Well, that was fun! Julye, you were missed. Hope you are better soon!
To see my my TED again, click here. Will be back later.
March 27
Still working on this post. Right now, I'm preoccupied with getting my tax information ready for ultimate processing. However, in response to Denis's class summary e-mail, I figured to at least post this. Denis asked to post Ma & Pa Kettle. It is accessible from the link to my TED, but it's also below for your convenience.
In his summary e-mail, I like what Denis said about Ma & Pa. I inserted that clip more as a hee-haw wrap-up, but also to remind us of 1) how our students can make mistakes and how sensitive we need to be in debugging their thinking, and 2) to illustrate how one culture may represent math vs another. It's a good LO for both pre- and in-service math teachers (and others, as Denis has pointed out the possibility of incorrectly applying technology). As Denis said, Ma's & Pa's answers were wrong. True, but only if judged against what we consider to be right. Their logic was apparently ok. How do we get a student, maybe in grade two who makes some creative but consistent mistakes, and who maybe presents a legitimate understanding issue, to learn the "right way?" There is more than one idea/technique, I know. At a cultural level, I think Ma & Pa remind us again of the relativism card. Given that, and this is actually part of a title of a course offered by the faculty, is education all about cultural practice? Consider ICT, it certainly is a major part of our culture. Anyway, have to go. I'll be back again a later (again). See Mike N's post for a Ma & Pa equivalent video.
Ma & Pa Kettle Video
March 27 (cont'd)
Well, I'm back again, this time to finish. Just to let you know, it's Saturday night and I have my slide rule handy to help make sure my post is properly calculated! As I go back to culture and technology, I want to say one last thing about Ma & Pa Kettle. When I chose the video, I truly did not think about the technology angle the way Denis did, how Ma’s & Pa’s doing math is similar to the way educators today try to make the old paradigm of education fit into the reality of current social conditions. That analysis of Ma & Pa was very insightful. Thanks, Denis! By-the-way, doesn't Ma & Pa remind a bit about the Beverley Hillbillys?
The TED mash was capped nicely with the Jap Zero. If the film embodied the best of education practice of the time, what would a film representing the best of today's techniques look like? Could film be made about how to collaborate globally using a PLN? Of course! The same idea applies for the older technologies of scrapbooks (portfolio is today's buzz word) and slide rules. LOs would be easy to do, but the holograph? There I ask, is it necessary? I'm still wrestling with that one (not literally!). In a nutshell, I think the TEDs gave us a snapshot of the best of educational technology as our culture has evolved. I'll be reading some material over the next week and will post separate entries. I may say more about Thursday then. For now, I'll leave by citing a quote from one article. I think it speaks volumes about the cultural transformation taking place today. The paper is by renound sociologist Manuel Castels, Toward a Sociology of the Network Society:
We are just at the beginning of a most extraordinary cultural transformation that is reversing the course of thought that has prevailed among the world's dominant groups since the Enlightenment.Given that, can we expect much more from the field of education as it is now evolving?
Garry, I thought your TED was quite full of insights. I have looked at learning objects but paid no particular mind to them. My reasons were similar to the discussions we had in class. What can a learning object offer that the traditional teacher/student relationship cannot fulfill? But I have come to realize that teaching aids play important roles in education, and your TED on learning objects asserted that fact. Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteThis video (and others like it) can be useful in teaching. As I suggest in my post, the teacher could show it, then ask students to figure out the flaws. The LO s you had for us have many uses. In a 'regular', as opposed to online class, they could be resources to illustrate concepts in different ways (although some are not as good as others) or as review (as Roman suggested), something to look at if stuck' while at home, etc. One could even have kids make their own learning objects. Well - I'll be back to read the rest of your post when you finish it!
ReplyDeleteMike... I agree about using the Ma & Pa video in a pre-service class and then asking what is wrong. We had to do exercises like that when I was in pre-service just six yeas ago. LOs can be used for many purposes, as you say. I had the video, the animated cartoon, and a couple of games - one simple, one more involved - because I was interested in showing a contrast and asking the question, in the spirit of Kirschner, which technique is best? There's relativity to consider because the best LO for the job will depend on the student. I forgot to say something about Blackboard on Thursday. The courses the province has put onto Blackboard would be a lot better if they had supporting LOs embedded like the ones I showed Thursday. Blackboard's text mode with the odd diagram is worse than a current textbook.
