittering (hondomac if you want to follow along) during the conference as well, using the hash tag #cnie2009. That will be a new experience for me, and hopefully one that will help me better understand the use of Twitter as a learning tool.

Well, off to pack. See you in Ottawa!!...

(Image - CNIE Logo)

Strengths Advocate Training - Gallup University Omaha - Day Three...

2009-04-16T22:19:00.006-03:00

Today wrapped up Strengths Advocate training here in Omaha. Today centred on strength coaching and ways to get others (and us) to better understand strengths, to begin to see some tendencies with strengths (although everyone is different, so tendencies should never carry too much weight), and start to think about next steps.

The biggest next step for me is that the training we have had this week is just the beginning - we need to keep the strengths-based conversations going and to have people share their accomplishments and what they have done.One way to do that is through Winner cards, a tangible artifact of a strengths conversation, particularly useful for talking strengths and performance.

took a look at the resources available for strengths and some of teh worshops and sessions that as an advovate I can now deliver to my colleagues - really looking forward to that opportunity.

We reviewed some other ways of looking at strengths keeping in mind that the outcomes need to always be kept in mind. One way to look at strengths is that they relate to:

Strive
Think
Relate

Most of my signature themes are in the Think domain, with some in the other two - another way of looking at thngs. Strengths can also be looked at as how they rekate to time:

Past
Present
Future

Some strengths rely on the past - information, experiences etc., some rely on the here and now, and some are future looking.

Finally strengths can be looked at as either being Initiators or Relators - all of these different ways of looking at strengths may help people take them on board and that is the key - developing a strengths language and culture in your institution that makes sense.

A lot of information over the last three days to take in and distill. My Input and Intellection themes will be working overtime the next few days as I assimilate what I have learned and my Responsibility theme will ensure that I will be posting about it here. I'm also going to go back and talk to the other strengths advocates at my College and start the conversation about developing an advocate network so we can be getting out our institution's message on strengts (my Achiever, Developer, and Contextthemes in action...). Hmmm...

Strengths Advocate Training - Gallup University Omaha - Day Two...

2009-04-15T21:49:00.004-03:00

Day Two began with a discussion of the four domains of strengths leadership. These domains are:

Executing
Influencing
Relationship Building
Strategic Thinking

My signature themes lie mostly in the Executing and Strategic Thinking domains, which fits with who I and many others think I am. I picked up a copy of Gallups's latest strengths book "Strengths Based Leadership", which describes the domains in detail and contains a code to take a leadership-focussed Strengths inventory (which I will do shortly).

We talked more about strengths coaching and how to ensure that any discussion around strengths needs to be in context - strengths need to be discussed in context or they are not relevent to the individual or team. Several of the exrecises and activities developed by Gallup were reviewed as a way of presenting strengths in context so that meaningful strengths conversations can be held.

We then took turns presenting our strengths implementation plans (yesterday's homework) - in our case we talked about how to best introduce strengths and employee success to our colleagues on the campus.

We then wrapped up the day with an amazing discussion with Shane Lopez, Gallup's senior scientist in residence about some of the latest research being conducted at Gallup around strengths - an incredible comnverstaion. They have developed principles of strength-based education that provide a framework and introduction to strengths.

The day focussed on coaching and the use of strengths - how to help others understand their themes and what they mean - tips, hints, and exercises to assist in the implementation of strengths. All in all a very interesting day. My head is full of ideas about how to engage in strengths conversations with my colleagues (there's that Intellection strength coming through again). Hmmm...

Strengths Advocate Training - Gallup University Omaha - Day One...

2009-04-14T22:35:00.005-03:00

The first day of Strengths Advocate training at Gallup University happened today in a sunny and warm (64F) Omaha. we spent most of the day reviewing in depth the 34 strength themes that make up the strengths process.

One of the interesting things that came out of the day was that while two people might have the same strength, it is different based on the other strengths they have and the items in the inventory that identifies that strength. Two people can have the same themes and be completely different - and that is not only OK, but perfectly natural.

It was interesting to see all 34 themes – it is revealing :-).

My top 10 strengths themes are:

Learner
Intellection
Input
Achiever
responsibility
Arranger
Activator
Relator
Developer
Context

And my bottom 5 are:

Empathy
Maximizer
Competition
WOO
Individualization

All in all a pretty accurate description of who I am (for those of you who know me, what do yiu think?). The best part of the day was this afternoon when we had one on one strengths coaching sessions – lasted over an hour, going over all 34 of the themes – the facilitator was excellent, describing me accurately just from my strengths! It was quite impressive and an amazing discussion. She felt that some people find me intimidating because of my intellectual capacity and approach, my need to be learning and acquiring information, and all the thinking I do (I hope that isn’t true - the intimidating part, not the thinking part). We both agreed that I spend a lot of time in my own head thinking – and that saying “NO!“ is a difficult thing for me to do (but I am trying to learn, so just say NO!!). It may explain my overly long blog posts, among other things. Hmmm...

Strengths Advocate Training - Gallup University Omaha - Relax Day...

2009-04-14T00:33:00.004-03:00

A quiet, relaxing day in Omaha today - Strengths Advocate training begins in earnest tomorrow morning. Today was a day to get caught up from yesterday's travel, and to get ready for the rest of the week.

Lots to see and do in Omaha, and we toured about the Old Market today - lots of shops and restaurants, lofts, and other funky emporiums - a very neat way to revitalize and maintain a city core.

Now it's off to Strengths Advocate training. It will be interesting to see what order all of my strengths are in (34 in total and for now I know my top five - Learner, Intellection, Input, Achiever, and Responsibility). I wonder which of my 34 strengths comes last? Hmmm...

Strengths Advocate Training - Gallup University Omaha - Travel Day...

2009-04-12T23:12:00.004-03:00

Greetings from Omaha!! Today was your basic 12 hour travel day from Halifax to Omaha (ever notice how no matter how far you have to travel by air, it always seems to be at least a 12 hour travel day? Hmmm...).

Left Halifax this morning in fog and drizzle - arrived at OHare in Chicago in sunshine and 50 F - about the same here in Omaha (well it's night now, but you get the idea). My Lounge access card was denied in Chicago (thank you United and Air Canada), the same card I have used to access the lounge for years (I'll be sorting that out before the return trip). So it was a poor Boingo paid for wireless access in the terminal that wouldn't let me access anything Google or Facebook (hard to type when rocking back and forth in the fetal position muttering "it won't connect!, it won't connect!). Also my first trip to the USA with my new iPhone and I'm singularly umimpressed with the AT&T service - 3G wouldn't let me connect to either GMail or my college e-mail, something I never have an issue with at home - the iPhone experiment continues...

Arrived early in Omaha and am now firmly ensconced in the Embassy Suites Downtown/Old Market. Strengths Advocate training begins Tuesday - tomorrow is decompress and acclimatize day maybe a trip to the zoo to see Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom (I can hear Marlin Perkins telling us what danger Jim is in - Jim just never learned... :-)). The Old Market District here in Omaha is very eclectic too (for those of you home think Historic properties but much bigger and less Maritime and with lots of funky stores and entertainment). Hmmm...

(Picture from Omaha Convention and Visitors Bureau)

Strengths Advocate Training - Gallup University Omaha

2009-04-12T09:14:00.004-03:00

I'm off later today to spend next week at Gallup University in Omaha Nebraska to take part in Strengths Advocate training. We are using Strengths as part of our Employee Success Plannig process - later this year we will be rolling it out to our faculty and staff.

The Strengths Advocate training will give me a more in depth understanding of the Strengths process and will allow me to facilitate strengths training on my campus. I'm really looking forward to a busy and enjoyable week - it's great to be a learner again!

I'll be blogging the week and Twittering too (hondomac if you want to follow along). So it's off to the airport I go...

(Picture - StrengthsQuest Home)

Who Needs 140 Characters? Less IS More

2009-04-05T20:13:00.007-03:00

Some people I know feel restricted by Twitter's 140 character limit, others not so much - I'm in the former category, but I am getting better at being brief. In that spirit of new found brevity - I give give you Flutter!

Too funny - enjoy!

Blog or Twitter? Twit or Blogger? Will Ever the Twain Shall Meet? Hmmm...

2009-04-04T21:08:00.008-03:00

I've been blogging now for over three years and I really like doing it - it gives me an outlet to say what's on my mind - literally the things that make me go Hmmm... But there is a new sheriff in town and that sheriff is Twitter.

I've been twittering (tweeting? the language is so cool :-)) for well over a year now, but until recently it's mostly been "Home after work", "it's raining out", "off to do laundry" - after all, the primary question that Twitter asks is "What are you doing?". But in the past few months I've noticed a change in how many of my friends (followers, followed?) are using Twitter. They are using it to share information, send links, talk about conferences or meetings they are attending (live in real-time too - very cool) and generally using it for lots more than just a "What are you doing?" tool.

Twitter has become a microblogging tool - a way to blog in 140 characters or less - now for those who know me, and for those who read my posts you know that getting me to say anything coherent in 140 characters or less is a herculean task :-). I'm like Blaise Pascal (or Mark Twain, or T.S. Eliot - someone said it...) - "If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter". I was never one of those students who EVER had to worry about not hitting the word count on an essay assignment, and talking for 30 minutes is easy - it's the 5 minute speech that takes so much time.

For me that is the conundrum of Twitter and Blogging. It's easy for me to answer the "What are you doing?" question within the 140 character limit, but how do I say anything meaningful? That is a skill that I need to learn and to follow the example of several of my friends and colleagues who do an amazing job of saying meaningful things and sharing great stuff (stuff is the universal technical term) with Twitter.

I really like the real-time "live" nature of Twitter. When I attend conferences I blog the days events - keynotes, sessions I attend, things I did or noticed - it's my way of absorbing the day and reflecting on it (and a great way to share the experience too). With Twitter I can do that as it happens - now that is so cool - I just need to develop some concision (yes it is a word :-)).

The other piece that has made Twitter more relevant to me as an information sharing and discussion tool is the technology I'm now using. I've gone from a simple digital text-based SMS cell phone to an iPhone using an application called Twittelator Pro that gives me an easy way to "tweet" no matter where I am. With these tools I can connect live from anywhere. I'm off to a couple of conferences this Spring (one as a co-presenter - CNIE), and I plan on tweeting from both theoughout the day, and then blogging each evening on the day's events - to me the perfect combination of tools...

So is this the end of blogging as I know it? I don't think so - I will still write scads on things that make me go Hmmm... I will never be able to do that to my satisfaction in 140 characters or less. I still have the need to be wordy and verbose (sorry it's in my nature), but I see Twitter as a valuable addition to my tool set of information gathering and sharing and I can tell you that from now on when I tweet (yes I am a Twit :-)), it will be more than answering "what are you doing"? With Twitter I will be able to find and share information in real-time - then I can use my blog to expand upon (and dare I say pontificate) on those subjects that still make me go Hmmm... in more than 140 characters...

(Images - Twitter logo from Twitter.com and Blogger logo from Blogger.com)

It IS The Web 2.0 Adminsitration...

2009-03-22T10:03:00.003-03:00

Much has been made of how President Obama used social networking and other Web 2.0 tools in his election campaign. Now is appears that some of the Web 2.0 savvy has spilled over into his administration. The U.S. State Department is using several tools to keep people up to date on what it is up to. Good to see a government that for many years was almost technology-phobic embracing the tools and technologies that will let it effectively communicate with large parts of the world. Even the White House Web site has been spruced up, complete with its own blog feed.

