I created a video and uploaded it to Youtube.

Please let me know if you have any problems playing it. Any feedback is welcome. I was really inspired by the animation week. I tried to see how far I can bring Powerpoint.

Native Language program at Santa Fe Indian School

thanks 

Brian

Distance education for Native languages on our SFIS campus.

I started out thinking about how to increase our social presence with out native language speaking teachers on our campus. Over the last two months when I first posted the problem and started to think about solutions to the problem. The current proposal for the plan is to have a video conferencing system. I have seen experts use the system like they where in the room but I these were experts in the field of technology. With our non-tech teachers, I personally do not think a video conferencing system can produce the results as intended for our students.

We are going into a demoing phase on Wednesday. This Wednesday I am going to record  2 cameras plus screen capture shoot of the live video teaching. I will post the footage if people want to check it out.

What I am anticipating will happen is that the students will never fully connect with the teacher if the teacher is not present in the room. These students wont be engages to complete the work or homework. We will still need a adult present in the room for attendance and monitoring.

Challenges for teachers. Limited bandwith on the reservation. Limited technology training.

2 year development plan.

Year one,

Have a talking head with some site visits work with a license teacher to develop curriculum. This teacher would be in the class every period even if the content expert was not able to make it.

Year two.

(Leverage your students) In this year it would be great to use graduating students who are tech savvy and going off to college. (high bandwidth, flexible schedule) Over the next year since they have already been introduced to the content can work with the content expert in helping to bridge the gap between content non-technical experts and students. A meaningful dialogue can be practiced throughout the week with online discussions and video conferencing about what the teacher was talking about. The school can have compensation for the graduate helpers. These graduates can also develop custom media for the content expert to use. I personally have been excited about animations and would like to see the class use animations with narrations to teach language.

I like the idea of tying teaching language with telling the story. I love the RSA blogs.

My presentation will be in the form of a prezi to look like animation software. Simple light brown wth darker brown graphics. I will then narrate the exported captured video with talking audio and sound effects.

The technology I will emphasize is animation to teach language.

I will also talk about the pro and cons of using video podcast.

If all goes well my model can serve as a platform to produce and develop the language programs on our campus. We will create a small circle of language learners who not only get to participate but learn from the content experts how to teach. Many years down the road we will have a whole new generation that can take over teaching the language with the tools necessary to reach the younger digital age students.

When Kevin started out talking adaptive testing I was thinking this was a good thing. A computer can provide questions faster and more effectively than a teacher could. When you get a question wrong then the computer would be able to ask you another question that is easier so you do not lose the motivation to take a test. I want to go off on a tangent on the motivation for learning. It is pretty easy for students who are getting all of the questions on the test wrong to loose the motivation for even taking a test in the first place. When a computer can change the test mid way to help find out why you are getting the wrong answer then the students experience is far better. Not all of the students have to take the same test in order for you to have data about how well they know the information. This relates to the tutor relationship. A tutor has the ability to help the student at any time figure out the problem. With a real life tutor he or she can help keep the student motivated with conversation and peer support. Computers have a huge challenge when it comes to motivating the student to keep with the lesson. It is hard for me to be here infront of the computer week after week trying to keep myself motivated with the topics. The idea that my peers and teacher takes the time to read and comment on my work. It also helps to have a degree at the end to show that I have taken and completed all of these classes also helps.

We use complicated learning programs to help our student with reading and math. These programs can follow and track the student for the whole time that the student is using the program. If a student get a problem wrong, then the program and introduce different problems to explain the concept.  It seems like this best works when you have a teacher in the room encouraging you to spend the time as well as using the program for an evaluation tool to monitor your progress in the subject. With these programs we have the potential for tracking the students progress over many years. Even the whole time of their k-12 education. Since there is no one standard, we do not ever get beyond using any of these tools as an assist in one class one time. A tutor can have longer relationship. Even our tutors at my school can provide one on one help for all of the students years that they are there. I think these relationships and really help students. The intelegint programs need to get to know how you learn over a longer period of time. If we could track this information through all of the grades we can get a huge sense of the students progress. There are still a lot of teachers and schools who are not grading properly. Especially in NM we see a lot of students who seem to have high GPA going into college not preforming at the level expected when they are there.

Click to access woolf_intelligent_systems_part1_iFest2011.pdf

When I was browsing the web I can across a PDF of a presentation about intelligent tutoring used by the military. Slide 26 talks about considerations made by the tutor. I was interested in the idea that the computer should evaluate what kind of learner you where. If I am a passive learner or active.  Is my motivation high or low. Also on the same slide how the computer is going to interact with you. Is it going to be intrusive or non intrusive. I think this goes beyond just giving you hints how to answer certain problems, it can customize how it even delivers the information to begin with. The rest of the presentation is also pretty cool to check out.

