Pinpricks through the bubble

This week we started from the assumption that digital tools and information can help us engage in meaningful inquiry and action, such as described by John Paul Gee and Henry Jenkins. You can watch this video of Henry Jenkins discussing his own thoughts and see my previous post, (or even better, Gee’s book, The Anti-Education Era) for more details about Gee's ideas. We also were informed that the Internet, while providing us potential access to a huge variety of information, is actually being mediated and filtered by algorithms that, coupled with our affinity for information that confirms our world view (see Gee, 2013 for more on this “myside bias”), is creating personalized information bubbles, our own “web of one” as described by Eli Pariser (in this TED talk). We were asked to examine and expand our digital information diet related to our profession, and reflect on how the changes influenced our perspectives. I faced three major challenges in this:

1. identifying what kind of information challenges my perspectives,

2. identifying sources that provide this information,

3. noticing any meaningful impact within a few days.

Figuring out what kind of information challenges my professional assumptions was my first task. In political terms, it would be easy, and I can quickly identify some regular posters in my Facebook and Twitter networks who challenge my perspectives. However, in professional terms it is a bit harder to sort out what my personal biases are since I tend to be surrounded by a lot of practitioners who share the same perspectives. Upon reflection I did come up with a short list of perspectives I don’t agree with; that the grammar-translation method of language education is good, that “no child left behind” policies improve educational outcomes and accountability, and just generally the policies of the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT).

The next challenge was finding sources of information that I could add to my information feed. My regular digital information diet related to my professional life tends to be from mail lists and groups, individual mail, and, in the last few months, Facebook. So, I stepped outside the assignment a bit and choose Facebook as I use that more consistently than Twitter and I don’t use an RSS feed. MEXT has an offical page in Japanese, which I added to my feed. However, my reading in Japanese is limited. I did also look at some of their reports in English, such as this one on directions in English education. For No Child Left Behind, I found this page, which, while displaying a government logo, seems to actually be individuals dedicated to discussing these issues. I doubted it would challenge my perspectives, but did connect to it because it has the potential to inform them. I found a number of pages clearly in opposition to NCLB, but in terms of official government information I was left looking at reports on a web page. For grammar-translation method, I found an interest page, but no active support page.

Sadly, I don’t feel like the third challenge has really been met. The document on the future of English education has led me to think a bit less negatively about all MEXT directives and think they might actually be heading in a good direction with it. I have been inspired to try to get more information about it moving forward. Nothing has popped up in Facebook yet related to NCLB, but I am looking forward to getting more informed about how those policies actually are shaping education in the USA.

Exploring reading and assistive technology.

This week I was given an assignment to explore a special learning need. I have found this assignment somewhat frustrating on two fronts.

First of all, I was expected to research a need that I feel has relevance to my teaching context. However, in my situation I do not encounter students with identified special needs. My impression is that this is largely because these students are either identified but streamed away from university or not identified and therefore don’t receive support. In the latter case it is probably common that they underachieve at earlier stages of education and subsequently don’t try to attend university. However, given the severe demographic pressures on enrollment at Japanese universities, I do think that some students with learning disorders are being admitted. However, they seem to be unidentified, and not provided with any specific institutional support. I did think that my research could possibly help me be at least aware of who those learners might be, and since I teach a lot of reading I decided to focus on reading disorders.

Secondly, an element of this assignment is to experiment with assistive technology to help with this special need. While I was able to identify through web searching quite a number of possibilities, and was already familiar with some text-to-speech applications as well as audio-books, getting hands on experience with some of the more promising technologies was not possible because they are commercial products which I don’t have the funds to purchase.

With an understanding of those frustrations, please have a look at this short paper for more information on this topic.

Below you can also see a short presentation of what happened when I was looking for technology to experiment with.