The US State Department is on Twitter, has a YouTube channel, and a blog. If you want to follow Hillary's travels, there is an interactive map.

It IS so the 2.0 administration...

(Image - US State Department Web site banner)

My Virtual Cross-Canada Trek 2009 - Welcome To Fredericton!...

2009-03-20T19:07:00.005-03:00

Greetings from Fredericton NB, 419 Kms into my cross-Canada trek. Fredericton is the capital of New Brunswick and the home of the University of New Brunswick. UNB is hosting this year's STLHE (Society for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education) conference from 17-20 June, one of thebest conferences around if you are at all interested in teaching and learning at the college and university levels.

Fredericton is a great town, and over the years I've spent a fair amount of time here, spending a good chunk of my military career at CFB Gagetown in nearby Oromocto, Canada's Model Town...

The weather is getting better and now that it's officially Spring (YAY!), I'm hoping to make better progress. My next major objective will be Edmunston NB - I hope to be there before Easter. Wish me luck!...

New Technology - The Threat To Our Information...

2009-03-14T14:09:00.004-03:00

This is a great presentation from Norman Lamont, posted on SlideShare. It points out the threat of technology on our information and suggest a perfect way to counter that threat. This is important viewing for anyone who uses technology to manage their information flow, and particularly if you are a user of Web 2.0 technologies.

New technology - the threat to our information

View more presentations from normanlamont.

Enjoy!! (and a special thanks to Randommind for finding this)

World Builder - A Love Story in Holograms

2009-03-08T14:39:00.003-03:00

This is a very cool short movie created by filmmaker Bruce Branit. Bruce is the owner of Branit VFX based in Kansas City. This short was filmed in one day and took two years of post- production. Now that is dedication to one's craft, and something that all of us with a passion for something should learn from. Take a look - it's amazing!

World Builder from Bruce Branit on Vimeo.

My Virtual Cross-Canada Trek 2009 - I'm Past Moncton NB!

2009-02-22T06:58:00.004-04:00

The trek continues, through slush and sleet, and snow, and occasionally sun - I'm just coming into Salisbury New Brunswick - home of an Irving Big Stop where I always stop when driving through NB. Sailed on through Moncton, weather was good, so kept right on going.

Different this time walking through the province, so it'll be a virtual stop at the Big Stop.

Next major destination - Fredericton. Here I come!!...

My Virtual Cross-Canada Trek 2009 - I'm in Sackville NB!

2009-02-14T18:22:00.004-04:00

Man, the winds crossing the Tantramar Marshes were strong and cold! Lots of snow too - it's really slowing down my progress - I'm way behind schedule if I want to get to Vancouver by year's end.

I'm just on the outskirts of Sackville New Brunswick (NB), home of Mt. Allison University. We've had a messy winter so far in this part of the country - lots of snow, freezing rain, sleet, rain, and general mess. Next major destination is Moncton, NB - I hope to be there by the end of next week.

The journey continues...

Bill Gates - How I Am Trying To Change The World...

2009-02-06T20:53:00.010-04:00

The TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) 2009 conference is underway this week. This is Bill Gates' presentation at TED 2009 about malaria and what he and his foundation are doing to help rid malaria, and about great teachers. he answers two questions - how to eradicate malaria, and hpw to keep great teachers. A great presentation - great food for thought. So cool watching someone with such a passion for what they are doing. Watch for the mosquitoes...

His second question is "How do you make a teacher great?" So, how do you? Some interesting perspectives and numbers on what great teachers are and the impact of having more great teachers. One point Bill makes is that a Master's degree in education has no effect on improving the quality of a teacher - it's past performance that is the best indicator of success. Slightly more good teachers leave the profession than bad ones, and turnover is high...

Listen to what he says makes successful teachers - engagement, feedback, focus, caring - despite what he says about the current state of teachers and teaching, Bill still has hope for the future. Talks about using technology and education. A must watch video.

Hmmm...

Getting To Know You... Are Online Friends Real?

2009-01-30T19:31:00.003-04:00

I know several people that I consider friends that I have never met face to face (F2F). Some I have know for several years - we correspond through text, e-mails, or hang out represented by our avatars in places like Second Life. Are these people any less my friends than those I see regularly F2F in the "real world"? The only differences are that in many cases I probably say more and open up more to my online friends than my F2F friends, and I can't visually see my online friends.

Can you have friends that you have never actually met in the physical world? I think you can.

I've been doing a lot of thinking on this one - can you get to know someone better online than you can in a F2F (face to face) environment? Just think of the people who met online and ended up together in the "real world". Many of the couples like that I know say that one of the advantages was they "knew" each other before they met F2F.

Here is my premise:

It's easier to get to know someone on line because a lot of the social strictures are gone - it's not bosses and employees or peers it's just a group of people doing the same thing
It's sort of like the opposite of Cheers - "where NO ONE (instead of every one) knows your name...". People who would be too shy to say something F2F are comfortable to share online - they are not hampered by appearance, or position, or place...

Do you think this is true or is it just my fevered imagination? I've become so comfortable online that I no longer really differentiate between the two - I have friends - it's just that some of them I have only met in text. Hmmm...

My Virtual Cross-Canada Trek 2009 - I'm in Truro!!

2009-01-29T09:24:00.005-04:00

Well took me a month, and I'm behind schedule, but I'm in Truro Nova Scotia about 103 KM from Halifax. I'm blaming my slow progress on the weather and all of the salt and slush along Highway 102. I'll need to pick up the pace if I'm to celebrate New Years Eve in Vancouver...

There's a New Sheriff In Town...

2009-01-21T00:40:00.004-04:00

Wow! What a day - I think the whole world is breathing a little easier now. Lots of cheers, lots of tears, and we now have the 44th President of the United States, Barack Hussein Obama. Today was definitely one of those I remember where I was when kind of days.

At my campus we set up a TV in the cafeteria for those who wanted to watch - over 200 people showed up, with overflow in another classroom, and you could hear a pin drop. Then when Barack Obama took the oath of office, spontaneous applause and cheering erupted - and we are in Canada! Perhaps the only Canadian politician who would have even come close to that reaction would have been Pierre Elliot Trudeau at the height of his popularity. There were a lot of tears around the room too - a very emotional, global impact day. For those of you who didn't get a chance to see President Obama's (that has a very nice ring to it) inauguration and address, here it is courtesy of YouTube:

Facebook Is The Malt Shop Of The 21st Century Or Where Do You Hang Out?...

2009-01-04T16:47:00.009-04:00

This post is one from my To-Do list. Thought it was about time I got around to this - some thoughts on how we as a species, at least in the connected world, have changed how we meet people, make friends, and hang out...

When I was growing up we hung out at drive-ins, bowling alleys, hockey rinks, community centres, sports fields, and other real spaces. The people we met and the friends we made were local and we met face to face. I moved around a lot as an army brat and over the years lost track of old friends, making new friends at our new posting. Some you kept in touch with by letters, but I was (and am) a lousy letter writer. Our friends were "real" we knew their names and we knew what they looked like.

Welcome to 2009 and Web 2.0, virtual worlds, micro-blogging sites like Twitter, and social networking sites like Facebook, LinkedIn and Orkut (among literally hundreds), not to mention online dating sites like e-Harmony. The whole meeting, making, and keeping friends paradigm has changed. You can now meet people from all over the world, get to know them and create lasting friendships and relationships without ever meeting. Staying "in touch" is easy and is now pushed to your friends by simply updating your status. You can develop a deep or lasting relationship that once it becomes face to face (or "real" as some would say) continues to be stroong.

The question is can you be friends with someone you have never met? My answer to that question is yes. I know several people that I consider friends who I have never met face to face, yet our relationships are normal and friendly. I've met most of these people through Second Life, and some through Facebook. Some I have met face to face in the "real world", some I will probably never meet yet I still consider them friends and no less a friend simply because we have never met face to face. What sites like Facebook and Second Life have done is simply expanded my "First Life" - my social circles and networks are now global, not loacal...

Anna Pickard in the Guardian posted an article called "Virtual people, real friends" (thanks to Randommind for finding this). It's a great read and makes the point that you can have real friends with virtual people. In the article Anna says:

"The friends I've made online – from blogging in particular, be they other bloggers or commenters on this or my own site – are the best friends I now have. And yet, when I say this to people, many times they'll look at me like I'm a social failure; and when surveys like this are reported, it's always with a slight air of being the "It's a crazy, crazy, crazy world!" item last thing on the news. Some portions of my family still refer to my partner of six years as my "Internet Boyfriend".

Call me naive, but far from being the bottomless repository of oddballs and potential serial killers, the internet is full of lively minded, like-minded engaging people – for the first time in history we're lucky enough to choose friends not by location or luck, but pinpoint perfect friends by rounding up people with amazingly similar interests, matching politics, senses of humour, passionate feelings about the most infinitesimally tiny hobby communities. The friends I have now might be spread wide, geographically, but I'm closer to them than anyone I went to school with, by about a million miles.

For me, and people like me who might be a little shy or socially awkward – and there are plenty of us about – moving conversations and friendships from the net to a coffee shop table or the bar stool is a much more organic, normal process than people who spend less time online might expect.

Depending on the root of the friendship, on where the conversation started, the benefit is clear – you cut out the tedium of small talk. What could be better?"

This is the new reality of where people are "hanging out" and meeting - many social places of my youth are gone or are no longer safe to hang out at - we have switched to an online world of common interests, acquaintances, linked friends (the real six degrees of separation), and online communities where we meet and make friends.

This new reality has implications for educators too - our learners are hanging out in these new online spaces, making friends, collaborating, defining relationships and creating networks. We need to understand how this works, understand that friends made in this new paradigm are just as real and just as important as any "real-world" friends and that these virtual friends will impact on learning environments and how we will relate to our learners.

As we move to more and more blended or online deliveries, many of our learners will only be known to us through their online presence. Does that make them any less a learner or are the friendships and relationships they develop with their classmates and us any less relevant or important? Hmmm...

(Photo - "Blast From The Past" by Steve_Tango)

My Virtual Cross-Canada Trek 2009

2009-01-01T11:54:00.004-04:00

This past year (after all we're one day into 2009, so that would make 2008 this past year), we had a walking challenge at the college - each group picked a destination off a map and then our accumulated walking totals went towards the distance to our destination. I ended up walking 978 KMs in 2008 that I actually recorded on a pedometer. I got to thinking that it's something I wanted to continue for 2009, but on a larger scale - so here it is - in 2009 I will virtually walk from Halifax to Vancouver, a distance of 4443 Kms according to WikiAnswers.

I'll update the map periodically with my progress. We're in the middle of a New Year's Day blizzard here on the East Coast today, so I'm off to a slow start - my walking today will be of the indoor type. I'm just a little worried about dodging rush hour traffic in Montreal and Toronto, and that trek up the Rockies is goingto be a killer! Wish me luck...

Looking Back, Looking Forward 2008...

2009-01-01T00:19:00.007-04:00

Well, tonight is the end of one year and the start of another. Time to look back at the year that was and look forward to the year that will be.

