Global Villages

In one of our readings for our CI501 class, we read about global villages. The concept of a global village is a reference to a world-wide community of people who have come together through the capabilities of technology. The tone of the article we read was fairly negative about global villages, giving examples of it destroying cultures. However, I disagree with this. I think global villages are a good thing in that they allow people from all over the world to come together and learn about and from each other. Sure there can be miscommunications and other problems, but you can have those same sorts of issues in face-to-face groups as well. Someday, if translation capabilities improve, people from the United States could more easily converse with people from other countries. We should welcome and embrace these new capabilities.

Global villages affect K-12 classrooms in various ways. Global villages can be organized around certain websites, message boards, or Wikis. Kids may be exposed to ideas these global villages believe in which may conflict with cultural beliefs they have. Global villages can also be of great help in some ways. If there is a community of experts on a certain subject matter, allowing kids to converse with these experts can lead to more in-depth research into the subject. Participating in a global village requires good, clear communication and exposing kids to this can be a good thing.

My job as a software engineer has forced me to interact with people all over the world. I have worked with labs in Mexico, India, China, and other parts of the world. At times this has been challenging due to the time zone differences, cultural differences, and maybe more importantly language differences. However, these communications have provided me with new experiences and new ideas that I wouldn’t have had otherwise. Exposing our K-12 students to individuals across the United States and world will give them a chance to grow as well.

Moral Philosophy and Teacher's Role

Our class recently read chapter 1.2 in a book by Louis Pojman. The chapter was titled “What is Moral Philosophy?”. This chapter lists five purposes for morality:

1. To keep society from falling apart.
2. To ameliorate human suffering.
3. To promote human flourishing.
4. To resolve conflicts of interest in just and orderly ways.
5. To assign praise and blame, reward, and punishment, and guilt. (Pojman, 1995)

I agree with these to some extent, but think Pojman’s description of the problems without morality are a bit extreme. I do think society would fall apart without some sense of morality. Morals contribute to the making of laws, which provide a framework upon which individuals can live their lives. I think today there is a wide range in the amounts of morality that people have. Some people are very moral and some are not. I think it will always be that way. It’s sort of like the checks and balances system we have in government. Moral people are needed to balance the immoral.

When applied to education, what is the teacher’s role? Youth learn and grow a great deal from parents/role models. Ideally, parents, religion, and society as a whole, would contribute to instilling the morals and values in youth. Unfortunately, this does not seem to be good enough these days. There are too many kids these days that grow up in households lacking in model moral behavior. Teachers need to help reinforce and instill some common moral values. If we didn’t have some expectations for student behavior, instruction would be disrupted and ineffective. I think it’s especially important to put an emphasis on instilling these moral values in the earlier grades. As kids start getting to the middle school ages, they start becoming more set in their moral values.

Reference:

Pojman, L (1995). What is Moral Philosophy?, Technology and values (pp. 11-23).

Analysis of traditional ID models

There are several elements that are common in traditional ID models. These are that the process involves analyzing, designing, developing, formative and summative evaluation, and sometimes dissemination. No one traditional ID model seems complete enough to work for all kinds of instruction. Below are listed five of the most popular traditional ID models and some examples of what sorts of instruction the models would work best with.

The Dick and Carey Model would be appropriate to use in designing daily lessons by classroom teachers. Classroom teachers generally have some subject matter they need to cover and need to design a way to teach it. Teachers also need a way to measure results. The Dick and Carey model is focused on the knowledge that needs to be taught and has conditions for determining the success of the instruction.

The Big 8 model would be appropriate for use in designing lessons for a class like art. In the Big 8 model, there are steps to select and produce media for use in the lesson. That media might be examples of the steps of how to create some artwork. It seems the Big 8 model, in general, would work well with classes where you needed to create something (photography, yearbook, newspaper, science classes, etc).

The ASSURE model would be appropriate to design an online graduate curriculum in life sciences. Graduate programs require more involvement from students and a high-level syllabus created up front to describe the schedule for a semester. The ASSURE model requires that the objectives be stated prior to media/materials being selected. The ASSURE model also asks for learner participation.

The Complete Instructional Design Plan would be appropriate to use with designing curriculum across multiple grades. There is pretesting, learner characteristics, and subject content task analysis which would be helpful up front in designing this curriculum. The support services and instructional resources would be necessary to make the curriculum more effective.