Brian

I really like this weeks topic involving simulations. After looking into what was happening with games and education I was drawn to the games that closely matched an simulation. I saw how the military used games/simulations to help soldiers train for the job. I wasn’t attracted to games that rewarded you for getting the correct answer on a math problem. In the article that Kevin posted about authentic learning, I really liked the idea of learning by doing. Other articles described how you could use simulators to interact with a Chemistry lab and run experiments in a safe and low cost way. I personally see our science departments with gas and chemicals everywhere being a very high cost space where the money could have been better spent elsewhere. I like the approach with some charters schools without the budget are providing a real lab experiance. http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/curriculum/2014/01/resource_watch_virtual_labs_fo.html Stanford like others have created a virtual lab for online courses and other non-western countries. I am really excited to see the ability for a low cost easily scalable solution for a science lab.

Another idea I am really interested in was the ability to have 3d virtual environments for places in history like king tuts tomb. I heard about this story a while ago a plan to have the whole Tomb 3d recorded and printed. You would not be able to notice any difference from a normal standing viewing distance. As Kevin mentioned that simulations are a representation of real life, I was wondering how far could we bring a representation. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/article-2232766/Replica-Tutankhamuns-tomb-unveiled-Egypt.html

The last item I wanted to mention was second life. After reading Kevin’s article, I agreed with a lot that was mentioned about how second life has run it course. I did take the virtual worlds course last summer. The course itself focused about 90 percent on second life. I was great to know that second life was created and what the history was, but I did not find anything personally useful about using he environment with a couple of exceptions. I really like how 2d art can be brought into a 3d environment and be displayed like an art gallery. You could even buy images you like.  Another example I found usefull was one teacher who was teaching a foreign language class and had the students go to coffee shops and interact with native language speakers.  Other than that I found that that there was no way my IT department would let me run this on their servers. My fast Mac was heating up to the point I was worried that it would burn something up and the pornography would be a huge problem when introducing k-12 students to the environment.

Brian

Instructional games seem like a holy grail for teachers and institutions. How do we make learning fun? Games are fun, so if we just add leaning concepts and information to a game then it would be fun to. This is easier said than done. I personal like Kevin Spacey’s when he came home after a long day at the office and played violent games to relax. He was playing kill zone 3. I personally only play games with themes of things I cannot do in real life, so I tend not to like driving games, but love killing monsters. That being said my favorite game has been resident evil 4. Most big budget games come with a big price tag. This can be from anywhere from 20 to 50 million. Some of these games like call of duty and world of warcraft are hitting the 200 million pricetag. The numbers work when you have 100 million playing your game. .Call of duty http://www.lazygamer.net/xbox-360/sorry-how-many-people-have-played-call-of-duty/. With this many dollars you could create amazing educational games with a rich information that can be adaptive cooperative and fun. I do not think most educational gaming companies can compete with these high price games for fun. This doesn’t mean that gaming doesn’t help you learn or develop you skills. Duke University did a study regarding visual decision-making and games. They found out that intense player of games can recognize words and images faster on a screen than their non gamer counterparts. http://today.duke.edu/2013/06/vidvision Ted talks talks about how games can save the world. https://www.ted.com/talks/jane_mcgonigal_gaming_can_make_a_better_world Jane McGonial talks about how games can give a person the skill they need to be successful in life.

I have found friends of mine who have taken up guitar and learn how to play popular song from games. http://rocksmith.ubi.com/rocksmith/en-US/home/index.aspx This is an incredible way to have fun practice an instrument and learn. I am not saying games do not have any place in our educational system. The horizon reports state that game education is coming fast and we need to be prepared for it. Most of the teachers at Santa Fe Indian School do not play games themselves. It would be hard to teach with a game that you yourself do not have a history and hours of hours in developing your thumb/eye coordination. But for some I can see games being very useful tool in class. Maybe it is just a reward for getting your work done. My good friend who teaches in special education has a wii in the room and does just that. Playing a video game with a student builds a trust. You are the expert when it comes to the educational material. But they can be the expert at Mario cart. I think it builds a trust. Maybe this can help learning that happens in the classroom. 

I first tell people that I am not a mechanic. I was never taught how to fix a motorcycle or a car by a relative, but I have been blessed with growing up in an age where I can “Google it” Like Kevin’s story about the airstream trailer, I have a Italian motorcycle and mopeds from the 70’s and just about anything I own need attention once in a while. If you ever bought a Manuel like Haynes book for your vehicle so you can maintain and fix it, then you know just opening that book would make anyone cringe. I own all of those manuals and believe that people who enjoy reading all those specifications and making the important information available to easy to watch videos should just use them.

One important thing that youtube has done. It has monetized a system of sharing. If you can get enough people to watch your videos than you can make a living at it.  I know a 19 year old from pecos nm who is making a living at making minecraft tutorial videos. I was looking at Minecraft tutorials and finds some of them are getting two and half million views per video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEBl3eYDtpg Check it out and add to the count.

This webpage talks about how some people are making a lot of money making tutorial videos. I really hate the aggressive advertising on this site but it is appropriate because of the topic. http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-07-26/striking-it-rich-on-no-budget-instructional-videos On the other hand it brings up another point in the webpage. The idea of Moocs and others who are posting for free and having a alternative to all of the advertising that I see with a lot of instructional video.