Here are the things that I said back on December 31st 2007 would be the big things of 2008:

Blended learning and blended learning opportunities will increase - in the end (maybe not the end of 2008 but soon after), more learners will be taking a blended approach to learning than a traditional classroom only model
Second Life will continue to grow and will be bought by one of the big players in the Internet (Google, Yahoo, Microsoft...)
Open Source will continue to take away from proprietary software - Google Docs and similar online collaborative "suites" will increase in use and popularity
Web 2.0 apps will become mainstream as businesses and educational institutions start to use them regularly
E-Mails use will decline in favour of IM, Twitter, Facebook and other more immediate forms of communication - EMail will be for "communicating with old folks"
Facebook will still be big, but may decline as people become tired of all of the "applications" cluttering up the interface. Look to Orkut and other social networking sites to grow among those wanting to be social without all of the "other stuff". Ning will grow in the creation and use of personal and customized social networking sites
I hope that someone creates the social networking equivalent of Meebo allowing me to use one interface for all of the social networking sites that I belong to - Facebook, LinkedIn, Bebo, Ning...
Microsoft Windows Vista will continue to struggle, good news for Apple and Linux distros like Ubuntu. More and more educational institutions will look at multi-boot Apple computers as the solution to their IT infrastructure needs.
The iPhone will come to Canada - PLEASE!!!! The iPhone is the future of learning...
I'll continue to blog in 2008, focussing on education and other things that make me go hmmm... including my new mantra of ECMO - Engagement, Collaboration, Mobility, and Openness - it's where education has to go...

It looks like Kreskin's job is safe - some of these things came to pass and some didn't, and some sort of happened. So what will be the big events of 2009?

The downturn in the global economy will impact all sectors including education - enrollments may go uo because learners want to stay in school and avoid a down-turned job market, or enrollments may decline because no one can afford to come to school. Hmmm... I'm betting on the first choice.
Blended learning will continue to grow as more and more learners and more and more academic institutions look for more flexible learning opportunities
The iPhone is in Canada and it along with other smartphones from RIM and Google will change the way many learners get their information, and even the way they learn
Web 2.0 tools will mature - the space will mature and shrink somewhta with many Web 2.0 tools disappearing or being assimilated (see Pownce as an example). More and more people will begin the move to cloud computing. That will have huge implications ofr educators. Hmmm...
I'm still hoping that someone will create the social networking equivalent of Meebo allowing me to use one interface for all of the social networking sites that I belong to - Facebook, LinkedIn, Bebo, Ning...
Educators will continue to struggle to understand millennial learners and adpat learning environments to meet them where they are while at the same time giving them the skills they will need to be successful in a world trhat won't be quite as flexible in accomodating them. Millennials may change the world, but they won't do it in 2009...
Open source and cloud computing is the future and the future will continue to develop in 2009.
I'll still continue to blog in 2009, still focussing on education and other things that make me go hmmm... including my not so new mantra of ECMO - Engagement, Collaboration, Mobility, and Openness, modified with its corollary "Learning Is a Team Sport" - it's where education has to go...

Have a great year everyone! It's goingto be interesting. Hmmm...

(Photo - Janus Coin by Marco Prins)

Happy New Year - Welcome to 2009!!...

2009-01-01T00:08:00.006-04:00

Happy New Year all and welcome to 2009. May this new year be everything that you want it to be and may it bring everything that you want - good health, wealth, adventure, good friends and family and whatever else you desire.

2009 is going to be an adventure, one that I am looking forward to sharing with you. Never have the words "May you live in interesting times" ever meant so much. Hmmm...

How Many Web 2.0 Tools Are Too Many?...

2008-12-28T09:41:00.009-04:00

I've been hooked on all things Web 2.0 since even before Tim O'Reilly coined the phrase. Just within my bookmarks on my browser (Firefox, the perfect Web 2.0 browser), I have 85 Web 2.0 tools and applications bookmarked, along with literally hundreds more in my Delicious tags. Those 85 are bookmarked in my browser because I have actually registered with those sites (a common Web 2.0 ploy) in order to try them out and actually used them, at least once. They go from Aviary to Zui Prezi, a compendium of tools and apps that have changed the way I compute. I'm not even counting apps like iTunes and sites like audible.com which have bcome huge parts of my life (and that I consider part of the Web 2.0 space)

You can argue exactly what constitutes a Web 2.0 tool, but in my mind it is anything that pushes information to me or allows me to collaboratively work and share on the Web while using a Web-based interface - the browser as operating system...

My question is how many Web 2.0 tools are too many? Obviously the 85 that I have tried is way too many - besides many of those tools are long gone (have you noticed that another feature of Web 2.0 tools is that the word "Beta" must appear on their Web site somewhere?), Pownce being one of the latest casualties, or been absorbed or morphed by competition. Having tried them as they appear does not mean that they are being used or even useful. Here is a list of the Web 2.0 tools that I use regularly, in no particular order:

Blogspot - blogging
PBWiki - wiki
GMail - mail, chat, video chat, and so much more...
NetVibes - RSS etc. aggregator
Google Docs - office application suite, collaborative groupware and so much more
Flickr - photos
Photobucket - photos
Twitter - micro-blogging and social networking
Delicious - tagging
Facebook - social networking
LinkedIn - social networking
Joost - online video and TV

And I know there are others that I visit on a less regular basis. Not bad - 12 down from 85 - but even with 12, it's become a full time job just keeping up trying to remain a cool Web 2.0 dude. The thing is, do I really need 12 Web 2.0 tools to do what I do on the Web (and what I do is more and more all on the Web, I think my desktop has cobwebs on it...)? I look at that list and it seems all I have done is transferred how I work with desktop apps to Web 2.0 apps - do I need to develop new skills and ways of integrating what I do, or am I looking for that one killer Web 2.0 (or Web 3.0, or Web 4.0...) app that will do it all (and I am becoming more and more convinced that the whole Google Apps/GMail/Google Labs mashup may just become that killer app)? Hmmm...

What Web 2.0 apps are you using and how are you using them? Have they changed the way you get and use information?...

Now That You Have Been Admitted, Will You Stay?...

2008-12-27T07:29:00.014-04:00

When does the retention of a learner begin? Admissions, acceptance, enrollment, orientation, first semester... When?

For me this is one of the most fundamental questions I ask as an adult educator. In fact it consumes a lot of my time and is one of the most important things I do as an academic chair - how do we retain learners once they have been admitted into our programmes? Do we want to retain them if they don't want to stay? How do we create an environment where learners want to stay in their programme or if they do leave that they are making an informed decision, not just an "I quit!" impulse?

To answer the opening question, IMHO retention of learners begins before they apply - it starts in the development and delivery of our programmes and in the creation of the materials we use to inform prospective learners about what we have to offer them. Many of the learners that I see who are struggling tell me that the programme they are in wasn't what they expected - that it is different, or more difficult, or just not for them. So for them, they made an uninformed decision about their programme. In some cases we retain these learners as part-time learners over an extended period of time, but many just fade away...

We do some great things here at the College to try and inform learners before they commit to a programme - our College Prep folks are out in the high schools, we conduct "Test Drives" for prospective learners to come in and spend a day with a programme, "Jump Start" events for accepted learners to come in and have their questions answered, and "Parents as Career Coaches" sessions to involve parents, families, and friends in the learner's College experiences. All of these tools help learners make informed decisions.

Then why do we still have significant retention issues - some of my programmes have attrition rates approaching 30% at the end of the Fall semester. Almost without exception these lost learners are ones who enrolled in a programme, paid their tuition, showed up for orientation, attended classes for a few weeks, and then vanished. No attendance, no assignments or projects to evaluate, no grades. Why do they leave? Answer that question and our retention issues are solved. We have had little success getting these learners to tell us why they have left (can't find them in many cases), so their reasons for leaving are not clearly known. We can guess, but that's hardly accurate or useful.

So what can be done to help retain the learners that come through our doors in September having made a decision to be a College student? Here are some things that I think might work:

Engage prospective learners early - get them in high school or very early in their admissions process
Explain the reality of their programmes to them - workload, time committments, employment realities - get industry involved here too - expalin the realities of the work place
Assign current learners as mentors. Look at assigning faculty or staff advisors
Explore the option of pre-admissions testing - aptitude batteries etc. Not as a go/no go barrier, but as more information for prospective learners to decide if a programme is right for them
Make Test Drives and Jump Starts compulsory components of the admissions/acceptance process wherever possible (develop virtual Test Drive and Jump Start sessions for distance and international learners)
Do orientation before classes start - many institutions conduct orientaion "boot camps" for a week in August before classes begin. Again a virtual version would be needed for those learners who could not take a week to attend. Orientation would include all of the college/campus/programme "stuff" that are a necessary evil of post-secondary education - save class time for classes.
Create flexible learning environments that meet the needs of learners - this may be the one best thing that can be done - we do a lot of this now, but need to be better - multiple entry and exit points, flexible deliveries etc.
Post-admissions testing - see where learners are, what they are missing and offer them alternatives that will allow them to stay at the College
College 101 - a credit course that will fill in the gaps - numeracy, literacy, study skills, time management - those topics that many learners tell us are factors of their failure. Has to be a credit course or learners will not take it.
Regular contact with learners throughout the semester - I would suggest at least four manadatory meetings with an advisor - issue is one of time and resources - faculty and staff are very busy now - adding this to their worklod may not be feasile. Several colleges have created advisement and counselling centres that perform this function
Cheerlead - keep lines of communication open with learners - be visible and engage learners in conversations about what they are up to and how they are doing. Engaged learners are in many cases retained learners

These are by no means the only things that can be done to help retention, and I'm not even convinced that they are feasible or would work in all cases. I firmly believe that the key to retention is information - information to prospective learners so they can make informed programme choices, information to current learners so they (and us) can manage their expectations, information to faculty and staff so they can adapt and adopt strategies that will assist learners in staying in their programmes, and information to the college leadership so that informed strategic decisions around retention and enrollment management can be made.

But most importantly remember that ulitimately the decision to stay or leave is that of the learner and that no matter what we do, some will leave...

Merry Christmas and To All a Good...

2008-12-25T10:37:00.003-04:00

Merry Christmas everyone! Here's hoping that wherever you are and whatever you are doing that you are having a great day with family and friends, both present and in your hearts. Eat, drink, and be Merry (or whomever you want to be :-). I hope that Santa was good to you and yours.

Take a minute to remember those less fortunate and those who are no longer with us. We will remember them...

Have an amazing and safe Holiday Season...

The Joys Of Winter Travel Or Have We Left Yet?...

2008-12-22T07:43:00.007-04:00

As a Canadian, it is my primal right to complain about the weather, and being able to complain not only about the weather, but travelling and weather is the perfect storm.

One of the joys of living on the East Coast is that there is always weather to complain about - we are on the frequent flyer plan of most of the weather that heads this way - storms blowing their way across Canada have this lovely way of connecting with storms sliding up the Atlantic Coast of the the U.S. and holding family reunions over our heads. Not so bad in the summer, just some great bouts of rain and the occasional hurricane, but it is in winter when we truly get to exercise our weather complaining genes - bad weather and travel together - who could ask for anything more?

