Wow!  What a great CT Science Fair 2011 at Quinnipiac University.  We’ve taken on some digital media projects.  See below:

CSF Trailer

Governor Dannel Malloy Speaks at the CSF Awards Ceremony

My team at the Center for 21st Century Skills at Education Connection recently produced a video about student engagement, with a “Did You Know?” feel.  Check it out and share it with your friends, family, and colleagues!

As part of this website (labanca.net), I maintain a Moodle.  Moodle is a course management system that allows me to conduct blended learningclasses – classes that have both a face-2-face and online component.  I use the Moodle in both my high school Applied Science Research course, and my graduate school Materials and Methods in Science Educationcourse.  These classes benefit from such environments, because there is a certain level of independence associated with them.  Allowing students a virtual component often helps to better engage them, while providing me with a systemic way of managing the content and assessments.

I wanted to move my system to a Manual Registration method, so I could save myself a step by allowing students to enter their own account information, and then provide an “enrollment key” to enter the course.  Of course, not as simple as anticipated.  First, was just trying to figure out how to get the system to allow the manual enrollment button to appear.  My problem solving was a trial-and-error method.  I clicked and looked, thought about what made logical sense, clicked some more, and eventually came to the following screen where I could enable the appropriate setting.  

OK, so now an option appears on the shell for users to set up their own accounts.  Click it, bingo, the user gets a screen to input information.  Click OK – failure.  There is an error message indicating there are SMTP issues.  I know from terminology that this is an email issue, so I pursue finding these setups.

I find the following page.  OK?  What are my settings?  Don’t know.  Call Bluehost, my provider.  Technical support gives my my SMTP host name (very obvious, I should have known this . . .)  I am now at a decision point:  do I need the additional information in the script?  I decide less testing is better, so I establish an email account for the Moodle, and provide the password.

Problem resolved.  System functioning.  This process of problem solving, for me, was a very logical/analytical process.  Very little, if any, creativity involved.  I had to trouble-shoot, test options, gather information, modify plans, involve others who had expertise .  .  . all with a tangible, well-defined goal – getting the system to work.

I am constantly amazed by the reality, that I am sitting in my kitchen, hooked up to nothing, and writing, which seamlessly travels through the air to parts unknown.  Today, I virtually spoke with my brother-in-law, the impetus to the sliced bread story and got the following link:

http://www.nysenate.gov/press-release/return-common-sense

I like how we are using 21st-century skills (collaboration, written communication, problem solving) and tools (IT) to make the process almost effortless. We are such consumers of information – the real challenge is to become better producers.

I think I need to follow up with this senator and see if I can conduct a recorded phone interview to get some more perspective on this interesting story which just oozes problem finding/problem solving in such a different type of context.

I’m sure there is more to come . . .

I am currently attending the American Educational Research Association in Denver, Colorado to present some of my research on reflexivity as well as to learn more about current and emerging trends in science and environmental education.

Perusing the program, I noticed a session on digital media, and to my surprise, saw that Howard Gardner of Harvard University, and the famed multiple intelligences construct was presenting.  Below are some of the ideas presented as well as some of my impressions from the session.  My impressions, interpretations and elaborations are noted in parethesis.

Gardner discussed the ethical implications of youth involvement with social media.  He felt there were five issues that were involved for youth (followed by my interpretation and elaboration on some of his ideas):

• Sense of identity (Who am I? What is my role? Am I a different person online?)
• Privacy (Do I recognize that anything I post has the potential to be viewed by anyone?)
• Ownership and authorship (Do I recognize that I am responsible for the things I say?)
• Trustworthiness and credibility (Am I perceived as an honest, trustworthy person)
• Participating in a community (Where am I a member?)

Participating in a community underlies and connects all of the other issues.  The way children think about their membership in a community is important.  Their behaviors have consequences, both positive and negative.  However, the way they think and the way they behave while using social media varies greatly.  Gardner suggested three ways of thinking:

• Consequential thinking (what happens if I  . . . this is where most high school students are)
• Moral thinking (I belong to a “community.” If I violate the rules of my community, I am likely to get into trouble)
• Ethical thinking (What does it mean to be a member or a citizen? What are my rights and my responsibilities in this society?)