The Anti-Education Era (Part 1) response

I have been told I am pretty intelligent, I have had a fair bit of formal education, and I know I have gathered some wisdom from experiences over the years. However, I am also stupid. I have made, and continue to make, stupid decisions in my life. Decisions related to every-day mundane things, to relationships, in the workplace, even that decision to finally use the right lane to zoom past that car that had been slowing me and irritating me. I instantly knew that last one was stupid because I had been warned state troopers often waited in that area for speeders and as I went by one popped out and pulled me over. Maybe you are shaking your head in agreement, or saying, “So what, we’re all stupid.” Well, in a sense, that is what this James Paul Gee book I am reading, The Anti-Education Era, is all about. He discusses how and why humans are often stupid when it comes to dealing with complex issues. In this short reaction paper for my CEP 812 class I discuss some of what he has to say in the first part of his book. Next time around we’ll look at how he thinks we can be smarter, so don’t let it get you too down!

Complex ER Problem (for CEP 812)

I have a problem in my EFL Reading courses at a university in Japan in getting my students to self-select level-appropriate reading material for extensive reading (ER). What I have done to date is give them a general introduction to the concepts in ER, general guidance as to where I think they should start to find the right level of reading materials (including both bringing materials into the classroom and taking them to the library to explore materials), and then monitoring their choices and doing individual consultations until they get zeroed in. However, since the time for checking with them is really limited, this can take several weeks to get all students on track. Also, they may sort out that Level 1 for a specific publisher's graded reader series suits them, but then another publisher's level 1 may be quite a bit more difficult. What I have found, the Extensive Reading Foundation's Online Placement Test, looks to improve and shorten the process of getting my students aware of their own levels and how their individual level corresponds to several graded reader series. Have a look at this screencast for some more information about it. (If video does not display properly, follow this link.)

Solving Complex Problems (for CEP 812)

I had identified a problem in one of my courses and found a solution, Haiku Deck, that seemed to work for it. I started writing it up and preparing my screencast and then I noticed a major problem. I had thought that the iPad app would be fully functionally with iPhone, which would have helped solve the problem. However, I noticed the iPhone functionality is limited, so I needed to change gears and examine another problem.

I do have a complex problem with quite a number of factors. While it isn’t directly teaching, it is intricately involved with my professional practice. In this screencast I describe the problem and the tool, Zoho, which I hope will help solve it.

CEP 811 Final Reflection

This course has helped me to consider more carefully how and why to integrate technology into my educational practice.  What stands out most for me is the work we did with respect to Universal Design for Learning (UDL).  Thinking about educational technology as something which can help open up more learning opportunities for all students was an interesting element and some of what I encountered there seems directly applicable to second language learning.  Making sure that using technology actually adds something useful that wouldn’t be possible without it also is an important concept I took away from this course.  The practice evaluating technological resources, including my own and those developed by my classmates, using the UDL and TPACK principles helped give me skills to continue to do this when finding or creating resources for my own classes.

Coming into this course I was pretty open to anything that might help me to improve my courses.  The fact that I have now got a webpage built that I can use for my courses in the new school year alone would be satisfying.  However, I have also managed to create a WebQuest which I expect will greatly enhance a major unit and help students achieve a couple of significant goals in one of my courses.  In addition, I have developed a STAIR which will aid in my reading courses.  Through developing this resource I have also been given a couple of opportunities to present about it to other teachers.  So I would say that I have not only met but significantly exceeded my goals for this course.

Creating things that expand on and support what is possible in direct, classroom-based instruction is what I would like to be able to do more of and more skillfully in the future.  My immediate plans to this end are to continue to improve and expand on the resources I have described above and to take CEP 812.  I hope that these steps will then lead to further development I have not yet considered.

Thanks to my instructor and classmates who made it all work!

F2F Instructional Strategies

I had an interesting experience today while exploring F2F resources for my course.  One of the technologies I was looking at was VoiceThread.  This is an interesting resource that allows one to make slide shows and collaborate on a conversation around these shows.  People can comment on / participate in these in a number of ways including text, voice, and video and then share them around the world.  It seems like a great resource for allowing EFL learners to connect and practice with learners around the world.  When I linked to the the ESL / EFL section here, I immediately found one example produced by someone I know from being officers in the same professional organization in Japan.  Then, as I explored further, I found one that the creator credited the idea for to someone by the same name as someone I used to work in the same school, live in the same building, and sometimes go to the same pub with.  I followed the link to her original material and then her blog and found it was in fact her, which provided me with an opportunity to reconnect with her.  Interesting how small the world can be!