Now travel, particularly air travel, and particularly this time of year, can be an adventure in Canada. For the purposes of the airlines, Toronto is the center of the universe (this is not an acknowledgement on my part of this fact, just an explanation of the airlines reality), so if the Pearson International Airport is storm-stayed, then air travel across the country is affected. This past week, Pearson has been a mess due to a swath of storms blowing their way through Ontario. On top of that Vancouver has gotten snow and cold tempeartures causing delays there too (and introducing residents of the Wet Coast to the frozen variety of their normal weather), so the result was all sorts of delays - and boy is that good for the real official Canadian sport - weather complaining. I made it here to Ottawa for the Holidays, but even then there were delays because planes couldn't get from Toronto to Halifax to fly other places (and two hours after I landed in Ottawa a storm blew through paralyzing air travel in Eastern Canada). Speaking to friens travelling later during the day, the delays set in and the complaining began...

The other main travel types in Canada are car and train - car is an adventure due to road conditions, and well, rail travel just isn't what it used to be - so that means you meet most of the happiest complaining Canadians in airports across the country - like one of my co-workers who finally got to their warm-weather Christmas destination after three days of trying to get to Toronto, or the family from Vancouver who spent 5 days flying home to Maritimes - the good news is they all eventually made it to where they were going, complaining all the way...

So wherever you are this Holiday Season, or wherever you are going, may you travel safe, and warm, and with only enough complaint to satisfy your Canadian constitution. I know it's not terribly Canadian, but here's hoping your travel is delay and complaint-free and that you and yours have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year...

P.S. I sort of cheated - the picture is from "White Juan" the blizzard that hit Halifax in 2004...

Learn To Change, Change To Learn...

2008-12-14T05:41:00.003-04:00

We've been having a lot of conversations about millennial learners - you know those young people who refuse to listen, to learn the way we want them to, to get excited about non-creative linear testing and assignments that they can't relate too. Why won't they just do what we ask of them?

This video sheds some light on why - it's a series of prestigious educators and researchers essentially talking about who our learners are (and I use the term learners not students deliberately - they are learners, hands on applied learners, not abstract studiers), and what we need to do as educators to change and meet them where they are...

I think perhaps the best comment in the video comes near the end "it's the death of education and the dawn of learning". Just think about that for a minute - the death of education and the dawn of learning - we're on the cusp of a sea change in education that will impact the very core of what we do and how we do it as educators. Talk about your paradigm shifts. Hmmm...

40th Anniversary of The Mouse...

2008-12-09T23:25:00.003-04:00

It's the 40th anniversary of the mouse first seen in the "Mother of All Demos" done by Doug Englebart at the Fall Joint Computer Conference (FJCC) in San Franciso.

In the demo the first mouse, made of wood was used. Where would we be today without the mouse. Happy anniversary!

The Millennials Are Coming - A 60 Minutes Piece...

2008-12-09T13:05:00.005-04:00

There has been a lot of talk about the Millennials - those learners born between 1980 and 1995 - currently in out high schools, colleges and universities, and starting to head out into the work force.

Morley Safer does a great 60 Minutes piece on the millennials - who they are, why they are, and the impact that they will have on the work place. I found one of the most interesting parts of the story the billions of dollars that is being spent to motivate employees - it's become a huge industry.

This video should resonate with educators as well as we are seeing these learners in our courses now - risk adverse, adversity adverse, and with a sense of entitlement that for many gets in the way of the their learning.

As educators we will have our hands full preparing them for the work place - and it is a dynamic changing work place that means we will have to be equally dynamic and flexible in our learning environments - many of our current ways of supporting learning may just not be viable anymore and new ones will have to be developed. I firmly believe that one of my responsibilities is to meet learners "where they are" to make learning relevant and useful. The big question for me is finding where they are. Hmmm...

(Photo: Start of School Year by Damiel)

About Time I Got Back To This...

2008-11-30T23:35:00.006-04:00

Six weeks since my last post. Hmmm... not being very good about this am I? Well, no excuses - it's been a busy semester, but I still have somethings on my mind that are making me go hmmm... and just to make sure that I will actually post about them (eventually), here they are in no particular order:

Where were you when Obama was elected? It's one of those moments in history where you remember where you were and what you were doing
When does the retention of a learner begin? Admissions, acceptance, enrollment, orientation, first semester... When?
My Battle of the Bulge or there is too much Bastogne around my waist...
World War I 90 years later - have we honoured the sacrifice?
Do Millennial learners have a sense of entitlement or do we not just get it?
Is Facebook the Malt Shop of the 21st Century or - where do you hang out?

Well, now that they are out there, maybe I'll actually get a chance to post about them. Three weeks left in the semester - let's say I'll have them done by year's end - wish me luck!

Hmmm...

Engaged? But We Just Met...

2008-10-12T06:24:00.026-03:00

I've been involved in education, mostly adult education, for over 30 years now, and I have come to believe that the single most important thing we do as educators is the engage learners - get them to actively participate and take responsibility for their learning - without engagement there is no learning, just a lot of words being spoken, slides presented, work being done. So here is what I think of engagement and what we as educators can and must do...

As a faculty member, my world was the learning environments, both physical and virtual, that I created and delivered to my learners - my focus was "here they are, in the "room", now let's give them every opportunity to be a successful learner". The learners were already enrolled, they came to class, or didn't, they did the work, or didn't, and hopefully met the course standards and learned something along the way. In my experience engaged learners not only succeed themselves, they tend to engage their peers who otherwise might fall by the wayside. What I was concerned about was getting learners engaged in what they were doing when I was with them, I didn't worry about what happened outside of the classroom - my focus was on keeping learners engaged in their learning in the courses I was facilitating - a fairly micro look at adult education.

I am now in my second year as an academic chair, with 27 full and part-time faculty, and more than 500 learners spread across 16 full-time programmes and a large number of part-time, continuing education and online courses. I have a much more macro view of adult education.

Engagement is now part of the big picture for me and in my mind it begins long before a learner even comes to my College. We need to engage learners as early as possible in their post-secondary education (PSE) choices. Vincent Tinto (an absolutely amazing guy - you must read his books - "Leaving College" is an essential book for any educator's library) says that the first three weeks of a college student's career are the most important and those three weeks often happen before classes even start - it's the application process, the admissions process, orientation, and so on - making the learner feel part of the institution, in other words making them feel part of a community. Community is the key to engaged learners - simply stated our role as adult educators is to foster community, most everything else will take care of itself if a community exists.

So if community is the most important thing we can foster as educators (way more important than content in my opinion), how exactly can we create environments where community can flourish, engaging our learners? Here are some of the ways that I've been thinking about, using, and discussing with colleagues:

Engage learners in high school, maybe even junior high school, let them know about your programmes, and career opportunities. To be successful this must be done in concert with industry - employers going into the schools with you to show the education-employment connection that is important to so many learners. At NSCC we have programmes like O2 (Options and Opportunities) and College Prep that help engage high school students early so they can consider the college as their PSE choice. We use Test Drives to show prospective learners a "day in the life" of a college learner.
Research has shown that two of the most important influencers on making a PSE decision are teachers and mothers - engage both in the process. We do this through "parents as Career Coaches", and through our College Prep folks talkingto teachers and guidance counsellors.
Once a learner is accepted into a programme, actively connect with them, let them know they have made an important (and correct) decision and that they are now part of a community - that they are not alone. This can be done through Admissions or the programme itself sending out information packages (or links to a wiki or Web site with the info) so that new learners arrive on the first day of college as informed learners.
Have an orientation that fosters and develops community - team activities, getting to know each other and their environment. One activity that I have used is to ask everyone to tell one thing that they are an expert at (amazing what you hear), and add that expertise to the group knowledge base - make it clear to learners that they are each others' most important learning resource. Balance the amount of information handed out (and there is always so much at the beginning of the year) with learning activities that build community - the information can always get to learners later.
Let learners know all of the services and supports available on your campus, that they are part of a larger learning community that is there to support them
Maximize the use of problem-based, project-based, and team-based learning. Use projects and assignments that require learners to cooperate and collaborate, strengthening their sense of community
Use learning technologies that learners like, not ones that you like. It's much easier for one of you to adapt than a whole class of learners. We have found in the last few years that e-mail is no longer the most efficient way to communicate with learners (they use e-mail to talk to "old folks") - so get to know, learn, and use current learning technologies - Web 2.0, Facebook, IM, Twitter, wikis, blogs, text messaging - go where your learners "are"
Give up control of the content in your courses. This isn't quite as scary as it seems. As the facilitator you know the course outcomes - let learners find and share the content - they develop research and presentation skills, become expert in using the Internet and other resources, develop skills in information gathering, interpretation, and use, and develop their learning community.
Give control of the learning environment to learners. As a facilitator you will still be responsible for classroom management, but what's wrong with letting learners decide on things like how the environment will look, when tests etc. are scheduled, what kinds of tests are used (meet all learning styles), how they organize themselves, and so on - the community will flourish if the learners are engaged and learners will be engaged if the community flourishes.

These are just some of the things that I have used to engage learners and to develop community. Once learning communities develop and take hold, they are the single most powerful thing you have to keep learners engaged. If you need evidence look at the military (I was in the Canadian Army for 28 years), and in particuar basic training - the individual is subsumed for the team, for the community - it really is Band of Brothers whether you are talking about a platoon of soldiers or a community of learners. Hmmm...

Learning Is A Team Sport...

2008-09-28T19:43:00.012-03:00

I've been thinking a lot lately about how learning is changing (has changed?), influenced by paradigm shifts away from books and content towards the Internet, connections, and learning communities.

I chaired a round table discussion on "Learning Is a Team Sport" at our college's Festival of Learning. This post covers the highlights of that discussion and some of the thoughts we all came up with.

Here are my opening premises for the discussion:

There is so much information out there and so many information sources, that it is becoming (or maybe already is) impossible to learn on your own, that as educators we need to be aware of this fundamental change and be prepared to teach and learn differently.
This means more collaboration and cooperation between learners and between educators, an awareness of learning styles and a need to develop authentic curriculum and assessment
Technology of all types will be increasingly important

With these points in mind we began our discussion. One of the first points raised is how different our learning environments were to the learning environments of our learners. When I went to school, individual learning was paramount - the term paper and tests were king. The main sources of my learning information were:

Books
Encyclopedia
Newspapers
Radio

Today's learners have a different set of information sources:

Internet - Podcasts, RSS, Web sites, vidcasts...
YouTube
iTunes
24/7 500 Channel TV
Books
Newspapers
Radio
And more not yet even thought of...

The sheer volume of information is overwhelming - how do you make sense of it all? What is true and what is false? How do you apply context to all this "stuff"? (In this instance, "stuff" is a technical term...)

So what does all this information mean? It means that new approaches to learning are required:

New approaches to information gathering
Information evaluation, validation and interpretation - new literacy skills
Collaboration and cooperation in information gathering and analysis
“Skimming” or “Diving” the information sea - breadth or depth of knowledge

The rest of our discussions centred around the so whats - here are some of the highlights:

Need to understand learners and how the not only learn but how they find information and what they do with it -“while N-Gens interact with the world through multimedia, online social networking, and routine multitasking, their professors tend to approach learning linearly, one task at a time, and as an individual activity that is centered largely around printed text…” - Innovate - Will Richardson

When does collaboration become cheating?
“Students see collaboration where their teachers see cheating. They're not even talking the same language. They don't have the same understanding of the world.” - NSCC Colleague

There was an awful lot of discussion around the second point as it is a current "hot button" topic. We encourage collaboration and cooperation and then we accuse learners of cheating. I personally think we need to re-invent exactly what we mean by cheating (plagiarism, copying, non-citing of sources, cutting and pasting from the Web...) so that we are on the same page as our learners (see the first bullet).