 So, as educators where do we go?  One of Gardner’s most significant points is that teens don’t have digital ethical role models.  How true!  They are often so much more inculcated into the digital society than adult leaders.  So what is the role for the role models?  Gardner summarized with the 5 “E”s.  My ideas below are “need-“ I know that’s a bit preachy, but these are really more food-for-thought ideas of where the teaching profession can evolve.

• Excellence (Educators need to know what we are doing well in digital social environments.  We need to be members of the community of practice.)
• Engaged (We need to participate in social media, but then develop effective ways of using social media to promote learning, both cognitive, and social-behavioral)
• Ethical (We need to be responsible for our actions, but we also need to communicate how to be responsible.  i.e., students can have discourse, but they should “respectfully disagree,” not assault and bully)
• Empathy (Compassion at any level is important, it’s a societal responsibility – teach it and live it!)
• Equity (We need to be fair-mindedness)

from: kidsaccident.psy.uq.edu.au

As some might notice, I had a friend design a new header for my blog.  Mark maintains his consulting business at www.mokturtle.net.  He designed the header (which is similar to my homepage labanca.net), sent me some files, and then I had to figure out how to upload them and get them working on my WordPress blog.  I enjoyed the challenge of figuring out how to get it all to work. My problem solving involved several different techniques and cognitive mechanisms (from Wikipedia): 

• Brainstorming:
• suggesting a large number of solutions or ideas and combining and developing them until an optimum is found.
• Lateral thinking: approaching solutions indirectly and creatively.
• Means-ends analysis: choosing an action at each step to move closer to the goal.
• Morphological analysis: assessing the output and interactions of an entire system.
• Research: employing existing ideas or adapting existing solutions to similar problems.
• Trial-and-error: testing possible solutions until the right one is found.

Often, when some think of problem solving, especially from an educational standpoint it comes down to: 

• Hypothesis testing: assuming a possible explanation to the problem and trying to prove (or, in some contexts, disprove) the assumption.

I recently gave an assignment to my academic and honors biology classes.  I asked them to create stop-motion movies of the cell cycle, including the mitotic process.  Some students elected to add music and some even posted to YouTube.  Mitosis is often taught as a series of drawings and students need to “imagine” what happens from step to step.  In the case of the stop-motion video, the students must take “mini steps” to make the motion occur.  What I have found is that there really must be continuity to the images – they can’t just jump and thus I know if students really understand the process and the RELATIONSHIPS.  The critical thinking involved to make sure that the process makes sense allows students to truly construct their understanding. 

When we watched the videos in class, I was most impressed with the following example.  The students were a bit reluctant at first to share, because they thought it was “too short.”  I dismissed this because of the evidence of understanding.  They clearly got it and made my favorite product.  And the Oscar goes to . . .

 Note:  This article is a cross posting from the Connecticut Science Supervisor’s Association Newsletter.

from: thotwave.com

As practicing professionals who strive for continuous lifelong learning, we often recognize that adult scholarship takes different forms.  We appreciate that our learning is not just what we read in books, view on the Internet, or hear from an expert presenter.  More importantly, we recognize that we construct our knowledge through the social-cognitive interactions that occur with our colleagues.  Many of us choose to belong to organizations like CSSA to nurture these relationships with our peers, which, in turn, promote our own individual professional growth.  We talk with each other in person, by phone, by email, or by whatever means necessary to collaborate.  This is a Personal Learning Network (PLN).  As individuals, we count on others with similar goals, visions, and ideas to validate or even challenge our conceptions so we can grow individually while also building capacity with our constituents.

So how do we develop these Networks, nurture them, and keep them thriving?  Certainly our face-to-face interactions are critical, but today’s technology offers us more options and power to communicate with others.   Many web-based tools are specifically designed with interactive features. Sometimes dubbed Web 2.0 or the read/write web, these sites allow simple production and the ability for others to provide reactions or comments. Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and discussion forums allow individuals to produce original work, publish it online, and solicit feedback from others. Knowledge flow can occur in two directions. Individuals become not only consumers but producers of information.

Those wishing to integrate Web 2.0 interactive technology into their Network do not have to be savvy at programming. Rather, the web tools are menu driven, object-oriented, and often have interfaces that look like common word processing software packages. This is important because it allows educators to focus on content, concepts, and ideas, not the distracting minutia of web coding.  It’s not about the technology, but rather the people that the technology connects.