ReplyDeleteI am following the idea of getting kids to create LOs as assignments. This year is the first I've had the chance to teach computer science. The assignments I give ask the students to create code that embeds the math they learn in PC-App 20S. Now I want to have my younger students do something with a Flash like program. Do you know of a Web2 offering that works like Flash? I haven't looked. I know about Jing for screen capture, about Audacity (have used it), and a few others. Regarding kids making LOs, what if LOs could be open projects, like Wikipedia. Kids could modify each other's work. I don't know if such a repository has yet been attempted. Maybe we can start one. Darren Kuropatwa showed some PSSD teachers, the week after BYTE, what he has done with assignment Wikis. Excellent stuff. He posts a problem and the kids collaborate on the solution. Each student adds his/her piece of the puzzle. I thought that was a great way to leverage the Wiki concept.
While it is not online, a flash like program I have heard much about (Although I have not used it) is called Swish. Are you familiar with it? Another possibility is Animoto (online).
ReplyDeleteGarry, the LO I have found most effective and highly engaging is gaming. If my years of experience have taught me anything it's that students wish to do two things: play and learn (it's in their nature). So why not combine the two. My students have adapted existing games to practice concepts in mathematics, created unit reviews using a PowerPoints Jeopardy Game template, and have acquired programming skills and expanded their thinking in other disciplines by designing 3D games (my TED talk). There are a host of free programs on the web that will allow you to create simple games (mostly flash) while reinforcing the skills you desire the students to possess. Epistemic games are particularly powerful LOs as they are readily accepted into today's pop culture and are built on sound educational principles that create interpretive experiences (forcing students to think in action and after action). Your TED talk on LOs needs to be taken to the next level. Would you consider doing a SAG conference for MANACE or some other professional group? The word has to be spread!!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Roman. Yes, I am definitely willing to spread the word and want to. I agree that the gaming element is big, and as you know, I've read a little Prensky. I have used Jeopardy in the past, but these days I’ve been getting my kids to make 10 question PowerPoint quizzes, then they do them using i-Clickers. The kids go to the web and do the research on a topic, which may be Jacques Cartier, for example. They create the questions and supply some multiple choice answers. Some of the questions are simplistic, but I let it go and use the quizzes as opportunities to develop more sophisticated questions and possible answers. Right now, only in social studies (grades 5-8, 10) and science (5-8). I actually wrote an Access interface and routine years ago that works with the underlying tables of questions. Just add new questions/answers and flip the switch.
ReplyDeleteWhen you use the word epistemic, you are referring to knowledge building games, yes? I would consider the LOs that I presented to be epistemic. How do you qualify a game to be epistemic? Would you disqualify some of the LOs that I presented?
I have an interesting comment to share which comes from one of my students in grade 7. I had actually asked my entire 5-8 class (only 11 kids) to evaluate the benefit of specific learning objects with respect to their learning. The one grade 7 student to whom I refer, who is the best in that group, looked at the Fire object from Brock U, Fraction Cafe from Wired Math, and the YourTeacher.com slope demo video (I didn't show Fraction Cafe in my TED). She said her preference would be the YourTeacher presentation. She said she'd learn from videos like that more than any other LO. Since this comment comes from a bright student who is very capable of constructing any kind of learning she wishes, I think it may have more than a personal style choice behind it. This student thirsts for knowledge and not too much play. This again goes to Kirschner and what he suggested that students he referenced prefer – clear explanations in guided instruction. There’s lots to talk about here. Your thoughts?
Hi Gary, I agree with your thoughts on Blackboard. If you would like to check out my favorite collection of learning objects go to explorelearning.com and enroll in class: Use the class code 2294375. Be sure to "Browse Gizmos."
ReplyDeleteBack to the Ma and Pa video. Place value is the problem. They are treating 10's as ones. I looked at both videos extensively. Both videos preform three operations in the same order: Division, multiplication and addition. The multiplication and division problems are exactly equivalent. The division problem only works with certain combination of numbers. Can you make a generalization about which combination of numbers will work? The combinations in the video that worked were 5*14=25 and 7*13=28. Some combinations that work are 8*15=48 and 5*16=35. It would be a fun TED to make our own video!
Paul, I couldn't enter your class. It would be neat to come up with a generalization of numbers that do follow the Ma & Pa logic. I didn't try to find more at the time, but did think about it. Following your examples, I tried some and found that 5*12 = 15 and 5*18 = 45 also work. There's something there with 15, 25, 35 and 45. 5 also continues to work with even valued numbers in the 20s: 20, 22, 24, etc.
ReplyDeleteWe in Manitoba need to build our own math object repository/database. It could be linked to the MAMT site and perhaps be a PLC type of an effort.
Opps try code 22943759. It got cut off.
ReplyDeleteIn search of a generalization because the tens place is being treated as a one add the digits of the second number and multiply them together:
a*1b = a(1+b)
For example: 6*15=36
6*17=48
This method seems to work as long as the last digit of the resulting product is larger than or equal to the single digit number that is being multiplied.
For example: 6*16=42 will not work because 6 cannot go into 2.