So what do we have to do as educators to engage in this new playing field?

Be Tech savvy
Understand our learners
Use project and problem-based approaches to learning (connecting learners to their world)
Stay in touch with industry
Allow learners to learn how THEY learn, not how WE learn
Emphasize collaboration and cooperation - know the new paradigm

These were the main points presented for discussion - there was a level of concern expressed about how to best do this - it's a work in progress for many educators who not only learned in the individual learning days, but have delivered that style of learning for many years. Most see the need to engage in team learning, the problem is we need to know the rules in order to play the game.

It was an interesting, informative, and somewhat passionate discussion that gave all of us lots to think about. The key from my perspective is that learning is now a team sport and we have to get on the field and into the game. If we don't we will be doing our learners a great disservice. Hmmm...

(If you want to see my presentation it's up on SlideShare)

Let Go Of The Content... It's All About The Connections...

2008-09-28T06:04:00.005-03:00

I've been an educator, mostly an adult educator, for over 32 years now. I hold both bachelor and masters degrees in education, with my masters specializing in adult education and training. In all of my formal training as an educators content was king - I learned a lot of content, I had to have subject matter expertise and my "job" was to ensure that my students got all of the content that they deeply deserved.

Well guess what everyone - we are not in Kansas anymore - given our new realities of education and the learning tools available to our "learners" (yes, they are no longer students), as educators we are faced with a new paradigm - content is dead - it's all about the connections made and the learning communities that count now. In fact, I have come to discover that content is actually mostly irrelevant in my role as an educator, and what my focus has become is developing learners so they can learn for themselves and find their own content through the development of communities and connections. So what does this all mean?

We are facilitating (not teaching) a new generation (actually generations, as most adult learning environments these days are multi-generational) of learners for a new generation of jobs and careers, many of which have not even been created yet. Technology has become pervasive in most learning environments, and the one technology that has had the greatest influence is the computer and its greatest learning tool, the Internet.

Learners have the Internet as their primary tool for information gathering and research - in fact the so-called Millennials or digital natives (Prensky) have even been said to be 'wired" differently as to their approach to information finding and gathering and their ability to multitask information gathering. They are exposed to an almost unlimited amount of content on any subject. What is lacking are the following skills and knowledge:

Gathering information
Processing knowldege
Context and relevancy of information
Sharing and using information

None of these skills are content-centric or specific to a particular subject area, but rather they should be considered as essential skills regardless of the chosen profession or academic track of the learner. It is our job as facilitators to ensure that our learners acquire these skills in order to succeed in the information age.

As facilitators of adult learning we must step away from our traditional role of content providers and move into one of facilitating connections - connections with information, connections with learners for the development of team and interpersonal skills, the connections with multiple (and massive) sources of information, the connections between raw data and the skills needed to make it useful information, and the connections that learners will need to be successful in their chosen professions, whatever those connections may be.

The most important connections that we can foster are the connections of community - learning is now a team sport - there is just too much information out there for one learner to make sense of - we need to foster and develop the creation of learning communities and environments that will assist in the success of our learners. This will become even more important as more and more learners choose to do their learning in environments outside of our traditional "brick" classrooms.

So, let go of the content and get connected. It's our future... Hmmm...

Connectivism & Connective Knowledge

2008-09-07T17:38:00.003-03:00

Along with over 1600 other people, I'm about to take part in "Connectivism & Connective Knowledge", a MOOC - a massively open online course facilitated by two of the leading lights in online, Web 2.0, interactive, collaborative, networked learning (I'm sure there are many other descriptors), George Siemens of the University of Manitoba's Learning and Teaching Centre and Stephen Downes, of the National Research Council of Canada.

Details and information on the course are available from the course wiki. I'm really looking forward to this opportunity to enagage in discussions and reflections with people from all over the world, to share and discuss what is going on with connectivism and online learning and teaching.

A lot of great planning has gone into the course and there are some amazing references available - check it out, should be an amazing learning experience...

(Photo - "Foobar Poster - The Internet" - Sebastian Prooth)

A Perspective On The US Election

2008-09-02T11:30:00.006-03:00

I've become a fairly interested bystander in the US election process - as a Canadian I obviously cannot vote, but the impact of a US presidential race is felt world wide. The airwaves, Internet, and blogosphere are full of information on who is leading, where, why, and how.

A friend of mine pointed me to Perspctv, a polling tracking site. I've added their widget to my blog, so you can come here to follow along, or head to Perspctv to keep up on where things are. Looks like an interesting campaign that's going down to the wire. Whoever wins, the impact will be felt world wide, for better or for worse. Let's just hope it's for the better...

The Dog Days Of Summer And Other Things That Make Me Go Hmmm...

2008-09-01T07:47:00.012-03:00

Here are a few miscellaneous items that have been piling up here - thought it was about time to get them posted:

How has it been that two months have gone by since my last post? Where did July and August go? I know I put them here somewhere. Hmmm...
Why is it when you take three weeks vacation in the summer you get only three or four days of sunny weather, and your first week back to work is a cloudless, sunny heat wave? Hmmm...
How did I manage to get through the Spring allergy-free, yet the last two weeks I've been swallowing Claritin and snorting Flonase? Must be global warming. Hmmm...
The Beijing Olympics were a great spectacle and a success by most measures, a real indicator of the power of China when it puts its mind to something (please pay attention everyone). Has too high a bar been set for future Olympics? Hmmm...
Hurricane Gustav is just about to slam into New Orleans, bringing back to mind the tragedy that was Katrina. Why is it that people stayed? I'm all about roots, and home, and family, but why live in a place where it appears every few years you run the risk of drowning or at least getting wiped out? When will enough be enough? Hmmm...
As someone on the outside looking in (and realizing the impact of the result on all of us), what's with the American political process? Last wek at the Democratic National Convention, the CNN talking heads (I think that's a new career path) were upset that ther convention wasn't mean enough and no one was called names - isn't it enough that it takes over two years to settle and election that here in Canada we settle in 30 days? Stop keeping the world waiting - the stress is too much. Hmmm...
The Republican party has hammered Obama for the longest time over his lack of experience and then selects a running mate for John McCain that a little over two years ago (about the time this campaign started) was the mayor of a small town in Alaska. You can't have it both ways. Hmmm...
Time to get back into a regular blogging schedule. Seems easier to do when I'm busy. Hmmm...
Why do they call it the Dog Days of Summer anyway? Hmmm...

(Photo - Harvey the Boxer - by Frosted Peppercorn)

Gotta Love Apple and AppleCare...

2008-06-30T06:40:00.004-03:00

Just a quick post to thank Apple Canada and AppleCare for some amazing customer support. On my recent trip to Omaha, the battery in my MacBook Pro (personally speaking the best laptop out there...) started to fail. It shut down my laptop even though the charge indicator showe hours of charge left.

When I got home yesterday, I called AppleCare - the customer service rep was excellent. She really knew her stuff, walking me through some trouble-shooting steps that I had already done myself, and she did it in a very professsional, non-condescending manner - a pleasant change from some of the tech support out there. She quickly resolved the issue, made arrangements for a new battery to be shipped to me free of charge (and I return the old battery the same way).

It was such a pleasure dealing with such a professional, engaged, and interested person. If you own a Mac and do not have AppleCare - go get, it's worth the money.

Thanks Apple Canada and you all have a Happy Canada Day! Bring on the iPhone!...

(Photo - Apple Logo from Apple Web site)

Building A Strengths-Based Campus Conference - Day One...

2008-06-26T00:14:00.003-03:00

A great opening session - led by Idahlynn Karre - it was a conversation and a "River Walk" about strengths - you picked a "buddy" from the audience and went for a "walk" with them talking about strengths and how you handled the bends in the river, the smooth water, rapids, waterfalls, and tributaries in the river of your life - very cool - a great exercise that really started the conversations about strengths and their application.

The AHA! moment that I had is that tying strengths in with the development of learning environments and other engagement and retention practices could lead to better retention. Have learners do Strengths Quest as part of the initial advisement and enrollment process and then engage them throughout their stay at the college by getting them to reflect and confirm their strengths - maybe that way they would make a more informed decision on what programme best fits, they select a programme that works for them, and attrition drops. We could include strengths as a portfolio learning opportunity - have learners (and faculty and staff) reflect on how their strengths impact their learning, and their learning environments. This could help us identify early those learners at risk or in need of supports, advisement or other tools and resources that would enhance their lerning experience. Hmmm...

Breakout sessions start tomorrow - lots on engagement and retention (I sense a theme - it's what is really important to me right now as an educator) and how to implement Strengths Quest with faculty and learners...

Building A Strengths-Based Campus Conference - Strengths School...

2008-06-24T23:28:00.002-03:00

Those of you who have followed my blog for any length of time know that I am a big proponent and fan of all things Web 2.0 and social networking as they relate to adult education. One of my favourite Web 2.0/social networking sites is Ning. At Ning you create your own social networks - it has amazing potential for setting up networks for programmes or courses.

One of the best uses of Ning that I have seen is the "virtualizing" of the Strengths-Based Campus conference that I will be attending starting tomorrow until Friday (I am currently in Omaha after a 12 hour travel day - OMG O'Hare is a zoo!). For those who cannot attend the conference in person, they can join Strengths School, a Ning network setup for the conference. Presentations, comments, feedback and conference notes will be posted to Strength School for all to see. So, if you cannot be here in Omaha, I highly recommend that you "attend" the conference by joining Strengths School.

Now THAT is social networking at its best...

Building A Strengths-Based Campus Conference...

2008-06-24T00:46:00.007-03:00

I'm off in the morning to Omaha Nebraska to attend the Building A Strengths-Based Campus conference at Gallup University.

The research behind the strengths-based movement is the Strengths-Finder research developed by Donald O. Clifton. Srength Finders takes a positive approach to employee (or student) success - identifying your strengths and helping you identify strengths in others to help build optimal team and collaborative expeiences.

The actual Strengths Finders 2.0 instrument is a series of questions that ask you to choose from one of two possible answers. the scored instrument then returns your top five of a total of thirty-four identified strengths. My top five strengths are:

Learner
Intellection
Input
Developer
Responsibility

Over the years I have taken a lot of tests to evaluate my personaity, tendencies and other aspects of my personality, aptitudes, and performance. I cam honsetly say that Strengths Finder has come the closest to describing who I think I am and who others think I am. The strengths listed here support my current job as an academic chair to a tee.

Over the three days of the conference I hope to learn how others have implemented the Strength-based approach at their institutions for both employee and learner success. We are in the process of adopting this approach at NSCC and I look forward to finding out the good, the bad, and the ugly of this success approach. I am a believer in its potential - I like its positivity and the approach of looking at strengths in people not of looking at what people do not do well. Let's focus on success...

(Photo from Strengths Finder 2.0 Web site)

Conference Prep - What A Concept

2008-06-10T20:28:00.004-03:00

We've been sending faculty and staff to the STLHE (Society For Teaching and Learning In Higher Education) annual conference for three years now and NSCC is a STLHE institutional member. This year's conference is at the University of Windsor in Windsor, Ontario. I attended STLHE 2007 last year at the University of Alberta in Edmonton.

