Lit Reviews Are Like Talk Shows

We’ve had more than a few confused and frustrated students have a difficult time with the process of putting together their Lit Review and all of the re-editing requests that come with the process. The following is my response to one student’s frustration:

I appreciate your frustration and confusion at the requested changes. One thing that is “consistent” in academic programs and Action Research in particular, is that they tend to evolve. It can be a frustrating thing, but the overall thrust is to make the program the best it can possibly be, and thus the changes that happen along the way are part of that. In this way AR is very much like the technology we use, what worked 12 months ago might not work so well 12 months later.

So the core of what we are looking for hasn’t change but some of the sign posts might have. We’ve been working very closely with together as a team and these are the things that we are looking for:

1. The Lit Review check list: If you go to Dr. Bedard’s example website (see: http://web.me.com/suebedard/AR/Literature_Review.html), you’ll see the check-list. This is very important info.
2. Does it make sense: Just getting a fresh pair of eyes to read the document has proven to be very important. So we’re looking for missing words, missing sentences, things that might have made sense in your head but don’t quite work in print.
3. APA: In-line references and the resource list
4. Synthesis of Resources: The biggest enemy to a good lit review is when one doesn’t fully understand or synthesize the resources and tries to write a lit review. What results is more like an annotated bib where the lit review writer bounces from author name to quote, author name to quote, author name to quote, etc. What we’re looking for is for the author to have a grasp of the lit., so that the writer can act like a talk show host, bring in two or three sources, ask them questions about their work, where their work overlaps, where they disagree with each other and where there are gaps. The talk-show host (lit review writer) never shares his/her opinion, but lets the guests (sources) do all the talking. When they’ve shared their piece, the host brings on a few more guests until the spectrum of the subject has been covered. The host guides the conversation and blends all of the voices, whether they agree or disagree with each other and never shares his opinion or makes his voice louder than theirs. Of course, being a good host, he began the session with a brief intro, no opinion, just the main question at hand. Then when all the guests have spoken, he concludes with a brief summary, again, no opinion on the part of the host. That’s what we’re looking for

Please take advantage of Dr. Bedard’s website, http://web.me.com/suebedard/AR/Literature_Review.html.

Lit Reviews are too complicated to keep it all in your head and being one of the more “academic” things that we do, there’s always a need for re-editing. It’s just the nature of the process.

We want you to be successful and for your work to stand up to the scrutiny of any program in the nation. So we’re going to look at student work that is intended to represent a year’s worth of work with a fine-tooth comb. It’s a lot of work for all of us, but in the end it makes for much better results and speaks to those who under-estimate the value of online education. Hang in there, remember Rule #6, roll with the changes and you’ll be so happy with your work in the end. It’s not that your work is not good enough, we just want it to sing with all the passion that you’ve already invested in it. Hope that this helps. jbb

Joe Bustillos | Course Director
Media Asset Creation – EMDTMS | Full Sail University

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Moodle is NOT a Verb, or is it?

This was my last week teaching Full Sail/emdtms’ LMO (Learning Management Systems) course and I couldn’t end our time together without a little conversation about Moodle. Enjoy.

Moodle is not a verb, or is it?

I’ve been hearing about Moodle at ed/tech conferences for longer than I can remember. In the early years it seemed to be an “under the radar” project bringing together the open source tech community and educators. More recently, with district administrators making decisions to roll-out Moodle, the concept seems to have shifted from a roll-your-own thing to something imposed upon teachers with little training, assistance or attempts to generate buy-in. In either case the platform has appeared to be largely text-driven and visually challenging. Wikipedia has an excellent overview of Moodle at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moodle.

The following video is intended to help those unfamiliar with Moodle’s module-mentality (and also for big fans of Legos!):

This next video is a good overview of the Moodle interface that includes a few commons tasks teachers might do:

For those curious for more in-depth training I located a course available through Lynda.com at
http://www.lynda.com/home/DisplayCourseN.aspx?lpk2=47547

Other tutorials are available at: http://moodle-tutorials.blogspot.com/search/label/Moodle%20Video%20Tutorials and
http://docs.moodle.org/en/Teacher_documentation.

One of the most important thing to remember about learning platforms, whether we have a say in their roll-out or not, is that it’s an opportunity to enlarge your reach with your students and that it’s your input that changes these things from being just tools to becoming learning opportunities.

Please review these videos and info and come to our Wimba session ready to talk about Moodle.