For example, I maintain a blog (problemfinding.labanca.net).  I started the blog as part of my dissertation work, but continue to use it both for my own reflection of educational issues and as an instructional tool with graduate students with whom I work. A blog, or weblog, is a personal chronological online journal record of thoughts, beliefs, and activities that has interactive commenting features for both the writer and readers.  I personally enjoy writing, but I find that the asynchronous responses I get from other thoughtful professionals help me professionally develop more. 

Why share this?  Apart from some shameless self-promotion of my own work, I find that the interaction that takes place between my readers and me, help to challenge my own thinking.  What’s new is that these challenges and discoveries, by their own nature, caused a feedback loop of new ideas and thought that each lead to some new thought.  However, when I started reading the blog postings of other educators, and began posting responses to their writing, I began to understand the importance of the Network.  The Network consists of people I personally know, and others that are just cyberspace compatriots. My face-to-face and digital PLN partners help me do my job better, because they expand my mind, challenge my thoughts, and provide me with perspectives that I may have never considered. 

Will you become a part of and help me to continue to develop my PLN?  I will cross-post this article on my blog: http://problemfinding.labanca.net.  Please come for a visit, and more importantly, leave a comment.  That’s how the Network builds its capacity!  Collectively we can continue to develop and improve the educational enterprise by applying novel, collaborative, and innovative strategies to our own learning.

As a department chair, I am fortunate to have the opportunity (right now . . .) to be conducting a clinical observation of my physics teacher.  She started her class with a YouTube music video, which I must say is fantastic.  It really resonates with me on many levels.  I though it important to share it here.

Here are the lyrics from the website:

[deGrasse Tyson]
We are all connected;
To each other, biologically
To the earth, chemically
To the rest of the universe atomically[Feynman]
I think nature’s imagination
Is so much greater than man’s
She’s never going to let us relax

[Sagan]
We live in an in-between universe
Where things change all right
But according to patterns, rules,
Or as we call them, laws of nature

[Nye]
I’m this guy standing on a planet
Really I’m just a speck
Compared with a star, the planet is just another speck
To think about all of this
To think about the vast emptiness of space
There’s billions and billions of stars
Billions and billions of specks

[Sagan]
The beauty of a living thing is not the atoms that go into it
But the way those atoms are put together
The cosmos is also within us
We’re made of star stuff
We are a way for the cosmos to know itself

Across the sea of space
The stars are other suns
We have traveled this way before
And there is much to be learned

I find it elevating and exhilarating
To discover that we live in a universe
Which permits the evolution of molecular machines
As intricate and subtle as we

[deGrasse Tyson]
I know that the molecules in my body are traceable
To phenomena in the cosmos
That makes me want to grab people in the street
And say, have you heard this??

(Richard Feynman on hand drums and chanting)

[Feynman]
There’s this tremendous mess
Of waves all over in space
Which is the light bouncing around the room
And going from one thing to the other

And it’s all really there
But you gotta stop and think about it
About the complexity to really get the pleasure
And it’s all really there
The inconceivable nature of nature

Working with my neophyte teachers, we had an interesting discussion regarding the role of technology in the science classroom.  I strongly subscribe to the idea that teachers should not waste time designing and coding webpages. The fact of the matter is that science teachers have expertise in scientific concepts, not in web design.   Most of the teacher-designed webpages are unimpressive, aesthetically ugly, and lacking the power to promote increased student learning.

That’s where Web 2.0 is so critical. Teacher web presence is incredibly important, but teachers need to focus on CONTENT, not FORM.  So interactive sites like blogs and wikis provide opportunities for bidirectional knowledge flow.  Both the teacher and the students can be contributors to knowledge.  Blogs and wikis (and other Web 2.0 tools – podcasts, chats, Moodle, Google Docs) allow for the social construction of knowledge where all constituents can become producers.  Even better, these tools are preconstruted, have great skins, and look so professional.  Teachers don’t have to waste time with the form, but spend the time where they should – high quality content.  The interactivity also allows ease for contribution from students.  So more and more it becomes about science ideas instead of web page dynamics.

The Machine is Us/ing Us is a strong reminder of these ideas.