The STLHE conference celebrates teaching and learning at the university and college level in Canada and attracts presenters and attendees from all over Canada and the world. It is a jammed-packed conference, like most, and for many the hardest thing is how to "attack" it and get the most out of the conference.

For the past two years we have taken an interesting approach to preparing our attendees before they attend STLHE. Current attendees along with past attendees are brought together off campus in a hotel meeting room to have a conversation and a meal - the conversation is "How to get the most out of STLHE (all of the attendees at STLHE (and any conference that we send people to) must prepare a report on their return to share what they have experienced and learned with the larger College community). the conversation strats with everyone introducing themselves and for the previous attendees adding what one thing they got the most of at STLHE.

We then talk about tips and hints - how to select what to see, how to "translate" the abstracts in the programme to get a quick understanding of the presentations, how to work together to maximize learning, what works and doesn't work while attending the conference and any other thoughts that come to mind. It gives the new attendees a sense of comfoert as they head off and builds our "STLHE alumni" community within the college.

As our president, Dr. Joan McArthur-Blair says, it's "a community of learners supporting a community of learners". What a great way to share knowledge and to ensure that learning opportunities are maximized - thanks very much to our Organizational Learning stff for including me in the process - it was a great way to reflect back on STLHE 2007 and to lok forward to hearing about what was learned at STLHE 2008...

STLHE 2008 logo from the conference Web site

History Happened And I Watched...

2008-06-04T06:08:00.005-03:00

Last night history was made in the U.S. and I watched. Barack Obama won the Democratic presidential nomination after a long and hard campaign against Hillary Clinton in the prmary season, becoming the first person of colour to win the presidential nomination of a major U.S. political party. The political face of the the country changed last night and I think it changed for the better. The world-wide reputation of America is a little better this morning.

But will it stay that way? Now that the campaign will switch to a national campaign, the attention of the U.S. electorate will switch to McCain and Obama. Here is Senator McCain's speech from last night in New Orleans - the first shots of the national campaign have been fired and they were awkward at least in my mind:

Senator McCain's speech was a one of "I am good and my opponent is wrong and has crazy ideas", a typical old-style political speech, the same old, same old. He praised Hillary Clinton and took shots at Obama, a blatant attempt to win over disgruntled Clinton voters. Looks like the gloves are off. Now for something completely different - Barack Obama's victory speech from last night - it was conciliatory, upbeat, focussed on his new approach and started the national campaign off on a positive note:

But for me the last word, and the one that highlights for me what U.S. politics are all about is Hillary Clinton's speech from last night - she does not concede and say she will carry on. Is it to be part of the "dream" Obama/Clinton ticket? Is it because she says she won the popular vote even if she didn't win the most delegates (a system that I have always found odd), or is there another motivation? Either way, it is time for the Democrats to figure out that Obama is their nominee and that they need to get behind him if they hope to win the White House in the general election.

It's going to an interesting time from now until November, for the USA and the world...

NISOD 2008 - A Few Days On...

2008-06-03T21:38:00.006-03:00

I've been home from NISOD 2008 now for six days now and I've had some time to reflect on the experience. What did NISOD 2008 do for me? What did I get out of attending NISOD 2008 and how will it influence me and how I do my job over the next few months?

All great questions that I need to answer in order to take in the NISOD experience. I'd like to compare it to my attendance at STLHE 2007, a very similar conference focussed on teaching and learning being held this year at the University of Windsor.

Both conferences were about teaching and learning - at NISOD 2008 I got to see the issues and concerns of the U.S. community colleges and realized that we share many of the same issues with engagement and retention, with literacy and numeracy, and with reaching our current generations of learners. I also came to see that there are many differences between us and the U.S. based community colleges - teaching chairs, more adjunct faculty, less learning and teaching resources and that we are doing a good job at NSCC meeting the needs of our learners and supporting faculty and staff. I saw many of the exact same issues at STLHE, so these issues are not isolated or restricted to one country - they are in many ways systemic issues that we all must address.

At NISOD I got to listen to, meet, and talk with (briefly) to Vincent Tinto, who is to me the expert on engaging and retaining learners, particularly in that critical first semester of their college experience. I will take away a lot of what he presented and incorporate it in my practice. If you are an educator who is at all concerned about engagement and retention take a look at Tinto's work.

I got to spend a great two hours listening to Ron Berk talk about and demonstrate the use of humour and multimedia in the millennial classroom - check out his work too - it will add a lot to what you can do in your classrooms and online spaces.

I got to sit in on other good presentations that I have already posted about, all of which have given me ideas that should make me better at what I do. I met some amazing people, go to hang out with several colleagues from NSCC, and even got some shopping and sight-seeing in!

I have taken away from NISOD that we are doing a good job at NSCC and that we need to celebrate that more - one way that I can do that is to go back to conferences like NISOD and STLHE, but the next time go back as a presenter, sharing what it is that makes us who we are at NSCC...

NISOD 2008 - Closing Session And Excellence Awards...

2008-06-03T21:23:00.004-03:00

This being my first NISOD conference I was not sure what to expect at the closing general session. It was very well done. For the past 20 years NISOD has been awarding excellence awards to educators (faculty, staff, administrators and others) from member institutions. the member institutions develop their own criteria and nominate their employees. the employees who attend NISOD are identified by the medals they wear around their necks for the duration of the conference (and quite possibly beyond - who knows?)

One of the coolest part of the closing ceremony was asking the award winners to take off their medals and to hand it to a friend, loved one or the person next to them. This person was then asked to ceremoniously place the medal around the neck of the award winner - a very nice touch.

NISOD 2008 was a very interesting conference with a lot of great ideas and discussions. I'll wrap it up in my next post...

NISOD 2008 - Getting To The Collaboration Zone - Professional Development That Results In Action...

2008-06-03T20:52:00.002-03:00

The last breakout session that I attended was presented by two colleagues of mine from NSCC, Shelley Zwicker and Todd Verge. There presentation was about a faculty self-developed and self-directed professional development programme known as the Faculty Learning College Portfolio or FLCP. the FLCP is a five-year plan with significant reviews built in that upon successful completion adds $5,000.00 to the faculty member's salary.

The began by reviewing the FLCP which is a self-defined and self-determining PD programme. It is based upon the idea of Significant Learning espoused by Dee Fink. One of the big issue of developing the FLCP is determining what is needed - what is significant learning? I know that when I developed my own FLCP plan that I spent a lot of time figuring this out only to realize that a lot of my significant learning, being IT faculty (at the time) was simply staying current in my field, so that became one of the learning activities of my plan.

Another key element of the FLCP is aligning it with NSCC's strategic plan, mission and vision. there are four currencies that need to be addressed in the plan as well:

Teaching/Facilitating Learning - Includes activities that support faculty efforts to acquire, enhance, and continuously update and demonstrate understanding of learning theories and innovative practices.
Occupational/Professional - Includes activities that support faculty efforts to maintain and continually update the relevancy of their occupational and professional skills and knowledge
Organizational - includes activities that support faculty efforts to sustain awareness, support, and promote the strategic directions of the College and its values.
Portfolio - Incorporates all the learning achieved throughout the Faculty Learning College Portfolio experience.

Each learning activity developed for your FLC must address each of these currencies.

The presentation ended with some of the issues that occurred while going through the FLCP planning process. Creating an appropriate scope and depth is important to the success of your FLCP as is managing the scope through the life of the plan. Several challenges were also pointed out by Todd and Shelley:

Getting buy-in - believing in the value of the FLCP is important
Midway changes in direction - not a bad thing s many fields will change significantly over a five year period, but one that needs to be addressed
Intellectual property - needs to be clarified to the satisfaction of all
Culture of trust and sharing - a big part of the FLCP is the portfolio - the sharing of what you have learned with your colleagues and the body of knowledge of the college.

The FLCP is a great PD opportunity that wold work at any college focussed on being learning centred...

NISOD 2008 - Sculpting And Spanning Spaces - The Learning-Centred Community College Course

2008-05-28T08:27:00.002-03:00

This session was presented by Claudine Lowry, Dean of Organizational Learning and Craig Collins, Principal of the Lunenburg Campus of the Nova Scotia Community College. (NSCC) I am an academic chair at NSCC and attended this session to provide support to my colleagues and to see what other attendees thought about our amazing faculty and staff development programme - the Community College Education Diploma Programme (CCEDP).

This session focussed on one of the ten courses that learners in the CCEDP (all new faculty and professional support staff at NSCC must take CCEDP to get regular status) - The Learning-Centred Community College. This course introduces learners to what it means to be learning-centred and to work in a learning-centred college.

The session was conducted very informally as a talking circle, one of the actual tools and techniques used in the course - it was a very cool way to present the course after having sat in on so many formal presentations that revolved around the screen at the front. It was interesting to hear the questions being asked by the audience - it made me realize just how blessed we are at NSCC to have such an amazing learning opportunity that CCEDP is. I'm so glad that I chose to sit in on this session - sometime you have to leave home to realize just how good you have it...

NISOD 2008 - Humor And Multimedia as Teaching Tools For The Net Generation...

2008-05-28T08:00:00.003-03:00

This session was presented by Dr. Ronald Berk, professor Emeritus at John Hopkins University. A statistician by trade, Ron has published several books on using humour to teach, including "Professors Are From Mars, Students Are From Snickers".

In this informative, entertaining, funny, and transformative presentation, Dr. Berk presented an approach to using humour and multimedia to reach our current millennial students. he began by talking about the parts of the act of teaching;

Content (the what)
Pedagogy (the how)

Further breaking pedagogy down:

Learner-Centered Teaching (over 1000+ articles 119 studies)
Technology - online, offline, inline, and outtaline

We looked at the characteristics of the Net Gen digital native learners, the fact that they are visually oriented, that there is a need to address multiple intelligences and learning styles, and that the use of humour can go along way to reaching students. Include humour in your tests, take a "commercial break" when things are lagging and eyes are glazing over, use humour, demonstrations and even role plays to introduce complex or confusing topics, and connect with your learners.

His entire presentation was full of sound clips, vidoes and other cultural references that the audience and his students would get - an amazing use of technology and tools to use humour to break down barriers, present difficult topics and most importantly reach millennial learners with language and symbols that the understand.

One of his key pieces of advice (and there were many) was this - if you want to identify what is in your students' world - ASK them, conduct a survey - great, simple advice. as he put it "We are working together in the room".

Perhaps his best quote of the presentation, and one that encapsulates something that I have believed for a long time is this:

"PowerPoint by itself is a bunch of dead words on a screen"

Add sound, video, interactivity - bring life to your PowerPoint - great stuff.

there is no doubt that this approach to teaching, which I believe works is time consuming - the depth and richness of Dr. Berk's presentation must have taken hours to prepare. I think that the end result was well worth it though - a jam-packed room full of engaged learners.

This was an amazing presentation, perhaps the highlight of NISOD 2008 for me so far - best way that I can sum it up is to say that I wish I had been one of Ron Berk's students and I am so glad that for a very short two hours I was...

NISOD 2008 - KConversation With Amado's Friends...eynote -

2008-05-28T07:27:00.003-03:00

This keynote was a moderated conversation with Larry Gatlin, the 2008 winner of the Amado Pena, Jr, Journey of Excellence Award and Dr. Don Cameron, president of Guildford Technical Community College, home of the Larry Gatlin School of Entertainment Technology.