Sources:

* moodle logo. http://docs.moodle.org/en/License retrieved on 12/13/2009

* youtube video/image: Moodle explained with LEGO short version posted by moodlefan. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XPZl6LLvik retrieved on 12/13/2009

* Youtube video: What’s Moodle? posted by jenericjarvis. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jY9KcHwIWI&feature=related retrieved on 12/13/2009

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Digication Revisited

As I continued to explore online teaching/learning platforms for my LMS course (Learning Management Systems), I revisited Digication, a platform that I used my last year teaching middle school technology and media classes. The following are my notes that I passed along to my students to study before our weekly online session. The last portion are three examples of the Udutu teaching module that we’ve been studying.

Digication Revisited

In between large-scale enterprise level learning management systems imposed upon educators and roll-your-own systems like moodle are many smaller online options such as Digication (http://digication.com/). I heard about Digication from an interview of one of the founders, Jeffrey Yan, on Leo Laporte’s "Inside the Net" podcast. Digication’s founders recognized the need for something more than just another place to post content, something that would cater to educators’ special needs that aren’t being addressed by overly-generalized web-portals, and at the same time be as simple to manage as an email account. Following is a Behind-the-Scenes tour of Digication and the "Inside the Net" interview of Digication founder, Jeffrey Yan (NOTE: the interview is a bit long…). Please review these items before our wimba session.

Inside the Net 35: Digication (http://www.twit.tv/itn35)

One of the things that attracted me to Digication was that it had all of the features of a full CMS but didn’t require that I code it myself or try to get the assistance/permission from my district IT. Only limitation for the free account was that there couldn’t be more than 1,000 users at my school. I’ve written about my experiences with Digication a few times on my blog:
* Digication Gets My Vote
* Classroom Website on Digication

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The Role of Technology in Education

Over the past few weeks I’ve been working with my Full Sail EMDT students teaching and learning more about online learning management systems. I’ve been using online tools for teaching and learning for over nine years and tech in my classrooms for over 15-years, so I generally don’t think twice about the role of tech in education. But what got me thinking was the depth and complexity of the tools we’ve been studying and the largely unrewarded efforts it will take for our students to get some of these systems rolling. It can be such an uphill battle just to get meaningful online access in the classroom. So I started thinking that some very basic questions needed to be considered in order for my students to be fully prepared to translate what we’re studying into something that they can use in the classroom. The following thoughts and videos were posted for my students to read before our weekly online meeting.

The Role of Technology in Education

As you work through this course’s reading assignments and create your Udutu project you might notice that you might be the only one among your peers working at such a high level of expectation as far as the integration and useage of technology in the day-to-day functioning of a classroom. Why is that? The normal excuse on the part of educators tends to be the lack of time and on the part of administration the lack of funds. And even when technology is brought into the classroom the purchasing process tends to be such a top-down "what do we need now" event, lacking any long-term vision or implementation plan that it’s no suprise that thirty-years after the arrival of the first small computers into the classroom, we’re still having this discussion.

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Why Should We Let You Into Our Doctorate Club?

Last time I talked to Dr. Sparks (“Sparky”) we were enjoying a late night dinner at the Old Ebbitt Grill following a week roaming the streets of DC and the halls of power with my Pepperdine cadremates. He wasn’t completely satisfied with my consultancy project and charged me with the assignment to get a better grasp on what I really wanted to do with my doctorate degree. Of course he had no idea that seven days later I would get kicked out of the program for failing to get a B or better grade in a different class (see Sound of Doors Closing). So the question shifted from what I wanted to get out of getting a doctorate with Pepperdine to what justification do I have for taking up this costly battle again at some other institution. What are my intentions?

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Relevant Media vs. Cool Stuff – Online Learners Pick the Former

One of my students recently wrote about his experiences as an online curriculum development person who works for an online university that has a division that partners with traditional higher-ed institutions to help them bring graduate programs online. He noted that the upper management was all crazy about stuffing as much media into every course, then joked that they were much less energetic about paying for the media or what it takes to create it. That’s kind’a typical. Then he made the following comment about student usage of this media content:

Careful analysis of click-tracking data is showing that only around 50% of the students are actually watching the media elements integrated into the courses. We are trying to understand the reasons why students aren’t watching the media. Sometimes, it is clear that they are just not seeing the value in the media pieces. And admittedly, not all the media is uniformly excellent. However, we are also finding that our online students are incredibly task-focused. They do exactly what they need to do to complete the assignments and nothing more. As an online student myself, I guess I understand that one! (d. lungren)

My words of wisdom to this student:
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