I graduated college with a Studio for Interrelated Media degree back in 2002. At that time final cut one just came out and the system that I learned how to edit on was avid. This Avid machine, interfaced with beta tape decks. The learning curve was huge. It took a while to master that system. Even when finalcut was a huge improvement I was always drawn to programs like imovie and garage band.  Since I am teaching mostly students just starting out in video or audio projects I try to produce everything that I do in the same programs. I am always into workarounds to further expanded the functionality of the programs. Most of my job is not about how great I can make each and every video, it is about how many videos that I can produce in a short amount of time. Imovie and garage band can create amazing videos, if you just stay in there limitations. With these same programs anyone can create decent productions of a instructional video. Since youtube is always compresses the little imperfections tend to blend into the background.

One of my earlier blog post I talked about how I really liked ted talks. They seem to have a great way to produce a lot of videos quickly and easily. There quality is great. I still personally like the animations videos better I find I don’t mind seeing the talking head and there presence on stage if they are any good at it. Most of these instructional videos loose quality in production for speed and amount produced. I was trying to search around for a high production instructional video that I really enjoyed the production.

 I really enjoy the people out there just creating videos to help others. People who want to get a sense of community. I do like John Medina brain rules. It is almost has the feeling of animation. It keeps the visuals simple and easy to absorb. I really like the length of the videos short and to the point. I am constantly frustrated in having commercials with most of the instructional videos I have found. There is something fun about the pacing of the web that all of the commercials take away from. There is truly something about sharing what you know for free.

Brian

Thoughts

I received some feedback from Kevin stating that I need to focus on the choice of technologies and the rational behind these choices.

I also really liked this weeks topics about podcasting. I want to keep on the distance education but I want to look at what tools and design distance learning needs to keep high school students engaged with a teacher not being in the room. How our native language teachers can enhance their lessons. When even being a live video might not be enough.

I also want to consider most of out language teachers do not have extensive tech skills or tech support. How to do the best with what they have.

Brian

In our native population I see time again and again students who do not usually do a lot of work, try harder for the teacher who spends some extra time getting to know them on a personal level. Or if they choose to do an assignment it was because they like that teacher more than the other one. Many of our students do not find a video of a lecture engaging enough to keep them watching.

This all comes from a push to increase our blending/distance learning on our campus. We anticipate our students not being engaged, if the teacher is not in the room. I want to find ways to increase our teacher presence when the students are not in the classroom.

Goal: To create a best practice that increases social presence and online communication with instructional technologies.

Focus areas:

Survey of technology that can increase your social presence/community when the students are out of the classroom.

Strategies to help foster a community of students, even if they are out of the classroom.

How a presentation can be more than a power point template.

Comparison of audio and video podcasting. How to personalize both. 

This weeks discussions excite me the most. I love using media to learn and explore ideas and information. Media is incredibly flexible and can easily be personalized depending on my mood and feeling about the subject. I can have preloaded podcast and have then just playing in the background, when I am doing something at work or driving in the car. The subjects don’t need to be a main focus of mine, but information that I just want to know a little more about. I love ted talks. They have a great model of having a great presenter to give little burst of information that you can take to the next cocktail dinner you attend. They even going farther with recommending other talks and you can just hit play. This is something just to do in the background. I consider this the ability to passively inform us with information that might not be what we set out to learn about.

But there is another form of media that is out there. Like Kevin’s podcast I have to listen/watch them for an assignment. I usually sit down to listen and take notes about key information to reference latter. I actually tend to wonder if the audio podcast is the right tool. In a class I took last semester, the podcast was recorded as well as a hard text copy was available. The first couple of times I opened both. Listening to the recording while reading the text. I figured I would retain more having the information being absorbed multiple ways. Then I began to be bothered by the pacing of the speech. It felt to slow. I was getting bored not by the information covered but how it was being conveyed. If the same talk was just on in the background, I don’t think that I would have been bothered much by the pacing. I ended up just reading the notes and found it was fine for me. In the

I have learned what I called passive learning in the adult learner class with Kevin. I often created a playlist in youtube and just went though a bunch of videos as I was doing a task at work that didn’t need my fullest attention. The repetition and small bits of information help me retain the larger concepts. I think when a podcast is made that is a sit down and listen, then real effort should be brought into the production. I do like Kevin’s pacing and production value.  I could go either way if I would prefer to a visual presentation that I could follow while listening. I worry I might have missed something form the audio.

I only listen to npr on a regular basis. It is my Sunday morning relaxed routine. I have uploaded a lot to youtube. I have a drumming group and we tend to upload all of our performances. I have been really interested in the idea of live performance streamed online. Friends of mine ( high mayhem. http://highmayhem.org/) have been streaming all of there shows using multiple go pros and It has a much different feel than watching a recorded youtube video later. I have a lot of forgiveness in production value if it is a live event. For me it is the difference of being in a concert to hearing a produced studio recording. I sure we all heard live recordings from concerts done on an iphone and it is terrible. But if you were facetimed during a concerts it would be amazing. I always found this funny.

Brian