Larry Gatlin is many things, an entertainer, a songwriter, a business man, but most of all he is a teacher. His memory and recall are amazing, attributed to teachers that he had. He spoke of the how important teachers have been in his life, telling stories of several of them with great affection, how his family was blessed with several teachers, and how important education has been to him (when was the last time you have heard a country star quote Chaucer from memory?).

Dr. Cameron then spoke about the Larry Gatlin School of Entertainment Technology, how it was conceived up to today where it has moved into a brand new facility.

Larry Gatlin then lead what was basically a short master class in songwriting, walking through his process of writing a song - a very natural, learning and teaching moment. He is a teacher, a supporter of education and an entertainer - what a great way to start the day...

NISOD 2008 - Integrating Ethics Into Your IT Courses

2008-05-27T09:06:00.002-03:00

This session was presented by Dr. Peter Meggison of Massasoit Community College. The presentation was on his experience delivering a one credit (five week) course in compute ethics.

He recommends three possible ways to deliver ethics to IT students:

A full course in computer ethics (3 credits, one semester)
A short course (1 credit, five weeks - his method)
Integrated into a computer applications course with an ethics component

Ethics falls into the area of "soft skills" which are in many ways more in demand by employers than technical skills (which they can provide themselves). This is also very true of employers in Halifax, so interesting to see that employers have the same concerns in the Boston area.

Dr. Meggison provide a series of resources that he uses in his course including his process of ethical decision making:

get the facts
identify all of the stakeholders
consider the consequences of the decision
weigh various guidelines and principles
develop and evaluate options
review decisions
evaluate the results of the decision

This is very much a critical thinking course.

I believe that there is a definite need to include ethics education in all of the programmes we offer. It was good to see one instructor's approach to delivering this important subject area...

NISOD 2008 - e-Portfolio + Reflective Writing = Enhnced Student Learning

2008-05-27T08:34:00.002-03:00

This session was on a combination project between the Colorado department of Labor (e-Colorado), a writing instructor and an IT instructor, both from Pikes Peak Community College.

e-Colorado is a shared resources for workforce development and the instructors from Pikes peak used it as a repository for student portfolios - tying together reflective writing pieces with course work, the advantage was greater exposure of students to employers and students writing reflective pieces on their work, getting a better understanding of who they are and what they have done.

It was interesting to see how another institution, combined with a workforce development initiative used portfolio. I really liked the idea of having a site like e-Colorado to display student portfolios to industry. At my college we are much further developed in the use and integration of portfolio into our learning, but we do not have a "portal" for e-Portfolios like e-Colorado - I think it is something that we need to explore...

NISOD 2008 - Welcome To College! Don't Let the Door Hit You On The Way Out...

2008-05-27T08:03:00.002-03:00

This session was presented by Vincent Tinto and Arleen Arnsparger, project manager MetLife Foundation Initiative on Student Success, along with two students from Austin Community College. The session was conducted as a panel discussion with the students being asked questions about their college experience, specifically their experiences as new students. What a great hing to do - actually have learners at an education conference. I had the opportunity to talk to Dr. Tinto later in the day and I thanked him ofr including learners in the session. we need to inlude learners more in opportunities like this.

The research behind this session comes from a couple of sources - CCSSE - the community college survey of student engagement and SENSE - the survey of entering student engagement. The focus of this panel discussion was starting right - a first look at engaging entering students. These initiatives were launched to determine why 50% of students leaving college were leaving before completing one semester.

Dr. Tinto used a metaphor approach to ask questions of the students - a process that he has used extensively with focus groups of students, faculty student services folks, and presidents. His advice on running a focus group was:

serve food
ask questions
6-8 participants

Here are the two questions that were asked of the students using the metaphor approach:

The process of enrolling in college was like...
My first two weeks of classes were like...

and the students completed those statements. Some of the advice that they had for us (and other students) included:

make skills courses credit courses more students will take them
communicate what you need
take advantage of advisors/counsellors
talk to people

The interesting thing listening to the students is that both became successful when they took responsibility for their own college experience - they were engaged in the process.

So what needs to be done to help learners get engaged in their learning and at their institution? The learner experience of new students must be improved:

be available and accessible
advise, be open and honest
care about students
embedded advising - advisors go to class

This session was an amazing opportunity to hear about engagement and retention from the very people we are trying to engage and retain - learners! It was interesting to hear two students from Texas describe experiences that I know are happening at my college. We all need to get better at this critical piece of getting learners into college in the right programmes and then giving them the tool and resources that will keep them there.

It was also very cool watching Dr. Tinto interact with the students and the audience of educators. I learned a lot observing someone who is a master of their domain...

NISOD 2008 - A Learning-Centered Ph.D For Community College Leaders

2008-05-27T07:35:00.003-03:00

This session, conducted by two community college presidents who are both faculty mentors in Walden University's Community College Leadership program, highlighted the program and what it has to offer to learners.

I've been researching various PhD and EdD programmes and learning options for several months now, with an aim to staring an EdD sometime in 2009. I attended this session to get detailed information on Walden's programme and I was not disappointed.

Walden takes a scholar/practitioner orientation in its programme - a combination of online and residency (a total of 20 days of residency), built on the Learning College principles. The key learning opportunity in the Walden programme are the Knowledge Area Modules or KAMS. Five KAMS are completed as part of the programme along with course work and a dissertation. the cool thing about the KAMs is that they are areas of research and learning that you want to do - a customized learner and learning-centered approach.

Walden offers a 25% discount to candidates in the CCL PhD programme - $3037.00 per quarter with a typical completion time of 3-4 years. Still expensive, but nice to get the break.

An informative session that has kept Walden firmly on my list of potential PhD/EdD programmes. The research continues...

NISOD 2008 - What Does It take To Become A Successful Chair?

2008-05-27T07:01:00.003-03:00

This presentation was done by Dr. Jim Hammons of the University of Arkansas. Dr. Hammons is the "godfather' of what has now become the Chair Academy, and has many years of research and practice dealing with chairs.

I've been an academic chair for about nine months now and was interested in attending this session to see if I was on track and if there were any tips and hints that would make me more effective in my job. The presentation started with a definition of what a successful academic chair is:

"A successful chair is one who has the ability to take an ill-defined job that none of your colleagues would consider taking and perform it at a level acceptable to your faculty and your boss with no orientation or training and without being given the time, information, or other institutional support necessary to do so" - Hammons 1991

While this definition received much laughter, there is a certain grain of truth to it in that the chair's job is busy and in many cases looking in both directions - teaching and learning with faculty and administratively "up" with the larger College perspective. My own experience is that I have had the support of faculty, administration and my institution in doing my job, and i was very fortunate in that I was mentored for several months by my predecessor - an invaluable experience and one that I would recommend as the norm for anyone entering a chair's position.

I am a non-teaching chair and this presentation was focussed on the US college model where most chairs are still in the classroom. I think being a non-teaching chair, and having come from the ranks of faculty, is a distinct advantage. I understand the issues faculty face and I have the time to deal with them (well some days I do... :-)). The biggest thing about being a chair, and one that was emphasized during this presentation is that a chair has such a wise variety of roles that you cannot be expert in them all. There is a need for development opportunities for chairs.

Dr Hammons included a couple of instruments in his presentation handout, one dealing with institutional support factors influencing chairperson performance, and the other one a self-testing instrument for chairs on how do you rate your skills? He suggested that the second one be filled out by a chair and also be their faculty - I think that this is a great idea and will try it with my faculty.

What I got from this presentation is that chairs no matter where they are are very busy people. Most importantly I got some perspective on my own position as an academic chair - I like our system of non-teaching chairs and the broad scope of work that we do. I am an administrator, but I am also a leader and I must remember that as I do my job. There is a need for formal training for chairs, to help all of us be as good as we can be at our principal task - supporting learner success...

NISOD 2008 - Keynote - Access Without Support Is Not Opportunity...

2008-05-27T06:21:00.007-03:00

The Monday morning keynote address was given by Dr. Vincent Tinto, Distinguished Professor, Syracuse University. Dr. Tinto is a leading researcher and authority on learner retention in College. To demonstrate his influence on community colleges, Dr. Walter Bumphus who introduced Dr. Tinto asked those in the audience who had read or used an if Dr. Tinto's work to stand up. Dr. Tinto received a standing ovation form the audience, well over 1000 strong.

Learner engagement and retention is an area of concern and research for me and it was great to finally get to hear Dr. Tinto speak after having read so much of his work.

The theme of his address was that Access without support is not opportunity. Simply getting learners into college isn't enough - they have to stay there and succeed. In the US access to college and university education is greater today than it has ever been, but at the same time stratification by income limits where and how people attend post-secondary education (PSE). Low income enrollment was over 60% a few years ago and is currently less than 45% - low income has become the decider of college attendance, not academic ability. At the elite colleges there is less income diversity than racial diversity. College completion rates are lower amongst low income learners - in 1995 60% of high income learners earned a BA withing six years, only 25% of low income learners earned a BA in the same amount of time.

Restructuring is needed to solve the problem:

Supplemental Instruction

Promoting success within the classroom - many low income learners only have time on campus to be in the classroom and cannot use the other facilities
Must meet student needs in the classroom
Academic supports connected to a class
Alingment of support activities of the class
One class at a time - this is how most low income learners complete their education - we need to be aware of that - it is their reality

Basic Skills Learning Communities

Students enroll in connected classes together
Course content is aligned
Academic supports are linked
Learning communities improve performance and retention
Teaching in context - Content Course - Skills Course linked"We learn better together"

Dr. Tinto spoke about SPECC - Strengthening Pre-Collegiate Education in Community Colleges, a Carnegie Foundation initiative loking at 11 California community colleges rethinking basic skills training. SPECC is looking at basic math and language skills - developmental skills needed for PSE success. There is a need to change the experience of at risk learners , and this goes beyond simply starting a retention program - the whole college experience needs to be changed.

The attainment of two and four year degrees needs to be improved - it's more than just access - access without support is not opportunity. We must support our learners - I think in general at my college we are doing a good job, but there is still room for improvement.

I found Dr. Tinto's address quite compelling - I sit on my campus retention committee and it is more than simply having a retention plan - we need to determine why we are losing learners early in their college careers - is it lack of preparation, lack of or the wrong skill sets, motivation, something else or a combination of these and other factors? Researchers like Dr. Tinto not only give us lots to think about, they point the way to improving how we deal with our learners and help enhance their college experiences. Today's college learners are the operators of tomorrow's national infrastructures - we must be better at helping them succeed at college...

NISOD 2008 - Keynote - "America's Community Colleges: The Nation's Best Defence

2008-05-26T08:48:00.005-03:00

This keynote address was given by Dr. Ronald Williams, Vice President of the College Board. Much of his address was based on a College Board report " Winning the Skills Race and Strengthening America's Middle Class: an Action Agenda for Community Colleges".

Community Colleges in the US currently enroll 46% of all undergraduate students and community colleges are much more diverse than universities. It was pointed out by Dr. Williams that the US lags behind most developed nations in most educational measures and that it is community colleges that are preparing the current and next generations of the people that will run the national infrastructure.

There are four threats to the community college:

Rising costs
Mismatch between demand and resources
A culture that has emphasized access more than success
The challenge of monitoring outcomes

We are looking at very similar issues in Canada and it was somewhat reassuring to realize that institutions in the US are dealing with many of the same issues.