The ADDIE model would be appropriate to use when planning to incorporate some new technology into a school’s curriculum. The ADDIE model requires a needs analysis which would be important before buying some new technology. The implementation phase involves teacher training which would be crucial to the effectiveness of the new technology.

Instructional Technology Definition

In the CI501 class that I'm currently taking, we’ve established that the term technology refers to the processes and products used to make tasks simpler. Media are the carriers of messages and may come in many different forms. The next idea to consider is what does Instructional Technology mean?

Instructional technology is defined on Wikipedia as "the theory and practice of design, development, utilization, management, and evaluation of processes and resources for learning.” I think this definition is a good one. Instructional technology is a specific form of technology that’s geared towards education and instruction. The goal of instructional technology is to aid learners by making education more efficient and effective. Instructional technology is based on principles and theories of education. Instructional technology includes the actual process and design of materials as well as the actual hardware and resources that are used by learners.

Visual Literacy versus Media Literacy

Visual and media literacy are both concepts that are becoming more and more important these days. The amount of information available and the different forms in which that information is conveyed to an individual today is constantly increasing. This blog posting attempts to distinguish between visual and media literacy.

Visual literacy refers to the ability to analyze and understand images. There is a nice description of this on Wikipedia. Media literacy also deals with the ability to analyze information, but it is a more encompassing term since it applies to analyzing and interpreting any message regardless of the form of media.

One key difference between media literacy and visual literacy is that media literacy also applies to the creation of the messages. The term visual literacy does not apply to one’s ability to create an image.

To highlight these similarities and this key difference, I’ve provided an example. If I were to create a picture, visual literacy would apply to others ability to analyze and interpret the meaning in the picture. Media literacy would also deal with the interpretation of the meaning in the picture, but would also be applicable to my ability to create the picture.

Theories of IT and Education

There are four main theories that support the discipline of instructional technology (IT). These theories are systems theory, communication theory, behaviorism, and constructivism. There are four main theories of education. These theories are perennialism, essentialism, progressivism, and reconstructionism. As you review the IT theories you can see spots they fit well with the theories of education.

Systems theory seems to fit well with essentialism. Systems theory emphasizes logical problem solving. Essentialism curriculum teaches core subjects with a goal to use that knowledge to solve problems.

Behaviorism also seems to fit best with essentialism. Behaviorism is focused with using controlled environments and measuring end results. Essentialism stresses discipline and that teachers are held accountable for how their students perform.

Communication theory seems to fit best with progressivism. Communication theory is focused on the process of how a message is communicated. Progressivism emphasizes that a teacher is a reference person to guide in learning. Teachers would use common experiences with their students to communicate knowledge to them.

Constructivism also seems to fit best with progressivism. Constructivism, like progressivism, would encourage active children who are allowed to work together to problem solve. In progressivism, children should be allowed to develop naturally.

Introduction

Howdy! Brent Nelson checking in from Oskaloosa, Iowa. I thought it would be helpful up front to give you all a little background on me.

I'm a computer programmer from IBM who has spent the last few years working from home. After working on-site for about seven years my family moved back to home (Iowa) so that our kids could spend more time with their grandparents. Working full-time from home has been challenging at times, but has given me a lot of wonderful flexibility in work hours which has allowed me to help at the schools in town.

I am married with three kids. My wife, Heather, is a 9th grade English teacher in town who also manages the high school yearbook/newspaper. My children are Spencer (9), Kirby (6), and Elliot (3).

My hobbies include golf, watching sports-themed movies, camping, spending time with my family, cheering on the Kansas City Royals, and following Iowa State basketball and football.

Anyways, enough about me... you might ask, why am I blogging here today? To be honest, I'm here because I was just assigned this project. Ten years ago I completed an undergraduate Bachelors of Science degree in Computer Science. In the last few years I've spent an increasing amount of time helping out at the schools at town. I've helped as the elementary PTO secretary, assisting in a high school computer programming class, and serving on various committees. I've enjoyed this time so much that I thought it was time to blend my interests and learn more about how technology can aid education. I am currently pursuing a Masters of Education degree in Curriculum and Instructional Technology. I hope that obtaining this Masters degree will allow me to someday become a technology coordinator or obtain a position in developing educational software.

Well, that's it for now. Catch ya all later.