A thought provoking address that I am sure gave US-based faculty and staff lots to think of. If you get a chance, take a look at the report - it has lots of relevance for colleges outside of the USA as well...

NISOD 2008 - Factors Affecting Student Performance and How to Influence Them...

2008-05-26T08:01:00.005-03:00

This pre-conference workshop was delivered by Dr. Jim Hammons, professor in the Higher Education Leadership Program at the University of Arkansas.

This was a very good workshop - Dr. Hammons has many years (over 40 by his count) of experience and presented in a very inclusive and participative manner - a great example of how to get your information across by engaging the audience in the process.

Two things were looked at:

Factors that influence student performance
Ways to influence them

Here, in raw form, are the factors that influence student performance:

A = Ability (what a student can do)
M = Motivation (a student's ability to use ability)
O = Opportunity (the chance to perform (and learn if they did so correctly))
C = Classroom Culture (the way things are), Classroom Climate (how students feel about it)
O = Organization (the organizational unit where instruction occurs)
C = Organizational Culture (the way things are), Organizational Climate (how faculty feel about it)
E = Environment (factors outside of the classroom that affect student performance inside the classroom)

The whole model together is described as C5AMEO2 - a way of looking at the factors affecting student performance. I found it a simple and clear way of identifying the factors that create the learning environment that your learners find themselves in, and then it allows you to figure out how to support learners (and yourself) deal with these factors. The bulk of the workshop was the discussions on how to influence these factors and support learners.

One of the influencers that was discussed was student success courses, a new concept for me, but one that many in the audience were familiar with. Effectively student success courses provide the knowledge and skills that learners need to succeed (or at least start on as level a playing filed as possible) at college. We have something similar that we call "College 101", but these student success course are much more formal, mandatory at some institutions, and in my mind a great idea that all learners should take at the beginning of their college career.

Classroom Assessment Techniques (CATS) and the use of counsellors were also consistently mentioned as influencers that have an impact on student assessment - CATS inside the classroom, counselling outside the classroom. I firmly believe that learning IS a team sport and counsellors, student success processes, learning centres, in class assesment, and other resources are all part of the modern learning "team".

I believe that the factor with the greatest potential impact on student assessment and performance, and the one that we sometimes tend to overlook as educators is E, the environment that learners exist in. Fortunately, Dr. Hammons spent a significant amount of time discussing this factor and drove home its importance to everyone. From my own experience, the learner's environment, their "life" is what is going to impact the most on their learning experiences - knowing this, it is so critical to get to know your learners, to realize that they are people and to be proactive in supporting them.

Simple things like open computer labs for students who cannot afford their own computer, financial services and advice, counselling, proper academic advising and other tools that engage you in the learner's educational journey will allow you to assist learners to manage their environment and increase their opportunity for success.

This was a great workshop. If you get an opportunity to sit in on a presentation by Dr. Hammons, do so. He says he doesn't travel much anymore, but if you can convince him to travel to your institution or conference, do it, it will be a great experience for all...

NISOD 2008 - Fundamentals of Good Assessment - Student Learning Outcomes

2008-05-26T00:45:00.010-03:00

Today I attended two NISOD 2008 pre-conference workshops. This first one, Fundamentals of Good Assessment - Student Learning Outcomes was presented by Dr. Cathrael (Kate) Kazin of ETS (Educational Testing Service).

She presented an "evidence" and "task" approach to assessing Student Learning Outcomes (SLOs), defined as the "accumulated knowledge, skills, and attitudes that students develop during a course of study". They can assessed at the class, programme, or institutional level (although for the purposes of this presentation, I felt that Dr. Kazin kept her examples to the programme level). SLOs reflect a shift of focus from, " What am I teaching?" to "What are students learning?" I found this learning-centred approach very familiar and relevant to me as it allowed me to participate in the rest of the presentation based on how we approach learning-centredness at NSCC.

SLOs need to be measurable to be meaningful, and in order for there to be proof that they have been achieved there must be evidence. This evidence is gathered through the careful design of tasks, questions, tests, that will show whether or not that a learners has met a SLO. The two main "tasks" that were presented in this workshop were:

Multiple Choice Questions
Constructed Responses

Dr. Kazin uses the term "constructed response" to identify any questions or tasks that help learners construct their response. Learners should not have to guess at what a suitable answer to the question is.

The next section of this workshop focussed on Multiple-Choice Questions (MCQs) - what they are good at, how to best construct them, and when to use them. MCQs are good at:

Breadth
Facts
Some higher-order thinking skills
Easy to understand results
Increased reliability
Objective scoring
Efficient scoring

One of the other good uses of MCQs brought up be several members of the audience was the preparation of learners for the writing of certification or licensing exams, many of which are exclusively based on MCQs - a whole different debate - do you want a mechanic who gets 100% on the MCQ test or one who can actually fix your brakes? Hmmm...

Some time was spent on analyzing the anatomy of a MCQ:

Stem
Distracter(s)
Options
Key

I will admit to a personal bias against MCQs and MCQ tests. I really believe that the true measure of learning is in its application - show me what you can do - how have you assimilated the learning, made it your own and then applied it in the completion of one or more related tasks or activities - it's about competencies. Having said that, this workshop did point out to me that properly developed there is a place for the maligned (by me) MCQ. That is a valuable take away for me. The key is to ensure that MCQs are properly developed and used - several tricks of the MCQ trade were revealed:

Focus on the stem

avoid undirected stems
always direct test-takers to the matter at hand
after reading the MCQ, test-takers should be able to answer the question without looking at the options
avoid too much info in the stem
strive for concise stems

Focus on the options

avoid overlap
make the options parallel
put options in the most logical order possible (an interesting point - I've always tended to mix up the order of the options. Hmmm...)
avoid "All of the Above" and "None of the Above" options (Yes!!)
capture common misconceptions in distracters - make sure they are wrong and avoid trickiness

Avoid inadvertant clues

clues to correct answer with a MCQ or within the test
grammatical clues

While I am not sure that I am a total convert to MCQs, I did get a lot out of this workshop - MCQs do have a place in learning as an assessment tool, but like any tool they must be properly designed, developed, and deployed...

Constructive Response (CR) questions are good at:

Depth
Higher-order thinking skills
Assessment of performance
Capturing the thought process
Often less time to construct a test (but more time to score it)

Some examples of constructed response questions:

Short answer
Essay
Performance

These are the types of questions that I tend to place more value in personally - I feel that they are a truer test of learning in that they require some sort of synthesis on the part of the learners.

A quick CR checklist:

Define the task completely and specifically
Give explicit directions regarding length, grading guidelines, and time to complete
Develop and use appropriate scoring guide (rubric)

I don't like the idea of explicitly giving a length to a CR question - I find that many learners write their answers to the length, not the content. My answer when I am asked "How long does it have to be?" has always been "Long enough to answer the question". I personally believe that once learners get used to the idea that length does not matter that they focus more on actually answering the question

The next section of the workshop dealt with the creation and use of rubrics (something I have used for several years and really believe in). The two styles of rubrics looked at were holistic and analytic rubrics. there are pros and cons to both - personally I prefer the analytic style of rubric ( success factors, levels of assessment, tangible scoring). Holistic rubrics, in my opinion, tend to be more qualitative in nature and therefore more open to interpretation and discussion by learners and others (and we all know that a learner morphs into Clarence Darrow when discussing grades with faculty...).

The last section of the workshop dealt with puling things together - both before and after SLOs are put into a syllabus or on a Web site.

Be sure it can be assessed
Give learners opportunities to learn and practice it
Commit to fewer and do them well
Talk to learners about its importance
Make it explicit when you explain assignments
Assess it well in exams
share results with colleagues - take a research approach

ETS has developed a report "A Culture of Evidence" that describes an evidence-centred approach to assessing SLOs.

This was a very useful workshop - it showed me that MCQs do have a place in my assessment toolkit and it reinforced my opinion that CR style questions, tasks, and assignments are still my preferred assessment tools - for me assessment is about what you can do, not just what you know...

NISOD 2008 - The Shopping Begins...

2008-05-25T07:31:00.007-03:00

Well, we have all successfully arrived in Austin Texas for NISOD 2008. It was an uneventful 12 hour travel day (why does it always seem to take 12 hours to fly anywhere? Hmmm...). After checking in to our various hotels (we have strategically surrounded the Austin Convention Center - there is no escape), the shopping genes kicked in and we were off to San Marcos Texas and the outlet mall. Hundreds of stores, thousands of people, it's a real cultural experience. Everything from half-price Armani suits (still $1,000.00), to alligator shoes ($2,000.00) to $10.00 sunglasses, just about every store imaginable was there.

In fact there are so many stores, the crew is headed back to San Marcos later today to start in on the other outlet mall across the road.

We also discovered, thanks to our veteran attendees at NISOD the magic of the Whole Foods Market - what an amazing place - you name it, they had it all fresh and priced well. We could sure use one of those home (just in case there are any budding Nova Scotia entrepreneurs reading this and looking for an opportunity).

So today it's more shopping, returning the rental car and getting ready for the conference which kicks off in ernest bright and early tomorrow morning...

NISOD 2008 - The Adventure Begins...

2008-05-24T11:08:00.004-03:00

I'm sitting here in the Maple Leaf Lounge at Pearson International Airport in Toronto, on my way to NISOD 2008 in Austin Texas. NISOD is the National Institute for Staff and Organizational Development and this year marks their 230th conference. I'm heading down with several colleagues from NSCC, and my primary focus is going to be on learner engagement, online learning, and academic chair development (what with me being an academic chair and all). Apparently there may also be a sid trip to the outlet malls in San Marcos and I will be heading fro the Austin Apple Store at the Barton Creek Mall.

I'll be blogging daily about the sessions I attend, and the sights and sounds of Austin, so stay tuned...

(NISOD logo from NISOD Web site)

Who I Am Makes A Difference...

2008-05-17T22:36:00.002-03:00

All I am going to say is watch this video and then pass it on...

Hmmm...

A Real World Use of Virtual Worlds...

2008-05-17T10:06:00.003-03:00

Loyalist College is one of the first colleges in Canada to have an active learning presence in Second Life. Several other Canadian colleges including my own, the Nova Scotia Community College now have presences in Second Life, but the forerunner was Loyalist.

Currently they are using Second Life to assist learners with Canadian border security and clearance processes. Here is a video of their simulation:

This is a great use of Second Life (or any other virtual world for that matter) to simulate learning environments and work places where the actual real-world environment is not available for learning. This is the power of virtual worlds - simulation, non-destructive testing (and destructive testing too), life-size modelling (very effective with molecules and single-cell organisms that can be "walked through", and other learning tools and resources that are not feasible in the real world. This kind of mix of real-world and virtual world learning will, I believe, become a large part of what we will need to do as adult educators in order to engage our learners - it's a great use of technologyto support learning and meets learners where they are - "Generation XBox".

Many thanks to Ken Hudson (Kenny Hubble in Second Life) for continuing to push the envelope of learning in Second Life. Check out Kenny Hubble's Media Ecology site as well- some great stuff on virtual worlds, media and culture.

If you are in world check out the Loyalist College island (and NSCC's too!) - they have a very interesting student lounge - the Shark Tank...